#on closer inspection the head is a little messy/jumbled too.

[flygonscales]

PAIN. MUCH PAIN. I was so pleased and happy about my new t-shirt. But then I look closer today and it probably is an AI generated image. FUCK. This company’s (spiral direct) generally been good in the past too! And it’s so blatant! Can’t believe how I missed this. URRRGHHHH. GOD FUCKING DAMN IT.

[saltydumplings]

Snippet #7

This had to be the most embarrassing moment of the hero's life.

It had only been yesterday when the hero had been taunting the villain - making fun of them for their traps that never seemed to work - and now here they were: caught in one of the villain's only working contraptions.

The hero struggled, desperately trying to free themself as they had been doing for the past ten minutes without success. They were suspended above the ground, held up by a massive tangle of ropes - so messy and uncoordinated that it surely couldn't have been intentional. No: the trap had to be broken - the villain's traps were always broken - and, God, if that didn't just make it even more embarrassing.

Whatever. It was fine - this was fine. The hero just needed to keep a cool head and get out quickly. If they were fast enough about it, the villain wouldn't even have to know that--

"Well, well, well..."

Oh, you had to be kidding!

The villain seemed to practically melt out of the shadows, grin sharp as they stared up at the hero. "Look who we have here. You wouldn't perchance need help, would you Hero?"

The hero simply huffed, hoping their face wasn't already flushed red from the embarassment of being caught.

"No: no, I don't," they said definitively.

"Really?" the villain asked. "Because it certainly looks like you do."

"Yeah? Well then, maybe you should get your eyes checked because clearly you're blind," the hero said, trying to kick out with their legs but it hardly seemed to make a difference.

The villain stepped closer, looking more smug than the hero had ever seen them before. "What was that you were saying yesterday? About my traps - you used three words I believe."

God, this was torture. The hero knew exactly what they'd said and the karma truly couldn't have been more brutal.

"Stupid was one of them," the villain began. "Useless was another. And that last one - oh, what was it now? You know, the more I think on it, the more certain I am that you called them...broken."

The hero groaned in frustration, stopping in their struggles momentarily to glare down at the other. "You seriously cannot tell me that this thing isn't broken. Look at it - are you really trying to tell me that this is what you planned?"

They watched as the villain stepped forward to inspect the hero's bindings, a light blush covering their cheeks as they trailed a finger down the jumble of ropes that had rather miraculously managed to ensure the hero's wrists. They stepped back again, not quite so smug but still no less pleased.

"Admittedly, the result is not...wholly as I intended it," the villain said carefully. "But that hardly makes it broken. If it were broken it wouldn't work, and I would argue that this--" They pressed a finger to the hero's chest, watching with amusement as the other started to swing back a little "--works fantastically. It just needs a little fine-tuning is all."

"Oh, so you intended it to be escapable?"

The words were out of the hero's mouth before they'd even properly thought about it - too stubborn to truly admit defeat just yet.

The villain eyed them with great interest now, cocking their head to the side as they considered it. "You think you can escape?" they asked.

"O-Of course I can--" They really couldn't "--I just need a little more time is all."

The villain hummed then, sitting down on the ground below them and pulling out a small notepad and pen.

"And just how much time do you think you'd need?" the villain enquired, hand already writing quickly across the page.

The hero blinked. "Are you seriously taking notes right now!"

"But, of course," the villain said. "How am I meant to improve it when I don't know what needs improving?"

The hero merely grumbled something under their breath in response, trying to twist their head about to get a proper look at their situation but it all just seemed like one big mess of rope - the hero feeling not too dissimilar from a cat that had tangled itself in a ball of string. Trying to ignore the villain's observant gaze, the hero first tried moving their arms, attempting to wriggle their wrists free and gain back the use of their hands.

They failed.

Next they tried loosening some of the rope about their chest, twisting and turning to try and get it to budge. If they managed to move just something then maybe it could give them the slack they needed to free themselves...

This also failed.

The hero resorted back to what they'd done first, trying to kick out with their legs to see if they could simply shake some of the rope off - figuring enough struggling might just move some of the rope downwards until it slipped off their foot and let them go. And, after a solid three minutes of wriggling and kicking, the rope did move...just not in the direction they wanted it too.

The hero flushed as some of the rope shifted up their right leg a little, now squeezing uncomfortably around their upper thigh and forcing a startled sound from their throat - something between a yelp and a whine that only made the red in their cheeks deepen.

As it turned out, they weren't the only one who was blushing...

"Might I, uh, asked what caused that sound?" the villain enquired, biting down on their lip as soon as they'd asked it, pen held above the paper while they waited intently.

"N-No, you may not!" the hero cried, struggling furiously to try and undo their mistake but every move they made only seemed to make it worse. "It's nothing - I-I'm fine. I just - I'm almost out."

The villain squinted at them disbelievingly as the hero slumped in their restraints, starting to get a little tired from all their efforts of escape.

"Riiiiiight..." they said. And then they pulled their phone from their pocket and went to take a picture.

The hero's eyes went wide, flailing around desperately in a panic. "Villain, don't you dare take a picture of me like this!"

The villain pouted. "But why not? It's just for science."

"If you take that picture, I swear to God, I will kill you--!"

"Fine, fine, I won't take the picture," the villain said, lowering their phone a little as an evil grin graced their lips. "But only on one condition."

The hero paused, eyeing the other warily. "What?"

The villain's smile widened. "You have to admit that you're stuck, and beg me to let you down."

The hero's response was immediate, eyes glaring down at the other as they yelled. "I'm not doing that!"

"Well then, I guess I'll just take this picture and--"

"No - no! Wait, I--"

The villain paused as the hero came to sigh, face completely red and gaze directed downwards. A few seconds passed but the villain was patient - watching the other with all the focus they had, not wanting to miss a single thing.

"I-I'm stuck..." the hero said quietly.

The villain pretended not to hear as they leant closer. "Sorry, what was that?"

The hero scowled, knowing that the other had heard them just fine, but forced themself to repeat it all the same: "I'm stuck."

"Hm, very good, and...?" the villain prompted.

"A-And I..." the hero took a breath, preparing themself for what they knew would be months worth of humiliation. "I want you to let me down."

The villain smiled, coming to stand and walking over to a wall, pushing aside one of the boxes stacked against it to reveal a lever. They gripped onto it but didn't pull it down - turning to the hero one last time.

"And what's the magic word?"

The hero simply glared at them. "Abracadabra," they said sarcastically.

The villain tutted. "Careful, Hero. Keep up that attitude and I may be tempted to make you repeat it all again..."

A pause.

The hero turned to look back down, a sigh leaving their lips as they relented fully.

"Please."

Suddenly, the hero yelped as they fell, hitting the ground with an ungraceful thud - the ropes that had been holding them falling down as well, creating a complete tangled mess.

Thank God it was over.

The hero groaned as they moved to stand, just starting to shake the ropes from their wrists only to find them tightening again within an instant. They stumbled fowards, landing roughly on their knees while their hands were pulled upwards.

Above them the villain smiled sharply.

"Now, now, let's not be too hasty. I said I'd let you down: I never said anything about letting you go..."

Part 2

[spookyspaghettisundae]

And Awaken in a New One

Kim broke out of her trance when the car door slammed shut. She blinked and knew they had passed into the otherworld already. On the surface, it almost looked the same as the world they hailed from. But it had changed.

The blue covering the canvas of the sky around the horizon rippled gently, like a heavenly pond into which stones had been cast. The Hidden Deserts That Had No Name reflected bright light from everywhere and nowhere, with no sun to be seen, wherever she looked. The mountains in the distance refused to stand still and moved—ever so slightly, like the ebb and flow of an ocean lapping lazily at the shoreline of a beach.

The clouds drifting through the air coiled and began moving in the direction of where their car was parked. Like snakes, those clouds crawled towards them.

Although they moved slowly, their steady creeping told Kim to limit her time here.

The car slumped forward a tiny bit when the weight of Javi sitting on its hood depressed it. He was the one who had slammed the door shut and now he lit up a cigarette with a stainless steel lighter, flicking the little silvery thing shut in a fluid and practiced motion right when a puff of white smoke arose from his face.

Strange bushes topped the sands. Unlike the ones native to the Nevada desert from where they had crossed over into here, these plants featured purple color and shivered out of sync with the warm breeze sweeping over these rocky plains.

Javi took a drag from his cigarette, puffed it out with haste and pointed at the clouds. The car’s windows muffled his words, “Only a matter o’ time till those—whatever those are—till those things get to us.”

Kim got out of the car as well. Letting her gaze sweep across the sky above them made her dizzy and almost a bit sick to her stomach. The watery nature of the above offered no solid point to focus on and the unsteady mountains, too, refused to help.

The only thing that looked the same from their last visit: the old black tour bus of the band once known as The Lost Number, standing lonesome in the middle of this desert, caked in sand and beached like a steel whale. Like one of those anchors that existed in different timelines and dimensions, all tenuously connected by such rare universal constants.

She sat herself onto the hood next to Javi and plucked the cigarette from his fingers, then took a long drag from it. The words escaped her lungs like the smoke—scratchy and labored—when she said, “How long have you been a smoker?”

In the previous world, Javi had never smoked. One of many small details that had shifted, ever so slightly, when she returned from the House of Change—when the world was reborn.

“I started when I was, uh, like, eleven, I think?” he said with a shrugging twitch of his left shoulder.

“You not worried about cancer?” she asked while handing him back the cigarette and studying every inch of his face.

The messy black hair on his head and a burly stubble lining his sharp jaw framed a face as handsome as ever—that much had not changed. Plenty of reality’s details had stayed the same, at least on the surface. The eerie light of this otherworld sparkled in his dark eyes as he studied Kim with a curiosity to match her own.

His shoulder twitched again, accompanied by a tilt of his head as he replied, “Lotta things can kill me, and statistically speaking, I think one o’ these hunka-junks is gonna do me in first.”

Javi thrust out a thumb to the sports car they were sitting on. Although dirt and dried mud clung to its every surface, the fast vehicle standing still underneath them looked way too fancy for their budget.

“Look, not to be a pain in the—” he started, the thought trailing off. “You might wanna—”

His sentences kept dying halfway out of his mouth. She knew what he was getting at, his eyes darted up, towards sky, to underline that.

The clouds kept creeping. Ever closer. Like snakes in the water, homing in on them. On prey.

She nodded to him and peeled her eyes off of the living clouds, meeting his gaze again. Lingering there for a longing amount of time.

Kim wondered if she should ever tell him about all the things she noticed that had changed with the world. So many subtleties, so many curious details—so fascinating. And the more often she slept and the more she dreamt, the more the last world felt like a distant, fading memory. Javi would understand, she thought. But what was the point?

She wished none of the previous world back. Precious to some, meaningless to her. Some of the key differences to this one were all that mattered to her.

She pushed herself off the hood of the car and started walking towards the stranded tour bus. Mystified by how it had been taking less years to decay in this secret desert than would be natural.

“You want me to, uh?” he started muttering behind her.

“No, s'all good,” she breathed.

The closer she strayed towards the bleached black body of bus, the more her chest tightened.

It represented a cornerstone—or a pillar—the things that held the fabric of reality together despite any transitions from one world to the next. A bridge through space and time and likely the only reason that an invisible pocket of void connected our reborn world to this one, here. Now. And never.

Gunshot holes still pockmarked the walls of the bus, having been torn from the inside out. Other holes had been punched into it by long, dagger-like claws of an unspeakable creature.

The memory of Michael’s screams echoed in her mind. She stuffed back down whatever guilt that brought bubbling up, shoving it into the cellar of repressed memories and slamming the door shut.

Something else—something physical—slammed shut behind her, prompting her to pause and look back. Javi had removed a beaten up backpack from the trunk, sagging from his one hand, the cigarette in the other. He had started dragging his heel over the ground, drawing a crude circle into the sand around his car. The first step in crafting a ritual ward to keep otherworldly entities like ghosts and demons at bay.

He stopped for a second, looked up at her, and waggled his eyebrows with a twitch about the corners of his lips. As if to politely remind her to hurry things up.

She flashed a smile back at him and returned her attention to the abandoned tour bus. Only with delay did she notice how she had sucked in a good amount of air and was now holding her breath. Her whole body had tensed up.

Kim produced the revolver whose weight had been burning an imaginary hole into her leather jacket’s pocket, and gripped it tightly. She pulled the ajar door fully open and ascended the small stairs, entering the bowels of the steel husk. The door did not want to stand still and swayed in the wind, emitting high-pitched squeaks as its hinges creaked.

She raised her weapon and pointed it wherever she looked, wary of any threat that might be lurking in here.

But nothing awaited. Nothing hungry, and nothing alive, at the very least.

It all looked the same. A painful reminder of a recent past and distant memories alike.

Time had chewed up the dark red leather on the seats everywhere. Heaps of trash still littered the bus’ interior, matching the cliche of a rock star’s devastated hotel room.

Nails still pinned newspaper clippings to one wall, though some of them had fallen out and joined the junk on the floor. Reports of two men who had mysteriously gone missing—a Brent Carver and a Rick Sutton—members of the defunct indie rock band named “The Lost Number.” According to the jumble of clippings, only one band member had not vanished without a trace: Kevin Spilner.

Yet he only existed in the past now, and as far as Kim was concerned, would stay there.

Forever.

His mugshot, painfully familiar to her, still clung to one of the cut-out articles despite the ink’s slow process of fading. She did not like looking into the mirror and seeing that face anymore.

Although the rebirth of the world rendered memories of the previous one blurrier and fuzzier with the passage of time, flashes of that past life haunted her, flashing through her mind like the flashes atop old analog cameras.

How Brent and Rick disappeared out here in the desert, how no bodies were ever found, and how the police eventually released Kevin into the wild where he started a new life. And eventually found Kim.

The plastic of a broken CD case crunched underneath Kim’s shoe as she stepped over a pile of crumpled cans and walked deeper into the hopeless bus.

Nobody and nothing worthwhile here. As if she had been holding her breath all this time, she exhaled a deep sigh and lowered her gun, though her muscles refrained from relaxing. The tension remained.

She lifted her shoe and inspected the jewel case that had splintered underneath her step: an autographed copy of the EP, Sexy Vampire in the Basement by The Lost Number. The stylized photo of the three band members adorning its artwork, dressed like douchebags, replete with their faux hawk hairdos that had been the fashion du jour of any grunge band at the time.

It took her a second to realize the sharp sting of pain that began throbbing from her left palm. Inspecting it showed only that she had dug her fingernails deep into it from the sheer tension gripping her all the while. She sighed again.

Looked up. Followed the rest of the line of articles plastering the wall. The rest of Kevin’s career trajectory.

Either the rebirth of the world had changed nothing of it, or this pocket dimension had preserved this glimpse into a different age and existence. The flamboyant, cross-dressing bass player of the critically panned rock band had transformed into a successful stage magician on the Strip over the years that followed, drawing a small cult following. A snippet from a Rolling Stone interview book-ended the assortment of notes.

In red color, years ago, Kevin had spray-painted over the tail end of this creepy collage:

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Kim sighed again and let her gaze sweep over the sad past, just one more time. The pile of discarded cans of beans and bacon and empty lighter fluid, the ridiculous number of empty cigarette boxes stacked up on the table.

What a pathetic mess.

Struggling to grasp how long she had lived here, hiding out in this pocket space—it disgusted her. She had hid from the world for too long, in a place where mundane folk never wandered, where only demons and ghosts and rejects found comfort in dwelling.

She swallowed the lump of nothingness that had gotten itself stuck in her throat and had one last thing she wanted to look at.

The thing sitting in the back of the safe, sitting in the back of the tour bus. It was what she had come for.

Blood and gore had been sprayed and splattered along the narrow, almost claustrophobic walls leading ever deeper inside, long dried and flaking off. A strange substance, black like pitch and now with the consistency of caked, cracked mud now covered the area. Kim’s mind reeled with the imagination of how a creature native to this world had dissolved into goo there.

To get to that safe, to get to that thing she sought, she would have to walk this narrow corridor. Through the refuse and the haunting clues of past violence.

The only reason to brave this wretched place.

After taking the first steps, registering the taste of grit on her tongue, and finding that her knuckles had whitened as a result of how tightly she gripped the gun in her hand, she realized how fast her heart was racing. Pounding away.

Crunching and thumping noises behind her caused her to spin around and point the gun—at Javi, who stumbled up the stairs into the bus. She lowered her gun but the tension only grew, for panic marred his pretty face.

And terror made his voice tremble in an unsettling contrast to the words he said next, “Okay, time’s up. We got a problem, baby girl.”

Through gritted teeth, she asked, “What?”

Her gun rose, following suit as he raised the sawed-off shotgun in his hands, backing away from the entrance as if to back away from an invisible threat, twitching at every sound of the breeze pouring in through the bullet holes in the body of the bus.

The wind picked up and shook the world around them, like an earthquake. A chorus of whispers engulfed them. But not like wind should. Gibbering and incomprehensible but clearly words. Alien.

She stepped forward, some of the cans and plastic trash clattered and rustled underfoot as Javi and Kim ducked closer to one another, guns pointing away from each other, backing up until their backs touched.

“Ritual ward ain’t workin’ no more,” he said, voice still shaking. Before she could answer that, he added, “And no, I didn’t make no mistake. Somethin’s wrong.”

Something big moved, obscuring the otherworld’s diffuse light and making it flicker as the body of a huge serpent-like shape coiled around the bus, suffocating the light. It howled. Then whispered again.

“No, I don’t think it was you,” Kim breathed. “Shit, I shoulda known bett—"

The bus shook violently and the steel groaned. Screeched in pain. The metal twisted, bent. The walls slumped inwards, gripped and deformed by tremendous force. And that deafening howl resounded again, carrying with it a chorus of furious whispers, only intervals in the rising storm of howls and screeches.

“Let’s hope bullets work,” Javi shouted over the cacophony.

The muzzle flare made Kim see stars for a second, accompanied by black spots in her field of vision. Making the presence of the thick white clouds wrapping and coiling around the bus all the more menacing. And a sharp ringing in her ears followed the thunderclap of Javi’s shot. And then the next.

The howling turned to screeching, fluid and somehow alive, unlike the metal being rent apart.

She squinted and took a shot at something that appeared more solid than the rest, and the unnatural howls that followed suggested that bullets might be working after all.

Bright light flooded the inside of the bus, spreading to the tune of more metal being peeled back like an onion’s skins. The hungry cloud ripped away the entire ceiling and a roiling mass of living white smoke loomed over them.

Javi’s next shot made it recoil. It moved like a dragon with dozens of short limbs, more like a centipede. Its form defied definition. Kim could almost make out something resembling a neck. That neck ended in something resembling a hungry maw, consisting of thousands of teeth that were not teeth, struggling to take shape and just flowing like water and solidifying and back and forth.

She shot into the center of whatever this thing was and it screeched again, dispersing just like any cloud should but reshaping at the edges of the torn metal ceiling and taking cover from their shots. Looming, like a predator waiting for the right moment to pounce.

The string of profanities Javi eked out behind her only underlined his panicked attempts at reloading his gun and fumbling with the ammunition. But the world had grown strangely quieter, through a screen of the deafened ringing in her ears from the many loud shots. Gun smoke stung as it filled Kim’s nostrils.

Her pistol punched another hole through the side of the bus as she took a potshot at the hungry cloud. The angry howls that followed were only a prelude to the thing grabbing and shaking the whole bus with violent force. The world nearly spun around as the bus nearly toppled over.

Two more blind shots made it stop and another hungry cloud darted across the hole in the ceiling, coiling around the bus and crisscrossing with the first one. The bus rumbled and shook, falling back into its upright position, making her stomach churn.

They had no eyes but Kim felt watched. Felt the hatred radiating from these things like heat.

A raging inferno.

The blue water of the sky began to swirl like a vortex, like a whirlpool was beginning to form in it. But she had no time to ponder it, for tendrils of the hungry cloud formed claws, prying at the hole and trying to force its way deeper inside. The maw closed in.

She took another shot that caused it to recoil, backing away and then flowing back outside. She continued pulling the trigger, but the weapon just clicked away with empty chambers.

Click, click, click, click.

Another deafening shot from Javi’s shotgun behind her maintained the numbing screen of ringing in her ears. More angry howls. The presence of the clouds disrupted the flow of air, and a violent gust of wind heralded a sudden change.

The giant forces shaking and crushing and tearing up the old tour bus let go of it. Distanced themselves.

Even at a growing range, Kim could feel the flaming despise emanating from these unnatural entities. Although they possessed no facial features, she sensed one of them catching a glimpse of her as something distantly resembling a head flowed past the hole in the ceiling, joining the other cloud-dragons.

Even as the distance between the bus and the hungry clouds grew, the adrenaline still pumped. Kim’s heart continued pounding like a drum, underscored by that painful ringing in her ears. She continued to point her empty gun at the intangible things while the unspeakable entities backed farther and farther away from the bus, melting into wisps of other clouds adrift in the rippling skies.

Where they recovered. Re-channeled. Readied themselves for their next assault.

With a trembling hand, she pawed around in her other jacket pocket for spare bullets but found none.

“You got what you came for?” Javi asked. His voice quaked.

They had both ducked down and cowered, glued to the old demolished furnishings inside the bus. Things that offered comfort in the illusion of providing cover, but provided none against entities that moved like mist and possessed the power of giants.

“No,” Kim breathed.

“Then fuckin’ get it. They might be coming back,” he said.

She glared at him.

He grimaced and said, “Sorry.”

Staying low and moving while staying crouched, she sidled along the length of the corridor into the back of the bus. Javi stayed behind, keeping his gun trained on one of the gaping holes that the fog-things had ripped open in the chassis of this steel carcass.

Kim paused when something metal clanked. A shard of scrap metal had fallen down and Javi’s gaze met hers. He shook his head and she turned, continuing on.

The pounding of that drum that was the heart of fury and adrenaline, it calmed. Slowly. Although it felt longer than it was, a minute had passed since the retreat of the roiling cloud-monsters.

She dared to stand up straight and look around in the room with the ratty bunk beds. For a moment, she expected to see Michael sitting there. But all she saw was her own shadow, her silhouette cast into a humanoid shape where she had seen him sitting last. A reminder of the demon that had taken him—taken him over, ascended as the Glass King. A wide smile, too wide to look natural, baring bright white, clean teeth. Underlining a set of piercing steel blue eyes, and that flash of silver in them.

That evil. That ambition.

None of it here, now. Nobody was here. Nobody but Javi waiting near the exit, and nobody else but Kim.

She turned and her eyes came to rest on the small black safe set into the wall. Still intact.

The door of the safe stood open. First and foremost, dust and grit filled its insides. That, and a small mirror standing at the back wall, inside the safe.

Kim stared at herself, lost in the sinuous vision. Not vanity enthralled her, but fascination over every curve of her own face, so unexpected and yet so true to what she had imagined. So right.

So her.

Most of all, she felt content. So content that everything was a million miles away. The memories of demons and Michael, the cloud creatures, the weight of the revolver in her hand, the perils of the House of Change, the oblivion that swallowed people whole in the otherworlds, the laws of magick, the constant paradox, the dreams that blended with reality, even Javi—they all faded away. Peeled back like layers of reality unfurling like flower petals, like a rose blossoming and blooming in a time lapse.

All that remained—all that remained was this mirror.

She reached inside the safe and took it. First, Kevin had seen it here, mystified by its meaning and terrified by what it might represent. Michael had left it here, to see through it from beyond any veil, and to control his potential thrall. Now, Kim took it. She would make it her own.

Held up close, she looked into her own eyes, the rest of her appearance and this bright otherworld around her all cropped out by the angle.

Infinity churned in those black holes, framed by vibrant colors, scintillating with fire and metal in the color of her irises. Life, vibrant, and yearning.

Her fingers curled around the small reflective object as she closed her eyes and breathed. The adrenaline, the rushing of blood in her ears all distant and subdued.

Content, finally.

Kim shoved the mirror into her jacket’s pocket and left.

Nervousness still marked Javi’s face when he looked up at her from his hiding spot. His brow shot up into a high arch of confusion. Kim knew how serene she must have looked now, felt the thrum of this powerful calm from the core of her body and emanating outwards like a bright aura.

“Done. Let’s go,” she breathed at him.

He stumbled a bit as he got to his feet and took the lead. Paused at the bottom of the stairs leaving the old tour bus, pointing his gun from one side to the other and then poking it outside. The fright of the cloud-creatures still haunted him and showed itself in his every abrupt motion, but Kim followed behind him in a trance of almost unnatural tranquil.

With nothing in sight, he began making his hasty return to the sports car outside, kicking up dust as he jogged up to it.

Kim followed and only now registered the heavy pull of the emptied gun in her hand. She stared at it and remembered all the times she had used it in the past, savoring the idea of tossing it. Then she changed her mind and shoved it into the other pocket of her leather jacket.

Javi swung his weight to plop back down into the driver’s seat, causing the small lithe vehicle to bounce a few inches under the sudden impact of his weight.

Kim clicked her tongue and smiled through her speaking, “Let me.”

Javi peeled his eyes off the sky where the cloud monsters dwelt. Stared at her in disbelief, realizing how she had stopped paying attention to those potential threats. Kim took twice the time to walk towards the car, not speeding up her pace at all.

He shook his head and climbed back out of the driver’s seat. Tossed the keys to her which she caught with precision that surprised even herself. They took their seats in the car, slammed the doors shut, and within seconds, the engine’s motor roared back to life.

Wheels kicked up dirt as the Dodge spun on the spot and circled around, then sped off towards the cracked and pothole-riddle strip of forgotten asphalt. Metal screeched and sparks flew as the vehicle scraped over tarred grounds and found proper traction on the broken road.

All the while, Javi kept rubbernecking around, peering out of the windows to see if he could spot the things nearing. Kim just kept her focus on the road in front of them. Unconcerned of what lurked in the bright sunless sky.

A gust of wind carried a tempest of sand, engulfing the car. When it passed, the Dodge was driving down a different road. It looked almost the same, but it was more intact than the otherworld’s imitation of one.

This was the natural world they came from.

The sun set to their right. A yellow fireball in the sky, scorching hot and a reminder of them having returned to our world. Or what our world had become.

The car thundered past a weathered sign by the roadside.

SOUTH

306

NEVADA

“Any ideas why the ritual ward didn’t work? Was it those things?” Javi asked after a long bout of silence and a subsequent deep sigh that conveyed a sense of relief.

After all, those cloud-beasts could only exist in that otherworld, or by taking possession of a body from our world.

“Got a hunch,” she replied. Nothing else. That calm drowned out the desire to over-explain.

She could feel his gaze resting on her but she did not meet it, keeping her eyes on the road still. Only shooting a glance at the speedometer. Needle climbing, going fast. The hum and vibration of the vehicle felt good and she savored the pressure of the sheer velocity.

Without looking at him, she could sense the gears churning behind his forehead.

“Got a feeling that all of the old magick doesn’t work anymore. I remember reading some old book. Like, all the old spells from the late medieval period? This one monk said they stopped working at some point. A later occultist wrote some babble about magick only working because you believe in it despite the paradox of it not existing, evidenced by all the old rituals that never worked. But I think that guy had no clue.”

Javi scratched the stubble on his chin, sounding like sandpaper on wood.

“And you think that’s what happened in the House o’ Change? Because o’ what you did in there?” he asked, the pitch of his voice rising with each question. “Does that mean you're—”

“Yes,” she said, interrupting him.

Smiled.

“What if someone else makes it to the Heart of the House? If they birth the next world, does that mean you—”

“No,” she said. The smile solidified on her face, yet softened. Like molten steel. “Nobody can change me—nobody change my metal soul. Nobody.”

Her words trailed off with her thoughts. The road to Vegas would be long and something sinister still awaited them there: the Glass King and his flock.

Kim swallowed the lump in her throat, pushing that thought back down. She felt something more powerful that trumped it.

Hope.

Then she added, “I will now always be me, no matter what becomes of this world, or the next, or any that follow.”

Silence draped itself over them again, filled only with the constant sounds of the engine and the tires rolling down the road at high speed.

Kim removed her hand from the stick and held it out to Javi. An open, empty palm. Yet, invisible to the naked eye, she held her heart out on display for him.

He looked into the hollow of her palm, then let his gaze wander up the length of her arm till their eyes met again. Just before she could feel uncomfortable about it, he seized her hand.

She smiled again.

Squeezed.

—Submitted by Wratts

[chogisad]

Run-ins | Part Three

Part 1 | Part 2

Genre: Angst.

Length: 3K

Pairing: Chanyeol x Reader. Sehun x Reader.

Summary: "Maybe you should let her decide," Chanyeol challenges and Sehun's nostrils flare. This is familiar ground, rivalry and retaliation. Their eyes meet and the crowd presses forward, feels the sharp tension, the whisper of ferocity a pin-prick on their necks.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Jongdae asks as he turns the wheel to park alongside the curb.

You wring your hands in your lap, as if you're clutching an imaginary rosary. Its an absent minded habit, to second-guess yourself minutes before jumping, but your determination wins out this time.

"What's the worst that could happen?" You try, and Jongdae only shakes his head.

When Chanyeol had extended the invitation to one of his infamous house-parties, your knee-jerk reaction was to type out a decline. You'd heard the rumors; Chanyeol's parties weren't just college blowouts. They tested the limits of legality. If you wanted something illicit, this was the place to get it. If you wanted to be self-destructive, this was the place to do it.

"Sehun wanted me to live a little, right?" You say, more conviction in your voice, now spurred by a remembered bitterness. Jongdae only sighs, coming around to open your door for you.

He knows this game. He's watched you and Sehun dance around each other since he first met you during your first year of college. He never really understood it; this twisted game where you both pushed each other, where you both tried to gage when the other would break.

The music is already too loud. Cars trample the dying grass and empty beer cans and shattered bottles litter what was once a perfectly manicured lawn. Two people are making out on the porch, hands travelling dangerous territory for such a public place and you feel yourself blush before you even enter the stuffy living room.

You cough a little as the front door opens and the smell of marijuana and cigarette smoke hits you like a wall. Its cloying, the space too hot, too crowded, and almost immediately, you're swallowed into the mass of bodies.

You lose Jongdae in the jumble of people trying to dance. Every available surface is scattered with liquor bottles and people brandish their red cups like trophies, like this party is their greatest triumph.

You spot Chanyeol on the other side of the room and something in your stomach churns-- anticipation, anxiety, fear. He detaches himself from his friends and makes his way over, broad shoulders and infamous reputation easily parting the sea of people.

"Hey," He greets simply, planting himself close, his eyes drinking in your figure.

You blush under his gaze and pull nervously at the hem of your top. You feel a little unsteady, unsure, among all these bodies lost in oblivion.

"Thanks for the invite," you say, too aware of everyone bumping into you. And maybe he can sense it, your hesitation, your precaution, the way you're starting to lose your footing in the noise, in the masses of people being reckless.

"Here," Chanyeol hands you his cup. "It'll make you feel better."

You take it with a grateful smile and down the liquid in one go. It stings, awful and rancid and you hate the way it sits in your stomach, hot.

Chanyeol takes your hand and guides you through the crowd. The muscles on your shoulders loosen a little as the fresh air from the backyard engulfs you. Chanyeol hands you a second drink and you sip this one more carefully as you both come to lean on the balcony.

"I didn't think you'd come," Chanyeol says, taking a quiet taste from his own cup.

"Why not?" You wonder, turning to look at him.

Chanyeol calculates his words, paces himself through this because he knows what he wants; he knows the reaction he wants.

"Sehun talks about his roommate a lot," He begins, and watches as you bristle. "Once said you spend a lot of time in your room studying for exams you know you'll pass."

He watches as your cheeks redden. He can see it, the way you're pushing back against the staleness of your life, against the perceptions of who you are, against Sehun himself.

"Sehun doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does," you snap, and you tip the red cup down your throat. You clench your teeth as the vodka scalds your throat, but you don't care.

Silence holds suddenly, a little tense, as Sehun hovers over the both of you. Even here, you hate him for being the way he is.

"I'm glad we're out here," Chanyeol says, breaking through the estranged quiet. "It was getting too stuffy in there."

You look at the people around this space. The moon bares witness as drunk college students try the impossible and toss a ping pong ball into cups of questionable liquid. Someone is taking a piss into a bush, and someone else is napping on the grass.

"You have one of these parties every weekend?" You ask, curious, eyes taking in the unfolding chaos, the uncaring abandonment.

Chanyeol only shrugs. "It keeps the loneliness away," he says offhandedly, not realizing the implication or depth of his words.

"Why are you lonely?" Chanyeol hears you ask him, your voice too genuine.

And maybe he's had too much to drink already. Maybe he's tired. Maybe he's feeling a little empty again, but he likes the way you are up at him, all innocent eyes begging for answers, begging to have your heart broken. And maybe this is the part Sehun's been missing, why he's never been able to understand you; to take, you have to give.

So in that moment, like before, like calculating a music note, like calculating before winding a string, he decides to give you something you can hold onto. He knows girls like you; always careful, always wanting to fix the world around them, and he figures, this is how he draws you in.

"I don't know," Chanyeol says, drawing the answer from somewhere within himself, knowing this is what you want. You want someone to figure out, someone to unravel, someone to put back together.

The alcohol is hitting you now in gentle pulses. Your heartbeat is a little quicker in your ears, a little more volatile, and you don't like his sad smile. You don't like the way he swishes the alcohol in his drink, too pensive, so you get a little brave for the both of you.

"Maybe you don't have to be," you murmur, before leaning up to kiss him.

Chanyeol tosses his drink aside so he can pull you closer. He likes this side of you, likes that maybe you're not as good as Sehun thinks, because he knows you're using him. But a part of him doesn't care. Because Chanyeol also likes the way you feel, small, breakable in his hands, so willing to toy with something you could never understand.

So you go from there. Chanyeol hands you another drink and then you're kissing on the dance floor. Everything feels loose, feels perfect, feels vibrant and alive. His hands press into your hips as you grind back into him, as the music courses through your bloodstream alongside the liquor and you love this feeling, love being wanted. You don't get why Jongdae thought this was a bad idea because you're having fun, buzzing with energy, and Chanyeol's laughter is melodic in your ear.

The floor vibrates with the beat, and you spin in his arms. You run wandering hands over his chest and he pulls you in for another kiss, drunken, messy, smiling into your mouth. God, you press even closer to him and you're burning, uncaring that people could be watching. He brings a leg between your thighs and you moan into his mouth, feel his fingers gripping your forearms to steady you and you get the message, you understand his intentions even through the fuzzy haze.

Chanyeol guides you away from the crowd and your back slams a wall. You rope him back in, needy, desperate, and your fingers pull at his hair when his lips find your neck. Its overwhelming, the heat, the noise, the sheer risk of someone watching even in this dark part of the house.

"Do you want to try something?" Chanyeol murmurs against your skin, and you shudder in his hands as he licks a stripe up your neck. You nod, of course you do, because nothing makes sense except him, except his touch, except his taste, except his smell. You'd say yes to anything in this moment, precaution thrown to the wind.

Chanyeol pulls out a little white pill from his pocket, and you don't think twice. You don't consider the repercussions, the implications. You don't think about appearances as you let him place it on your tongue.

"Welcome to the dark side, princess." He breathes, hot against your ear and your knees almost give out as you swallow.

You don't really know how much time passes between Chanyeol inviting you to something new and the rest of your life. You take to the dance floor, feel so many eyes on you as you let the music consume you, as you weave through colors and sensations and somewhere, Chanyeol only watches you with sweet amusement.

You don't register when Sehun first arrives. You don't see as he careens through people until he finds you.

"What are you doing?" Sehun questions you, grabbing you by your forearms to keep you still. He pets your sweaty hair away from your face and you blink, rapid and languid all at once, unsure of what he's asking. The entire world is pulsing with different shades of color, and you could swear the walls are moving, playing hopscotch across the entire room.

You pull away from him. "Isn't it obvious?"

Sehun only gapes at you. He registers your state, your bloated irises, the unsteadiness of your feet.

"What did you take?" He demands, holding your face in his hands to inspect you closer.

"It doesn't matter. I'm having fun," you snap, trying to step away, and Sehun is furious. His mind is whirring, angry blame already coursing through him but his worry is louder. Sehun carefully tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.

"Come on. I'm taking you home." He says through gritted teeth. He eases out of his jacket and begins to throw it over your shoulders, but you're done with this. You're done with him.

"I'm not gonna keep following you around, Sehun." You lash out. "This is what you wanted, right? For me to live my life?"

Sehun holds silent for one second, maybe two, before he grabs your wrist.

"You're out of it. Lets go--"

"Maybe you should back up, Sehunnie." Chanyeol suddenly appears. He steps in front of you and Sehun is forced to let go, to stare at the both of you with disbelief that instantly transforms to rage.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Sehun rounds on him, shoving him back. Chanyeol only smirks, revels in the promise of chaos.

"What did you give her, Chanyeol! You--"

"Nothing you haven't tried before."

"You know she's not like this-- what the fuck are you playing at?!" Sehun yells and he lunges. His fingers clasp around Chanyeol's collar and people are gathering, vultures drawn to the possibility of violence.

"You need to calm down--"

"I'm taking her home." Sehun growls, and he unhands Chanyeol, a snarl of disgust on his face.

"Maybe you should let her decide," Chanyeol challenges and Sehun's nostrils flare. This is familiar ground, rivalry and retaliation. Their eyes meet and the crowd presses forward, feels the sharp tension, the whisper of ferocity a pin-prick on their necks.

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into," Sehun breaks the trance, the game, and extends his hand to you. "Let's go home."

Someone snickers behind you and your anger returns tenfold. You hate him all over again for always thinking he's right. Vengeful, you set your feet firm at Chanyeol's side and wrap an arm around his waist. The world is shifting underneath you, in more ways than one, but you let your fingers curl around the material of Chanyeol's jacket to keep you upright. Sehun is coming in and out of focus, and you don't really recognize him anymore.

"Please," he says, only to you, his hand still extended.

"You don't want to be here." His voice is quiet, somehow still reaching you over the noise and the pressure and the uncertainty. His eyes are pleading, showing a growing desperation, and your heart softens. Your resolve waivers; you feel the shiver of your body as you reach for him too, as years of familiarity recognize someone that has always felt like home.

But just as quickly, you remember the other party and all the times he threw your own caution back in your face. It burns you from the inside, the resentment, the realization that you don't know how to trust him anymore.

"You don't know what I want," you spit out, and Sehun winces, recoils away from you. His jaw clenched, he looks between you and Chanyeol once more, unbelieving, before he spins on his heel and storms out, shoving onlookers in the process.

The entire crowd lets out a collective breath no one realized they were holding. You sag against Chanyeol, for some reason feeling defeated, and Chanyeol intertwines his fingers with yours.

"Come on-- let's dance." He says, pulling you back toward the lull of the music, the enchantment of the crowd, toward all these unfamiliar sensations running rapid through your entire body.

You reach up to kiss him in the dark, just like last time. Something savage and raw is burning your throat, and you blink away the tears before they ever have the chance of emerging. Chanyeol follows your lead here; he lets you bring his hands to your waist, his hands on your hips, his hands travelling up your neck. You grind on him, dirty, reckless, just like the other strangers searching for something to keep their indecisive hearts distracted. You let go-- of your convictions, of your caution, of a lot of things besides Sehun.

You grab another red cup of vodka or whiskey or whatever, but Chanyeol's long fingers pry it away before you can take a sip.

"You've had enough for tonight," Chanyeol says, an amused smile gracing his pretty lips. He holds the drink above his head, only chuckles when you jump up to reach it. You lose your balance, come crashing down onto his chest, and almost on instinct, his free arm wraps around your waist.

He keeps you upright, holds you firm against his own body and the moment stills. Chanyeol gazes down on you; something in his eyes softens, and your chest tightens. It's a moment that sits unabated, organic, sits alone without the shadow of retribution hanging over the both of you and you get lost in it, in never having been here before, not like this.

"Yeah," you breathe in the space between you both. "Maybe I have."

Its slow, the way his lips barely graze yours; no urgency, no demand, no invitation for anything else but a simple kiss at the end of a long night. His lips are like satin, as gentle as the flutter of a butterfly's wing, and you feel something behind your ribs shiver, uncertain.

"Let's get you home, yeah?" Chanyeol says, taking your hand in his.

Chanyeol is too drunk to drive so he finds a sober Jongdae. He walks you to Jongdae's car parked on the curb and when you begin to shiver as Jongdae fishes for his keys, Chanyeol shakes off his jacket, and gently, helps you get your arms through it. Jongdae catches a glimpse of the unfolding scene, and he locks eyes with Chanyeol, curious. Chanyeol only shrugs.

"Text me when you drop her off," Chanyeol requests, leaning on the car's door, after he helps you buckle your seatbelt. Your movements are still hazy, still coming undone, and you lean your head back against the seat.

"I'll see you soon," he says, petting your hair once, and again, Jongdae only watches in silence.

The drive back to your apartment is quiet, almost tentative. The world is spinning, the passing lights blending into each other, creating a luminescent disarray.

Jongdae doesn't really know what to say, what to ask, because he can already see a bruise blooming on your neck where Chanyeol got carried away.  He doesn't want to pry, but he also doesn't want to play middleman. His phone is still vibrating, still lighting up with messages from Sehun asking that he please get you home safely.

"Are you alright?" Jongdae asks, testing the waters, trying to remember whether he has a water bottle in the car or not.

You nod. You like the way your limbs feel weightless, unencumbered. You like that things don't hurt as much, don't matter as much, when you're in this state. It makes it easier to think about losing someone when you have another to kiss over the wounds.

"I had a good time."

"Are you gonna talk to him?" Jongdae tries, and you both know who he's referring to.

Some of it comes in flashes, other parts in waves; Sehun asking you to come home, his anger, his rapprochement. He'd offered you his hand, like so many times before; when you were younger, on the playground, it was his hand lifting you off the ground. At graduation, it was his hand helping you up the staircase to the stage. When you turned 21, it was his hand you held as you walked home, drunk and happy and grateful. You'd never declined, not like this.

"I don't have anything to say to him," you reply, and the words sting. They make something uncomfortable stir in your chest, maybe grief, maybe misunderstanding,

Jongdae pulls up to your apartment and you suck in a deep breath. Before you let the car door close behind you, Jongdae leans over the passenger seat.

"I just don't want you to get hurt, okay?" Jongdae says, and you only sigh.

It's far too late for that, for any of you.

PART ONE

PART TWO

© Chogisad

Masterlist

[berniewolfes]

(second) first date, bernie x serena  - asked by @matildaswan​. (Pretty heavily based off this headcanon of mine, after The Kill List).

ii. the whole dating thing

She asks her out to dinner in their office, her foot tracing the inside of Serena’s calf.

She’s been back a week, and they can barely keep their hands off each other. They had spent the weekend at her place, naked limb around naked limb, tangled and sweaty in the crisp winter air - apologies, platitudes, I love you (I love you, I love you) mumbled against bed-warm skin. Nerves had given way to want, inexperience to pleasure, and a brief stab of self-consciousness (Serena’s blushes hidden in the crook of Bernie’s shoulder, Bernie’s face hidden by a mess of hair) had faded into nothing; overwhelmed by joy, adoration, desire, which fill her body to the brim, until she felt like she might drown in them.

 She had let Serena make a map of it, of her body, in the bright, unforgiving light of her bathroom on a bright, unforgiving Monday. She had made her a cartographer of stretch marks and freckles and battle scars, and fresh blossoming bruises and all the places she has touched (all the places Bernie wants her to touch again); and her confident, curious fingers had made her ache. She had felt unfairly happy, exhausted, adolescent - buoyed by coffee-bitter kisses and skilled hands making quick work of freshly ironed blouses, and Serena’s soft early morning conversation from the passenger seat of her car (her hand playing with the loose thread on the thigh of her jeans).

So it takes every ounce of self-restraint not to kiss her in the elevator - in the seconds that drag between stops - or hold her hand in line for coffee, or while away the minutes before work making out like teenagers in her car; the handbrake poking into her hip. It every method of distraction not to guide her against her desk, the wall, her chair, the cabinet, when she sees her in their office, stretching her back with a yawn, when all she can think about is the trembling arch of her body off the bed the night before, the way she moaned her name. She wants her hands in her hair and underneath her shirt and against her thigh, wants Serena to fumble blindly to find purchase on the surface behind her.

Instead she buries her head in cases and a stream of patients, until their bodies slow, until they steady, until they fall into an easy domesticity, a rhythm of coffee and casefiles and a banter – which swerves between comradery and flirtation, and makes her brave.

It’s Thursday afternoon, and Serena is surrounded by a wall of paperwork, fumbles a pen absent-mindedly between her fingers, not looking up when Bernie clears her throat.

‘Would you like to go out on a date – with me – tonight?’ she asks, covering her clumsiness with a cough; peering at Serena through her fringe. There is a twinkle in Serena’s eyes, and a twitch at the side of her mischievous mouth, when she glances upwards at Bernie.

‘You know we’re sleeping together, right?’

Bernie cocks her head, throws a be serious look across the table – but a wide grin has settled on her lips, and she shakes her blonde waves loose, counts her lucky stars.

‘No, I know that’, she says, raising her eyebrows. She shuffles further down in her chair, knocks her foot against Serena’s. ‘I want to date you’.

Serena squirms a little, shifting in her seat as Bernie’s toe begins to trace absent-minded patterns in the inside of her calf, but she keeps her face set in a small steady smile.

‘You know, the whole thing’, she says, ‘Pick you up, take you somewhere fancy, somewhere horrid expensive, pay the bill, kiss you in the carpark, kiss you at your front door, kiss you - ’

The door is flung open then, and Morven carries the sounds of the ward in with her, the howl of a child, the squeak of wheels, the high ring of the red phone; and Bernie swallows her words down with a bite of her lip, a wry smile, a glance at Serena as they drag themselves from their chairs. And they won’t talk about it for the rest of the day – won’t get a second to catch a breath or inhale a coffee – but Bernie flies high for seven hours after Serena catches her hand on the way out of their office, leans in close, mumbles pick me up at eight? against a pile of hair.

-

The dress, which she tugs at (a little nervous, a little shy) hugs at her waist, hangs just below her knees, plunges in the middle of her neckline, and Bernie forgets how to put a sentence together. She just sort of stares, her mouth perilously close to gaping, her eyes studiously avoiding her chest; training themselves somewhere near her left ear. Serena’s face brightens, softens with affection and she leans forward, shuffles a hand through Bernie’s vaguely tidier fringe, smooths a hand down the sleeve of her white shirt (crinkled from the bottom of her locker, impervious to any hurried attempts at an iron) to grasp her fingers, give her hand a small squeeze.

‘You scrub up nice’.

‘You – you don’t look so bad yourself’, Bernie replies, and it had sounded good in her head, but comes out cracked and jumbled, with a blush and a shake of her head – because Serena is magnificent, and Serena is holding her hand; isn’t letting go.

‘Don’t worry’, she says, sidling into the passenger seat of Bernie’s car, her tongue poking through her teeth and a reassuring pat on Bernie’s bouncing leg, ‘we’ve already got the sex part under control – how hard can the rest of it be?’

Bernie lets out a loud, honking laugh; pauses as she puts on her seatbelt to lean over; kiss her happy mouth with her happy mouth.

-

They don’t go somewhere horribly expensive, they don’t go to a fancy restaurant. They go to their antebellum place.

Bernie peers over at Serena as they make their slow way down the cobblestones to the small Italian restaurant, with the red-checkered tablecloths, and the candles burning low; and her grip on Bernie’s hand (steadying her on the uneven ground) loosens.

‘Everything okay?’ she asks, as she moves to open the door, as they are shuffled towards the same table by the window, next to the large kids’ party – loud, stretched over three tables. It’s only when the waiter moves away that Serena shoots her a smile, pursed.

‘Same place?’

‘Is that okay?’

‘Course’, she says, then pauses, inspects Bernie, whose brow has furrowed, whose chest has tightened, who fights the urge to run, run now, before she screws it up anymore. It had been careless, stupid, to bring her here - a clumsy attempt at repeating their pre-war dinner date, at making this their place. She sees Serena’s expression soften a little, and she feels a stocking foot against her ankle, between jeans and shoes – lightly, briefly, ‘Of course, darling.’

Her face is light, but her tongue is heavy, and for a while all Bernie can think about is how much she hurt her when she left, so the evening starts off slow, stitled. They have to shout a little, lean in close to hear each other over the dozen or so children; and the crackled music on the speaker is an endless remix of garbled Dean Martin covers – which endeared them last time, and annoy them now. The restaurant feels like a battlefield; and the tension hangs in the tangles of Bernie’s hair, sits in the breadbasket between them, the space between their hands. Contrition, remedy, justification all hang on her tongue, as they have done for weeks, and she fidgets with her bare and chipped nails; until Serena places a hand on top of hers, stills them.

‘Before you left, when you asked me over for dinner’, Serena starts, and Bernie can’t bear to look at her, busies herself with the fresh nail polish on Serena’s slender fingers. ‘Would you have taken me to bed?’

‘Yes’, she answers quickly, ducking her head and clearing her throat, ‘Would you have come?’

Serena sniggers, and Bernie blushes, sinks a little lower in her chair, willing the words back in her mouth, trying to grasp them from the air in front of her. She dares a peek at Serena, whose eyes are bright with laughter, but whose mouth is earnest and shoulders are set, as she leans close to Bernie – raises an eyebrow, whispers yes; before settling back in her chair.

‘Well then’, Serena adds, with a sigh, ‘I’m sorry I scared you away.’

Bernie whisks her hair out of her eyes, tangles her fingers in Serena’s.

‘I’m sorry I got scared. Won’t happen again.’

‘Promise?’

‘Scouts honour’, she says, raises a hand in the air, a careful, cautious smile creeping across her face as another bottle of wine lands between them; and Serena laughs, and Bernie thinks this might be her new favourite place in the world.

-

She drives her home, a pile of leftovers in a bag on the backseat, stomachs and hearts and heads very full; faces warm and mouths brimming over with affection, with lamentations over going into work in six, seven hours.

She walks her to her door, bites at her lip and shuffles her feet when they reach the landing – too close for friends, too far apart for her liking. They’re swallowed by the darkness of her broken porch light, but Bernie can see the grin that plays on Serena’s mouth as she leans in close.

‘This is where you’re supposed to kiss me I think’, she whispers.

So that’s what Bernie does. Kisses her and kisses her, mouth clumsy on her mouth - all teeth and tongues, messy, wondrous. The material beneath her hands, wraps tightly around Serena’s waist and shifts as Serena shifts closer, as Bernie backs her against her own door – feet between her feet, leg between her legs; and Serena moans.

It’s only when Serena pulls away a little to fumble for her keys, to catch her breath, that Bernie makes a half-hearted attempt at goodnight, against the line of Serena’s jaw, against the column of her neck.

‘I – I should – I should go’, she mumbles, untangling herself a little, moving away a little, into the dull light of the street-lamp. But Serena grasps for her, for the lapel of her coat, moves her hands underneath it to tangle herself in the belt-loops of Bernie’s jeans, fingers resting against the bare skin of her hips. She is breathless, very close, her lips well-kissed, chest heaving.

‘Come inside?’

And Serena grins, wide, so Bernie can feel the upturned corner of her mouth on her cheek, when she mumbles against the shell of her ear.

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Like the Rat You Are

Rows upon rows of metal carcasses towered on both sides of the narrow valley of steel. Piles of trashed automobile wrecks, silent and dead, stacked to the high heavens. Metal and plastic scrap parts littered the dirty ground in between these monoliths of trash. Broken glass crunched underneath Kevin’s boot.

The sound of it echoed through these artificial canyons of industrial refuse, causing him to pause and look around with a sensation bordering on a panic. Under the cover of night, in the dead silence, that sound sliced through the sky like a knife. His heart raced, accelerating to ever greater heights as he held his breath and listened for any audible clue of reactions to the noise he had inadvertently caused.

After nearly a minute passed, he continued creeping through the junkyard. Closer and closer to the head office at its center, sneaking underneath the looming shadow of the claw that the crane and magnet-arms cast in the moonlight. He tried peering through windows to see inside the dark office, but grime and filth caked its panes, obscuring everything within.

The rusty metal of the door’s handle felt cold in his hand as he gripped it. And twisted. The door was open. Unlocked. Made sense, given that most of Dusty’s security focused on the entering the premises, rather than what was on the messy grounds.

For a moment, Kevin thought that he might succeed at this without anybody dying, after all.

He stepped inside and looked around. It smelled of metal dust and rust. And of the cold itself. It was deeply cold in here, almost more so than outside. So cold that his breath condensed into little clouds just in front of his mouth. That all disappeared when he closed the door behind himself.

The faint remnants of light that managed to seep in through the dirt on the office windows rendered everything in vague, dark silhouettes. There were probably shelves stacked with things, and chairs, and a desk. And yet other things, bunched up against the wall.

To shed some light, he removed a stainless steel lighter from his leather jacket’s pocket, flicked it open, and snapped the flint so it produced its tiny flame. With luck, tiny enough to not be too conspicuous, but enough to see anything in there.

Without any sign of life in the junkyard except for himself, and a more deafening silence inside the office, his heartbeat calmed from the pace it had picked up during his stealthy approach. He swallowed and took in his surroundings.

Most of what he expected to find in Dusty McVeigh’s office was there. The place was a terrible mess, but not any worse than some of the trailer trash homes, dingy motels, abandoned derelicts filled with squatters, and other run-down places Kevin had been in and out of over the course of the past year. Sometimes, that’s just where our mystical journeys take us. This was Kevin’s path.

A pile of random junk cluttered Dusty’s desk, but none of it caught Kevin’s eye. The things that stood out the most were the big solid black safe next to the water cooler—presumably what he had come here for—and an easel with a painting on it, standing all lonely in middle of the room.

The impressionist painting really drew and kept Kevin’s attention. It depicted this same room, with a view through the window onto the junkyard on a bright sunny day.

It was a damn good painting, too, he thought to himself. If Dusty had made this, then he had some serious talent. Maybe he should make a living in art instead of stealing from occult collectors?

The irony of his own thoughts was not lost on him, fully well aware that he was going to steal something from Dusty now.

The artifact had to be inside that safe. It would be the perfect place to keep it secure.

Kevin sidled up to the small vault and looked it over, inspecting its size and make. It looked extremely heavy, like a tow truck would have to drag it out of there, and it had been bolted down onto the floor. So taking the whole shebang was out of the question.

Combination lock. No way of guessing the numbers—Dusty was clever. The bastard would never use any easy combination that anybody could guess. The junkyard owner was missing half his teeth due to a crippling meth addiction and constantly smeared in dirt and motor oil all over, but Dusty McVeigh probably had the IQ of a super-genius. No other way he could work the juju he worked.

Kevin knew better than to just blindly try out different combinations on the lock. Instead, he pressed the tip of his index and middle fingers up against the number wheel of the lock and whispered while inhaling, “Diopes dism, emnothesis iento vingnorm. Mag crein.”

As he focused and the painful words escaped his lips, jumbles of mundane words and numbers coalesced in his mind. He started seeing, hearing, and tasting broken thoughts—thoughts stolen from the void to which Dusty’s thoughts had trailed off to in previous days.

Gazing into the sky while high as a kite, lying on the hood of an old muscle car. Furiously jacking off to photos of half-naked women in magazine advertisements. The cool calm nerves that came with smoking a cigarette after a long day of hard work. An argument with his friend and the pain his knuckles from throwing and landing a punch that connected to bone. Words that did not connect to sentences, numbers that did not belong together. Strings of arcane symbols that Dusty thought about a lot in his occult studies. Lots of books, most of them fiction.

Instead of drawing a sequence of numbers that opened the safe, something else took shape in Kevin’s mind. A pair of eyes. Glaring. Furious. Staring at him through the veil.

Not a memory. But the here and now. Elsewhere, but connected over a bridge of all things ethereal. Dusty had woken up—jolted awake because he had secured this safe with a spell of his own. Something that flared up the moment Kevin had tried to suss out the combination from the environs of the lock itself. Magick bound to the entire safe, clashing with Kevin’s spell, alerting Dusty to an intruder’s presence tampering with the safe in any way—including the intangible ways of magick.

There it was again: the racing heartbeat. Cold sweat erupting from Kevin’s pores. The feeling that bordered on panic, however, had returned with a vengeance. Full-blooded panic now, causing his glands to pump mind-numbing adrenaline throughout his body.

He had to act quickly now. Get creative.

A German shepherd’s barking in the distance underlined that growing sense of urgency balling up into a tight pit in Kevin’s stomach. Floodlights switched on outside, one by one. Bathing the towering piles of car husks in a glaring bright white shine. Turning the whole junkyard into a sea of light.

Before Kevin severed his spell—and thus the connection to that burning image of Dusty’s eyes, he last glimpsed bony hands with dirt under the fingernails gripping a shotgun. Loading slugs into its chamber. Pumping some mechanism, pumping little black-powder-powered agents of death.

Kevin stuffed the lighter back into his pocket, as the floodlights outside did their part in illuminating the office well enough for him to see everything clearly.

He scanned the desk with haste, looking for anything he could use.

Junk—just a lot of junk. He looked around the shelves, finding only tools, scrap parts, and more trash. Nothing useful. Not even a damned thing he could improvise as a useful weapon.

The barking neared. Someone shouted something. Dusty probably would be bringing company, both canine and human. Likely armed to the teeth. Everybody had guns in this neck of the woods, and the six-shooter weighing a ton in Kevin’s pocket would never have enough bullets for all of them. Not like he was much of a fighter anyway; the thing was usually more for show and coercion than anything else.

Then the painting caught his eye again. Dusty was clever, but so was Kevin. A desperate idea formed in his brain; something that might even work out.

The safe was depicted on the painting, too. Dusty’s meticulous attention to detail was going to be useful.

Kevin’s hands trembled as they dug through the assortment of junk on Dusty’s desk. Some of the useless objects clattered and clanked and fell off the surface of the desktop. Frustrated because he knew he had seen what he needed just seconds before but failed to find it now, he swept a whole load of items off the table, causing them to crash down onto the floor.

There it was: a thumbtack. It would serve well enough.

The noise outside got closer and closer. Probably less than a minute away. Creeping across that distance had taken Kevin minutes, but was a matter of seconds for the junkyard’s owner and his goon buddies.

Kevin licked his lips and stood in front of the painting.

“Wisthibrea, sestna wasterei velth, delwen sidrom,” he said, focusing on the painting with all his might. He repeated it again, blotting out the noise drawing ever closer outside.

Kevin then brought the thumbtack’s needle to the painting and began defacing it. Scratching over the safe’s depiction specifically. The scratching sounds swelled to deafening heights, swallowing all other sounds in the world to the point of turning the world around him silent.

He repeated the magick words a third time, this time just whispering them, but every syllable oozing out with clarity and purpose that resonated with the cosmos. He could practically feel the gravity of the stars all around, piercing the nightly sky and those stars seeing him simultaneously. Watching, silently judging. Pulling.

The needle tore into the canvas, chipping away dried paint and ripping up the fabric until it was just shredded threads. He couldn’t even hear his own breathing anymore.

Kevin’s head swiveled and he looked at the safe. Its front was missing, just a gaping hole with frayed edges, solid metal looking like it had been chewed away by a giant with steel teeth.

The contents of the safe were his to take.

A bunch of papers, stacks of cash, and other shit he had no use for.

All he wanted was that small alabaster statuette. Its maker in the 1800s had carved it to look like a praying Franciscan monk, maybe even the eponymous old sage himself. The history behind this thing had no bearing right now, though; Kevin dismissed any such thoughts.

All that mattered was this artifact’s secret power. Not only did he need it to find and get Kim out of that infernal town in Washington, it was now his only ticket of getting out of this jam he had gotten himself into. He grabbed the statuette, clutched it with all his might. Not going to let it go easily, now.

The barking was just outside. Intense. Angry. Hungry, maybe.

Kevin concentrated, wracking his brain to remember the precise words he needed to use to wield this artifact properly.

The shouting had become much clearer, as well.

The man yelling was none other than Dusty himself, swearing up a storm, “You dumb son of a bitch! I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you, you skinny pale-faced cross-dressing motherfucker, you! I know it’s you! Come out and I’ll make it quick, shithead!”

The windows exploded into a flurry of glass shards, the deafening echo of the gunshot followed, ringing in Kevin’s ears. Something warm trickled down his forehead, which he found to be blood from a fresh cut, from the glass that had shattered in the shot.

He ducked behind the desk, making his way towards the door.

“You’re dead! You hear me? You’re fucking dead!”

Another shot tore a gaping hole through the office’s flimsy wall. A cloud of dust continued to roil in the air in its wake, dancing in the bright light flooding in through that hole.

The pain decided to set in with delay, maybe thanks to the adrenaline. Nothing about it was good though, as it clouded Kevin’s thoughts. He reeled, stumbling and then crawling towards the office’s only door.

The sticky hot mess seeping out between his fingers from his belly region splattered out onto the floor.

He had no time nor capacity to check how bad it really was. Kevin currently couldn’t even be sure if he had been hit by anything from Dusty’s shotgun directly, or if it was just debris that the shots that had blasted through the office wall. Blood was blood. An injury an injury.

It hurt like hell, stinging, and robbing him of the strength needed to spring back up into standing. Every movement burned with an unpleasant fire in his gut. Acting on instinct, he pressed his other hand against it while dragging himself closer to the door, the alabaster statuette clutched in his other hand. Dark crimson dots marred the otherwise pure white surface of the object—his own blood.

Another hit and Kevin would be a goner. It was time to go.

He stared at the statuette in his hand and began reciting the words.

“Etheris brahecket hisret dwerio—”

A coughing fit broke out and interrupted his own speech, and each revolving contraction allowed the pain to flare up even brighter, clouding his field of vision with a darkness encroaching from the edges and bright lights glaring against it, leaving a kaleidoscope of colorful blind spots behind. His eyesight blurred but he blinked several times to dispel that growing visual impairment.

Encouraged by hearing his suffering, Dusty shouted outside, “Yeah, you like that, you lil’ bitch? Gonna string you up and eviscerate your sorry ass. Like the rat you are!”

Kevin gritted his teeth and started from the top, training his stare on the statuette while he repeated the magick words.

It looked so serene. So pure. What it looked like on the surface meant nothing, however. What truly mattered was the life force bound to it. The karma, or dharma, or essence, or mojo, or whatever the hell anybody preferred to call it.

“Etheris brahecket hisret dweriomon,” Kevin recited the magick words. His voice trembled as he focused on the incantation, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his abdomen.

“Son of a—don’t stand around, you lazy fuckers! Get inside and end that walkin’ piece of shit!”

Shuffling of feet. Tiny pieces of garbage and gravel crunching underneath the heels of people nearing the office entrance. Kevin did not need to see them, he knew they were all pointing guns at the door, prepared to kill a man without a second thought.

“Shoshiame wielnod eneroh, plagat thereo eteneadeth,” Kevin finished. Then he started repeating it.

He grunted, struggled to get up on his feet. Another shot tore another hole into the office wall nearby, shattering more glass. Something cut him as a consequence of that, but it was minor and the other pain deep down overshadowed it all.

Kevin let go of his injury and grabbed the rusty metal handle of the office door, leaving a bloody hand print on it. Cold in between his fingers, countering the hot stickiness clinging to his skin. Coarse and rusty, he could practically taste it.

But he never tore his gaze off the statuette, and projected his mind elsewhere. Directed his thoughts to another place. A dank cellar underneath a strip club belonging to a friend of his.

It would do.

He squeezed, twisted the handle, and ripped the door open. Another shot echoed through the air. The dog barked louder and angrier, and the men neared.

But behind that door was that dank cellar, not the junkyard outside the office. Kevin lurched through and slammed the door shut behind him.

The door to the boiler room, adjacent of that dank cellar. Over a thousand miles away from Dusty’s junkyard. Bridging the gap of space between South Dakota and Cleveland.

The relic had worked quite well. Unlike Kevin’s legs, now.

He stumbled forth, coming to a halt against a pillar in the dusty, damp room. He slumped against it and slid down until he remained sitting on the ground, once more gripping the injury where his stomach should be. The blood continued pumping out from there, hot and crimson and sticky. And heralding doom.

He sighed and even that hurt, causing hellfire to ripple through his body from the injury.

Eat shit, Dusty, he thought to himself.

He had retrieved the artifact. But at what price? Everything had a price.

The statuette could do the trick in finding Kim, but that hinged on him surviving this now.

Too bad, though. The blood just continued to pump, like it had waited for this very day to escape his sorry skin. The pain overwhelmed him.

He slipped out of consciousness.

Without any hope of opening his eyes to see another day.

—Submitted by Wratts