gdoc for if my theme sucks to read on (it does)
-> PART ONE: are you afraid of the dark
TW: unreality
Where are you? What’s happening? Why can’t you move, see, do anything at all?
Is this what death is like? Are you dead?
An impossibly loud thump reverberates through the inside of your skull. A second beat follows soon after, a deep, bass-heavy wave that blots out anything else you were thinking about in that moment.
You gasp, overwhelmed by the shockwave. Then it repeats again.
No, this wouldn’t be happening if you were dead. You don’t think anything would be—
Another two beats. You feel especially dizzy, on top of the vertigo from having no sense of space or direction.
Maybe something really did eat you alive, and now you’re in its stomach listening to its slow, colossal heartb—
Another two beats. You lose your train of thought again from the deep aching pain in your head that drowns out everything else.
It sounds like it’s coming from outside of you, all around you, and within your head all at the same time. Your head feels too—
Another two beats. You think your brain might be melting.
All you can hope to do is wait out the thing that might as well be hitting your head like a drum. Either it will stop or you will stop; this can’t go on forever. No, you can’t go on forever.
The smoke starts to clear. Or something like that, you guess? It’s difficult to tell, but you think you can see a flash of purple with every head-splitting thump. It’s as if the black hole blanket covering all your senses changes color, or maybe like you’re seeing a flashing light through a thick, inky membrane.
No, it’s coming and going in waves. The light swells before each beat and dims in the space between. Or is it the reverse, swelling between the beats as if the noise scatters it away?
It doesn’t matter. You think it’s getting closer.
It starts off like a welcoming, warm glow, like soft moonlight on your skin. You didn’t realize how cold you felt until each thundering beat brought the momentary warmth of the purple light, like a comfort to counteract the terrible heartbeats. You welcome it, so it comes ever closer and closer, soon washing over you like a warm bath.
Then like a splash of boiling water.
Then like licking flames.
You are reminded of the urban legend of the frog boiled alive on the stove, except you, unlike the frog, never had the choice to leap from the pot at all.
The light is reaching for you, grasping at the inside of your skull with long thin fingers made of molten metal. You think something might be reaching back. Something that is alive inside your head.
Then it stops.
You are flung awake, gasping for breath, like someone has just lifted you out of a pool of water. No, more like a pit of tar.
You look down at your hands. No burns, no light, no—
Two beats resonate through you. You whimper quietly, sensing a mounting headache from the tension in your head.
… Wait, where are you?
You look up. The room is barely lit, but you have no trouble seeing two figures in front of you. One is currently held by the neck against the wall, trying to kick and squirm away. He has four arms, carnival paint, several shiny dangly things on his horns, and is begging to be spared. His pleas are ignored.
The troll holding him, however, is unlike anyone else you’ve ever seen. He is terrifyingly tall, built, and covered in glowing lime green tattoos, but you feel much more in awe than fear as he seems to have come to your aid. Bright flashes of electricity crackle around him and the bladed staff he’s holding in his other hand.
You’re so caught up in watching him strangle this poor clown that you could have knocked right off the bed you’re sat on with how intensely you flinch when the door slams open.
You hear the soft ring of jingle bells.
Your chest tightens and your breath catches in your throat. Your own heart skips a beat, but the one in your brain beats instead.
The lime green tattooed troll whips around and releases the clown’s neck, who immediately backs into a corner and merely watches. Kind of like you, you think.
Another clown storms into the room. They are immediately pinned to the wall with a blade pressed at their throat. There’s a thick black smoke seeping out from under the empty-eyed mask they wore, which seemed to be… Trying to grab the other guy? You’re not sure, because regardless of what the smoke was doing, the light coming from his tattoos was easily keeping it at bay, burning up all the shadows.
You think the tattooed troll is talking to this new clown. You can’t tell over the ringing in your ears from the loud beating that is still bouncing around the inside of your head. The words don’t sound real anyways, so you try to just shut out as much as you can and cope with just what you can’t get rid of— the echoing heartbeat that seems to just be a part of the contents of your skull cavity now.
It feels like there’s a terrible little creature that has decided to take up residence on top of your brain and each beat of its terrible little heart is so far within your own head that you couldn’t ever hope block it out no matter how hard you tried.
You try to pace your breathing, slow and even, to soothe your racing heart and loosen the tightness through your whole body. When you exhale, a heavy black smoke falls from your lips, not too different from the same stuff coming out from underneath the mask of the clown your savior has pinned to the wall. That makes the panic worse.
It feels like years that the two stand there. Your gaze flicks between them and the first clown, but to your relief he doesn’t seem to want to put you back in whatever nightmarish abyss you were in before.
He finally backs off after you think you’ve spent an eternity just sitting there all coiled up like a tense spring. He walks to you, and both clowns watch. He offers a hand and you just stare at him for a moment, so overwhelmed by everything happening to you that it doesn’t register what he’s offering for a couple moments.
“Fuck, what did you do to the poor thing? Lobotomize him?” He twists to look at the first clown for a second, but quickly turns back.
“C’mon. We’re leaving.” This time, more insistent. You finally reach out and grab his hand, but flinch away for a moment. You weren’t expecting a static shock.
You like to sit out on the balcony. It’s one of the few good things in this stupid place, somewhere where you can just exist for a little bit without anyone asking something of you. That is, if you wake up early enough, when the sun has just set behind the building and the sky is a dazzling mosaic of colors from the rising moons and the setting sun.
Sometimes Opsita joins you. She likes to watch the sunset and sip juice from a wine glass, pretending she’s a high-class lady enjoying wine in the early night air. You never know which mornings she’ll join you until she slips out onto the balcony like a quiet little ghost. You usually ask her about school— to which she’ll either tell you about whatever 6th graders do or huff, turn up her classy-lady act, and brush off your questions.
Good kid, you think. You’ll feel the worst leaving her when you eventually move out, but at least Morava will still be around to look after her.
This evening you’re enjoying a mug of hot tea. You had to basically creep through the hive to make it without waking up Azmidi or Antare— both of them liked sleeping on the living room couches supposedly “in case someone broke in.” You’re not sure who on Alternia would want to break into this hive, since there’s not even much here to steal now that you keep your instruments at Luther’s workshop. Even those wouldn’t be worth the inevitable ass-kicking from the two of them.
There’s a gentle breeze this evening, offering some much needed respite from this summer’s crazy heat. Your eyes flick to a something moving in the corner of your eye— it’s just the neighbor’s curtains fluttering. They probably have the window opened to help with the heat or something.
You take a deep breath, then sip at your tea. It’s nothing to worry about, never is. You’re not sure why you’ve been especially skittish lately, or why you keep hallucinating things moving just outside your vision, but it’s getting kind of annoying.
You’ll head back inside when you finish your tea to get dressed and ready for work. Huh, that’s a crazy thought— you’ve got a job now. Crazy.
You take another sip of your tea.
… Is it normally this dark out at this time of night?
Your attention is pulled to something moving in your peripheral vision. This time, you actually turn and reflexively jump a little, thinking for some reason that the coiled up extension cord meant for powering a fan on especially hot nights was a snake. You can’t tell what it was that you actually saw, now that your gaze is affixed on the cord. It’s perfectly still, as power cords should be, because it’s a fucking power cord and you feel like you’re losing your mind.
What’s gotten into you? Of course there’s not a snake. How would a snake even get onto the third floor? In the middle of town?
You take a deep breath, willing away the tight panicky feeling constricting around your chest. This is supposed to be your quiet chill time! Not jump-at-your-own-shadow time! You know you’re generally pretty nervous, but like, this is for sure a new low. If anything, you’re usually so unfocused you wouldn’t have noticed the cord there at all.
… It isn’t supposed to be this dark, right?
You stand up and lean on the balcony railing, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. It’s still too early for there to be too much activity on the street below, but you do see people pass by every couple of minutes, either commuting to work, walking pets, or whatever else people who wake up right at sunset do. You wouldn’t know, you’re rarely up this early, and you certainly don’t have anything to do.
You take another sip of your tea. The mug is almost empty now, meaning your quiet time is nearing its end, and soon you’ll have to return inside and hopefully sneak past Azmidi and Antare without waking them. The breeze picks up, catching your hair and blowing loose strands into your face.
You freeze up before you can brush them away. Was that a bell? Why the fuck are you hearing jingle bells? Maybe you really are losing it. You don’t know! You just wish it would cut this shit out! What would it even be? A cat toy or something? You don’t have any pets.
… Yeah, it’s not supposed to be this dark out. You’re sure now.
You try to turn towards the door in order to investigate the source of your hip and cool new auditory hallucination, but are stopped in place by the grazing touch of ice-cold fingertips on the back of your neck. You could’ve just jumped right out of your skin with how intensely you flinched, nearly dropping your mug when you squirm in place to try and move away from whoever has snuck up behind you.
The only sound you make is a soft gasp of shock. Before you can think to try and cry out, another hand covers your mouth, freezing cold like the first. Your own hands jerk up to try and rip it away, immediately halted by two more grasping your wrists, twisting your arms behind your back, and holding you firmly in place. You try and bend forwards but find that the hand that was gently caressing your neck has moved to grasp it instead.
You try to bite the hand on your mouth, but your teeth sink into nothing. You can’t even hear your own cries for help from underneath it; it looks like you’re being restrained by a many-armed black hole, or like the abyss itself had just reached up to steal you away.
You try and wriggle, thrash, anything to get this thing off of you— you try and kick against the railing to send you both onto the floor, to hit the table to make a loud sound, to gouge at it with your horns, something, anything! It’s even taken your mug of tea and placed it neatly by your chair, just far enough away where you couldn’t hope to shatter it and make a sound. Of course it has.
Can’t anyone walking by see that you’re struggling? Where is everyone? You can’t tell if there’s anyone standing in the street. It’s so dark, too dark, as if someone covered up the moons. Is it just your eyes, or have they been covered with yet another hand?
It’s so quiet, terribly quiet, like a hush has fallen on the entire neighborhood. All you need is to make a sound loud enough to wake up one of the guys asleep in the living room, that’s all, but you feel like you’ve been frozen solid in ice from the touches of dozens of hands.
You think the abyss is actually swallowing you whole. That’s it. The pushing and pulling and grabbing and endless icy touching of all the hands all over you feels like some horrible giant thing has just gobbled you up like a huge shadowy snake.
You think you might be moving now. You’re not sure, since you can’t see anything around you anymore and you’re not even sure if your feet are touching the ground or which way is up. The silence is finally broken by the sound of jingle bells again, but you still can’t pinpoint the source. You wouldn’t be able to see it anyways.
Oh, is the curse having effects other than the eyes? Or is it like, something you got from planhz?
"Well, I mean, I got all of it from Planhz. As far as I know, at least. I was told all the other shit that happened was trying to take whatever that was and change it. Or something like that."
You sigh softly.
"Think of it like. My brain is a cabin in the woods that I live in, and inside the cabin is also a sick laser rifle or something. Pretty damn cool, but you have to get into the cabin to get it. The door is locked, though, and you don't have the key, and I don't really want to let you in either. So obviously the next best idea is to take an axe, rip a hole in the wall, and try and reach through there. But the axe guy didn't have enough time to make the hole big enough, so now it just leaks when it rains and anyone can come fuck with me from the outside if they know how to get to the cabin. That's what my last couple months have been like."
