Voltober 6. Death Death Devil Devil Evil Evil songs - Warlocks
Author's note: This is a story that I write for my main blog. Less focus on whump and more focus on the horror comedy that is the endless IKEA. There's a link to it at the bottom of this post if you wanna check it out.
Challlenges list - Voltober 5
Content: human whumpee, monster whumpers, fear, horror, endless IKEA, mimicry of loved ones to scare whumpee
Sound Torture | Forced to Performance | Siren
@voltober
Elio sat on top of a shelf holding bed frames mostly. They were actually what he had been out looking for when the lights of the endless IKEA went out. He had some new plans for how to fortify the base but he needed bigger materials than normal, which meant looking for solid wood bed frames.
He hadn’t really looked at the time when he left, though, intent on getting what he needed. He had been so focused that he hadn’t even told anyone where he was going, thinking it would be a quick trip. It was fairly quick, however it was almost lights out, and when he heard the five minute warning telling customers to make their final purchases quickly and leave, he had climbed up the shelves as quickly as he could.
Now he sat in the darkness, listening to the soft raspy footsteps of the employees down below as they dragged and limped their way through the aisles, blank faces doubtlessly looking this way and that for their next victim.
Elio just hoped they wouldn’t notice him up here. He hated the employees this deep into the IKEA. He and the others had decided it would be a good idea to move farther in as there were more resources and a more interesting selection of items to be found, but the farther you go in, the more dangerous the employees get. The ones on the edge could only walk around and tear you to pieces if they caught you. Dangerous in numbers, but fairly easy to deal with on their own. These ones, though. They were crafty. If they knew you were there, they would work together to knock your shelf over. Even worse, these ones could talk and scream, playing tricks on you trying to convince you to come down or try to scare you in the direction they wanted you to go.
Elio very carefully stretched his lanky frame out, laying his head on his bag. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, glad his brightness was already so low before he turned it on to send a text to his friends. While you couldn’t message anyone outside of the IKEA, it wasn’t too hard to set up your phone to text people inside.
:Got caught out by the bed frames after lights out. I’m safe. Be back in the morning.:
He sent the text and tucked his phone away, waiting quietly in the darkness. He knew he wouldn’t be sleeping, but he could still close his eyes and count it as better than nothing.
He was drifting off in a daydream about the foods he missed from outside. He really wanted ice cream. And his dad’s homemade chocolate cake. There were a litany of candies he could name that he would give up fingers for (not his fingers, of course, but fingers in general) and he was just beginning to think about corn on the cob when he heard something below beside the shuffling of the employee monsters.
“Elio?”
Elio sat bolt upright, sweat pricking on his back and the hair on his neck rising.
“Elio?” the voice said again. It sounded like Puck, but not quite. It was darker, slightly off, and there was no way Puck would have been standing safely among the employees.
How did they find out it was him up here? How did they know it was Elio specifically? What was he supposed to do now?
“Come down. It’s safe now, Elio,” the voice sang. Another started, harmonizing terribly with the other voice. “Come with us. We will keep you safe.”
Elio heard the employees push into the shelf, though, weighed down as it was with wooden bed frames, Elio wasn’t too concerned with it toppling over.
“Don’t you want to leave, Elio? We know the way out.”
Elio felt tears prickling in his eyes as he recognized the voices as his dad and his deceased mother who he hadn’t seen in 7 years. “How do you know them!?” he asked fiercely, unable to help himself.
The voices all laughed in unison and Elio growled in frustration, trying to cover the fear that was beginning to shake in his limbs.
“We know everything about you, Elio. Your fear told us everything. You were so scared those first few weeks here, weren’t you? You are so scared now-”
Elio slammed his hands over his ears, folding up his earlobes to push against his ear holes to muffle the sound more before putting his head between his knees, using his legs to keep his hands tight over his ears. He wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t fear. He wouldn’t feed this place.
He was never going to make this mistake again. Even bed frames weren’t worth the laughing that echoed distantly in his memory as he tried to remember the catchiest songs possible to cover even that.
