THE RUNAWAY KID of little nightmares. tracking #reachaway. independent, selective, low-activity, canon-divergent, & heavily headcanon-based. open to writing with a variety of ocs, aus, & crossovers.
a study in: survival through non-attention / biding today for a better tomorrow / running when you need to & even when you don’t / bloody, scarred, offering hands / lacking & longing, falling & reaching — two sides of the same coin.
( guidelines / dossier / verses / connections / meta tag / ask memes tag / writings tag )
sorry for the absence, folks! just with another muse atm. he wasn’t supposed to become my primary blog but. that’s just what happens when you get more interactions ig slkdfjkd i’ll still visit this kid when i can, but only for replies and such! have a wonderful rest of your week, lovelies! <3
in an ironic turn of events, the more human you look and feel and are to the kid in a lot of his crossover verses, the more inherently frightened of and insecure around you he’ll be. whoops!
if the young one opened his eyes, they would meet a tengu’s. sara was not expecting to find a child of all people during one of her excursions in the inazuman wilderness. yet here they lie so far away from the city, seemingly unbothered by the possible threats who could devour someone of his size with ease. judging by first impressions alone, general kujou doesn’t seem to notice any wounds or blood next to their body, an observation that only manages to increase her initial bewilderment. so, both concerned and curious, she crouches next to and gently shakes him until he provides any kind of response, whether verbal or physical.
“ this is hardly a favorable place to take a nap. is everything alright? ”
after residing so long beneath the treetops of chinju forest, it is little wonder that he comes to the same way dusk rolls over their peaks — in creeping, misty trickles that barely make or leave any presence. eyelids fluttering, familiar enough colours lining the edges of his vision pull a sigh from drowsy lips. the touch, too, is familiar enough, and he lifts a hand to brush it away as he always does when he wakes, motions slow and hushed like a passing shower of raindrops.
then, when he registers the very not familiar voice: like a heavy downpour.
he jolts upright, breath caught in his throat. there is a stranger hovering over him, big and too close and shaped too much like him, and the fear that lances through his veins has him scrambling back across the foliage floor. he can scarcely recall why he was slumbering out here in the first place, not when all he can focus on is who is this? and how did she find me? and run-run-run-run—
the rush calms a little when he deems himself out of reach, just enough that his heart feels like it’s sitting in his chest rather than beating its way up to his mouth. he stares, wide eyes peeking through long strands of hair. the vision at his hip, erratically pulsing when he rose, settles into something more measured.
( can he run? will she follow? he takes a closer look now that he can sort-of-safely do so, and finds that though she is shaped like him, she looks different enough — feels different enough — that his terror retreats a bit further. )
is everything alright? filters in late through his mind. no, but he nods anyway in the hope that the answer will get her to leave. then his stomach rumbles, and he nods harder, as though the action will somehow drown out the noise of the hunger she does not need to notice, please don’t pay attention to it—
tagged by: plucked from my dash like a bug
tagging: you!
lily of the valley.
this is the poison of giving too much. you feel yourself emptying out, dizzying, discolouring-- until you fear you will fade entirely and wither away. you have always had to give. you never had a choice before. they pluck your flowers for their beauty, they trample your leaves carelessly, they pull out your roots by the fistful and berate you for daring to grow. and now that you have a grove to spread out in, your rhizomes tangle and curl in on themselves. when cruelty is all you've ever known, thriving seems impossible. but the answer is not to make yourself small and offer every lovely thing you are to the world in the hopes it will have mercy on you. the answer is to let yourself dare to thrive for thriving's sake, to grow in the wild ways you wish to-- and to do that for yourself for once.
Destination, while the end, does nothing but bring back another journey . Standing there , waiting here ⎯⎯⎯⎯ Nothing comes from the outside . Nothing but the sun shining down upon the hell that is the maw and its new inheritor . Should she go back inside , should she turn back & bear her part, then nothing but the stench of rotten meat & cries of children would wait for her . It wasn’t worth it. It never would be.
&& If she had the opportunity to kill the last guests over & over again for the hell that they DARE put her through, she would do so without remorse, without tears, without regret.
The kids trapped here were even worse. They didn’t cause her pain, but they did make her mad at what she saw ; cages full of snotty, screaming, crying children, all already resigned to their fates. They didn’t fight, they didn’t bother to escape. They were weak. Stupid, Idiotic, dense kids who gave up at the smallest suggestion of peril . Thus she didn’t bother with helping what would be nothing more but a burden, a tool without its use. At least Mono had known how to fight.
A worthless remembrance the girl could not allow herself to hold. Head shakes pon thoughts- He had no business to plague her, to bother her again, to make her feel something akin to REGRET rather than RAGE.
She stands, seething, damaging, but alive. && That’s all that matters. She just wonders how long it’s going to take to find land.
the outside comes to him in heavy surges as he ascends: the roar of rolling waves; the weight of a sea salted-tongue; churning motions that have even his sea legs teetering; skin-biting winds that are at once so, so strange and so, so familiar. the light, too, feels like both salvation and a curse when he steps into its gaze: warmth suffusing his hair, imprints blistered upon his eyelids.
he takes a second. not to drink it in — rather, to keep himself afloat. child of absence amongst children of even less, the world up here is as much a beast as the one that held him prisoner. he is almost swallowed whole, overwhelmed by too much as he is, but just barely manages to catch himself on the edge of some other emotion.
( his chest swells. every nerve tingles. beneath, hot-cold grit digs into the soles of his feet. overhead, birds he recognises but can’t quite name glide down to roost on weathered crag-tops. he breathes and each inhale trembles, buckling under the novelty of a space and air unshared. in braced pain: this must be something like a trap.
in mounting hope: this must be something like freedom. )
he doesn’t stumble, but it’s a close thing as he ventures further out onto the sand. excitement makes him forget for a moment, makes him aimless in his path and heedless of his usual vigilance. for what is danger in the face of these neverending skies? what can hurt you when there exists a breadth of light that can’t be held in the palm of your hand?
then he looks to the horizon, where a figure carves a thin shadow from that light, and remembers that this is the same world where nobody is ever too young to taste cruelty.
he folds back into the smallness that’s allowed him to reach this far, back into the caution that predicates every footstep. who is that? did they come from below as well? how long have they been up here? the more he stares, the deeper he sinks into that unease — which is odd because the silhouette, he finds, is shaped like another kid.
odder yet when he realises he’s seen that shape before. seen that raincoat before.
what was a shock of colour in the belly of the maw, now a spot of yellow against the backdrop of similar hues. the memory evokes a dangerous thought — an idea of we in a story of separate paths — and he knows he shouldn’t entertain it. shouldn’t chase it. shouldn’t want it when he already has the impossibility of something-like-freedom within grasp, but—
( in another time, perhaps it would’ve been easier to let the notion go. here, where he is still whole and has little friends in a charcoal retreat to hark back to, he is helpless to that allure of more companionship. )
he approaches, because it is enough to stoke his dimming hope. tentatively though, because it is not enough to make him less wary.
the rotten thing doesn’t scream as she falls. she chokes: on pitched static, on crackling water, on the death that was pushed back at her. you don’t see it happening, pressed flat to your crumbling island as you are, but — beyond the roaring in your ears and the heartbeats that seem to jolt your entire body — you can make out every single one of her struggling breaths.
it goes on for too long— no, it doesn’t go on for long enough. there’s one last wretched croak, a splash, and suddenly, it’s over. a short click turns the hum of electricity into dark silence. the faint slosh of disturbed waters recedes into nothing.
everything is still, yet the splash echoes in your head. all the past minutes— hours— whatever span of time of being chased, stalked, hunted: gone. all the fear, anxiety, pain: spent. all of it: no more. all of it: finished.
punctuated by a dull splash.
you turn yourself over on your back with numb arms. you’re breathing, big gulps of air to match the big pounding in your chest, but it feels like nothing’s coming through. you can’t feel the wood beneath your fingers. you can’t see where the ceiling starts and the walls end.
you killed something. maybe even someone. she was a monster, but human enough. ( a grownup, but human enough. )
you’ve killed things before. just rare, little things — swatting away flies that stray too close, too often, or stepping on bugs that some of the others are too noisy about. you’ve killed things before, but nothing like—
( you’re sinking. is she coming? bubbling water. you don’t want to go in. you jump. the water is cold. always cold. cold enough that the heart in your throat sinks down to your stomach, where it becomes a stone.
you’re so cold. you’re so heavy. you’re too slow! faster, come on, faster, something against your foot, faster—!
a switch— a lever— a tv is on— the water is higher—
you can reach safety, but she can tear it down too. what do you do? there’s a cord running along the wall. it goes up; you might be out of grasp if you go up, but what then? the snap of wrenched floorboards. what do you do?! the hum of electricity. you’re running out of time!
the tv. you don’t know why it’s down here, in a place like this. but it’s here, like it was meant to be. like you were meant to see it.
the crackling of wood — the crackling of water.
you know what to do. )
—this.
something bubbles up from the depths of your ribcage. you sag in the face of it, fists and eyes clenching, and it leaks out from parched lips: some awful sound with no meaning or direction. you strain against the way your chest reflexively tightens, the way your body tries to strangle everything back into you. shut up! it tells you. who knows what could come?
who cares? the thought flits into existence — a biting, bitter thing — then flutters out just as quick, because you do.
fear seizes you once more, rips the daze away from your mind as you scramble to stand. it takes too long, you’re too slow, but—
( you killed someone, but— )
nothing changes. nothing happens. it is still so dark. the silence is still so loud.
you are not quiet when you crumple to your hands and knees. you are not quiet when you strike your palms against the wood: once, twice, thrice. you are not quiet when you take a piece of the everything-is-too-much lining your bones and force it out of your throat: thin and raspy and ATTENTION and ANSWER ME.
tagged by: snatched this from someone
tagging: feel free to snatch it right back from me!
the ghost.
you left them behind, but a part of you comes back at night. you’re in their dreams and just outside their doorway. you’ll haunt them forever. the people you love. the people you hate. everyone who’s ever been afraid of you. they’ll remember your face, your hands, your eyes in the dark. you’re the reason they don’t sleep easy.
there was no epilogue when you died, but the whole story is drenched with your requiem. you live on forever in their memories. you’ll always be missed, ghost.
personality: memorable, shy, spooky.
counterpart: the higher power.
lotta different people from all walks of life found their way to abyss for one reason or another. usually criminals and unsavoury individuals, sure, but also unlucky types who had nowhere else to go.
worst of all though were children.
yuri-bird always prioritised them when it came to looking after the people of abyss, which was nice. he cared a lot about those less fortunate than him. it just hurt to see people so young and vulnerable in a place like abyss, likely stuck down here where no one should be forced to grow up.
as hapi stepped out into burrow street they observed its people. the usuals. gruff fighters, poor beggers & children who were unfortunate enough to live here. at least the latter had eachother to play with. kids were strangely able to have fun in even the darkest of times, and hapi was more than a little jealous of that.
one individual did catch their attention, however, a lone child curled up on their own, resting against the burrow’s walls. hapi stood there and debated a moment. while he had zero faith in their own ability to converse with or look after, well, anyone, much less someone younger than them… even they couldn’t exactly leave them scared and alone, so, she opted to approach and offer a kind word provided a stranger would want the help of someone whose liable to summon a monster.
“…you okay, kid?” hapi offered a subtle smile as he spoke, crouching down to get closer to their level in an effort to appear hopefully less intimidating.
here is what they know about danger — it’s tingling skin, the taste of dread, eyes-on-them, a looming hurt. it’s feeling smaller than ever, being swallowed up, breathing air curdled by something far more than you could possibly be. it’s here, in some places, with some people.
it’s here, right now, with her.
( from afar, he felt bearable. from afar, he felt less like something to hide from and more like something to hide behind. it’s why they’re huddled here in the first place, lured to that promise of maybe-safety as they were. )
they're not sure how to respond. instinct dictates no response at all; demands a complete absence and hopes for a waning interest. they follow along at first, feigning disregard through shut eyes and an intent refusal to even so much as twitch, until they feel something nigh physically ply its way up their chest and cling.
it feels like: gentle fingers rubbing balm on their burns. reminds them of: lilting notes and flower-like smiles. in their mind, they see: pretty hair and prettier eyes and an attention that prickles skin but at least won’t bruise it.
it makes them think: danger, perhaps, but there are worse dangers out there.
( danger, perhaps, but not dangerous. )
they loosen from their coil. they peek up from their knees. this close, they see they have pretty hair, too. have prettier eyes, too.
part of them wants— touch. wants to ask, are you safe? in the only way they know how. wants to be able to embrace their lingering agitation and tell it everything’s going to be okay because look, she said ( is hopefully going to say ), yes, i’m safe.
the other part feels like moving was a grave mistake.
they dither for a few seconds, visibly rocking between clashing desires, before ducking their head back into the fold of their arms. it...might have passed as a nod, if you were looking real hard for one.
thinks about.......touch, and the way the kid both seeks and avoids it.
he likes, perhaps even loves, initiating contact! it is...connection. feels like...conversation in the barest sense. when silence is often your only ally, being able to understand and be understood regardless is something he cherishes lots.
receiving contact is very different, though. unless you’re as small or smaller than him ( and that’s hard to achieve indeed ), being touched usually means danger. he’s been caught. the legitimately fatal ordeal of being known! try to or do touch him without requesting permission first and he’ll run with no glances back.
( okay, that’s a semi-lie — if you’re nice enough, he’ll come back later to look at you from very afar because his curiosity cannot be contained. don’t count on him approaching you of his own accord, though. )
The Maw is small . In comparison to the city , the never-ending labyrinth of fleeing fabrications ,this feels like a house ⎯⎯⎯⎯ he’s another intruder written upon an invitation , another feast for voracious critters. The boy knew this just as much as the other child might. A hand reaches through the bars, an attempted gesture of comfort, to tell them that he wants to help && make it out of this place together. He wasn’t going to be fighting this world alone anymore.
when all you’ve known for ages is an unforgiving cold, does the touch of soft warmth burn or comfort? his mind floats as he stares at that hand: strange, unfamiliar, hard to comprehend. tucked within the shell of his hunch as he is, the shadow it casts on the metal bars is— surreal. inviting. as his gaze follows the hand to the shoulder: almost welcomed. to the paper bag: maybe alarming.
this feels wrong, somehow. dangerous, somehow. another child, an offer unprompted, some form of kindness in a place like this — this feels like a dream in the best and worst way, and he’s paralysed by the thought of it. is this real? is this happening? ( is he allowed to hope? )
in a perfect world, he imagines the hand would look safe. secure, even.
he lifts his head. the hand looks a little clearer without so much of his hair in the way, but otherwise remains unchanged. strange, unfamiliar, hard to comprehend. a peculiar gift from a peculiar kid.
tagged by: nobody, i stole this from my older accounts slkdfjdfj
tagging: anybody who would like to do this!
you’re the stargazer. (a laidback dreamer) you lie back, look up to the skies and dream.
OUTLOOK (REALIST)
realists like to think they see things the way they really are. but it’s important to remember that everyone sees the world differently. you might tend to keep a level head, and don’t excite easily, but this can leave you susceptible to bouts of gloominess. if you feel yourself moving towards a negative emotional extreme, try looking to other people for fresh perspectives.
CHARACTER (THOUGHTFUL)
thoughtful people have a very giving and sympathetic character and are genuinely interested in and concerned about others. however, they can sometimes lack the persistence to follow through with their positive intentions. luckily, you’re very adept at inspiring good feelings and actions in others who can help carry you along too.
SELF CONTROL (RESERVED)
you may feel a bit conflicted when you’ve been wronged. on the one hand it can affect you deeply to the point of feeling victimised, but on the other you can be scared of saying something about it for fear of upsetting other people. the result is that your anger might be directed inwards, which is very unhealthy. you can’t always be the nice guy.
COMPOSURE (DIRECT)
direct people can find it hard to resist their urges and impulses. in fact, when they really want something it’s hard for them to keep their desire in check. if you find it all too easy to sacrifice your long-term goals for instant gratification, or wake up with a major headache the next morning, this might be an aspect of your life that would benefit from a bit more concentration.
TASTE (CREATOR)
your real interests lie in creative activities. you can seem like a private person, but you’re equally comfortable pursuing your interests with a group of like-minded people or by yourself. people who share this characteristic like a challenge they can get their teeth into and really focus on without any distractions.
SOCIABILITY (HUMBLE)
people with this characteristic tend to be modest and self-effacing — sometimes in the extreme. they enjoy their privacy and their own company, but are also sympathetic to the needs of others. in fact, sometimes they can be too trusting of people, which can lead to them being taken advantage of. if you recognise this trait in yourself, it’s important to have someone you’re sure you can trust looking out for you.
ACTION (LAID BACK)
laid back people don’t worry too much about big plans and goals. they’re much more likely to keep a fairly clean slate so they’re able to respond to those sudden important jobs that always seem to crop up. you might sometimes lack the motivation to take charge or avoid coming up with new ideas, but you know deep down that putting in the effort will benefit you in the long run.
ATTITUDE (PROGRESSIVE)
people with progressive attitudes tend to have a great deal of faith in human nature and believe in education, cooperation, and free thinking as ways to help develop society. they are willing to try new ideas and solutions and take a thoughtful approach to issues like social problems. it sounds like you tend to be seen as the voice of reason in most situations.
PROCESS (DREAMER)
dreamers get very excited by the prospect of new ideas and ways of seeing the world, but they tend to lose their way in theoretical possibilities and flights of fancy. if this sounds like you, you might be seen as a fantastic starter but not so great finisher. but, no one can fault your enthusiasm and ability to thrive in the uncertainty of the new. force yourself to be a bit more organised and you’ll blow people away.
RESILIENCE (SENSITIVE)
sensitive people are extremely aware of potential dangers and problems around them — perhaps a little too aware sometimes. in fact, they tend to purposefully imagine worst-case scenarios. if you recognise this trait in yourself, rather than let yourself be overcome by fear, use theoretical situations to stimulate yourself to come up with imaginative solutions.
everything is dizzying up here. the air: heady with the stench of sunken-in rot. the floor: foul with the mess of spoilt food and monsters. decay is a tangible thing on his tongue, tangy and pungent in taste and presence. he almost turns back as he did not-so-long ago, almost flees from this tomb for the second time, but.
it has been long enough. long enough for fresh ichor to settle into dark murk. for what seemed like pretence to harden into something concrete. for a prickling bad to burgeon into a bloated worse. ( for a curious mind to ask who-what did this? to the thought of something happened here. )
a shaft of light beckons from the other side of the tomb. it was what caught and lost his attention last time, and is what catches and holds his attention now — light means something-there means something-alive means something-new. as he stands there, breath held and shallowly released in half-anticipation and half-disgust, the sliver sways. he rocks with it.
this far up, where the sea has never felt closer, he thinks the light could also mean outside.
he thinks the light could also mean maybe-safe.
the beam of light from his flashlight flickers as he runs, in-and-out to the tempo of the heartbeat battering his chest. it’s annoying ( especially when it seems to get worse the further he goes ), but offers enough vision that he can still comfortably weave between fallen heads and knobbly fingers, so he continues to let it guide him until finally—
there is a new energy to the dizziness of up-here when he reaches that other light. it still reeks, but a note of brine drifts in from outside— because there is an outside. there is a staircase and an opening and light from outside.
it’s— amazing! it’s—...kind of scary. it’s...very daunting.
he should go back. he knows what’s here now, he should go back and gather all his little friends and—
something calls from above. the sound rings familiar in his ears, brings to mind the distant image of something flying. something soaring.
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