whumpee wakes up with bruises and cuts with no idea how they got there — easy enough to ignore once. A bit odd, sure, but they’re so clumsy it isn’t surprising. Injuries such as these are always showing up.
except it keeps happening, night after night. Now it’s concerning, and at the same time, whumpee gets more and more tired, every morning feeling as if they hadn’t slept at all.
summer’s now ended and whumpee is back at school. their new seatmate seems slightly creepy and familiar as well…?
whumpee’s been given a group project with their seatmate and it’s agreed that they’ll meet up at whumpee’s place after class. seatmate is strangely excited but it’s quickly buried under the stress of the assignment.
whumpee and seatmate are working in whumpee’s room when seatmate turns towards them with an unsettling grin.
“So you really don’t remember any of it?”
“Any of what?”
“oh, it’s nothing, pup.”
whumpee’s eyes glaze over instantly; they sink to the floor on their knees, thoughts rushing out of their head in a stream of blankness. they stare up at seatmate master in anticipation of another order.
whumper smiles as they run their hand through whumpee’s hair absentmindedly. they tilt their chin up to get a better look at their unnaturally calm face.
“we’re not gonna get much work done today, are we?” they ask. after rummaging through their bag for a few seconds they pull out a pocketknife and a collar.
they clip the latter around whumpee’s neck easily, the gesture having been repeated so many times that it was muscle memory for them.
“Hand,” they instruct, and whumpee obediently holds theirs out. the knife is placed on their palm. whumpee’s fingers mechanically grasp the handle.
“im feeling generous. how about we go with more cutting? you’d like that?” whumpee’s head bobs up and down in supposed agreement, drawing a short laugh from whumper.
“well, you can’t really say no.”