▓ = caught stealing their belongings. -Naj
send one for my muse’s reaction to your muse ---
The foul scent of another permeates the room—intruder. Saliva froths in its mouth, rabid hunger clawing at the elongated shape of its throat; Perhaps it is his fault. He had grown complacent, hadn't he? Allowed for that tongue to wag too carelessly, giving the impression that it was not, in fact, a privilege. With all gait of a predator it slithers through the shadows, whispers thickening the air; dissolved like black smoke, the yellow flames of his eyes remained burning, insidious flames piercing through the dark. The door slams shut. The faint, low growl seemed to reverberate through the floorboards, the walls, like a sleeping dragon awakened from its slumber. "Naj…" it called to him sweetly, its voice a pale mimicry of itself; echoing, rippling, as if his throat was an open well, beckoning you closer and closer.
All theatrical flair was stripped down to it bare bones, leaving only an unsettling stillness to it. The smile slid from Baekyong's face languidly like skin peeling from the bone, the horror of him threatening to unravel; joviality drained, boyish skin threatening to shed, to make room for the ancient horror locked inside these brittle bones; gnashing its teeth. The lights flickered and died out; Baekyong stood rigidly still against the corner, at the center of it all, pale hair spilling around him like the shed skin of some colossal serpent. It dragged across the floor behind him in soft whispers as begun to move—dragging, dragging that beautiful carcass around with all the strained restraint of a caged animal.
His molten eyes had found the earring with the possessive greed of a dragon. His earring, in Naj's greedy, filthy hands. Slowly, impossibly slowly, it tilted its head—the movement produced a faint crack, then another, and another—bones shifting, cracking, settling beneath the flesh as if rearranging itself inside borrowed skin, its neck bending farther than it should. Farther. Farther still. Until bone sounded less like bone and more like branches breaking under heavy snow. "Naj…" its claws flexed, sharp enough to unzip a body from throat to pelvis, his voice was sweeter then, cloying and low, eyes glittering with lurid interest.
"Put..." The word emerged soft, barely louder than breathing. "That…" another step, bare feet dragged against the floor, wet, loud. "Down." The shadows shifted, gathered around his feet in writhing knots, tangled within each other like nests of snakes beneath black water. Its pupils narrowed, shrinking into razor-thin slits, and the shadows behind him rose, towering, recoiling, as if to strike. More than ever, Baekyong looked less like a beautiful young man and more like the thing that had taken its shape, trying very hard to wear human flesh, its disguise threatening to split at the seams.
The smile that was no longer a smile returned then, wrong—stretching too wide, splitting from ear to ear in a mangled showing of teeth, its cadaverous fingers extended, unfurling—palm open, waiting. It would not ask again.
