- As you lock up your register for the night, you spot customers across the walkway, holding some objects. "We're closed for the night," you say to them. They do not move. "We're closed for the night." They begin to flicker in and out rapidly. They're gone. They're gone now. You're unsure if you should file a stolen item report.
- You ring up an item wrong. Apologize and pick up the phone. Your manage says she'll be right down. You ring up an item wrong. Pick up the phone. You stare at it, confused. You ring up an item wrong, you're sure you've done this before. Why can't you remember? You ring up an item wrong.
- How long have you been here? Surely your shift must be over soon. Where are the clocks? There are no clocks on the floor. You check your watch, it reads 8:30 pm, Tuesday It reads 2:21pm, Monday. You've only been here 21 minutes.
- You hear your name over the PA, requesting you return to the front desk. You weave your way I and out of aisles to find yourself back where you started. You continue to try to get to the front while your name is called, increasingly louder over the system.
- "Excuse me, is there something I can help you with?" You ask the customer standing in the dairy section. You know you cannot help. They've been there for the last 5 days, looking for something that they will never find.
- You need to change your shifts, but you've only seen two coworkers go into the shift managers office. The office door creaks open slowly as you approach and you cannot remember if you ever saw those two people here again.
- Your locker is at the very end of the hall. You fumble down towards it and grab the lock. Twist it three times to the right, one to the left, three times to the right. It won't open. Try again. You cannot leave without your keys. You cannot leave ever again.
be sure to arrive after 8:00 AM and be gone before 10:00 PM. that’s when it sleeps.
these cows have lived here long before you were born, and they will stay long after you’re gone. you are a guest here. they understand more about these lands than you ever will, so when they run, you should do the same.
be careful with the sheep. you cannot put the same trust in them as you would the cows, for there are wolves hidden among them.
there used to be gods in this cornfield. they’ve since vacated, but should you ask them a question politely enough, you might get an echo of an answer in return. don’t bother with the wheat field- whatever lives between those stalks isn’t as kind and does not leave so easily.
the barn door is a mouth; there are teeth concealed in those rosy wooden frames. the voice calling you inside is not a friend. do not listen to them.
DO NOT ENTER THE WHITE METAL SHED.
if you blink only to open your eyes in a silo, do not struggle. the grain will just swallow you faster.
avoid the yellow patch of grass in front of the farmhouse door. take good care not to step on it. it will show you dead things, ancient things, things you were never meant to see. you won’t come back the same.
you went into the shed, didn’t you?
the crows will try to speak to you in a language long-dead. just nod respectfully, and hope their desperate calls aren’t warnings.
keep the scarecrow in your eye-line at all times, for it will move behind your back. don’t give it the opportunity to creep up on you. you won’t like what happens when it catches you.
do you remember where you are? who you are? can you hear me?
Always bring a fellow traveller. It's better to travel in packs than alone. They can sense when you're alone.
Don't forget emergency supplies. When you don't know the area, you don't want the car to breakdown. When in motion, you don't realize how isolated you truly are.
Be respectful to the scenery around you. Try not to leave a mark. You don't know who this land used to belong to. Or still does.
It gets very cold in these parts at night, you ought to pickup firewood before the sun sets. Rather have it and not need it than be a victim of preventable circumstances.
How long has that car been behind you? What does it look like? What's the numbers? You might need this information later.
School should be letting out, where are the children? There's no busses, no parents. They sense you coming and ran to their houses.
Listen to your gut. The radio isn't here to tune out the wretched feeling in your stomach, turn around.
In classic Gothic literature, the most important—and intertwining—concepts are terror and the sublime. Terror here is the subtler cousin of horror. Terror “expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life,” the Gothic writer Ann Radcliffe said. This awakening fills the reader with a sense of the sublime.
In Southern Gothic, the most important concept is the grotesque. With the grotesque, reality is distorted into ugly and absurd shapes. “I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear,” Flannery O’Connor once said. By exaggerating reality, we are able to actually see it. The grotesque is a balance of contradictions. It creeps and crawls between repulsion and attraction, the real and the unreal, and humor and horror. The sublime floats in the mind, but the grotesque is experienced in the body—in turning stomachs, goose bumps, and sweat.
My face when the gilgamesh x reader tag is full of Marvel stuff
It sucks when you’ve been following the tag for literal years only to have everything Fate related be scrubbed by the never ending cash grab that is Disney’s MCU.
the task had been simple: go to the mall and get a picture with the mall santa. easy. fool-proof. but he’d turned his back for thirty seconds to look at a nice shirt in a display, and now the brat’s nowhere to be seen.
he’d always been thankful that the seven year-old was relatively independent. it meant less work for him. but now it’s been fifteen minutes, he hasn’t seen that sea-urchin hair anywhere, and gojo’s now feeling the panic of a single, overworked parent in a mop commercial.
he shouldn’t have let you talk him out of the backpack leash. “it’s impossible to lose him now, he’s seven,” you’d said.
well, it was possible. bet you’re gonna feel real stupid when he says ‘i told you so.’
(stupid, amongst other things. anger might win out if gojo comes home alone, without even the picture with the knock-off santa.)
he slides his shades down every time a group of kids passes by, because maybe megumi’s made a friend and run off with another group of fellow delinquents? he hopes that’s the case.
a quick check to his watch confirms gojo’s now been searching for twenty minutes, and he’s really kinda worried. what if something had happened? he’s ready to call the police, the DA, maybe even nanamin—
“excuse me, sir?”
he whirls around to see a mall cop behind him, an almost laughable attempt of a stern look on his face and powdered sugar caught in his moustache. not exactly who he’d turn to right now, but he has a badge and probably has access to the intercom system.
“yeah?”
“we’ve been getting reports of a tall man with sunglasses staring at children. you’re going to need to come with me,” he says, almost boredly. there’s a pair of handcuffs hanging from his belt that gojo could crumble into pieces with a flick of his wrist.
yet he blinks, brain short-circuiting as he processes rent-a-cop’s words. what?
“staring at children— i’ll have you know i’m a teacher!” kinda. “and that if anyone’s child is in danger, it’s probably mine!”
“sir,” he sighs, “could you just come with me?”
“my kid is missing,” he insists. “could you just help me out before literally everyone i know chews me out and i’m responsible for losing one of the greatest things to come out of his shit family?”
this man looks like he could honestly care less, but heaves a great sigh and turns around, gesturing for him to follow.
gojo trails after him, eyes still roving around for any sign of megumi until they get to what he assumes is a very sad, not very secure mall jail.
and sitting there in a little room with a flimsy lock, is fushiguro megumi.
“holy— holy shit!” he laughs, with relief, with amusement, he doesn’t know. he pounds on the glass, watching the kid’s eyes widen slightly. “that’s my kid! megumi!! what the hell did you do?”
“he got into a fight with the mall santa and kicked an elf in the family jewels,” the cop at the desk answered. “we called his guardian.”
gojo stares at him, brows furrowed. his phone hadn’t rung once! “but i’m his guar—”
“gojo satoru.”
uh oh.
“hey!” he grins, whirling around to greet you with a nervous laugh and a kiss to the lips that you don’t reciprocate. “babe! what are you doing here?”
“i’m here to bail megumi out of mall jail,” you answer flatly, pinching the bridge of your nose. “i asked you to do one thing for tsumiki. you just had to get a cute picture of her brother with santa claus. how are you going to tell her that he’s been banned from the mall until next year?”
the cop opens the door to let the little delinquent out.
megumi digs into his pants pocket, holding a crumpled photo out to you. “i went and got the picture when gojo-sensei stopped to look at clothes.”
the sorcerer withers under your glare as you take the photo, smoothing it out as best you can to take a look.
“megumi, this is a picture of you punching santa in the face.”
-
“hey, gojo-sensei, what’s this?” itadori asks, fishing a creased piece of paper from his wallet.
“i thought i told you to get my frozen yogurt stamp card,” he chuckles.
“you kept that?” megumi asks, staring at him in the rear view mirror.
“he made copies and sent it out as a christmas card,” you laugh from the passenger seat. “‘merry christmas from the fushigojo’s.’”
“oh my god,” megumi groans. “you guys are so embarrassing.”
“we literally bailed you out of mall jail.”
“fushiguro went to jail?” nobara gasps. “why didn’t you tell us this? you never tell us anything!”
“it was at a mall.”
“you were in a room that locked from the outside,” gojo quips. “sounds like jail to me.”
“let’s not forget the reason why he was there,” you grumble. “negligence.”
“you’re the one who said we didn’t need the backpack leash! i told you so.”
My face when the gilgamesh x reader tag is full of Marvel stuff
It sucks when you’ve been following the tag for literal years only to have everything Fate related be scrubbed by the never ending cash grab that is Disney’s MCU.
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