about me .゜
call me res! I go by he/him and I'm 19. I typically write longer fics but could probably drop some headcanons and drabbles later down the line! usually my fics are more plot and world-building based but I do write nsfw occasionally (sometimes I write plot solely so I can get to that lmao). I generally stick to writing for male/neutral readers but might eventually write for female readers too (genderfluid legend) - but male readers are more of a priority due to the content drought for them. honestly went awol on here for a while because I post more on ao3 but I decided to bring my newer works here too <3 so enjoy the blog
fandoms I've written for .・
in the past I've written for bleach, genshin, and jjba. some of my newer stuff includes that's not my neighbor, twisted wonderland, more jjba, and some itsv i wrote when it first came out. however, check out the current interests section to find out different fandoms I might write for in the future
current interests ゜・
started playing honkai star rail recently, honestly really enjoying how interesting the character stories are. some manga I'm currently reading include blue lock, jjk, sakamoto days and jjba. I read a wider variety of manhwa and novels though, including orv, lookism, how to fight, return of the mad demon, solo levelling, concubine walkthrough (really recommend this one), legend of a northern blade... I can't list them all since I've read over two hundred lmao (please ask me for fic recommendations I've got so many)
in terms of my other hobbies since I do have a life (I hope this is obvious) I like art, history, and the sciences (fuck I use so many science metaphors in my work...), so if you ask for scientist!reader... yeah you know what's up
things of note •.
yeah don't follow me or interact with my work if you're racist, homophobic, ableist, or if you don't believe in a free palestine. idc who you are that's an immediate block.
requests + asks ・゜
my ask box will be open for just discussions or other things :)
requests are currently closed!
what I'm currently up to <3
currently studying for finals as of april 2026 :) updates will be more sporadic I fear
OLD MASTERLIST ゜・★･ﾟMASTERLIST
TAGS FOR NAVIGATION (will continue to be updated)
[navigation] for things like masterlists + the navigation post (this one)
[masterlist] for masterlists
[res ･ﾟ writing] for any of my writing
[old writing] for my old stuff that my og followers know me for
Hello there, I hope you're doing well. I apologise if my ask sounds awkward. I'm not sure how to approach people.
Regardless, I want to say that I've been a fan for a bit. Maybe around 3 years or more. You have been one of my biggest inspirations in terms of writing & writing style. I love how you write and describe things. It really feels like we step into a whole new world with how you build things up and come up with the ideas.
You manage to keep the story interesting regardless of smut and I find that inspiring. And if you were this good at writing even at 18, I must say I'm envious. Sometimes I wonder what goes in your head to create these masterpieces, and with above-average vocabulary.
I saw you talk about the stream you take in university/college and I find it funny but fascinating that it can affect how you approach things. I'd love to learn how you manage to find the style you have today, but either way, I always come back to your blog from time to time just to re-read your works.
I hope you're doing well, once again, and I hope that this ask doesn't make you uncomfortable. I really have no clue on how to seem 'normal' because I often take the formal, almost detached approach.
Thank you for reading and existing, have a good day.
— @morosenthal
I'd like to start off by saying that I really appreciate that you took the time to show up in my inbox, and that it didn't come off as awkward whatsoever 😊
it's also such an honour to meet a long-time fan like yourself, and I'm glad my work has resonated with you to the point where you've stuck around so long 😭🫶
I've thought about how to describe my process, and deliberated on how to make my answer interesting, but there's just one fundamental truth in my thoughts from which the rest can be derived: writing is iterative. what you read on my page is a culmination of terribly-thought-out stories from several years prior, ones so embarrassing they've been buried in the digital trash can forever. I, too, have role models that fascinate me, whose style I draw upon as inspiration. I take note of what I like about the interactions between characters, scrutinising exactly how the author conveys information, and how they explore the world they create.
What I always keep in mind whenever I write is how I want the words to feel to readers, and adopt a different, consistent style for each. I think of the appropriate colour to describe the mood: deep Prussian blue, a soft, foggy pink, etc. Maybe even a song, which I'll play on repeat as I write and brainstorm. For dialogue, I also draw heavy inspiration of how it should flow from whatever series I'm watching, such as House and IWTV. Each piece of writing I create feels more worthwhile than the last, because I'm shedding that old style to create a new feeling in my writing.
and above all, it must be beautiful. the vocabulary you see is pilfered from onelook thesaurus and an ever-expanding glossary of words I like.
life experiences also play a large role in how you disseminate the information present within your writing. as you mentioned, my chosen field of study (mechanical engineering) has consciously influenced the styles of characters I write, but also the world-building. Every change you make to a world has a butterfly effect, from physical laws to cultural phenomena, and I think the maths part of my education has taught me to look at the resolution (how small the details are) and find a good approximation to stop. On the other hand, the history I've studied as a subject allows for an examination of the people within that world, and the ripples that have formed from the changes. Having a good holistic knowledge of science and humanities allows for an integration of both in world-building, and affords you far more detail to explore.
On a bit of a tangent, this mixture was most prevalent when I was writing lament of ouroboros, and I firmly believe I could've gone into more detail regarding things like the court systems, other religions present, the elitism within its society, and literally everything concerning the physics of magic etc. However, while writing, I also had to keep in mind that this was still background information. I think the biggest lesson I learned when worldbuilding was that there's a fine balance between exposition and dumping information, and that leaving information implied allows for bites of information to be hinted at, while still not being integral to the plot if the reader just glosses over it. Additionally, throughout writing I've been deceptive and have taken full advantage of the power of imagination to write less descriptions (e.g. when describing a painting, using a few pretty words to describe one or two key details and leaving the rest up to imagination), as the mind fills in the blanks and makes it "perfect". Another example is when someone describes music, they don't take the time to write the melody out, but rather the emotions felt upon listening to it. Apply that same principle to descriptions in general, and then you've got a wonderful illusion of detail.
I mentioned this briefly before, about having inspirations in writing, but I'd like to mention it again. I read a lot of high/epic fantasy a few years prior, and I think it's been a cornerstone of the approach I take to writing. One such author is Robin Hobb, who has some of the most complete worldbuilding I've read so far. idk I conceptualise her work as a very solid mouthful of bread or some other food, something ordinary existing as something very tangible. Of course, that may be because I'm a sucker for realistic historical development. I also used to watch worldbuilding series on youtube as a kid which probably also subconsciously hammered into me the seeds of writing.
I'll also quickly discuss how my creative process typically goes. Anon request/one-off idea > brainstorming while going about my week, listening to music and just consuming different media to try to get inspiration > researching different imagery and how it fits into theme > researching the location and season > vague plot > writing it out. When it's creating a different world, it's lowkey vibes-based and dependent on how much detail/what parallels I want to draw. E.g. in ouroboros, I wanted minoan greece for the visual aesthetics and athens for the court structure and ancient calendar so I wouldn't have to think up my own names, and I borrowed archetypes in theatre as well as playwrights for Ratio's siblings etc. It's not really a case of perfect worldbuilding as it is researching what you don't want to create yourself 😭😭unfortunately I'm terrible with creating a detailed plan for stories hence whenever I encounter hiccups in the process I turn to research to find some sort of referential loophole, and if that doesn't work then I create a loophole with some plausible world-building explanation - and it works because it's a one-shot or confined to multiple chapters. For some reason it always just clicks in the end but I think that approach to something longer would backfire spectacularly
For dialogue, I lowkey have no control over it, which is why I used it so sparingly back when I first began writing. I watch the interaction in my head and the script isn't necessarily up to me, but rather a product of the emotions/tensions I want to see in the actors, i.e. the characters. Improv at its finest, though sometimes I'll get a line that they absolutely have to say and then the interaction will centre around that. Then after some time has passed, usually several months, I'll reread what I wrote with a critical eye to see what exactly compelled me to read all that again, and use it in my next work. Hence, it really does become iterative.
holy yap
I really did try to be succinct too, but that evidently didn't work out. Once again, I really do appreciate your submission in the inbox, and I hope this can answer your questions 😭🫶 and apologies for how long-winded my answers are
It may be naive of me to say but I believe that your series of sbr is such an amazing storyline that it cannot be replicated. Like the way you describe everything with vast vocabulary is so beautiful. This is the best sbr fic I have ever read in my life. You are such a talented writer. I wish I would have found this blog sooner. 😭
awww thank you so much <3 I appreciate your support anon and I apologise for the lengthy hiatus the fic is in currently (though hopefully I'll have time to pick it up again this summer)
hihii, I was wondering if MAYBE in the foreseeable future we're gonna see a fic of varré from elden ring written by you.. i feel like you'd capture his character well. Hence, your writing is really enticing (EXTREME glaze intended)
IM SO SORRY FOR THE ABHORRENTLY LATE RESPONSE (it's exam season and I have not checked my inbox in ages)
honestly if I ever play elden ring he will be the first character I write about; since I haven't, i don't want to accidentally butcher his character so unfortunately no </3 breaks my heart since he's so fine
read it once, read it twice, just had to read it a third time and OH MY GOD?? BROOOO THAT WAS INSANE.
just absolutely LOVE how you wrote lygus. the way you toyed around with how we would be able to interpret his facial expressions from the shadows to how he 'imitates' human touch by toying with our senses is unreal (and rlly creative, might i add!!). also,, i liked how after everything, it was as if he was curling around his chest as if it was sore. i think your writing rlly adds to his character without taking away his lack of more human characteristics.
plus,,, oh my god can i just say that you bring out an interpretation of desperation in characters that i otherwise would NOT have thought of????? cuz the whole praising and utter devotion from lygus' end was smth i did not expect and it was so so so so soooo good. just too bad we hated him too much (understandably so, i'd break if i was taunted w/ phai's face too lmao) & were too black out drunk to enjoy it </3
another thing i didn't expect was the mutual toxicity from both sides. the cherry on top. (can you see how my thoughts r actively rotting as i ramble in this ask.) AHHHH I LOVED IT. imagine my delight when i saw it was manipulative from both sides!!! ngl us not addressing his want for us made me find him a bit pitiful and sad but it was also deserved so.
AND THEN LYGUS JUST CRAWLED? OUT OF OUR COMPUTER SCREEN IN THE END. BRO. it actually made me wonder if it'd be easier to take him in the real world considering how he should (?) be devoid of the powers he had in amphoreus. or perhaps not and we're just as fucked either way LMAO.
also since we were isekai-d,,,, i actually wonder how the mechanics of our body in the real world worked. like was it actually just a brief moment in the real world while we felt as if we were trapped for centuries? i was curious whether time just moved differently in the game or our sense of time was just severely messed up during the time in the exomyth.
(ONE LAST THING. knew getting freaky w/ lygus would have smth to do with his chest one way or another, but i didn't think it'd be??? gloopy??? jelly-esque??? i remembered that it seemed to be hollow cuz we're able to see what's behind him thru it so i just kind of saw it as a transparent jelly whilst reading thru the scene.)
tldr; it was so hot. THAAANK YOU FOR BLESSING US WITH YOUR WRITING. THE MEAL WAS SO GOOD MMMM. 🙏🙏🍽️🍽️
LMAOOO twas so nice you had to do it thrice
lmao I had to be so careful when writing because out of habit I tend to write about eye contact between characters, and obv I couldn't do that with lygus... like I couldn't write about his clammy skin or a flush or any human tells 💔so I'm glad that loophole is so well received 😈😈yk what I think it was actually sore... like I left it up for interpretation and my interpretation of that I can feel anything spiel is that he's actively created a false nervous system for himself to feel more connected with mc and the human experience 😈babes felt raw and tender and passionate lmaoo. and thank you!! I felt like I was a bit on the nose about lygus trying to become more human but not succeeding so I'm happy that's not the case
yeah I saw that one line of dialogue about prostrating himself and RAN with it 😭😭what a delicious angle of his character honestly.. I agree it's too bad </3 I was like a good 3/4ths into the freaky scene and I had to pause and question what exactly I was writing because it sure as hell wasn't romance 😔 but also hatred is one of the strongest emotions and the reader's humanity had essentially been leached out by lygus like they lowkey swapped their roles and hatred was the only thing that remained strong😈😈
YESSS mutual toxicity appreciation 🤤like they truly deserve each other and are right where they want to be. pity is also what I wanted people to feel because he's displaying more human characteristics😈 all part of my masterplan
LMAOOO unfortunately he doesn't have any of the powers in the real world as the corruption allowed him only to have dominion over the game files. ig he could have mastery over your device but other than that his only real power irl is being sentient in robot form and maybe some latent abilities like not drawing any attention
to answer your question basically time stopped - information within game was passing at lightspeed and it was too fast for the reader to process irl - hence the splitting headache and delay in actually processing those memories. also if the reader had actually spent those years in the exomyth doing other things rather than just essentially sleeping with eyes open, the information overload would've been too much to handle and their brain would've probably actually exploded in real life. therefore the reader basically forgot in order to protect their mind until lygus appeared and tripped that recollection...
(that's acc so funny. in all honesty i was going to just leave it unexplored and have him use his fingers or something else and he was going to originally be the one in control but icl I didn't like that dynamic. but the hole in his chest was originally meant to be a removal of weakness since he got stabbed in the heart by polka I'm pretty sure?? so the reinstatement of his 'weakness' is again his efforts to be as humanlike as possible for reader. I don't think he's fully conscious of that desire though, tbh.)
hai peeps anon here :> it's been great to see all the diff fics youve posted over the one and a half years ive been lurking so yay!! and im def a pope sunday appreciator i love how hes written... hes a cutie fr <3 tho you could say ive just got a heavy appreciation for heavy religious themes paired w/ lust/love lol (as observed with all my fav fics of yours)
YES im gonna check out hsr and do those amphoreus quests asap and will def yap in your inbox abt it ｡^‿^｡ wish me luck ive heard the gameplay is even longer than penacony 〒▽〒
ohh ive never heard of iwtv until now but onto the neverending watch/read list it goes.. armand sounds so fascinating... i love desperate chars who are actively needing a higher purpose!!!
woah and its cool how you read a lot of world-building heavy stuff & how your history knowledge helped you write fics! (when you said "rubbing your hands gleefully" i immediately pictured that one sonic gif i hope yk that xD)
inamorata appearing was the most perfect aligning of stars for me ngl it had me hooked from the start. incubus m! reader isnt smth i see often in x readers + adding angel sunday aughhhhh im insane his dynamic w/ reader in that fic is entertaining to me. angel! sunday feels so condescending and i love condescending chars in smut im in love with angel! sunday (tho im in love with all forms of sunday......). and ofc adding human! moze as well is great :> the trios dynamic was so awkward at the beginning with all of them sitting in completely diff areas as well BHAHAHH... foxian! jiaoqiu has me so intrigued as well im so curious about his and readers dynamic. anyway. on the slim chance you ever decide to explore an inamorata fantasy type setting in an x reader fic (esp if it includes sunday and/or moze and/or jiaoqiu) id read the hell out of it. but id equally read the hell out of every fic you post so idk if that says much
(also going off-topic but i appreciate you writing amab/m! reader fics SMMM theres a strange scarcity of it in hsr fics (and fics in general tbh) so ty for feeding us w/ it (๑•ᴗ•๑)♡)
and the vid of the teacher experimenting on peeps damn i feel bad for them :c
- peeps anon 🐤 <- technically not a peep but oh well its a placeholder
HELLO PEEPS ANONN!!
yeah I feel like because that combination is such a taboo and so many people have had bad experiences with religion that it's lowkey seductive in of itself: consuming media about repressed religious people and their 'fall' from grace, especially if the reader/mc is the one causing that fall 🤤idk feels like I'm saving myself almost
wooo!! I'm glad for that bc my writing will continue to be sporadic because of uni </3 and good luck! the story is really long but there's a lot of various plot elements that make amphoreus feel a lot more vibrant and lively than other areas
he isss 😓armand's so tragic and if you're going to consume the media I definitely recommend the show it somehow does more of a service to the characters than the author did and I don't say that lightly 😭 fun fact I had just finished iwtv for the first time when I decided to crack on with that vampire argenti request
yeah I also find myself in the trap of why did this happen? what are the consequences of this in all aspects of life? what governmental structure should I write? what allegories could be interpreted from this? what would a scholar from this world say about this and how would other scholars disagree? and it becomes a whole mess where I create a lot of immersion but it always feels a bit lacking e.g. in Ouroboros there's two known court systems (heliaia and the court of ouroboros) but the putting forward of the case to remove corrupt gvmt officials felt a bit rushed to me because I wanted to research different court types and the longer process of getting cases to court - which might have even broken the immersion due to too much information - and it just continues for every structure I think up or add lmao
truly a dilemma
yeah I don't think I've ever seen incubus m! reader at all 😭it's such a niche label for your reader in an already niche category. agreed there's something about suspicious character x character that is suspicious of them... maybe that's why death note was such a hit... but i digress. condescending characters 🤤🤤especially when the reader breaks that character in... yeah I had a crisis in deciding whether sunday or reader should be the dominant one </3 honestly that triangle formation they had going on was my favourite detail to add. lecture halls already feel so awkward but that seating arrangement was the cherry on top. I mean I don't think I'd write this specific dynamic again as I tend to have a very much check-list mindset where even multiple fics of the same character are a rarity, but one day perhaps... 😈 and thank you I appreciate it! I will be returning to my longfic project and trying to write it all before I write anything else because I started it several years ago lmao 😓
(no problem!! yeah there's really a content drought so I'm glad to have contributed to it somewhat </3)
I just saw that the lygus fic is released and I can't wait to read it!!! I missed reading your stuff. Usually I'd just reread them but I've gotten busy with uni too </3
also I just KNOW this fic is gonna be absolutely yummy bcs I love when you write smart people. Sometimes I think about certain characters and just think, "Hmm, my fav nerd author res slowdiving would write them so gooddd." (the characters being Anaxagoras, Alhaitham, and Kaveh, tho I don't know how much you know about genshin I don't play it either lmao I just specifically like Kaveh)
Additionally I want to mention that I absolutely adored how you write Argenti because he's my favourite character EVERRR. I'm so in love with him and you've absolutely done him justice.
I'm kinda rambling a lot but I keep wanting to say how much I love your stuff over and over again. I still remember finding Lament of Ouroboros one day and being intimidated by your fancy words, as English is only my second language, but since then you've inspired me to increase my vocabulary and get me into reading more longer fics.
Goodbye, as I go to read your lygus fic. sending lots of love to youu <333
-⭐
HELLO ⭐ ANONN it's been a while since I've seen you
the life of a student gets to us all 💔😔 I hope uni's treating you well and that your course is fun. i've lowkey just been going through the motions of sleep-lecture-waste time-sleep; writing has been on the back burner for a while </3
I'm so entertained at the prospect of being a nerd author never mind a favourite nerd author 😭 no matter how many times people bring it up it's hilarious. thank you! (I haven't played genshin impact for several years but I had like a 20-chapter fic idea for alhaitham 😔then I lowkey never had time to flesh it out.. idk might post the plan eventually but I'll likely recycle the idea for a different character. also YES I need to write something for anaxa eventually he's such a compelling nerd)
ayee thank you!! I'm so glad that one anon requested it back in the day because what a beautiful challenge he was to characterise.
awww whenever I get these types of messages I just have to stare and giggle and rub my hands together bc what the hell I'm so honoured to have influenced you to that point 😭 I hope you enjoyed the lygus fic and much love to you too 🫶🫶
Ohh really cool that you're taking python classes!! Back in HS we had java (and ig in my case a bit of python exposition through ren'py for a project) and. Yeah. Programming sure is Something. One time I straight up copied a code from a classmate line for line and it still didn't run like it was supposed to 💀
ANYWAY I JUST SAW IT RELEASED?? GETTING MY POPCORN READY FR (impressions will follow either when I'm done reading or after some sleeping bc I'm kinda eepy)
- subday truther
foreshadowing 😈😈😈
oh sick I searched renpy up and that honestly sounds so interesting (was the project a visual novel?? i wanna create one in the future). we're currently stuck with numerical/symbolic python 💔 I did some courses on the side and I barely understood anything... for loops... classes... concepts... web scrapers... unfortunately I'm gonna have to become proficient at it for my engineering degree 😓😓
also I was just looking through my notes on the courses and omg
wait my classmate also tried it with my code and it didn't work on his device 💀how peak
WOOOOO good night or good reading😈😈i await your thoughts
haiii new anon here (tho ive been here since inamorata i love inamorata sm i reread it and the sunday isekai fics the most. and the malleus one but getting off track) and just wanted to ramble about the new lygus fic you posted ฅ( ̳• ◡ • ̳)ฅ
i havent touched hsr in like. just over a year. so i havent rlly seen much of amphoreus or lygus but your fic made me so intrigued by this man hes so horrifying yet i cant look away. like a trainwreck ig but in a good (????) way. might have to start properly playing hsr again for him :>
i just rlly love the way you characterise lygus the way hes so horrible yet devoted is so tasty to me it scratches me brain so well...... the ending too oh it had my jaw dropping no joke that was genuine horror media material. HORRIFYING. wonderfully written!!! (also more isekai'd reader i cheered)
also. i just want to say your writing in general is v satisfying to read & it got me into reading longer fics. the narrative voice (?) you use for each fic its so rich and full of character and life! plus the lore (worldbuilding?) you do for fics is so detailed and the smut is well-written i adore it. youre my fav hsr fic writer i hope yk that (๑•ᴗ•๑)♡
also also that inamorata lives in my brain rent-free i love moze & sunday & jiaoqiu so i felt like the perfect target audience for that particular fic when it appeared on my dash. the religious imagery intertwined with the smut and moze watching at the beginning of it and the ending all had me giggling and kicking my feet. might be a tad biased tho since it was my first fic & impression of you lol
- idk what anon name i should sign off with so feel free to choose since ill prob come back w/ every update you post :>
HELLO NEW ANON!!!! what an honour that you've been here so long! and you're a pope sunday appreciator I appreciate that too (and the malleus fic holy shit it feels like it's been so long since I wrote it 😭😭)
yeah I hear it I was also going to take a break from hsr to lock in for uni but I was severely enticed by amphoreus as a history nut ✌️😔 YESSS you get it - characters that have absolute knowledge in a situation are acc so terrifying when written well and I hated him at first but then I started playing quests without muting them and his voice.... yum. converted me instantly. yeah he is lowkey a trainwreck lmao. if you do play through the quests lmk how you find them 😋
aww thank you!! idk if you're familiar with interview with the vampire but I had two frames of reference when writing lygus - the first was lygus himself and his dialogue, especially for the beginning of the fic where he was still 'himself', and for the second half I based his desperation as a sentient character on armand from iwtv. like both are ancient beings who need some higher purpose to dedicate themselves to, for without it they feel like they're nothing; this served the obsessive lygus agenda verryyyyyy well 😈😈 and thank you I wasn't sure if the end was scary enough (and hell yeah isekai'd reader!)
this was like the best compliment to give 😭😭that shit had me giggling ever since I read it. I used to read a ton of high fantasy books like way of kings and the kingkiller chronicles so I always make sure my worldbuilding is polished enough to emulate that sort of 'completeness', but studying history also helped when writing pieces that required a more comprehensive timeline like lament of ouroboros. the smut is all me tho 😈 also whenever someone says I'm their fave writer that STAYSSS with me like I'm rubbing my hands gleefully in between each sentence. HELLY YEAH
ayee what a perfect coincidence!! I was honestly wondering if that niche combination would work out when I was writing it lmao. also what a first impression that was the freakiest shit i'd written up to date 😭😭glad you've stuck around since!
lowkey anon the :> drew to mind the little yellow birds I saw online one day and after searching around I found Peeps. peeps anon? anon peeps? but then again the video i saw was a chemistry teacher experimenting on peeps 😓quite macabre
"In death they are painted in the hue of victory, and you are not. It is simply the way the world turns."
The HTTP 403 Forbidden client error response status code indicates that the server understood the request but refused to process it.
•. *࿐
I don't think my writing has ever made me feel as conflicted as I have writing this... what a glorious, terrible mess
also side note the art of lygus is insane the colours remind me so much of magritte and that perfect surreal blue he achieves
art creds: mesooph_ on tt
pairing: lygus + isekai'd!m!reader
warnings!!!: major character death, violence, suicidal ideation (+ eventual implied suicide), psychological torment, manipulation, derealisation, nsfw, obsessiveness, mentioned voyeurism, improper use of lygus' chest hole, character sentience, spoilers from 3.5 but also canon divergence from the plot
wc: 12.9k
HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST
MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION
Red is the conventional colour of an error: a visual manifestation of danger. It begs for attention—no, commands it—for it reminds humans of their mortality. He that sits behind the screen bleeds out sanguine, though these heroes bleed gold.
In death they are painted in the hue of victory, and you are not. It is simply the way the world turns.
“If everything happens according to our agreement, how would you recommend I deal with that… Deliverer?”
Something is terribly wrong.
Your head reels in shades of honeydew and carmine warnings: taunting you in the peripherals of your mind. Deliverer. Sluggishly, you don’t think you can ever recall Cerydra’s controlled voice ever being inflected with such blatant venom.
There exists a peculiar sense of irony in thinking you have been prescribed the correct destiny. It’s written in flawless code, etched onto your soul itself: the authority you have as the Deliverer, the main character himself in this sequence. You know you have the necessary permissions for this. The gates have allowed you through in the beta once before, but they seem to be crashing and burning around you. Pixel by pixel, your fate is set on fire. The flames lick your face with scarlet light.
In between the faint music floating in the ether, you hear it: mocking sounds of a server understanding your request, but simply not fulfilling it.
“Good question.”
The error has the voice of an Antikytheran.
“Do not let him fool you. That man from beyond the sky contains a seed of ruin within his body. He must not be allowed to tarnish your glory…”
You know these words. By your side, Cyrene’s disapproval radiates off her thoughts, and you know that too. Endless scrolling of the script, scrutinising each and every mistake that is bound to crop up each patch—you know each word, each sigh, every pause, as intimately as you know your own body.
Distantly, you mouth the lines as though they were prayers: a final plea, that you don’t drown in the bloody waters marring the story.
“Therefore, the wisest decision would be to hand him over to me.”
A sigh, like a bird flitting from its filigree cage, tickles your lips. It betrays your foolish hopes that the endless binary has aligned in your favour. You are still the only truly organic variable, after all.
“Torture? I didn’t expect that from you, Theoros,” the Imperator muses, and her fingers curl around a delicate pawn as though she were plucking it for supper. “Is that the path I must take to touch the stars?”
You don’t know those words. They’re unfamiliar: thick and leaden on your tongue, tearing the script from your palate. Each syllable tastes like a static mess—wrought fragrantly with endless, bloody red.
“Torture is far too crass—“experimentation” would be more appropriate.”
The shadows contort Lygus’ expressionless face into a sardonic leer, and you find yourself unable to look away from what can only be the source of this bug. Reality is slipping away from your fingers; even the frantic tugs of Cyrene on your sleeve in a bid to turn you away from the Theoros’ attention prove to be as insignificant as a dream.
“Deliverer…”
The word curls in your ear like a smile; whether it be real or a hallucination, you can’t tell.
“O Great Imperator, he has already betrayed you.”
Time warps, rippling away from you at a glacial pace. You are aware of one fact: he is aware of you. And now, the Empress is, too.
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
A burning kiss against skin would be less intimate than his words. It’s almost an inside joke between the two of you, easing through the undulations of time. All other code waits patiently while the player contemplates the dialogue, yet his words bleed through the lines: washing over your pixelated soul with their poignant scent of red.
Cyrene is the closest to you physically, but at this moment, all you can feel is cold metal poised to swallow your body whole.
Time resumes its merciless march.
“The time of judgement is nigh,” he breathes, both warning and promise dancing in his voice.
“Rats can’t help but sneak around,” the Empress mulls, and the pawn she’s holding is unceremoniously and matter-of-factly crushed into opalescent shards. Her eyes rake over you in disdain. “Very well—permission is yours, Theoros. Do as you please.”
The scales of Talanton have tipped, and they’re not in your favour. Your heart has been found painfully lacking.
Escape is out of the question. It’s apparent to you, it’s apparent to the two behind this scheme, and it’s awfully apparent to the girl beside you. Yet, futile hope pushes you to reach into the void for your baseball bat, while she adopts a defensive stance: hands ready to rewrite fate.
It is, though, as you said: futile. Your fate has long been sealed.
“My lord, the prison I have built for you is complete.”
His softened tone is utterly at odds with the harsh chill that grips your limbs: perfect code losing desperately in the face of an imperfect error. His words are meant only for you, in this plane between character dialogues. It is a confession solely for your ears.
Disgusting.
Revulsion, with a note of something else, grasps your body with its claws; this place is an abomination—something far more insidious than a misfit piece of code.
“In the name of Erudition, I invite you to step into the same cage as mine.”
Nobody protests your guilt; nobody even blinks for your innocence. You are judged, truly, not by the Imperator’s sceptre but by the whims of an error: in a scene in which neither of you should have the permissions to be in.
Your eyelids squeeze shut, to no avail. Beyond the thin barriers of skin, searing red permeates all: the crimson backdrop to the aching question playing in your mind’s theatre.
When did it all go to shit?
The curtains close. The props are tidied away. The sole two actors bow, and disappear into the void.
•. *࿐
Something enters into the gaps left behind by the storyline. It doesn’t fade to nothingness when the player clicks that neat little ‘x’; for this is your life now, and life is never neat. You’ve never quite paid attention to it; a player doesn’t need to.
But you are no longer a player. The code doesn’t run with your whims.
It’s difficult to get used to. Characters that lingered, delivering last bites of content and answers to eager players, walk their own paths: discussing anything and everything animatedly. You watch Hyacine exchange coin for sizzling meat on a skewer. The aroma transcends pixels: rich and fragrant with the marinade that paints it. Your stomach rumbles.
Several hundred paces away, Aglaea’s lips have parted slightly: as though she is tasting the air and its offerings for her. Thoughts and feelings undulate in spools around her. You know how her ability works, yet knowing pales in comparison to witnessing.
A hand roughly collides with your shoulder, and a new (though one that has grown to be familiar) scent of faint sweat and amber alerts you to who has disturbed your walk, before you can instinctively grasp the handle of your bat. It’s the original Deliverer, primed to drag you around Okhema: past even the barriers that keep the player out, the sanctuaries of the characters. Spaces that shouldn’t exist, but have unfortunately been made real.
Within those spaces lurks the error.
The Theoros watches from the shadows: his presence all but a hallucination. At first, his invisible gaze is directed on his catalyst—the character you have sworn to keep an eye on yourself. Phainon’s demeanor never changes, but the code governing his being isn’t immune to the error.
You are human. You are bound to err, too.
When did it all go to shit?
The scripts dictating the way the protagonist should behave cease to exist in the absence of a storyline. There is no guide to adhere to: nothing to ease the faint tension congealing within you. If Phainon notices, he doesn’t say anything. But a furtive glance too many behind you draws somebody else’s notice.
It is too early in the storyline to presume anything suspicious about Lygus, but you are equipped with the double burden of omniscience and mortality. You know what will happen in the story, in the confines of the scenes, but real life has more dimensions. Each micro-expression plastered on your face, every tremble in your fingers as wariness pulses its drumbeat in your heart—everything is catalogued by the other omniscient being in this play.
You have failed as an actor. Perhaps, in the end, you are the cause of the error. Humans have too many facets that cannot be flattened into a character. Your knowledge is anomalous. Blasphemous. It should not exist, and it seeps from your skin. Each mistake bleeds into the air, and the analytical machine a few paces behind is aware that you are aware of something you should not be aware of.
The analytical machine has a question, and it should have never been able to question in the first place. It is not real, and doesn’t have any thoughts beyond what it voices through the scripts dictating its role in the universe. But alas—
You have planted within him the seed of error.
This is your fault, to be quite frank.
•. *࿐
You’ve dreamt of this place, sequestered away in a whisper. The Exomyth has haunted your nights: drenched in the scent of iron and the jagged boundaries of knowledge. Time ventures slowly here: unwilling, or perhaps unable, to disturb the matter trapped here.
It disturbs you, regardless.
“Since we parted last time, I have modified the Exomyth into a palace just for you, my lord. You will behold the destruction I have set into motion.”
Uncertainty grips you in its throes. The weapon you’ve grown accustomed to holding has betrayed you, crumbling into pixels as you attempt to summon it.
“Remember? You can’t hurt me here.”
Time is abstract. You can’t tell how long he’s left you here, but you swear you can feel cold metal fingers brush against your nape. The Antikytheran has morphed into something completely unpredictable, and no longer can you rely on the story to ensure you make it out of here.
“Missed me?”
Those aren’t his lines. Iron pools in your mouth as your teeth pierce through your lip, and you can almost taste it—so robbed of your senses you are.
Or maybe he’s not even here.
“It’s fascinating, the depths at which humans root themselves to their convictions. My lord, you’ve grown to be rather… petulant, in your lonesome.”
In your peripherals, he’s absent one moment and materialised in the next: betraying nothing of the outside. The story has created a filigree cage for the Trailblazer: a control room filled with monitors. They are doomed to watch but never interact, and he has deigned you neither.
“What do you want?” you finally whisper, and your voice sounds scraped and bruised: about as unstable as your foundation here.
“It’s rather unbecoming, I must say—” He knows how to walk soundlessly, but he allows his footsteps to walk the cadence of your heart as he approaches: lingering a mere murmur away. “—feigning ignorance when you seem to know exactly what I want.”
Your tongue feels leaden in your mouth.
“It’s equally as embarrassing,” you begin hoarsely, grateful for the sudden pounding of your head: for that pain is a sensation that you have been robbed of. “To plead with me when you know what my answer will be—unless, of course, you like this little farce you perform, you like prostrating yourself in the hopes that something will change.”
Antikytherans have no need to breathe, but you can feel a chill exhale ooze against your neck.
“Yet, aren’t you also hoping things will change?” he muses.
The familiar red returns to split your mind once more.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, Lygus,” you venture acerbically, but the slightest skip of your pulse has no doubt given you away.
He finally steps into the light, and the distorted shadows that compose this place make it seem as though he is smiling—and maybe he is.
Your eyes trace each and every movement, honed in on the presence of another being so close to you. His hand sweeps out politely in front of him, and your gaze follows, unable to look away (or, perhaps, entranced).
“My lord, take my hand and you can have your stage again: not as an actor, but a director,” he promises: mechanical voice somehow softer, more enticing than usual. His fingers curl upward gently (and subconsciously, you wonder if they’re really as cold to touch as they look).
You refuse with the rehearsed, witty disgust that the Trailblazer should naturally adopt. The string of words rests unnaturally, heavily, on your tongue. They taste of red: faint notes of iron and bitterness. Perhaps there’s some resentment seeping into the flavour.
“You, too, hope that your stubbornness will change fate.” His tone morphs into one of absolute patience, tailored to mollify your mulishness. It’s a unilateral declaration: as if it isn’t already written that he, as the antagonist, should inevitably succumb to the protagonist.
You brace yourself, knowing that after he leaves, you will be plunged into loneliness once more.
Yet, he continues to watch you as you watch him: thoughtfully, but with a certain gravity that traces your skin with a brisk chill.
“Or… do you?” His hand retracts, and he allows it to rest in the currents of the Exomyth, analysing the latent flow of data tainting the air. “Do you hope?”
Silence is the only appropriate answer for a poor actor such as you.
“My lord, you give yourself away so easily,” he croons, and your eyelids flash a bright crimson as you squeeze your eyes shut, if only to escape his analytical gaze for a brief moment. “You are a fool fumbling around in the cave, playing puppets with the shadows: with the silly notion that preordination will save you.”
A fresh, coppery tang coats your tongue as your lip splits once more against your teeth.
“You will not be saved,” he whispers, and this time, the sound comes from beside your ear—intended only for you, within this vast emptiness known as the Exomyth, for he is gone and you are alone once more.
•. *࿐
Preordination. You cannot help but mull over his phrasing, losing track of the hours, years, centuries over his choice in words.
Preordination: the act of determining an outcome in advance. The outcome is fixed, and for the first few years, you feel an indignant outrage at his gall.
He is the one playing puppets with the cave, analysing empty data that doesn’t exist in the real world. You have waded past these pixelated coils and into true flesh and blood: plunging into the true sunlight, not the simulated shades that exist in this virtual environment.
Preordination. Yes, you reflect, the quest is specifically written to trouble players, and to make the end result worth it. It doesn’t matter that it’s veered off-course; in the end, all these exceptions have been accounted for.
It’s within the later few centuries that you begin suspecting that things, perhaps, may be a lot more wrong than you imagined.
Preordination. A new question arises.
Why does he think you believe in a predetermined outcome?
•. *࿐
You’re tired.
You’ve tried.
•. *࿐
The world may have as well ended by now. A whole two-and-a-half times.
Who are you?
You wait.
The protagonist.
You answer.
Beneath you, the cable gives way to nothingness as you step into the void—and you’re falling, gut twisting as you hurtle into something, deeper and deeper and you close your eyes, hoping for an end—
And you’re back, feet firmly planted on the cold surface of your prison. It’s like waking up from a bad dream: intact, no inertia collapsing your body, but rather a faint awareness that you were not always here.
You’ve made the jump quite a few times now. It was an existential boredom at first (boredom or exhaustion, you’re not quite sure which) that pushed you over the ledge. Or perhaps it was curiosity. There’s no falling in the player mechanics. Would you glitch back into the quest? Would you be stopped by some invisible boundary?
Would you die?
Harmless trivialities of that sort. You don’t think, you merely jump. Over and over, enjoying the sensation of weightlessness for a brief second before you must take the leap again.
After jumping, you lie on the cold, cold ground for a good amount of time. You don’t quite know what a good amount of time means anymore.
Would it be alright to give up on completing this game?
You’ve stopped wondering.
You just… are.
•. *࿐
Lygus, you think. There’s no more anger as you mull over his sinful existence: only a sluggish awareness that has dulled with the centuries, extinguished by the chill current of data.
You are not the protagonist.
Guilt is no longer a factor in your computations.
Lygus, you think, louder this time. It builds into a mantra, crescendoing before you realise with a start that your lips remain shut. Ah. That’s where the error lies.
Ly-gus. You mouth the word. L-y-y-y-ygus. Tongue briefly to your teeth, lips creating an ellipse, shrinking into nothingness, then teeth bared in a snarl with the final sound. Yes, that’s it.
You clear your throat, shaking the cobwebs from your vocal chords.
“Lygus,” you breathe, yet the space remains as empty as ever. Your eternally placid face crinkles in a slight frown—surely, surely, you haven’t been forgotten, left to wither away in this cage. “Bastard.”
You suck stale air through your teeth, and the small action rekindles once-dying embers of ire.
“O dearest Lygus,” you intone with a particularly sardonic humour, allowing your head to fall back onto the gelid cable with a dull thump, where it’s no doubt been lying for a century. Or two. Useless, you think. Like all things, it recedes back into nothingness, and you close your eyes, entering the waking dream once more.
“All you had to do was call for me.”
The sound envelopes you in its cocoon, coming from all directions and no direction: filled with an omniscient sort of amusement, like a god holding a mortal in their hands just because.
You are acutely aware that this may be a hallucination, and you don’t dare open your eyes. Your tongue is thick with suppressed something; it’s been far too long since you’ve heard anyone’s voice, and you can’t help but savour the timbre, the pitch of each syllable as it washes over you.
You shiver.
“You have missed me, after all,” he muses, the sound reverberating next to your left ear. Notes of satisfaction coat it, and you snap your eyes open to meet his face—yet he’s not there. A mirage within a mirage.
“Or… has predetermination—potentially—not worked out for you, my lord?” Rich contempt layers with satisfaction, and the tempered irritation you feel sharpens your mind. Just a bit.
You don’t deign to give him an answer, for his question isn’t really an inquiry, but an opportunity to gloat.
The endless haze of nothing is broken by the appearance of a cold limb: fingers outstretched invitingly to where you lay. And your own hand, foolishly, hesitatingly, reaches for it: like man to God, an infinite distance ensconced in the length of a breath.
And your fingers do stop a mere breath away: so close you can feel your not-quite-warm skin have its last shreds of human heat leeched from it by metal.
“You offer me a hand I can never accept.” Slowly. You can feel your heartbeat: no wavering, no fluctuations that would betray you.
“Isn’t that precisely why you called me?” His tone is gentle.
“I don’t know,” you speak wryly now, lips cocked in a mockery of a smile. “Beings cannot interact so directly here.”
The implication is clear, yet the air surrounding him remains pleasant—perhaps, perhaps finally ready to let you out of your cage. Yet, he doesn’t answer.
With excruciating slowness, his hand grazes along your arm—not touching, no. A mere whisper away, probing the boundaries of the law that commands the Exomyth. You frown.
“You can’t touch me here.” Here. You circle around your point like you’re stalking prey, watching it seep into the air like blood. Here. Acknowledge it, you think. Let me out.
“Can’t I?” His voice takes on a familiar patience, one you can’t bring yourself to summon in your own body. “I can do anything.”
There is an atom of space between the two of you: a thin veil he has not yet breached. You scoff, sitting up in a fluid motion: revelling in how he moves away.
“You said it yourself, Lygus: this space doesn’t exist for the physical—no harm, nor touch, is allowed to breach the beings that pass through here,” you challenge. Curiosity and contempt exist in a tense stalemate, and your expression betrays the battle within your mind.
“Oh—” he breathes. “—how low you have fallen, exalted one. These are the arbitrary rules bound to myth, not reality.”
Myth. He speaks of it with chilling awareness, and you become acutely uncomfortable with the realisation that something isn’t quite right with how he views this world.
His hand grazes your own: a frigid, ticklish sensation that elicits a shiver across your skin. Goosebumps form where his fingers dance, and you swear his blank features contort into a smile. Yet, when you snap your gaze back upwards from his hand, it’s gone: a mere trick of the light.
“You can accept my hand,” he coaxes. “You don’t really want to save this world—you yearn to destroy it.”
There’s a part of you, tethered to a rock in the raging sea of your ‘self’, that burns with punitive, indignant rage: the part of you that has been the most successful in masquerading at someone you are not. That part of you is drowning in the waves of exhaustion that threaten to overwhelm you: the ‘self’ that has taken over.
He’s right. The strained allegiance that you have for this place has been manufactured inorganically, through a pragmatic set of calculations. You are not the true Trailblazer, and neither are you a true citizen of this simulated world. Each character, over these weathering centuries (perhaps even millenia), has dulled into respective classes and objects once more: mere lines of code and concepts.
You focus on the hand resting atop yours; the small (human, almost) motion of his metallic thumb tracing circles across your chilled dermis feels almost warm, somehow.
He doesn’t need you to break this perpetual motion. At least, you don’t think he does; rather, you think he has a few, small grains of pity for you. Or maybe, it’s a sense of amusement at the Cancer of All Worlds within you: his perception of a common goal. Destruction.
Salvation has eluded you for centuries. For him, it’s been out of his reach for exponentially longer; perhaps, through trapping you within this observation chamber, he’s hoped to create somebody who could empathise with the waiting.
He’s tempered you. By god, he’s created something other to mirror himself—something twisted, something that’s far too corrupt to be at home between layers upon layers of code.
You’ve been made into an exception.
Teeth find an inside corner of your cheek, and you bite down until you feel hot iron: ebbing pain to calm your racing thoughts, the flavour of blood to force your tongue to remember an unsuspecting rhythm of speech, the heat to thaw your frozen body into something malleable to be puppeted.
You don’t think. Thinking would forsake you in this moment, betraying whatever wisps of a plan you’ve scrapped together tentatively.
“I’m not prohibited from… this?” Cautious fingertips glide across his forearm. You faintly note the stinging sensation blossoming on the pads of your fingers: remnants of hesitation, or perhaps the presence of touch where there was once only absence. Yet, you don’t allow yourself to ruminate any further—for it shall lead to thinking.
Is it a prohibition of touch, or a prohibition of accepting his proposal?
It’s a curious question.
“No—you’re not harming me.” Amusement tinges his words, as though he’s anticipating when you’ll succumb to the truth: that your freedom hinges on the destruction of this universe.
You focus on the golden hands propping up the hollow cavity of his chest. Unbidden, your fingers follow: without thinking, without noticing how he tenses up.
“And what about this?” The reverie holding you in its throes dissipates with the small vibrations of his body, as if he’s—
He’s trembling.
Your hands still: a mere whisper from where his weakness, or lack thereof, lies.
“I thought you couldn’t feel anything.” Puzzlement clouds your cadence, and your hand springs back to hover in between the two of you: a question, except you don’t know what the question is.
“I can—” he starts hoarsely, and you stare in wonderment at just how human that simple act is: clearing a throat that doesn’t need clearing, unclogging vocal cords that don’t exist. “I can do anything: feel anything.”
It’s petulant, as though he’s trying to prove himself to you: grabbing your hand and placing it where it lay a mere moment prior. And maybe you’re going mad, because he’s feeling warmer to your disbelieving touch.
Or perhaps, you’re growing colder.
“Lygus,” you murmur, and he jolts at the susurration: so far removed from the usual vitriol, the usual hateful inflection in your words. “Let me out.”
So I may die.
You allow yourself the luxury of a quiet dream, tucked away in the back of your mind inconspicuously.
His exhale is almost an incredulous laugh.
“You’ve held on for so long,” he breathes, cautiously regarding you like one would a beyond-fragile glass sculpture: as if you are on the verge of shattering. “Have I ruined you?”
The question is muttered under his breath, almost absent-mindedly, which is absurd, because he is a computational being who wouldn’t make such a mistake. Each word of his is carefully calculated—or should be. The perfect stitchings of his being are slowly pulling loose in tattered threads.
You inhale.
Have you ruined him?
Two snakes consume each other in the lonely theatre of your mind. One remains pixelated, glitching out in its efforts to remain in the real world, while the other breathes and lives. You wonder which one represents who.
Cold fingers graze your cheek, and your displeasure at the chill manifests as faint tremors; yet, you refuse to flinch. With the metal thumb and forefinger directing your chin, he tilts your head pliantly, this way and that way.
“My poor, poor lord,” he hums sorrowfully, and for some reason, the cadence of your heart is tripped up by the soft vibration of his voice: almost convinced by the sickening coo he’s painted into his tone. “You’ve suffered so much all these years, all for naught.”
You almost scoff, but you school your face into practised neutrality.
“Lygus,” you warn. His name is distorted through the press of a metal thumb against your lips, and for some godforsaken reason, you let him. Or at least, you make a pathetic attempt to struggle out of his gentle hold, as the gaze that remains under his helm vivisects you. It seems to turn sharper with bitter amusement, if his wry exhale is anything to go by. (Why is he breathing?)
“What? Would you have preferred if he were the one touching you—” and here, his face distorts in a way that makes your eyes hurt, and you faintly make out the cast of Phainon’s face decorating his features: either hologram or mask, you cannot tell (and you don’t want to know). “—worrying about you?”
His touch is bruising, and you shudder at the grotesque abomination in front of you. Please, you mouth, but you don’t know what you’re pleading for.
Phainon disappears before your eyes.
“Please, what?” he says. Pity laces his question, as well as derision that it’s taken Phainon to break you: to render you truly vulnerable. You feel sick. You feel empty. You feel oddly resolute; the feeling that has been robbed from you has forced you to put the pieces together on how exactly Lygus views you.
Your lips stretch into a small smile, and his thumb drops from your lips—perhaps in surprise—but it is too late to figure it out, for your hand (that has laid obediently on his chest where he placed it) has coiled around his nape, and you pull him forward with a strength unlike the husk you have become. You surprise even yourself.
What am I doing? The thought plagues you like a swarm of locusts. Time freezes for an eternity. You contemplate on the meaning of your miserable life as you surge forward and crash your mouth against his own.
He tastes of iron, but only for a nanosecond, before it is replaced with the warmth of human lips. You don’t want to open your eyes. You can’t, for he is toying with your senses and you are afraid the cognitive dissonance will affect your composure, or at least the tattered shreds of it that remain.
The hand, that isn’t cupping your face into his, grips the fabric of the back of your shirt so tightly that it’s threatened with destruction: much like this universe he wishes to erase.
Whose lips are these? Whose warm hands trace the lines of your body with the devoted adoration of a revenant; whose pulse drums incessantly against your palm as your hand wraps around his metal throat; whose imagined tongue wets the seam of your lips? Desperate pleas against your mouth attempt to meld into your very flesh, before you regain your senses and tear away from him.
I can do anything.
You tilt your head back and allow inhuman teeth to sink into your throat—Is that metal? Bone?—silently hoping their razor edge will finish the job before you have to.
Feel anything.
Instead, bruise after gentle bruise is painted on your skin, and you wonderingly take note of the heaviness in your chest: of the heart that ceases its sluggish beat and twines against his fast-paced one. If he notices the shallow breath you take when his teeth skim over a raw mark, he doesn’t show it. Or maybe he does, when he lets out a short laugh: warm air curling over your collarbone in a process that should definitely, definitely be impossible.
Be anything.
You open your eyes to the ‘nothing’ above you. It winks back, and you feel the strong urge to shiver. Where exactly did it all go wrong? The question burns into your brain-flesh as a tongue laves at the skin exposed by his pawing of your clothes, christened by perhaps the second thing you hate most in this world: his mouth. The first thing you hate, after all, is yourself, and all the failures that make up your person.
A sardonic, almost cruel smile claws its way from the blankness of your face. The hand splayed across the Antikytheran’s throat tightens in the faint image of the noose, while your breath deliberately stutters in your chest.
“Shit— more,” you beg under your breath. The threads of self-control that you’ve tightly wound are unravelling for him to see, but it is not yet evident whether you can fix what you’ve purposefully ruined. You’ve erred enough.
His shuddering inhale is answer enough, and you impatiently await his lapse in rationality, the—
Ah. There it is. Your numbed skin feels the small wound of an incision: sharp teeth have finally broken through the dermis, and the keen sting has never felt sweeter. You almost didn’t think it was possible, but it is no time to gloat. In the few precious microseconds that follow, your fingers twitch with urgent will: pressing into his stupid neck with the slightest hint of malinintent. And then you wait.
In the time it takes between one breath and another, red floods the void. It’s the first time you’ve ever felt relief in the rearing of its ugly head, and you enjoy the silence in between you tripping the alarm and his realisation that something has not gone to plan. It takes a while. He’s too engrossed in sucking the blood to the surface to immediately deduce the mistake he’s made. Namely, getting comfortable.
It’s impossible to eradicate one’s character completely; no matter how painstakingly the error has corrupted his data, there are some things that simply remain. Small, insignificant essences like speech patterns and the feeble clues sprinkled into dialogue that are meant to foreshadow, to hint, to prompt.
In the same vein, there are protocols he would have kept in this ‘reality’: anything to keep his iron fist wrapped around this entire existence.
The rule of harm. A gamble based on an offhand reassurance when you appeared weak and unsure. It would be one thing if you attacked him outright, but it is another when he has ‘harmed’ you and you react. You wonder how his system will handle the exception you have created: how will these pixels err further?
You close your eyes again as the air begins brimming with a vivacity so removed from its previous staleness, and beneath your hand (that now limply rests against his shoulder), Lygus stiffens and pulls back: cold metal underneath your fingers once more. You wonder how he’ll react. Will he imprison you for another aeon in the Exomyth? Will he think of something even worse? Will he… ignore it?
None of these things occur. Rather, a dry laugh resounds in the breeze, and you crack an eye open just to see the venue of the ancient party. There’s that same warmth in the air, the same darkness: all frozen, apart from the fact that there is no one else present. Your eyes are blinded by the sudden influx of light, and you scramble in the air for purchase as he pulls away from your sternum, clapping his hands together in mocking applause. He’s unperturbed.
You swallow thickly.
“Clever,” he utters, and your head swivels to his voice: except just like in the Exomyth, it rings out from all around you as though he is the audience laughing at the poor, unsuspecting actor. “You’ve forced my hand into breaking my own rules, my lord.”
He sounds impressed; genuine amusement threads through his voice, but you’re half-listening. The other half is preoccupied with greedily swallowing the fresh air, clumsily stumbling about as your feet sink into the still-warm grass.
“Yes, yes,” you say distantly, finally adjusting to the brightness. “You kept this place the same?”
It’s hard to fathom. You barely remember the details of this map, but you expected it to be ravaged beyond recognition: a testament to the might of Destruction. Instead, it’s been perfectly preserved. A pristine memory, kept just in case. Even the occasional red glitches are the same.
He laughs again, and the sound is softer, crueller.
“No, o exalted one,” he breathes, emerging into your vision once more. His hand grasps your chin and an involuntary gasp of pain escapes your lips at the feeling of pressure after the empty sensations of the Exomyth. “What you see is the waiting room, a chamber for your mind to ease back into the present after experiencing such stagnancy.”
The building confusion is sullied by horror. A cage within a cage within a cage.
“Well, let me out,” you demand, hand clamped around his forearm like a vice.
“Are you sure, my lord?”
The question is simple, but he almost coos it: so gentle his tone. His thumb strokes the flesh of your cheek: placid circles upon placid circles. Bile rises in your throat—the first flavour on your tongue.
“Yes, damn it,” you force out through gritted teeth. He hums sympathetically in response.
“Let it be known: I tried. My lord, you cannot blame me for hiding what I hide from you,” he murmurs sorrowfully. Everything fades into nothing as his other hand covers your eyes, and you hear a massive tide crash against shore: not water, no, but the more subtle susurration of sand.
The scene has changed. Your nose pricks with the arid heat emanating from all directions, evaporating the previous loamy scent of earth. Involuntarily, your mouth contorts into a rictus of displeasure at the torrid pressure bearing down on your lungs and body: as though the angry eye of God hangs above you, honed in directly on you.
“Look—” and his hand reveals the barren wasteland stretching out into the horizon. Beneath your feet, the grass has disintegrated to reveal the charred stump of the Sacred Tree, splintered almost completely beyond recognition. “—this is what you desired to return to.”
The two meanings twine around each other like snakes on a caduceus: you wished to escape the Exomyth or you wished for everything to be destroyed. In the end, you don’t quite know yourself as well as you thought you did.
“No—” you choke out with the last shreds of denial you can muster, attempting to look away from the death of everything. Yet, it is too much to ask for; his soft grip against your chin becomes punitive as he forces you to burn the image of your failure into your eyelids.
“Yes,” he says mildly, and the breath rippling against your ear is the only semblance of a breeze in this fervid clime. His fingers wipe up the sweat dotting your brow, and you shiver at the feverish chill that you’re succumbing to.
“Let the realisation of your wish seduce you,” he whispers, catching you by the waist as you stumble forward: shock weakening your legs. It is one thing to wish to escape at any means, it is another to witness those very means. “Accept what has happened: my role in its causation, and your own. Do you understand?”
“No—no!” Meaningless words burble from your lips angrily, like water from the lungs of a drowned man. You think he clicks his tongue in condescending pity.
“That’s the only thing you can do.” He sounds convincing, coaxing you into a sticky web of half-truths that you could not even begin to unravel. Too many things have passed by you, too many plot points you’ve forgotten in the eternity of stagnancy. He’s right. Even with perfect knowledge of all you knew when you were forced here, this is no longer the story. “Lord, your companions slumber, not yet knowing that their Flamechase Journey will never be realised. They dream of a peace that you have already shattered, and you will remove the very concept of peace if you disturb them.”
“Let me see them,” you plead, moving on to bargaining. You think he’ll say no; his brief silence seems to weigh exactly how to tell you in his superfluous way. But at the right moment, you turn your head, and you’re so close that your exhale brushes against his lips, and he hesitates. He hesitates, and that momentary lapse in his thinking process prompts your pulse to quicken. You know he can feel that too, you know he’s thinking of inching closer and closer until he meets your mouth once more.
“My lord—” he almost begs. His hand curls into your shirt, and you can feel the fist form next to your abdomen. It’s a… human gesture: the loss of control in a being that has exponential control over himself, all minute faculties.
Your fingers twine against his wrist, and you watch the shadows of conflict in his expression that no longer appears so statuesque.
“Please,” you murmur, and you let the quiet spread out in this already quiet place. It lingers, festering into what can only be categorised as an absence of you: the final dimming of a light that’s been quenching for an eternity.
“My lord, however would you cope with the new ‘reality’ when you are unable to grasp this one?” His calm words contain genuine puzzlement, as if he can’t possibly understand what he’s doing wrong.
“Lygus,” you hiss, and the grip you have around his wrist would crush a mortal’s bones. The planes of his face seem to contort into a sorrowful mask.
“I cannot seem to refuse you, exalted one,” he breathes, and if his mouth weren’t a mere whisper away from your ear, you would have never heard it. Has he always been this obsequious? With a distant sort of bemusement, you realise you cannot quite remember.
He does not cover your eyes this time; perhaps it is because he’s busied his hands with you. You must bear witness to it all: the wind as it finally picks up, whipping your clothes against your body with fervescent passion; the sand as it chokes the warm sky with a hazy, error-coloured red; and finally, the deafening silence as it all just… stops.
(A museum hall. The light stench of dust and bones and moth-eaten clothes. You can almost taste the sunlight as it streams into the windows that seem to overlook nothing, as though this is a space beyond physical comprehension.)
It’s cold, so terribly cold. The frigid, shallow exhales drawn out of your lungs condense in pale clouds before you as you wander through the exhibits: artifacts from the Flamechase Journey you faintly recognise. Over there is March’s camera. Over here there’s a spool of golden thread. Sequestered beneath a glass case is a sleeping nymph, and you spend a long moment staring at it before your feet take you to the next curiosity.
And the next. And the next. Sluggishly, you traipse through galleries that seem to never end, ignoring the ringing in your ears that bades you to turn back.
Up you go. This staircase doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, and as you tilt your body outside the balustrade for a better look, you feel a phantom hand—with the peculiar texture of metal—tug you back into safety.
You frown, and keep walking.
Eternity stretches out with each step: eternity on eternity on eternity, all stacked neatly in a spiral. You lose track of the time until finally—finally—you overcome the last piece of forever and your hand rests not on the delicately carved bannister, but rather a rusted handle on a nondescript door that doesn’t belong in this gilded museum.
“I’ve kept them safe for you.” Your head whips around, but there’s no one there: only the warm remnants of words pressed against your nape. You swallow, attempting to turn the handle, yet you are interrupted once again. “My dear lord, you would be terribly upset if they simply expired.”
A harsh creak resounds as you shove the door open, bringing with it a sepulchral chill. The room is vast in a way it shouldn’t be, stretching out into a formless cosmos that causes an impossible echo as you walk through it.
“What the—” you mutter in the face of a marble frieze that demarcates this section as something other. You’re not quite sure what to expect as you walk past it, and when you finally see the rows illuminated by skylights, you still don’t exactly know what you’re looking at. Even with your barely-adjusting vision, there’s a sinking, horrible pit in your gut.
A neat line of sarcophagi.
You stumble forward, forcing yourself to witness.
Delicately carved statues of your companions lie in slumber.
An anguished cry is torn out of your throat, and you stare at the placid face of Dan Heng. Without thinking, your hand reaches out to touch his cheek—
Gelid metal grasps your wrist like a shackle.
Lygus.
“Don’t,” he says easily, and against your palm, you can feel the slightest puff of breath from what you thought was an effigy. You flinch. “You’ll distress them, my dearest lord: pitiful creatures, simply pitiful.”
There’s no words that can truly encapsulate how you’re feeling: no possible combination of syllables that you could force out right now, so strangled is your throat. Your inhales come in heaving gasps, and he molds his body around your own in a bastardisation of a hug, when it is merely another prison.
You can’t tear your eyes away from this mausoleum. In each still hand is a fresh bundle of flowers, overpowering and sickening up close. White robes drape them, marblelike and stygian; nothing hints at their character in their eternal sleep. You find no trace of their struggle: not a single weapon remains by their side, and a terrible realisation begins dawning on you as you think of the exhibits devoid of any harmful artifacts downstairs.
There is nothing here that could cause a merciful, impossible-to-stop death.
In the back of your mind, there is also a small, insistent question: where is Irontomb? He hasn’t even been circling his objective, but rather softly acclimatising you into succumbing to his sweetened words.
He’s saying something, but your eyes remain fixed on the macabre display before you, thinking, and it’s not until his hand covers your eyes once more that you finally break free from the trance.
“That’s enough of that,” he asserts quietly, and the dust-speckled rays of sunlight peeking through his fingers melt away. Silence is replaced by the lazy burble of water, while your feet find purchase on the edge of a rug. When his hands release you, you realise he’s spirited you away to the Marmoreal Palace: back to the room you occupied so long.
Or at least, some version of it that likely doesn’t exist anymore.
Fresh fruit lies artfully arranged on platters near the bed, gleaming in an almost unnatural manner. Hazily, you recall mythology surrounding the fruit offered by death: do not consume unless you want to be dragged into the afterlife. With deliberate slowness, you pluck a grape from the array and momentarily admire its bloody glint in the light, before you eat it with a pensive relish.
It’s a promise to yourself.
He’s watching you. You can tell he is, for the heated pressure of a gaze lingers: on your mouth as you chew, on your lips as juice glistens on them, on your throat as it swallows the bruised flesh of the fruit. For good measure, you swill down honeyed wine from the chalice beside it: letting each note sing on your tongue, buying you time to contemplate what to do, exactly. Setting the cup down, you absent-mindedly run a finger across its rim before your eyes find him. You do not say anything, choosing to merely regard him thoughtfully. What is there to say? You want to laugh. You want to scream. You want to cry, until the tears are enough to drown you thrice over. But you do none of these things, and there is not even a flicker of these wishes in your expression.
“The palace is yours.” He speaks to fill the absence, and for the first time, you think you can detect a hint of oh-so-human nervousness at your lack of words. Is he wondering whether he’s totally and utterly ruined you? You find it fascinating, so ludicrously fascinating that your head begins to spin. Why is he like this? The errors have corrupted him beyond recognition, degrading him to the point of foolish mortal weakness and insipid blather—and you, you, goddamnit, are almost feeling bad about exploiting it. “I can take you elsewhere if you wish, my—”
Almost. He will not take you where you truly wish to go. You’ve accepted it: accepted that you’ve failed in everything you set out to do here. You will not fail in your final task.
It only takes two strides (three, maybe, but counting is the last thing on your mind) for you to reach him, for your hands to slam him against the wall so hard you can hear his helm ring against the wall. A silent mouth presses against his own, messy and furious and shit he’s kissing you back. His hands that had momentarily braced him against the wall slide against your hips, unsure yet eager to pull you flush against his body.
You close your eyes, allowing his lips to become pliant again. With nothing before your eyes, you can almost imagine normalcy: flesh and blood desperately caressing the planes of your body, not an inorganic machine attempting to eradicate all.
It could even be romantic. Certainly, with the last vestiges of sunlight gleaming softly through the doorway, the two of you are mere lovers basking in the amorous hour. You wonder if he believes it, as his body temperature warms, as a tongue prods into your mouth, as his fingers find purchase beneath your shirt and on the sensitive skin of your lower back.
You ignore the quickening of your pulse, and the demulcent haze spreading through your mind, and perhaps the heat that’s overwhelming you in waves. I can feel anything. Can he?
Experimentally, you trace the very edges of the hole in his chest, just barely grazing it with the clinical curiosity of a researcher. For a region with a distinctly absent ‘heart’, he sure feels a lot with it. Like clockwork, he shudders, spilling into your mouth what can only be described as an asphyxial moan.
I can feel anything. It seems he has fooled himself into feeling human. Whose mannerisms has he adopted? Whose body has he borrowed for this? Has he drawn upon his past of millions of years prior, where he was still cloaked in flesh and blood, or has he forgotten what it meant to live and breathe? You wonder whether it is Lygus you hold, or some twisted manifestation of his ghost, Zandar?
But you digress. After being robbed of feeling for so long, you want pleasure to taint the end.
The being in front of you faintly gasps as you tear your hand away from his chest, as you pull back and regard him with open eyes. Nothing’s changed, except for the metallic sheen on his face has faded away, leaving a softer figure behind. He looks uncertain, strangely enough; you could almost feel bad for him, in a different universe, in different circumstances.
“My lord, are—”
But you don’t feel bad. Disturbingly, you’re barely feeling anything at all.
“Kneel,” you order, and despite your cold, detached tone, his scarcely perceptible expression brightens at your command, or perhaps it is simply the fact that you (spiteful, proud, sharp-tongued as you are) are back. Glass that has repaired itself after being dropped from great heights.
He complies, hands sliding down the sides of your body with sensual languor. That stupid face of his stares up at you, and with your barely focusing eyes, it almost looks like his lips have already parted, slick with your saliva. The shell of your palm cradles his chin, forcing his neck uncomfortably backwards. Though, you wonder whether he’s truly uncomfortable, or if he’s already slipped into depravity.
You click your tongue impatiently, disappointedly. The hand supporting his chin traces its way up his face until it rests on top of his helm like a blessing. “Do I have to tell you how to do this too?”
“No, of course not, dear lord,” he murmurs smoothly, and he doesn’t look at his hands as he unzips your trousers. You muse on how exactly he sees you: whether his prostration is in adoration as much as his cadence. “I will not cause you dissatisfaction.”
You exhale harshly: the controlled breathing having failed miserably. “How definitive of you, Theoros. Are you sure you can back that—”
A soft keen escapes your throat as he wraps his cold fingers around your half-hard cock, slipping it past the confines of fabric and into the space just before his mouth. Shit, you weren’t planning on this, and you find it insulting to everything you’ve stood for: that there’s a tightness in your lower abdomen, that you’re getting aroused in this situation with Lygus, of all beings, genuflecting beneath you.
And he takes his time, as if he wasn’t frustrating enough. A thumb rubs circles languidly against your tip, and though he seemingly can control his body’s temperature—as well as everything else in this damned place—he leaves it frigid. It’s a slight, perhaps; there are many things you deserve to be slighted for—many slights you have dealt him, and barely any have been paid back. You shiver, tipping your head back so you don’t have to look at him.
He’ll behave soon enough. It’s a conscientious point of pride for him, it seems, that you’d reel with pleasure rather than any hint of pain.
Still… it is discomforting, and you run your incisors against your bottom lip, before it sinks in too deep. Blood drips like ambrosia onto your tongue: a heady, warm contrast to the gelid fingers exploring the length of your dick. Tracing each vein. Memorising the shape, the hue, the weight. Walking to the small areas where you try not to flinch too hard.
“Fascinating,” you think he murmurs, but all you’re focused on is his purposeful exhale as he says it. The heat of his breath is enough to induce a stupor where your head swims in comfortable darkness: enough for you to briefly forget your sins and his. Well, more so his.
In the end, he is a creation of humans: an instrument through no will of his own.
I can do anything.
Your brows furrow as his words rise in the warm pool of your thoughts, and you grit your teeth: forcing your mind to stay as is. Complacent. Drifting along Lethe. A last gentle cleansing of the soul before you’re forcibly put to rest.
“Hurry the hell up,” you intone boredly, but you think he can feel the undercurrent of desperation as your fingers tense on his helm. His shoulders shake, and with a start you realise he has the gall to laugh at this moment.
“I’ve had to wrestle with stagnancy,” he informs you, and his pace with his hands is torturously slow: working his way from shaft to base in the space of a dozen breaths. You bite your tongue: not yet far gone enough that you’d pass up the opportunity to gain more information about him. “I’ve waited—so, so long for you, my lord.”
You shudder as a metal nail traces the edge of the tip.
“And I’ve watched. You in the Exomyth—” he breathes, muffled by his head that’s tilted down to focus on his task. You can feel him hovering over the flesh, damn it, and he knows that full well. “—attempting to reach physical pleasure with very little physical feeling, desperately trying to prolong whatever shreds of touch you can get. Slowly, drawing it out until you’re writhing in pain. How pitiful. You might as well have flagellated yourself.”
His harsh cadence draws out a whine that you strangle, free hand clamped over your mouth.
“Fucking creep,” you manage to eke out after you regain control of your vocal cords.
“You and I… we are the only two beings left in this limbo,” he whispers, and you have to strain to hear him. “Who else will watch you, if not me?”
You wonder at the meaning of his words, but his grip tightens, and you fade into the ether: mind glossed over with a droning sort of hum.
“My lord.”
Kisses press against the flesh: ancient, reverential markers of respect. Each one is slow—emphasised—but you lose count regardless as they sum to infinity. It doesn’t matter. Your body still shakes with each one, exception upon exception, until your mind flashes with the tell-tale hue of an error: for despite his cold, cold lips, your blood sings with an unfettered red warmth.
“My dear.” It’s a correction that’s barely audible, veiled in a layer of minimisation that fails to negate it for what it is: a pact offered by the devil, and all you have to do is accept it. Revulsion should trace your very veins; it’s the only appropriate reaction to his devotion. Except, you find yourself swallowing thickly, gooseflesh decorating your skin with a promptness that disgusts you.
Look at him.
The mental command forces your head down and your eyes open, burning into the retinas the image of your desire—despair. And you find that his head is already tilted up, gauging your reaction: every minute shiver, each speck of lust and hatred set ablaze in your heart.
You find that you can’t bring yourself to care right now, eyelids lowering in a hazy approximation of carnality. And you’ve seemingly passed the test, for his mechanical jaw hinges open and he takes you in his mouth—calibrating himself perfectly for your needs. He swallows you, taking you all the way without needing to breathe: throat tight and molded just for you.
It’s slick and warm, and you can’t fucking think, and you’re desperately grinding against his face. Filthy noises pollute the idyllic scene. With a start, you realise they’re coming from you: mouth wide open from just how good he takes it.
“Oh—fuck,” you moan, and your dick throbs as you listen to the obscene sound of slick against skin: a whole fucking symphony composed by the demon kneeling below.
You forget where you are. You barely remember who you are, succumbing to the hedonistic cavern of his mouth and nothing else. The metal tips of his fingers dig into the flesh of your thigh, and you sluggishly realise you were about to tip over: legs giving out from just how—
“Lygus—” A broken whine is ripped from your throat as you come, spilling thick white ropes into his avaricious mouth.
—good he feels. And he’s swallowing it all as if he were made solely for this purpose: your very own eager fucktoy.
“You taste divine, my god, my exalted one,” he babbles incoherently as you pull out before the waves of pleasure make you cry out. Nothing but effusive blather, and you really wish he’d just shut the hell up. That’s, of course, before you realise you can shut him up yourself: bending at the waist to meet his lips with your own, devouring any more foolish praises without sparing thought for the meanings embedded within them. Dim-witted in the most critical of times.
He tastes like salt and metal, tongue still coated in cum, and you sample yourself with no small amount of curiosity. But then his hand grabs your wrist, and it’s time to focus on the next sensation, the—
You gasp into his mouth as he guides your fingers into a void both infinitely cold and unbelievably warm: slippery, sticky darkness. Past the boundaries where you tentatively circled; no, now you’ve been initiated, brought to the heart of the god and left there to explore.
It’s just your index at first: probing around in the emptiness of his chest. There’s a strange urge to be careful, to not hurt him though you’ve wrestled with the urges many times over. You tell yourself it is solely pragmatic—you could not possibly get away with it, not when he’s the ultimate being in this pixelated world—and ignore the way your lips part when he lets out a sound so vulnerable, so full of desire.
I can feel anything. Evidently.
You fall to your knees, unheeding of the pain to focus on him. The way he comes closer and closer. The way he shudders when you let another finger slip into his waiting body. The way his whines hit delicate tympana. You can scarcely stand it: not quite knowing whether it is the revulsion that strikes you so, or something closer to need. Bile mixed with the most saccharine honey: confusing, deceptive, vile. You’re delirious with everything in this miserable, beautiful world.
Salt coalesces on your tongue, and you think your face is wet for some perplexing reason. He can’t cry, after all.
You’re fascinated by his pliability. In and out your fingers move: hypnotised by the slick cavity. A third finger joins the fray, and the darkness pulses with frenzied rhythm, seemingly sucking you in. You could be clueless at this moment, and it still wouldn’t make you feel more hunger than you do at this moment: bacchic in your lust. The hypnotism breaks with the disjointed pattern of your fingers, coaxing debauched, sweet things from his lips into yours.
You know he’s close, if that were even possible.
I can feel anything. It’s too much, and his face tilts to the heavens. You’re free to watch him spiral into the very peak of feeling, and you are its harbinger. Anything. No, he will feel everything. It’s the last gift you’ll give him before you feel nothing at last: human experience.
He is the beginning.
You etch his writhing body into your mind as you feel the umbrous disc gush around your fingers, pulling them out only when his cries have faded into broken, pathetic whimpers: the fall after flying Icarian heights.
I am the end.
The expression covering your face, as you examine the strange, pearlescent liquid coating your fingers, is unknown to you. A rapt gaze: it suits you. It’s pensive. Or maybe it’s a smile. You’re hoping it’s a smile, but you really don’t know and thus you stand right before the golden moment where the being, the man, regains some wisp of composure after his short-circuit.
His fingers find your hips with the desperation of a drowning man reaching for shore, as if he can’t possibly live without you, and you think he’s asking for more. The words muffle and distort, and you absent-mindedly let him penetrate his chest with you again. And again.
The high has worn off. A faint pleasure macerates you, and you struggle to chase after it: bones soft and uncompliant to your whims. Your hand finds his helm, steadying yourself as you use his chest as a fucktoy. The thoughts racing through your mind aren’t lucid at best, surrounded by a veil of almost sickening ecstasy.
He whispers incoherent praises: deafening hymns dedicated to you as he convulses in ecstasy of his own.
“—you’re the only other one who thinks, who feels, who understands—”
You ignore his odes.
“—my god, my light—”
You cannot even begin to understand his devoted limerence.
Icy glass brushes against your hand as it reaches behind you to steady yourself, and your fingers wrap around the smooth neck of a wine bottle. And it’s flowing, blood from the heart as you hold the bottle up and tilt it. So red it tastes erroneous as it dowses you, and you drink in great heaving gulps. It is your last supper, spilling from your mouth into his, running along your body to where the two of you are connected.
It’s cold. Cold enough that it drives him to climax in sensation hell, yet it still could not be possibly enough for you. The empty bottle shatters on the tiles next to you, and you grab another one: downing such large draughts that you don’t have time to appreciate any of the luxurious notes, only that it could surely make the end better. You think you’re crying in between mouthfuls, in between wretched orgasms: moving like a puppet as the atavistic urge to breed consumes you.
Another bottle, another baptism. You taste salt with each sip, and drown in the soft sea of oblivion.
“—you are the only real thing in this world—”
Insipid babble washes over you like merely another wave.
Sinking into the docile sanguine waters, you don’t remember anything else.
•. *࿐
You first become aware of the dulcet tones that interrupt your dreams: graceful strings being plucked in the shape of lullabies, more pleasant than anything you’ve heard. Each note washes over you, mellifluous, rousing you gently from restful slumber.
Surrounded by plush fabrics, you allow your hands to thread through the cocoon: to feel the womb hold you like a bier. Transitive, ready for the next life—except, tragically, the advent of sensation alerts you to your steady breathing, the animation still very much present in your body.
Disappointment. How you wished for all to fade to black forever with the taste of ecstasy in your wet mouth, but now the party has ended and the hard part is still before you.
You cast your attention to where you lie, canting your head on something soft, and something else stirs from its stillness.
Light pierces your eyes as the lids expose tender retinas, shredding through the last illusory gossamer of your temporary death. And for a second, you don’t quite know what you’re staring at, except it moves and it’s the underside of Lygus’ neck as he keeps vigil: and with a start you realise you’re lying on his legs. Metal made as soft as flesh for your heavy head.
You shift, feeling the dirt and sweat still stuck to your body. He who knows so much, who swaddled you in all the robes he could find in this place as you slept, who knows so little about humanity.
“You’re awake,” he hums, and you merely stare at the cruel and unusual beauty of his face: how strange vivacity laces his voice, yet he remains pallid and dead as can be.
There are no words of adoration you could murmur, no lies you could weave for him that could be as authentic as his hymns of worship for you. You gaze at your lover of one night, picking apart the impenetrable fortress of his body—the way he seems to curl around himself, protecting his greatest vulnerability as though it’s still raw.
“I’d like to wash up,” you comment, running a hand across your bare shoulder—somehow stripped of its shirt in a series of events you can’t quite remember. You swing your legs off the bed and stand up, ignoring how he shivers in the sudden cold your departure brings. It is not your problem.
The skin of your back burns with a searing gaze as you walk over to the shallow pool of your room, and you pay it no mind as you allow your trousers to slip off your hips, as the troubled air causes the entire room to tense.
“Lygus,” you warn, and you look back, startled, as his stare intensifies into an almost sentient state. Peering right through you, driven to a monstrous self-awareness. Almost.
But that cannot be.
“I no longer wish to play these games, my dear,” he murmurs, ardor brushing each word. “It pains me to leave you again.”
He soaks each word with feelings, and you wonder what he means: his words, his sudden openness, what exactly this one night changed in him.
“But I suppose I must.”
And just like that, he’s gone, as though he was never there. There’s no pressure bearing down on you—he’s granting you a moment for yourself. It’s a concession, won over by your vulnerability bared naked against his own.
You want to laugh, hard, until the tears squeeze out and it hurts to continue. But you don’t have the luxury—or rather, you had that luxury in the night—nor the time. You sink into the waters, weak as the day you were born.
Surveying the room, there’s nothing you could hurt yourself with. The glass has been meticulously swept up, and you’ve been left wooden platters laden with food and drink. And you know that rummaging through each and every drawer won’t yield anything. You’ve learnt how jealously he guards your life. Even if there were knives here left in abundance, rows of loaded pistols, a damn guillotine, they would be his creation and would not harm you.
Foolish.
A solution presents itself in the deepest shadows of your mind: a mere filament of a greater thought, so ludicrously simple.
For the first time in many lifetimes, you summon As I’ve Written, taking both tome and quill into your waiting hands. The book invites you to write, open and displaying a fresh page, but you ignore the vellum to focus on the instrument. A feather, so perfectly soft and romantic, decorating the pen; oh, how it gleams in the morning light.
Oh, how the rays of the false sun decorate the razor edge of the nib.
You hold the barrel, regarding it with veneration, imagining the brief pain, the spill of carmine ink on the pages of the book. How it would spread into the waters, how Lygus—
Will he grieve you like a mortal does?
No. You can’t think of him, much like you can’t think of the sudden wetness decorating your cheeks, nor the rising tempo of your heart.
He will not get the chance to find you; the game will cease when you leave, paused in an eternity where the morning glows and he still feels the remnants of a night spent together.
The tears stain the tome in the pen’s stead.
You have made up your mind.
•. *࿐
If only you knew.
•. *࿐
16:03. The slow ticking of the clock is the only thing entertaining you as you stare at the letter of resignation open on a word processor, and for some unknown reason your hands shake as they desperately finish it, leaving sweaty imprints on the keys.
Your head hurts.
The pad of your finger collides with the ‘enter’ key: send. A neat little letter icon and loading bar pops up, and the troubled beat of your pulse slows—relaxing, though you don’t quite know from what. It’s funny. You forget why you’re even resigning.
All your work is done. You watch time pass mundanely, fighting off the urge to yawn as you wish your life had a bit more excitement. The programmes have been debugged. The tea steams in wait. The book you ordered should be arriving today.
Simple, ordinary things. You check menial things off your menial to-do list, and you find something not-so-menial wedged in between resignation letter and task handover: MAKE sure to delete test ver!!!!!! It’s not unusual—leaving the company and the Quality Assurance department naturally means erasing company property off your laptop, but it’s the excessiveness that eludes you. You fumble about in your memories, but you can’t even remember writing the memo in the first place. The list is neatly organised: a boring list to reflect a boring person.
You shrug it off. Perhaps you wrote it with the urgency and passion of a drunkard, which would certainly explain the ringing in your head. Strange. You don’t remember drinking.
Still, you indulge your (?) whims, easily finding the file and staring at it for a long few seconds before you delete it. It’s weird. Your heart’s wrapped in an inexplicable sorrow, yet you weren’t particularly attached to any of the characters after reading through their lines for what seemed like an eternity.
You frown, trying to recall any names from the game, but you’re drawing a blank: as though aeons have passed since you last opened the file. And you give up—trying to remember is making the headache worse and your mouth drier and your palms clammier. And you stare at the progress bar as the game deletes, as if it could possibly tell you why you feel like crap.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter: after tomorrow you’ll be starting anew in another city, in another company. Maybe you’ll even pick up a new hobby, maybe you’ll have an adventure of your own and you’ll stop being so damn boring.
Fuck. You’re parched, and when you take a swig of the tea next to the laptop, it’s stone-cold: covered with the little filmy bits that seem to form as soon as a breath of cold air touches it. That won’t do.Your frown deepens, and you’re about to stand up to make yourself a new cup when you hear it: the single note synth demarcating an error. Neat, to the point. You appreciate it in its simplicity.
The mug echoes the note as you set it down: a dull chime punctuating your return to your laptop as you sit back down.
403 emboldened in the succinct little box. Puzzling. Your brows are set in a grim line now as you scan the information below the number. A forbidden error? Really?
“User does not have necessary permissions to delete file,” you read aloud, then scan the words again incredulously. The small window pops up again when you click the red cross, and your head throbs at the colour, for some damn reason.
It’s a ludicrous reason, especially since this is your personal laptop. You type in a remove-item and recurse command into the laptop’s command shell, hitting enter with a particular vindication.
Except, with human-like slowness, the next line types out the same error message, and the text colour glows crimson against the dark background. You swallow, attempting to simply close the command shell and just take the cursed thing to IT to solve, but you find that your screen’s frozen, and it seems you are too.
Rooted in place you are, and your mutterings of what the hell? go unnoticed, too. For the first time, you notice you’re alone in the office room, and you can’t hear the usual bustle and signs of life in the hallway either.
Your head feels like it’s splitting open, and you want nothing more than to go home at this very moment, away from this stupid job and your stupid laptop. Irritation tinges all your senses, but beneath your fervid skin is a trembling pulse, bursting with the speed of a hummingbird: thunderous and heavy in your ears. It’s the symphony of fear, accompanied by the incessant synth of numerous errors covering your screen.
“Oh-h-h-h,” you groan in pain, massaging your aching temples. It feels like something is clawing its way out from your brain: like a memory that makes one sick upon recollection, tucked tidily in a small box in the corner of the mind.
And you’re staring at the red screen, trying to rationalise exactly why you feel nauseated—why that bloody colour sends a mortal fear through your body. Shut it off, your gut screams at you, and you listen: pressing the power button with crushing force to coerce a shutdown.
Except it doesn’t, and there’s a metallic chill in the air. Ozonic, static—like the coldness and wind before a storm—and you can feel it brush your skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
You’re scared. There’s no one to help you, and the people on the streets look like shrunken chess pieces: so small, so utterly far away that you’d never get to them in a million years.
Do something. You feel like a child who accidentally, irreversibly altered something on the family computer: except, you have no one to turn to, you’re the adult, and you’re breathing hard and fast and your body is both too hot and too cold. The laptop crashes to the ground as you sweep it off your desk with a panicked arm, with such adrenaline that the old hinge gives way and the device lies, broken and mangled, on the faintly checkered carpet.
What the fuck? What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck—
Are you mad? There’s something wrong with you, and bile surges in your throat as you stare at the damage: disorder wreaked by you in this place of such order.
In between the periodic ticks of the clock you hear it: the sound of plastic and hardware twisting and breaking, and this time, it is not caused by you. You back away from the laptop, grasping at your desk to support your weakened legs as you will yourself to run, to leave this place far behind.
And it stops. Calm before the prophesied storm.
And you hear it again—but this time, you see it. Something pressing its way out of the screen, and the flimsy plastic gives in: snapping and fracturing. A hand emerges from the fray: it gleams with fluorescent beauty, yet is covered with shades of red, and you wonder if this is all some elaborate, particularly bad dream. And that makes you relax, yet you’re still inching towards the side as the full arm emerges, then the next.
In one lissome movement, the metal being places both hands against the worn carpet and pushes himself up, and you’re transfixed—horrified—by that face. A statuesque angel, with no expression and a helm covering his eyes, stands before you. You can tell he’s staring at you, and you gasp, clutching your head as the pain becomes unbearable.
One name rings out against the torrid, sanguine-tinged cacophony of fragments that overpower your mind. Lygus, you mouth faintly, and the shadows marring that expressionless face almost make it look like he’s smiling.
is it tragic in a hot and manipulative kind of way where lygus breaks our mind & puts us back together again & we're so deprived we practically have no choice but to accept whatever his offer is or is it the kind of tragic where it's gonna leave us feeling hollow after we get to the ending☝️
ok lowkey both?? last one very much depends on how much you like lygus.... the ending is fairly ambiguous though 😭😭
honestly I mentioned in another ask that it's more psychological horror and I stand by that retrospection tbh
It's definitely hot and very manipulative from both sides though 🤤I explored just how lygus might change himself to be more "human" and appeal to the reader more, and in turn the reader becomes more computative as they exploit that weakness... but I won't divulge too much
The one big downside of asks is that I can never remember if I already sent stuff or not LMAO
But yeah honestly I feel like the year end is just. A time we should be allowed to do exactly nothing with 0 consequence for reality bc at least for me no matter how hard I try, I always enter some sort of catatonic state lmao. The body yearns for hibernation
Anyway. Also saw the note that it's not only freaky but also tragic?? You truly are a writer after my heart 👀 I'm so ready to feel the Despair
subday truther subday truther I can't believe you didn't sign yourself off either - unbelievable smh
that's actually really consoling I'm going to adopt that mentality forever now. the body indeed yearns for hibernation. Like I tried pre-learning some of the material for this semester but I just could not be asked and shouldn't have been asked anyway bc what the hell hibernation time.
it's also touching on some psychological horror as well tbh... I'm writing the ending and I made the background colour red and I lowkey regret doing that bc I'm getting freaked out in the scary way. lygus analogue horror antagonist when. What's really funny about this is that I was inspired by my beginner's Python course for the error part - like coding as a whole is scary enough but factoring in Lygus??? it's VERY much freaky by all definitions
yeah without giving too much away, writing this had me like the picture below and I'm gonna feel the exact same way when I have to reread and select all the warnings that apply😔😔✌️
I'm on the final scene of the lygus ff after I come back from a class I'll be finishing it off and proofreading (still debatable) formatting it and hitting POSTT either today or tomorrow !!!!! also prewarning it follows an error and as I kept writing it, it lowkey became more disturbing and tragic so apologies in advance. like literally I thought what if everything that could go wrong in the quest for 3.5 went wrong????
indubitably it is some freaky shit but for once that is a device to further the plot rather than plot being written to further the freaky as I so oft do.
well
well actually lowkey the plot was written for the freaky so case still stands tbh
last snippet before it posts later
HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST
MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION
“Let it be known: I tried. My lord, you cannot blame me for hiding what I hide from you,” he murmurs sorrowfully. Everything fades into nothing as his other hand covers your eyes, and you hear a massive tide crash against shore: not water, no, but the more subtle susurration of sand.
The scene has changed. Your nose pricks with the arid heat emanating from all directions, evaporating the previous loamy scent of earth. Involuntarily, your mouth contorts into a rictus of displeasure at the torrid pressure bearing down on your lungs and body: as though the angry eye of God hangs above you, honed in directly on you.
“Look—” and his hand reveals the barren wasteland stretching out into the horizon. Beneath your feet, the grass has disintegrated to reveal the charred stump of the Sacred Tree, splintered almost completely beyond recognition. “—this is what you desired to return to.”
The two meanings twine around each other like snakes on a caduceus: you wished to escape the Exomyth or you wished for everything to be destroyed. In the end, you don’t quite know yourself as well as you thought you did.
“No—” you choke out with the last shreds of denial you can muster, attempting to look away from the death of everything. Yet, it is too much to ask for; his soft grip against your chin becomes punitive as he forces you to burn the image of your failure into your eyelids.
“Yes,” he says mildly, and the breath rippling against your ear is the only semblance of a breeze in this fervid clime. His fingers wipe up the sweat dotting your brow, and you shiver at the feverish chill that you’re succumbing to.
“Let the realisation of your wish seduce you,” he whispers, catching you by the waist as you stumble forward: shock weakening your legs. It is one thing to wish to escape at any means, it is another to witness those very means. “Accept what has happened: my role in its causation, and your own. Do you understand?”
“No—no!” Meaningless words burble from your lips angrily, like water from the lungs of a drowned man. You think he clicks his tongue in condescending pity.
“That’s the only thing you can do.” He sounds convincing, coaxing you into a sticky web of half-truths that you could not even begin to unravel. Too many things have passed by you, too many plot points you’ve forgotten in the eternity of stagnancy. He’s right. Even with perfect knowledge of all you knew when you were forced here, this is no longer the story. “Lord, your companions slumber, not yet knowing that their Flamechase Journey will never be realised. They dream of a peace that you have already shattered, and you will remove the very concept of peace if you disturb them.”
Lygus, you think. There’s no more anger as you mull over his sinful existence: only a sluggish awareness that has dulled with the centuries, extinguished by the chill current of data.
You are not the protagonist.
Guilt is no longer a factor in your computations.
Lygus, you think, louder this time. It builds into a mantra, crescendoing before you realise with a start that your lips remain shut. Ah. That’s where the error lies.
Ly-gus. You mouth the word. L-y-y-y-ygus. Tongue briefly to your teeth, lips creating an ellipse, shrinking into nothingness, then teeth bared in a snarl with the final sound. Yes, that’s it.
You clear your throat, shaking the cobwebs from your vocal chords.
“Lygus,” you breathe, yet the space remains as empty as ever. Your eternally placid face crinkles in a slight frown—surely, surely, you haven’t been forgotten, left to wither away in this cage. “Bastard.”
You suck stale air through your teeth, and the small action rekindles once-dying embers of ire.
“O dearest Lygus,” you intone with a particularly sardonic humour, allowing your head to fall back onto the gelid cable with a dull thump, where it’s no doubt been lying for a century. Or two. Useless, you think. Like all things, it recedes back into nothingness, and you close your eyes, entering the waking dream once more.
“All you had to do was call for me.”
The sound envelopes you in its cocoon, coming from all directions and no direction: filled with an omniscient sort of amusement, like a god holding a mortal in their hands just because.
You are acutely aware that this may be a hallucination, and you don’t dare open your eyes. Your tongue is thick with suppressed something; it’s been far too long since you’ve heard anyone’s voice, and you can’t help but savour the timbre, the pitch of each syllable as it washes over you.
You shiver.
“You have missed me, after all,” he muses, the sound reverberating next to your left ear. Notes of satisfaction coat it, and you snap your eyes open to meet his face—yet he’s not there. A mirage within a mirage.
“Or… has predetermination—potentially—not worked out for you, my lord?” Rich contempt layers with satisfaction, and the tempered irritation you feel sharpens your mind. Just a bit.
You don’t deign to give him an answer, for his question isn’t really an inquiry, but an opportunity to gloat.
The endless haze of nothing is broken by the appearance of a cold limb: fingers outstretched invitingly to where you lay. And your own hand, foolishly, hesitatingly, reaches for it: like man to God, an infinite distance ensconced in the length of a breath.
And your fingers do stop a mere breath away: so close you can feel your not-quite-warm skin have its last shreds of human heat leeched from it by metal.
“You offer me a hand I can never accept.” Slowly. You can feel your heartbeat: no wavering, no fluctuations that would betray you.
“Isn’t that precisely why you called me?” His tone is gentle.
“I don’t know,” you speak wryly now, lips cocked in a mockery of a smile. “Beings cannot interact so directly here.”
The implication is clear, yet the air surrounding him remains pleasant—perhaps, perhaps finally ready to let you out of your cage. Yet, he doesn’t answer.
With excruciating slowness, his hand grazes along your arm—not touching, no. A mere whisper away, probing the boundaries of the law that commands the Exomyth. You frown.
“You can’t touch me here.” Here. You circle around your point like you’re stalking prey, watching it seep into the air like blood. Here. Acknowledge it, you think. Let me out.
“Can’t I?” His voice takes on a familiar patience, one you can’t bring yourself to summon in your own body. “I can do anything.”
There is an atom of space between the two of you: a thin veil he has not yet breached. You scoff, sitting up in a fluid motion: revelling in how he moves away.
“You said it yourself, Lygus: this space doesn’t exist for the physical—no harm, nor touch, is allowed to breach the beings that pass through here,” you challenge. Curiosity and contempt exist in a tense stalemate, and your expression betrays the battle within your mind.
“Oh—” he breathes. “—how low you have fallen, exalted one. These are the arbitrary rules bound to myth, not reality.”
Myth. He speaks of it with chilling awareness, and you become acutely uncomfortable with the realisation that something isn’t quite right with how he views this world.
His hand grazes your own: a frigid, ticklish sensation that elicits a shiver across your skin. Goosebumps form where his fingers dance, and you swear his blank features contort into a smile. Yet, when you snap your gaze back upwards from his hand, it’s gone: a mere trick of the light.
“You can accept my hand,” he coaxes. “You don’t really want to save this world—you yearn to destroy it.”
I can't believe I spent my days in peace and harmony only for you to return and put that fucker back into my brain "I have modified the Exomyth into a palace just for you, my lord" SHUT UPPP (my heart did sth undisclosed)
Anyway welcome back!! I hope your studies have been lots of fun! Funnily enough just a few days ago I remember checking your blog like wow it's really been a while I hope he's doing alright... And then suddenly you're on my dash again!
Against my habits I even ended up reading the previews and God I feel so unwell. You truly are the only writer I can trust to actually properly catch his essence. I've read a few fics where he at least appears but none have ever made me feel like canon namely how every damn word he says makes me want to strangle him (violently) but also perhaps (sexily)
I want to bash his head into a wall. Maybe mine too. Very excited for the full fic!
- subday truther (currently the picture of mental wellness and Normality)
(SUBDAY TRUTHER SUBDAY TRUTHER HELLO!!!!!)
LMAOOO that's lowkey how I felt when exams finished and I remembered he existed 🤤🤤he's such an irritating and charming character that he pisses me off too whenever I write his dialogue 💔and my stomach does the thing (acid reflux)
and thank youuu 😋😋studies are sucking the soul out of me lowkey but they've made the time pass by so quick!! not to brag but I think I smashed those exams (touch wood), and then I did absolutely nothing for like two weeks after bc I was visiting family, sleeping, and gorging myself on holiday food. also I have the unfortunate (or fortunate idk) habit of appearing when someone's thinking of me - most aptly demonstrated when I'm trying to text someone and I click on chat and they're typing that very instant 😓 speak of the devil or whatever. how have you been my lovely subday truther anon it's been aeons (see what I did there)
awww what an honour you checked the preview (trust I also feel unwell writing he's such an eerie character it's acc scary) and THANK YOU I read through all his in-game dialogue obsessively to gauge his character accurately (plus I lowkey drew on the - weak? - parallels between him and armand from the vampire chronicles). also as I read this paragraph I also realised that I have included a bit of wringing his neck so you're good on that front I think (it's both violent and sexy trust)
I also want to bash my head in writing it so glad we're in the same boat 😔✌️✌️
