#plaque monster

[fhtagn-and-tentacles]

CTHULHU PLAQUE

by Grant Cross

[avidvampirehunter]

I know we are sad about Hiyori but can we take a moment to appreciate the sheer blessings of Yato-suffering we have received for the past three chapters? I can't be the only one reveling in all this delicious ✨ angst ✨

[karloff-the-uncanny]

Photos of when I visited Boris Karloff’s memorial plaque in Gildford crematorium, Surrey in July 2022.

It was a very modest memorial, just the same as every other one in the garden of remembrance. I liked that there is a yellow rose growing over his plaque, as Karloff used to grow roses and I like to think of his ghost tending to the bushes there.

Unfortunately I can never confirm whether or not his ashes were actually spread in the crematorium or not. I have heard conflicting stories.

I was a little disappointed that Boris wasn't there to greet me like this...

but maybe he was sick of the living by the time I visited! Our conversation was pleasant, but rather one-sided.

I hope to visit again soon.

[dobodleaday]

02.04.23 She’s always ready to assist

[senseibot-blog1]

Fantasy story where magic and knighthood have long become obsolete due to advancements in technology, but two bored college students just decided to learn them and go slay a demon lord or whatever.

And then the demon lord finds out about it and is absolutely ecstatic, because no fantasy heroes have tried to hunt him down since the middle ages. So he stages the perfect adventure for these bored college students to make sure they become the greatest adventurers ever and slay him in glorious combat.

[ozzgin]

Yandere!Monster x Reader [Asylum Spider]

A/N: This feels a little bit strange to post. It's an older OC (the drawing I used is like 3 years old) I had for a horror manga. I thought it would make a good yandere if you're into actual monsters. And the atmosphere is a lot like an indie horror rpg. :)

You wake up in a damp, dark room with no recollection of how you ended up here. Hovering above you is a repugnant beast whose appearance terrifies you into silence. Yet it doesn’t attack you. Quite the opposite, it seems to want to guide you outside. You must escape quickly, as whatever lurks above causes the creature to squirm in fear. Yet as departure approaches, a desire blooms within its ancient heart: must you really leave it behind?

TW: Monsters, horror, implied violence/abuse

Your vision is blurry and your head is throbbing with a harrowing, unbearable headache. You've been awakened from your unexplainable slumber by cold yet burning drops of liquid hitting your cheek at irregular intervals. You squint and try to focus on whatever lies before you. Slowly, the object becomes sharper and your eyes widen in terror. Drooling above you, a monstrosity. It looks almost human. Sharp, curved teeth are grotesquely gawking their way out. The skin is discolored, similar to the blueish tint of someone struck by hypothermia. The creature seems to be wearing a strange sort of straight jacket, tightly securing the arms and ending in a shredded rag, dangling between the skinny, crooked legs. Yet the most disturbing feature are the massive arthropod appendages that fan out from behind, suspending the abomination above ground.

The ridiculous, offensive sight drains the blood from your face and you hold your breath. You wait for the final blow that never arrives. It lowers its head and inhales deeply, trying to detect if you're still alive. Satisfied with the answer, it scurries aside and leaves you enough space to lift yourself up. The wide smile remains plastered on its face, making it look like a deformed mannequin. With nothing left to lose, you decide to risk it. "Can you talk?" you mumble, unsure about the potential response. It shakes its head in denial and you raise your eyebrows. So it can understand human speech.

You stand up and look around. There's a pungent smell irritating your nostrils, and large pipes slither their way over walls and ceilings in a maze of rusted metal. The floor is flooded and your ankles are sunken in murky water. Above the only door hangs an old plaque, eaten by mold and age. "W∎ter & Drain∎∎∎: Pro∎∎rty of ∎∎∎∎∎ Asylum". Ah. This must be the sewers, then. How did you even end up in the sewers of an asylum? Maybe someone upstairs can provide you with answers. You turn to the creature that has been obediently observing you.

"Can you take me to the main building?"

The humanoid spider screeches and trashes its appendages across the water. You jolt and step back instinctively. Is it mad? Have you upset it somehow? No, if anything, it looks afraid. You stare at its bizarre convulsions until it occurs to you the movements aren't quite as erratic as you assumed. It is drawing something using a swamped patch of ground.

Don't let find you Get out

You're choking with dread again. The ominous words send a cold chill down your spine and you shiver, helpless.

"How am I supposed to get out if I don't know where the exit is?" You demand with your last ounce of energy. 

It wobbles its way towards the door, and stops to face you expectantly. Is it offering to guide you? You're not quite sure whether to trust the ghoulish creature, but the rotting room is filling you with panic. 

Anything is better than being alone here. 

What a suffocating atmosphere. The corridors are tall, narrow and black. You can barely discern anything around you and the only sounds are the ghastly echoes of the metal creaking and bending from the water pressure. That, and your uncertain steps across the muddy flow. You glance at the creature. Its eyes are covered by a leather blindfold, so the darkness mustn't be an impediment for it. Then again, how can it tell its way within this colossal labyrinth?

"Is this where you live?" you whisper, trying to make conversation. You need something to distract you from your pounding heart.

It nods hesitantly. 

Your foot hits something and you instinctively attempt to kick it off. Perhaps some algae that begun developing in this forgotten grave. It seems to have wrapped around your ankle, so you bend down to remove it with your hands. It's a soaked sheet of paper. The ink has mostly diffused into the page, but you can still read some of the larger headlines. "Dozens have disappeared. The mystery of the abandoned Asylum, believed to be haunted by the countless victims of horrid experimentation". Next to the title is a photograph too smudged to make out.

You stop in your tracks, focused on the blurry letters. The monster patiently waits for you. Is it something to be asked? You gaze up at its features, trying to take in the details. You take a deep breath in and open your mouth. 

"Did they...um...do this to you upstairs?"

It seems to ponder your question with the same unfaltering grin that now feels painfully forced. Finally, it nods.

What a strange little creature you are. He returns your curious stare. Now that he thinks about it, you must be the very first person to follow him. When was the last time he spoke to another living creature? He can't remember. The others would panic beyond control at the mere sight of him, blindly running away and getting lost in the sewers. Later he'd find their bodies quickly decomposing under the running water, and he'd dispose of them outside. No one deserves to die here. The really unfortunate ones made it upstairs, into the asylum. He'd rather not brood over it. 

Yet here you are, asking questions and walking alongside him as if you were on a stroll. He doubts he's gotten less hideous over the years. Then again, he can't see to confirm. Just as he can't see you. Despite his lack of vision, he is overwhelmed by the feeling that you're a beautiful being. You must be. And thankfully, you won't have to worry yourself with any of the horrors lurking these cursed grounds for much longer. He'll help you escape.

Then he'll be alone once more. It shouldn't bother him this much, it's always been like this. But meeting you has reminded him just how much he missed the presence of another human, how dearly he longed for a kind voice. Is it selfish to fear isolation? 

"Oh! You're right, I can see a gate from here." You exclaim in gratitude. 

You sprint towards the rusty bars and feel a cool breeze against your skin. This must lead outside. The creature has kept its word. Soon enough all of this will be a nightmare of the past.

"I-" 

The monster seems to be making an effort to speak, but all that comes out is a dissonant croak. You're confused and he can sense it. 

Must you really leave him behind? He needs to let you know that he'd like to stay with you, but his throat is contracting pointlessly and there's nothing he can use as a writing surface. What is there to do? His chest is tightening with the frenzied desire to keep you with him forever.

Please don't leave him.

[missmonstermel]

Medieval Shrieker wall plaque blanks will be up for preorder this Friday at 2pm PST! From sculpting in @monsterclayusa to mold/cast using materials from @smoothon, this angy fella took a lot of time. I styled him to look like medieval European depictions of devils and mystery creatures, something you might see peeking from the margins of some old tome . Check out the little pal on his head! What do you think they all talk about? Can’t wait to paint one of these casts up! ( you can learn more about my molds/casts by joining my patreon) #missmonster #missmonstermel #medievalshrieker #medievalmonsters #monster #creature #sculpture

[macfrog]

birds of a feather | joel & ellie

y'all listen to the new billie eilish album? there's a song that reminded me of a couple of someones.

pairing: joel miller & ellie williams summary: joel surprises ellie on her sixteenth birthday. warnings: nada. just me loving hard on this pair. word count: 1.5k

main masterlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🤍

Oh, my god, it is a dinosaur.

She didn’t actually believe it would be. I mean, it was her first guess – but where the fuck is he going to find a dinosaur way the hell out here? She was kidding.

Wasn’t a convertible, wasn’t a puppy, wasn’t even a lotta kittens. A litter. Whatever. It wasn’t a new pair of sneakers, nor a comic book collection. She’d almost run out of ideas, when she spotted the tail through the bushes.

Is that–? Is he seeing this, too?

It’s, like, three times the size of her. No, wait – five times the size of her. Ten? She’s gotta ask Joel.

Two thick, stocky legs planted firm into the earth. Draped in ivy and spattered with moss – the thing actually looks prehistoric. Head lifted to the canopy; teeth bared in a silent roar. His little arms – alright, they’re actually kinda fuckin’ cute – frozen, reaching for something.

It’s right fucking there. Right in front of her. A motherfucking dinosaur.

Her hands fly to her head.

“Joel!” Ellie cries, and she can hardly feel her legs with giddiness.

Joel lingers a few steps behind her. He kicks a heel through the mucky grass, just watching. Smiling like an idiot, letting the ripples from the kid’s glee wash over him. It’s like the zoo all over again, or that time he found a Savage Starlight poster while out on patrol.

Ellie’s laughter is ticklish, vibrating through his veins. She pumps her fists and sizes up the monster. She says holy shit, Joel three times before she takes a step closer.

The sun trickles through the leaves, haloing over the Rex. It’s warm, but not too warm – and the swim on the way helped cool them down. It’s a bit of a hike to get here. He’s just glad it’s a nice day.

He was, truthfully, a little nervous about it. About bringing her here. He’s never had a sixteen-year-old to plan shit for. What if she didn’t like it? Hell, what if she thought it was fucking lame?

But Ellie wades waist-deep into the moat instantly. She pulls herself through the murky water straight to the plaque, and whips out her journal.

And Joel knows he’s fucking nailed it.

“King of the tyrant lizards,” she announces, making sure she gets the spelling right. Her tongue pokes from the corner of her mouth as she sketches.

Joel wanders over to her side, hand combing through the tangles of leaves drooping from the dinosaur’s belly. He swats fluttering flies away from his face.

The water sloshes around her feet as she rounds the tail. It’s slippery with slime. She crawls over threads and vines, soles scuffing up the spine.

“What are you doin’?” he asks, a chuckle patching over cracks of sudden fear.

“I’m climbing a dinosaur!” Ellie yells. She hesitates on the snout – though only for half a second, because fuck it, how many times am I going to jump off a motherfuckin’ dinosaur? – and then she’s plummeting.

Joel’s stomach flips. He staggers into the water, breath clamped in his throat until she resurfaces again.

She’s still wearing that dumb as shit smirk. It probably didn’t flinch, the entire fall. “Did you see that?” she gasps.

Jesus. Yeah, he saw it. He pulls a hand down his face.

It’s been a year, little less than. They’re used to it by now – the slow turn of life in Jackson. Breaking bread in the dinner hall, calling the woodland creatures by whichever ridiculous names Ellie christens them with.

It took a few weeks, but eventually, their heartrates settled. Their fists loosened. They relaxed into the quiet, found respite in the negative space.

Tommy joked for the first little while that Joel had a shadow he couldn’t shake. She’s five-three, red hair, and she carries a switchblade everywhere she goes. Following him close enough that she felt more like a phantom at his heels.

Joel never minded, and he still doesn’t. He’s long forgotten the feeling of being alone – as quickly as he acquired it, it seems. These days, he waits at his kitchen table for the kick of the backdoor, the slump of a still half-asleep teenager opposite him.

He wonders how he ever got by so long without it.

He leads Ellie into the museum.

Everything looks exactly how he left it. A jungle of a building; shattered glass and overgrown grass, a muggy smell lingering in every dim corner. The stuff he deliberately left for her to stumble upon when she got here: a Giants of the Past brochure, the stupid hat he knew she’d force him to wear.

A marshland wasteland, and she still sees the magic in every square inch.

She throws fact after fact at him. Fruit flies and moon landings, gunpowder and Yuri Gagarin. She knows a shit ton, if the stacks of books on her desk are anything to go by. And when Joel tells her how smart she is, Ellie smiles smugly to herself and thinks up ten more facts, just for him.

He thinks of her books and their awkwardly long titles, the faded pictures on all the covers. Astronauts and nebulas and faraway suns. He offers the one thing he remembers from school back at her: My very educated mother just served us nice pizzas.

She’s never even heard of it.

But she’s impressed, and she repeats it to herself as she explores some more. Turning back at every new artifact she finds, beckoning Joel over with a flapping hand.

He wanders after her, thinking up questions he’s sure he already knows the answers to – just so she can tell him again. Just to see her face light, to hear her ramble as she explains.

And nine times out of ten, she corrects him, anyway.

The space shuttle is spotlit under a dome roof, more ivy spilling over the top. A little heap of machinery, succumbed to the nature around it. They crank the door open together, and a springtime heat floods from the cockpit.

Joel stops Ellie from climbing in. “You’re goin’ into space,” he says, leaning on the warm metal. “You’re gonna need a helmet.”

Her eyebrows lift. “Oh, right. What was I thinking?”

They’re too big for her – all three helmets. They’re clunky and clumsy, the visors a little grubby and distorted. But she pulls one over her head and jogs back to Joel, hoisting herself into the shuttle.

It’s cramped inside; stifling even with the door wide open. Joel feels his back twinge as he settles into the seats. But he doesn’t mind, and neither does Ellie.

She flicks button after button, her elbow knocking against his. Explosion sounds rumbling from her lips. Her breath clouds the inside of her helmet.

He could lie here all day beside her. In this quiet corner of the world, where time stands still. Guarded by the Tyrannosaurus Rex out front. Just him and his kid, listening to her mimic engine noises and pretend to lift them both into space.

But he’s hellbent on timing it perfectly. So just as she sounds the roar of a seamless takeoff, he slips the tape from his chest pocket.

“Happy birthday, kiddo.”

Ellie blinks at the cassette. “What is this?”

“This…” Joel says, pinching it in two fingers, “…is a thing that took a mighty effort to find.”

His handwriting is carved into the label. It’s the first gift – real gift, birthday gift – she’s ever been given. Thought out and made up, addressed to her and placed in her hands for keeps. All hers.

She clicks it into her player and hooks her headphones in, thumping her helmet back over her head. She jams a thumb into the play button, and –

He did remember to rewind the tape, right? It’ll play from the start, won’t it?

Joel’s heart begins to thud. He shifts uncomfortably.

Shit, what if it spoils the surprise? What if she hits play, and the first thing she hears is –

Ellie’s head lifts. Her eyes are wide. She grins, and so does he.

He fucking nailed it.

She closes her eyes, the staticky babble of mission control in her ear. His voice tickles, pulling a wide grin across her face. 10, 9, 8, 7…

The shuttle shudders as it shoots into space. She’s holding her breath, holding until he announces liftoff on Apollo 11. The naked sun stretches over her visor, red under her closed eyelids. It disappears somewhere in the distance.

Ellie lands slowly, carefully, back in Wyoming. She blinks her eyes open.

Joel’s still right beside her, hands clasped on his chest. He waits for her to turn, waits to check her expression. He asks it softly, earnestly.

“I do okay?”

Her cheeks ache with smiling. She clutches the tape player tighter, replies through a giggle.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

There might be nothing outside of this shuttle. Perhaps there was nothing to begin with. They might’ve shot straight past the earth’s atmosphere, might actually be among the stars. And it might not even matter, if they are.

Everything is right here. The sun and the moon – the entire universe between them.

Joel breathes a relieved laugh. His chest loosens, his heart settles back into place behind his ribcage.

“You’re welcome, kiddo.”

[ex0skeletal-undead]

Monster sculpture on salted wood plaque by Dogzilla Lives

[raziiyah]

hey! this is actually something i've thought about quite a lot before so here's how i see it:

since monsters are so diverse in the monster world, there are a vast amount of factors that are considered beautiful. some monsters may like 1 eye, some like 3 eyes and some like 8. some like feathers, scales, or fur. it just comes down to preference. but for monsters, generally, scary = beautiful

firstly, for the teeth thing, i imagined that just like human beauty standards, monster beauty standards can change. perhaps yellow teeth used to be the standard, but then it was discovered that whiter teeth made them more visible and gave them a scarier appearance. also, maybe they discovered that poor dental health caused monsters to lose their teeth sooner, which is a problem if you rely on them for scaring. proper dental care allowed you to stay healthy and kept your teeth in good condition, keeping you in the scaring career for longer. like when sulley is brushing his teeth in mi, mike really emphasizes getting rid of plaque

this change could also be why randall's teeth in mi are visibly whiter than they were in mu

as for female monsters, i see it sorta like how jessica rabbit from who framed roger rabbit is in toon town. she's regarded as very beautiful, but not as desireable or successful (to other toons) as roger rabbit, someone more cartoony and goofy looking

so though the more humanoid looking monsters could be considered beautiful, since being a scarer is known as the biggest achievement a monster could have, if you're scary, you're considered beautiful on a whole other level.

another idea i had is that scaring could be considered as a male dominated career, so the scary/beauty standards for female monsters aren't as scrutinized as much as male monsters. this could be why there are more female monsters that aren't necessarily as "scary looking"

this could also play a role into why the pnk's are so cutthroat- with a more conventionally beautiful appearance, they might not be considered the most successful in monster society. sure they could be models and movie stars

(though i can still see """scary/conventionally unattractive""" monsters being just as viable as models and moviestars in the monster world, maybe even more so),

but since scarers are the creme de la creme, "prettier" monsters could sometimes be seen as beautiful but maybe not typically the image of someone "successful" or "desireable" (my oc lia is a scarer and has a body type similar to the pnks so i made this an insecurity of hers hehe)

but monsters can combat this by showing their scariness through their glowing eyes, teeth, claws, etc. this could be valuable as well as there's a scary/surprising factor to appearing "innocent" at first, which could be advantageous in scaring, if you know how to use it (like the pnk's in the toxicity challenge or terri and terry in the scare simulator)

also considering the movie poster seen in maw; it's about monsters in space, likely referring to aliens. humans could be considered aliens/alien-looking to monsters because they come from another world, and heather has a more humanoid appearance

on the other hand, hss is more favored as "one of the most powerful, scary monsters in campus, and they have a more traditionally "scary" appearance. and in monsters at work, of the female monsters in the mu sororities, rosie levin was the one who made it to the same scare/(laugh) floor that sulley/(mike) are/(were) on, at monsters inc.

so really i think beauty is subjective in the monster world since everyone is so different. conventionally beautiful monsters are still beautiful, maybe even some monster's preference, but scary monsters are generally favored most, because of how much monster society is centered around scaring. after all, "scariness is the true measure of a monster."

@moonlight-monster @randall-simp-nadt88

[carlyraejepsans]

Do you have a timeline for when you believe the humans fell underground (including Chara + Frisk)?

Well not necessarily anything specific. just a few things that mark some VERY wide margings for what i have in mind

Chara fell in 201X, as per the calendar with the circled date.

This was after the Dreemurrs (and thus monsterkind in tow) already left Home to explore the rest of the mountain and settled in New Home. This is deduced by the wall writings in Waterfall, which bemoan the underground's inaccessibility, saying there's no way a human could ever make its way down there.

So New Home already existed (or was soon going to be founded, if the plaques were written while the monsters were still exploring) before any human had fallen into the Underground at all.

However! The childhood room in Home is referred to as Asriel's room in both the game files and in the art book (the screenshot is from the Home segment of the book)

Which would mean Asriel was born close enough in time to the monsters' banishment to be alive when they migrated further into the caverns (and to already have personal interests, like astronomy), and that he was likely snooping around his previous home in the RUINs by chance when he found Chara.

I think Chara spent a LOT of time with the Dreemurrs... but less so chronologically. They likely had reset powers like all humans who fall into the Underground as a consequence of their high DT (from the Undertale Legends of Localization book):

(I actually think this was the intended implication with their inappropriately light approach to death and pain, ie: laughing in that one videotape about making Asgore sick), so I like to think that, while they obviously stuck around for a long time, they techincally were only with the Dreemurrs for 1, maybe 2 linear years. Which would explain why they seem... hesitant to call them their child/sibling. From their perspective, it was too soon for those words at the time. Either that or Chara was uncomfortable with familiar terms for whatever reason. I tend to ping-pong between the two.

Chara dies and so does Asriel -> Asgore cringe comp -> Toriel bails.... And then bam, the next humans start falling down.

l think the entire affair took centuries in total. Surely a lot of time, enough for most commonplace monsters to have no idea what a human looks like

At LEAST one century, that is, but that is the barest minimum. There's this one line in the date with Sans at MTT resort when he's talking about his first meeting with Toriel:

Now I'm not saying Sans is aware of what's going on or that this makes incanon sense, but knowing UT's propensity for tragically poetic irony, this feels like one of those occasions.

I in my personal chronology, the humans fell either 1 or 2 per century, putting Toriel's exile between 300 and 600 years long.

The order? uhhhhh. dw about it

Thus, Frisk falls down in 2X15. Monsters are freed, everyone is happy. Yay yayay ^_^ yippee. The End.

[toxictigertonic]

Happy Halloween!! I was going to post this earlier today, but the past two weeks have been wack so I'm writing this the day of lol.

COYLE

- Hates Halloween bc crime increases Halloween night and he's sick of dealing with property damage calls. Though, he does like enforcing the law, so he does get a little enjoyment out if it.

- He'd walk into a Halloween party for a noise complaint and get mistaken for a male stripper 😔

- Finds people dressing up as a cop insulting. Little kids could get away with it, but adults? That's impersonating an officer, bucko!

- If someone asked if he was dressed as a cop he'd actually lose his shit and get into a screaming match with them. The disrespect!

- Not the biggest fan of candy, but he'd be the guy that actually enjoys candy corn. The monster /j

- A little old lady would offer him candy and he'd accept it with a smile, then immediately try to pass it off to someone else.

- He would NOT pass out candy. Fucker hands out apples and shit bc he likes to see the disappointment in children's eyes.

- Says some absolutely WILD shit to anyone in a sexy costume. Man or woman, doesn't matter, he's pointing out how you look in a very uncomfortable way.

- Kids would manage to prank his ass and handcuff him to something for the rest of the night. Good luck responding to calls, jackass.

MOTHER GOOSEBERRY

- She loves Halloween, Futterman hates it with a passion for obvious reasons.

- She's cooing over the children's costumes. She'd give extra cute outfits extra candy (if Futterman let her hand out candy)

- Futterman makes her hand out apples and floss and toothbrushes and she feels a little bad seeing the children get sad. The babies deserve a little treat :(

- She'd secretly hide a piece of candy under the apple and dump it into the kid's hand with a not so secret wink.

- Futterman lectures small children who have big bags of candy and makes them cry. You're gonna get cavities!!

- In particular, if he sees taffy or candy corn or anything that's pure sticky sugar he loses his fucking mind. Screaming about plaque and tartar while the kids run away.

- Gooseberry is dressed up as a big friendly witch! Her pointy hat and heeled boots make her even taller and the children are in awe of this big friend. Futterman is her familiar. He's not impressed.

- If Futterman had a choice he'd be a weregoose. He's frightening children in more ways than one.

- I can guarantee she didn't get to go trick or treating as a kid. She should be allowed to trick or treat as an adult without Futterman giving her shit.

FRANCO

- Another child who didn't get to go trick or treating. Got to see other children receive candy but his dad 1. Didn't care enough to take him trick or treating, and 2. Knew it was far too dangerous to be out and about with his status as mob boss.

- This translates to a desperate need for him to go trick or treating. But, he'd be really iffy on wearing a costume. On one hand, he wants to really experience what he missed out on! On the other hand, he feels like he'd be mocked and that he doesn't need a costume, he just deserves candy.

- A little old lady would pinch his cheek and call his costume cute and he wouldn't be sure if he should cry or get pissed off.

- The amount of candy this man would devour would be terrifying for anyone to witness. Candy after candy, chocolate after chocolate, his tummy would hurt so bad by the end.

- He's NOT picky, either. Have a candy you don't like? Pass it to him, he'll scarf it down without even thinking about it. A couple of the sticky ones make his teeth hurt, though.

- The sugar crash afterwards would be legendary. He's face down on the carpet, half dead, shaking from the low blood sugar, with a puddle of drool under him. Someone clean him up and put him to bed.

- Costume wise, I can either see him going as an imp (the poster and bc he's my evil little guy) OR a unicorn bc of the line he has with Coyle. Pacifier comes with both outfits whether you like it or not.

- If you offer him some shit like popcorn balls or non candy when he comes to your door (or point out that he's an adult), he's pulling out Lupara. Don't test him, he's rabid.

- He'd be so excited if he could go trick or treating with Gooseberry. He'd hold her hand and feel like the most special little guy. One hand in hers, one hand on his pumpkin pail, paci in his mouth, he's happy as can be.

I love Halloween so much, everyone have a great night and enjoy some candy and the Geister event!

@thehalloweenspooks @millie-milkshake (thank you both for asking teehee)

[weirdsht]

What if Cale Henituse had someone special during his time as Kim Rok Soo? Although they were never officially a couple, it was clear to everyone that their relationship went beyond mere friendship. Slowly but surely, KRS grew more comfortable and at ease around this person until they were killed. Brutally (lmaaooo I'm sorryy HAHAHWHAHW). Later, they reunite in his life as Cale Henituse, but reader has changed significantly because, like KRS, they too have been transmigrated. Their life has been deeply affected and troubled by their own close relatives, unlike Cale, who, despite some hesitation from his family, at least had the comfort of a family that cares about his safety and well-being overall. (Dyk Roxanna from TWTPTFLOB? Basically her family. If you don't know, basically her family is torturous to have. I think normal ppl would die if they suddenly transmigrated as a part of Roxanna's family because they're the definition of insanity)

I'm sorry if this is too much, feel free to scroll past 🤧💌

Our Fragile Promise in Magnolia - Cale/Reader

notes: Yes the title is a bunch of Laufey song titles. Shameless plugin but my fics Close and Can I Really have similar concepts to this one

tags: female reader, novel spoilers (war), angst? not sure, very loud unspoken feelings

English isn’t my first language so there will be grammatical errors

Pls don't repost my work anywhere without my permission

Constructive criticisms and any kind of interaction are more than welcome

Requests are open and welcome

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Navigation Masterlist

_____ stares at a male figure’s back. She’s used to looking at it. At finding comfort in it. How can she not? His back always seems so big. So strong. As if it’s capable of shielding her from everything.

However, this time that back looks smaller than how she remembers it.

And _____ is the reason for that.

“_____ don’t you dare close your eyes, don’t you dare fall asleep on me”

“Wake up! Just why did I get cursed with such an airhead child…”

The woman in front of the girl daydreaming speaks exasperatedly, bringing her back to reality.

It reminds _____ of who she currently is. How she’s not on earth fighting monsters anymore. How she has been granted another life.

Another life, another suffering.

“Follow me, the meeting is starting.”

The woman, _____’s mother, looked behind her to see if her daughter was still following.

“If you utter one word that causes our family disgrace you know what will happen to you. Won’t you, my dear?”

_____, who’s currently 20 years old in this life, is both used to and tired of the sickeningly sweet smile on her mother’s face.

“Yes, mother.”

She internally laughs but says nothing outwardly. Just how scared is her mother from the announcement of war that she dared talk to her like that? 

It reminded her of when she was a child.

A time before she rose to power within that useless family of hers.

“Your name is _____?”

“Why? Do you have any problem with it?”

“No, it suits you.”

The woman was taken aback by the nonchalant compliment. The man in front of her has said it as if it didn’t mean much. No, for him it probably really didn’t mean anything. 

But it meant the world to _____.

It was the first time she had received a compliment. And for something as insignificant as the name she gave herself.

‘Thanks, I gave it to myself since no one was willing to name me’

Were the words she held back from saying, not wanting to ruin the moment.

_____ never would have thought that she would become best friends with that very same man.

Clang!

The young woman watched as the silver plaque hit the table. The noise it made snapped the young woman out of her daydream.

She looked at the silver plaque and saw the crest of the royal family on it.

It’s easy to understand what it means.

Cale Henituse, the one famous as the young master silver shield, is now officially the Roan Kingdom’s Northeast Commander.

Not that _____ had any issues with it. She has heard about the famous young master. He may be young but he has the qualifications. Plus who is she to question the crown’s decisions?

If the crown has decided that Cale as commander is what the kingdom needs to defend itself against the Indomitable Alliance then so must be it.

However, not once has _____ looked at the famous redhead. Hence why when he started speaking again the young noble took it as a chance to take a good look.

The first thing that caught her attention was his long red hair. It was the same shade as blood. As if he was a vampire that drank so much blood it turned his hair into one.

But it wasn’t a gruesome sight. Quite the opposite actually. _____ finds his hair to be very pretty. It reminds her of a beautiful flame that’s forever ignited. Always strong and never extinguishing despite the strong winds that come its way.

“Kim Rok Soo..?”

As soon as _____ saw the commander’s eyes her world stopped. She knows those eyes very well. Has stared at them countless times for her to not know.

It couldn’t be.

Maybe they just have the same eye colour.

Kim Rok Soo’s reddish brown eyes might be rare back in her old world but nothing is impossible in this new one.

So it can’t be.

However, she can’t deny it.

She can’t deny that the way he lands his gaze is the same as him. The sorrow that is buried deep within those copper-like eyes is the same.

The way he stared at her knowingly was the same.

But she still tries.

She tries her best to deny it.

To deny him.

Because it can’t be. That can’t be him. That can’t be her best friend slash love of her life.

It’s just not possible.

And if it was then she must avoid him as much as possible. 

For she has changed. And she is well aware of the fact that she has changed. She may have the same face and the same name, but she has become all too different.

She doesn’t want her love to see the new version of her.

 Two people sat on the ground. Their back leaning against the sofa behind them. It’s a rare day when the two of them have a day off so they have decided to spend it by reading novels together.

“If you try to say another spoiler I’m going to seal your mouth shut.”

“But you have to listen to this!”

The woman tries to argue while tapping on a page of the book she’s currently reading.

“I’ll find out about it when I read it.”

“But I want to talk about it now!”

Kim Rok Soo shook his head at her. As if he couldn’t believe this was the same fierce person fighting monsters on the battlefield.

“Then wait.”

_____ internally smiled at the memory. She feels that familiar warmth in her chest she hadn’t felt for so long. As she did, she thought that it was a good idea to avoid Cale Henituse. She’s not sure if they’re the same person. And if they were she doesn’t know if he remembers her.

But it’s better to be on the safe side.

After all, it’d be embarrassing to see such a lively person turn into a shell of what they used to be.

“Just how long do I have to put up with this?”

_____ mumbled to herself as she picked at her food.

“Did you say something dear?”

“Nothing mother.”

She reciprocated her mother’s smile. After years of socializing with this family, she has learned to smile and bear it all. Things will become more complicated if she tries to refute.

“Where’s the antidote? Mix it in my usual juice.”

_____ orders her maid after lunch. The maid bowed and followed her orders like clockwork.

After all, this wasn’t the first time the young lady had been poisoned by her own family.

They see her as both a threat and an asset.

They try to bring her down, make themself look superior. But at the same time, they know that they need her.

It’s comedic. Really.

“My lady a letter has arrived.”

_____’s trusted maid hands her a tray that contains a glass of juice and a letter.

“That seal… It looks like it’s from the Henituse family.”

The young lady waved her hand away and the maid went out of the room.

Badump. Badump.

Her heart beats wildly in her chest and it’s not just because of the poison she consumed.

It’s not uncommon to receive letters from the guardians of the Dark Forest. They are business partners after all.

However _____ couldn’t help but feel nervous after the recent events.

Quickly drinking her juice that contains the antidote in one go, the transmigrator pulls the courage to open the letter.

“You have a very peculiar way of writing. I think I’d be able to recognize it anywhere.”

_____ hovered over Kim Rok Soo as he wrote something on a piece of paper.

“I would say you’re exaggerating but knowing you two, I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Choi Jung Soo spoke up from the couch while eating some sort of junk food.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Rok Soo retaliates. His hands let go of the pencil in order to focus on his sworn brother.

“Nothing, nothing. I’m just saying. But hey, is that any way to speak to your hyung?”

“Again why are you the hyung? We were born on the same day”

“I was born first!”

True to what _____ said, she immediately recognized the handwriting on the letter. Its contents were concise, exactly how he likes to do things. 

“He did his homework.”

The letter just said that the commander wanted to have a private meeting with _____ in order to talk about the upcoming war. The young noble instantly understands that he must want to talk about her territory’s military force.

She may not have an official title. She isn’t even declared as an official heir. Yet insiders, those who have a wide information network, will know that _____ is the one in control of her territory. 

_____ doesn’t want to respond. But she has to. He wasn’t speaking as Cale Henituse or Kim Rok Soo. 

He was speaking as Roan Kingdom’s Northeast Commander.

He was standing on business.

For he probably knows that’s the only way _____ wouldn’t avoid him.

Kim Rok Soo holds on the bleeding body in his arms. 

Bleeding is an understatement.

The left side of her torso is gone. Eaten by the monster they are fighting.

“H ey, do you re member… remember our pro mise?”

A weak voice asks him. Kim Rok Soo nodded his head, too choked up to speak.

He does. Of course, he does. How can he forget?

He’ll record everything she says, no matter how trivial they are.

“Great… Th en  I guess– I guess I can rest in pe ace.”

Kim Rok Soo doesn’t want that. He doesn’t need that.

“Don’t close your eyes. Please hold on. For me, for us. Please _____”

He begs. It’s so uncharacteristically of him to beg, but if it does the trick then he’ll do it a million times over.

_____ weakly chuckled. She may be weak and dying but there’s still fire in her eyes. A fire that will never be extinguished even in the face of death.

… or so Cale thought.

The fire that he thought would never die down is barely there in her eyes.

But it was still there.

It may be small. Struggling. But it’s there.

Alive and fighting to be as bright as it was before.

“_____…”

“Our business is now done, Commander Cale Henituse. If you have further business in the future please feel free to send me a letter like before.”

“_____.“

The young lady’s voice was firm, but Cale’s voice was firmer. He has no plans of letting her run away again.

He wouldn’t be able to let her slip from his embrace once more.

“Isn’t that concept sweet though?”

The two best friends are talking. They just finished a novel and are now discussing its contents with each other.

“You’re just a romantic.”

“But think about it. Promising to find each other even in another universe. Being together in every dimension…”

_____ stopped talking, lost in thought as she reminisced about the novel. Kim Rok Soo took it as a chance to stare at her face.

He has seen many people. Has read many descriptions of beautiful people in books.

But in his opinion, nothing beats _____’s looks.

Kim Rok Soo might be biased. His willing to admit that much. But his opinion won’t change.

“Hey Rok Soo?”

“What do you want?”

He grumbled as he suddenly came face to face with his “best friend”. Her face was full of excitement as she thought of a new idea.

“Let’s promise each other that in our next life, we’ll find each other again. Then let’s spill all of our secrets when we do. Not leaving anything out.”

Her idea sounds childish. Would they even remember anything in their next life? Would they even have a next life? If they did would they recognize each other?

Those were the thoughts that raced through Kim Rok Soo.

However, he doesn’t say it.

Because it was a silent confession. The best one they can give each other in this ruined world.

A promise to spill all their secrets huh?

It doesn’t need saying. Those secrets were probably talking about their feelings.

“Sure, I promise. We’ll meet again in our next life and tell each other everything.”

“_____”

Cale called out for the third time. _____ has changed and Cale has an inkling as to what brought that change.

Nothing he can’t handle.

His planning to overthrow an empire. Dealing with a noble family is nothing.

He’ll make things right.

Set things straight.

“I never break my promises. You know that _____.”

Cale– no Kim Rok Soo will make sure to fulfil his promise.

[idksmtms]

You Are Not One of Us (Poseidon x Norse Goddess!reader) - Part 8

Full Request

Part 7 << PART8 >> Part 9

AN: These are just getting longer and longer… Enjoy! I’m gonna try and end this at 10 parts so only two more to go! 

Summary: Everything in Percy’s life is turning upside down. First he finds out he’s a demigod and ends up at a camp for people like him. But one thing always stays the same: bullies.

Word count: 11,466

Trigger Warnings: she/her pronouns, AFAB reader, profanity, innuendo, age gap (even tho they are both thousands of years old), personal insecurity, insecurity about one’s parenting, absentee parents technically, abandonment issues, angst, supposed major character death (but it’s acc not), Percy believing there is something wrong with him, negative view of one’s own ADHD and dyslexia, way too heavy use of dramatic irony, any warnings associated with Percy’s adventures, (please let me know if I missed any) 

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians characters. I do not claim to own any of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians characters. I do not own any pictures used nor do I claim to do so. (I do use some scenes from the show verbatim but I did not write the dialogue for those scenes, only the descriptions attached.) 

Always appreciate comments, likes, and reblogs :)

Though Percy wasn’t often excited by anything related to school, he had been looking forward to the Museum trip. It was a change of scenery from the drab halls of Yancy, and it was a chance to have fun with Grover. He didn’t even mind the learning part. This mythology unit they were currently in was his favourite of anything he had learned thus far. It was interesting, exciting, and weirdly comforting, like he was connected to it somehow but not in any way that made sense yet. 

As Mr. Brunner took them around and explained some of the stories behind the statues, his mind began to wander (along with his gaze). The circular hall was a hodgepodge of statues from a variety of cultures depicting all sorts of mythological heroes, gods, and monsters. Mr. Brunner was currently parked in front of a statue of Apollo and Artemis, telling the story of how they were born, but Percy was looking to the right of it, a smaller statue carved out of wood. It was only a third of the size of the marble depiction of the twin deities, but it was just as beautiful, some argued even more so simply due to its rarity. 

The plaque boasted that it was the only statue made during the Viking period that survived the mass burning post-Christianisation. A woman was laying down in a bed of flowers, each petal around her head and body painstakingly chipped into the wood. Her dress was long and airy, flowing into the wood at the bottom of the carving. Her eyes were closed and a sword was resting on her stomach, the hilt pulled up close to her chest and gripped tightly with both her hands. The sword itself was pitch-black from the hilt to the tip and the plaque explained that the statue was once coloured. Natural paints made of fruit and vegetable pastes had most likely been used and washed or faded away over time, but the sword had been made using burnt wood so it retained its colour. Her hair was loose and billowing around her head and there were faded black stains in different places. Her hair had most likely been coloured with some type of blue paint, the restorers speculated, some paste made with a blue mineral and crushed blueberries. Though all of this was only a guess supported by stories of the goddess’s appearance. 

Percy remembered the statue from his trip to the museum with Aunt Sally when he was seven. She had stood in front of the statue for some time with a wistful smile on her face. He had tugged at her hand, asked her to tell him the story of this one, and she had ruffled his hair before bending down to press a kiss to his cheek. 

“This is the goddess of love and war, from the Vikings.” He had stuck out his tongue at that, frowning and tilting his head. 

“How is she the goddess of love and war? That doesn’t make any sense.” But Aunt Sally just smiled and shook her head. 

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you’d be surprised how similar love and war are, how much they intertwine with each other,” she answered simply, looking between him and the statue as if she could see something he couldn’t. “The stories say she was a heroine for the Vikings, their protector from the creatures they couldn’t see. At their height, they often claimed she was on the battlefield with them, that she was in each of their victories.” Percy was looking up at Sally with big, intrigued eyes, lips slightly parted as he breathed slowly. “I think she tended to lean on the love side of her duties more though,” Sally added, holding Percy’s hand a little tighter. She spoke as if she knew the goddess personally, and back then Percy honestly believed it. Aunt Sally was his entire world, she was amazing. It wouldn’t surprise him if she managed to befriend a goddess too. 

“What else?” Percy asked quietly, pressing himself to Aunt Sally’s legs and gazing up at the carving. 

“Well, she had blue hair, bright blue like the ocean.” And Percy smiled at that, whispering ‘that’s my favourite colour’ almost dazedly, enraptured with the statue and its story. “I know, I think you’d like her,” Sally whispered, closing her eyes for a moment as if she was in pain, and Percy saw her trying to wipe at them discreetly. 

“Tell me more,” he demanded, and Sally only nodded before staying silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice sounded a little clogged and she didn’t look down at Percy. 

“She was kind, and sweet, a good friend,” Sally cleared her throat, pushing some hair off her face and finally smiling down at Percy again, “at least that’s what the stories say!”

 And then she was walking again, taking him to the next statue, and the one after, reading him what the plaques said. It was on the third statue that she paused again, gently placing a hand on Percy’s back as she pointed out the name for him. 

“Perseus. That’s me,” and he smiled the innocent smile of a child, and Sally nodded enthusiastically. 

“Mhm, that’s who you were named after.” 

“Am I named after him because he’s a hero?” He asked innocently, and Sally only smirked. 

“What makes you think he was a hero?” 

“Because he killed monsters?” He scrunched up his nose as if it was obvious, but Sally only raised an eyebrow.

“What makes you think she was a monster?” 

“Aunt Sally,” he whined, pulling on her hand a little, and she just smiled, squeezing his hand in return and calling off the teasing. 

“Not everyone who looks like a hero is a hero, and not everyone who looks like a monster is a monster. You were named after him because, against all odds, he found his way to a happy ending.” She gripped both of his cheeks and pressed a long kiss to his forehead. Percy just giggled, pushing her away before grabbing her hand and moving onto the next statue. 

Percy hadn’t thought about that trip in a long time. It had been such a fun day, with blue ice cream and no homework. But he could still remember how wistful Aunt Sally seemed, as if it wasn’t the Met but a museum of her life that she was being forced to walk through. 

“...Now, on your worksheets, I want you to choose one of the subjects you see here, and describe it. Not just how it looks, but how it makes you feel. Okay? Come on.” And Mr. Brunner clapped his hands to get them all moving. 

Percy stared down at the clipboard, at the letters jumping around and shuffling themselves, and looked away almost instantly, heading to stand directly in front of the statue of Perseus profering Medusa’s head. 

“Move, nerd,” Nancy spat out as she shoved past him. Percy gripped his clipboard tightly as he almost fell back before raising his hands in the air in shock. Nancy simply jerked her head at him and he scoffed. 

“Mr. Jackson, you will learn to control yourself, do you understand me?” Percy felt his eyebrows leave his forehead. 

“Me?” He asked in surprise, pointing at his own chest as if he couldn’t quite believe Mrs. Dodds was speaking to him. 

“Do you understand me?” Her face didn’t move when she spoke, just that same stoic look of loathing that was probably there while she slept. 

“He can’t help it, Mrs. Dodds. Percy’s special,” Nancy chimed in, emphasising ‘special’ with her lips in a way that made Percy want to walk over and shove her back. 

“That’s enough.” Mr. Brunner interjected harshly, frowning as he rolled his wheelchair to Percy. “Pay them no mind. When you’re ready to hear what the gods have in store for you, they’ll tell you. I believe in you.” And he said it with such conviction, in that weird cryptic but sincere way that Aunt Sally always said that there was a bigger world out there for him. “And I believe you’ll be needing this,” he added, pulling a pen out of his coat pocket and profering it to him with a little ‘hm?’. Percy hadn’t even realised he had broken the tip of his pencil when Nancy shoved past, and he gave Mr. Brunner a pursed-lip smile as he took it from him. “Hang on to that,” Mr. Brunner gestured to the pen, “‘tis a mighty instrument.” And with a knowing and kind smile, he wheeled himself away. 

Percy looked back up to the statue of Perseus and sighed. 

A couple hours later, he sat down next to Grover by the fountain with a despondent sigh as they simultaneously unwrapped their sandwiches and switched fillings. Grover was trying to make him feel better, pointing out that there were many reasons as to why someone chose to bully someone else, but Percy just frowned and shook his head. 

“I get that Nancy probably has a mountain of unresolved issues hiding in that hair of hers, I’m just tired of her taking it out on me.” Percy sighed, putting the top piece of bread back onto the sandwich and bringing it close to his mouth. “I feel like… maybe it’s time to do something about it,” he shrugged. 

“You could make an appointment to talk to Mr. Kane! He’s really good at talking-”

“I was thinking more like shoving Nancy into a dumpster,” Percy interjected, a small mischievous smile on his face. 

“Oh.” Grover stared at him. Then he began shaking his head vigorously, “No, no, no. If there’s one thing I know about bullies, it’s that you never stand up to them.” Percy frowned. 

“That doesn’t sound right…” 

“Look, we’re not gonna be here forever. I know this place is hard for us right now, but there are better places out there.” Grover’s sincerity, his bright little smile of hope and positivity, was infectious. Percy nodded, a smile appearing involuntarily. And then a slice of cheese came flying into the side of Grover’s face, and Nancy stood there smiling, letting out a little ‘oops’. 

Percy couldn’t take it anymore. His chest was tight and the back of his throat felt like it was full of fire and he stood up, marching over to Nancy with his arms out, ready to push her into the fountain in his rage. He didn’t even touch her, not even a graze of her shoulder, and she went flying into the fountain. Like something had pulled her body from behind and dropped her into the water. 

Percy stopped short. He stared at the space in front of him that Nancy had occupied up until about a second before. His hands were tingling and something had pulled deep inside his gut, but it was gone now. He could hear Nancy spluttering and squealing like a stuck pig. And then she began to scream “Percy pushed me! He pushed me!” 

Someone asked if Nancy was ok, another person took up the cry that Percy had pushed her, and all he could do was stand there and stare between the fountain and his hands, and the feeling that somehow the water had listened to his urge and acted on his behalf. That something in the world had shifted all of a sudden, like a puzzle piece clicking into place. 

The pen Mr. Brunner had given him was vibrating in his back pocket, shaking like crazy, and he pulled it out, staring at it as it seemed to flicker in and out of focus in his palm. 

“There you are.” It felt like the voice was inside his skull, and it sounded just like Mrs. Dodds. Percy looked up, and through a gap in the crowd he could see her slowly walking toward him. She was too far away for it to have been her who spoke to him in that low tone, but the voice came again. “We’re not fools, Percy Jackson.” Percy watched her come closer, one step at a time and an almost smug tinge to that never-changing face of hers. 

“Uh, Mrs. Dodds? You ok?” He asked, brows pulled together in a frown. 

“It was only a matter of time before we found you.” Her lips weren’t moving but he could hear her so clearly, and he gulped, a hot and slimy fear snaking down his spine. Then one side of her coat began to lift up and over her head before it peeled back and unfolded into a grey-black wing. The other followed, morphing as it moved and unfolding to reveal a monstrous creature covered in leathery spikes and folds, hints of red in the crevices and over her slowly disappearing face. Her shoes had morphed into talons like bird feet, and she kept walking toward him. 

Percy felt like he couldn’t breathe, blinking over and over again, hoping whatever episode this was would end quickly. But she kept coming. One of her wings pushed a person but they simply fell forward, looking back but not seeing anything noteworthy. Percy stared at them then back to Mrs. Dodds. 

“Where is it, Half-Blood?” Her voice slithered in his mind. He began backing away, that fear coiling tighter and tighter around his spine. But the creature only walked onto the top of the water feature before spreading its wings and flying straight for him. In his rush to back away he fell flat onto the floor, hitting his head so hard it began to ring. He clutched the pen in his hand so tight he could no longer feel his fingers.The creature fell over him, crawling up so their faces were level and all he could smell was sulphur. “Where is it?” She raised one of her claws to his face and he simply clenched his eyes shut. 

But the touch never came. A golden-orange light peaked at the crease of his eyelids and something was crumbling around his hands. He creaked one eye open, then the other. Mrs. Dodds was staring down at the space between them, at the sharp, bright, line of orange that seemed to emanate from the weapon in his hands, a glowing bronze sword. Her body was crumbling into dust, and when she looked back up at him her face contorted into rage. She reared back, as if she was about to come back down for the kill, but her face disappeared into a crush of dust that floated away into the wind. The ringing in Percy’s head turned into a white light in his eyes and everything- stopped. 

As Percy walked through the hallway from the elevator to the adjoining hallway that would lead to the apartment door, he thought about the last words he had said to Mr. Brunner. “I don’t need any more stories about how special I don’t realise I am.” And he meant it. All that those stories had done was lead him to getting expelled from another school, getting betrayed by someone who he thought was his closest friend, and disappointing Aunt Sally all over again. Mr. Brunner had looked so downcast when he had said it, like Percy had personally hurt his feelings, but Percy was tired. 

He was sick of this talk of potential waiting to happen, because the truth was there wasn’t any potential. He had nothing else to give. He tried and tried and the world never seemed to try back. Even if things were alright for a while, he always ended up back here, tail between his legs wondering why he simply wasn’t good enough for anything. 

He could hear Gabe yelling already, and he tightened his grip on his bag. Eddie the handyman closed the door behind him and stood still for a second on the welcome mat. Percy could see the deep breath he took, could feel the exasperation and worn-thin patience that he experienced every minute he spent in Ugly Gabe’s presence. When Eddie turned around, he smiled sadly. 

“Oh! Hello Percy.” Eddie always smiled when he saw Percy but this time it was only a tight pursed-lip one. 

“Hey Eddie,” Percy sighed, “I’m sorry about that,” and Percy gestured to the door. Eddie looked at it then shook his head. 

“I’m walking out, you’re walking in. I should be apologising to you,” and Eddie squinted in sympathy before walking off down the hallway. 

When Percy entered the house, he was hit with the comforting smell of Aunt Sally’s many ocean-scented candles and air-fresheners, and the less comforting stink of body odour, cheap beer, and hair oil that Gabe seemed to drag into any room with him. 

Speaking of Gabe, the man was sitting in his easy-chair directly in front of the tv, legs up and laptop resting on his thighs as he cracked another beer open right as Percy entered the house. 

“Welcome home, genius!” He called, sneering at Percy as he stood in the hallway looking down at the train-wreck of a man. 

“Is Aunt Sally home from work?” Percy asked tiredly, not interested in engaging in a conversation with the greaseball. 

“Oh, is that all you got to say to me? Huh?” Gabe asked angrily, nodding his head as if Percy was proving whatever point he had concocted in his head. Percy could almost see the invisible high horse Gabe believed he sat on. “After failing out of school?” 

“I didn’t fail out of school.” Percy scrunched up his face, shaking his head a little at the stupidity. 

“Your principal called, and that’s what he said. He said you got kicked out.” Gabe moved back and forth a little as he spoke, and Percy watched the chair move rather than look at the man’s ratty little face. Then he paused for a moment, frowning as he took in the words Gabe said. 

“They called Aunt Sally’s cell. You answer Aunt Sally’s cell?” He asked angrily, turning from his place in the hallway to look at Gabe, ready to argue. 

“I answer whatever’s ringing,” Gabe argued back, shaking his head as if it was no big deal. “So what did you get kicked out for, hm?” He asked, taking a sip of his beer and looking at Percy with wide curious eyes. Percy could see the man was getting a kick out of it. 

“He said I attacked a kid on a field trip,” Percy mumbled, looking at the carpet as he scuffed at it with his shoe. Gabe raised his eyebrows and seemed to nod in surprise. He almost looked like he respected Percy in that moment, and it made Percy’s frown deepen. 

“Ok. Alright, if… but still, if you’re gonna live under my roof, you gotta live by my rules,” and Percy’s face scrunched up, turning to Gabe and shaking his head as if none of what he said made sense. 

“Your roof? Aunt Sally is the only one employed here.” 

“Excuse me?” Gabe was offended, eyebrows raising. “I have a job. What does it look like I’m doing right now?” Gabe gestured to the tv and laptop but Percy’s expression didn’t change. 

“Losing at imaginary poker,” he answered simply, gesturing at the laptop as well. 

“You would think that because you’re a child, and you don’t understand things like-”

“Where’s Aunt Sally?” He interrupted, looking down the hall. He was already tired, he didn’t need interactions with Gabe today. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know where your aunt is. I’m not Nostradamus. What are we doing Percy? Every time!” But Percy just walked away, listening to Gabe’s distant and exasperated ‘wow! Wow!’. 

As Percy walked farther into the apartment, he could hear the rain and realised the window in the other small den area was open. He could see Aunt Sally sitting on the fire escape, soaking in the rain. Her hair was damp and curling slightly, and her cardigan was becoming wet. Music was playing loudly from the corner and everything suddenly felt like it was crashing down on him all over again. His lip began to quiver and he wanted to cry. 

“Aunt Sally…” he whimpered, screwing his eyes shut as she turned back and realised he was standing there. She quickly clambered in from the window but Percy was already speaking again. “I’m really sorry. I tried this time. You know how hard I’ve been trying. But this time it really wasn’t my fault. It really wasn’t my fault.” His words trailed off as she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his head. Her hair dripped all over him and her damp shirt stuck to his face but it felt so good to be hugged, so he let her just embrace him. “I’m all wet,” he mumbled against her shoulder. 

She pulled back but kept her hands on his shoulders, tilting her head so she could properly look at his face. She cupped his face in one hand and stroked his cheek as she smiled lovingly down at him. 

“I’m sorry. I’m just really glad to see you.” She grabbed the towel on the ironing table to her right and began scrunching the ends of her hair as she spoke. “I found Gabe on the phone with the headmaster and he told me what he thinks happened with Nancy Bobofit. I told him I believed my kid, it was a real short call.” She shrugged simply, pursing her lips and clutching the towel in her hands as she looked at Percy. He was staring at the floor, head downcast, and he only offered her a small smile in response. “Hey, all that matters is that you’re here, ok?” She asked, hoping to lift his mood a little, “and that I had time to get your welcome home gift,” she sang, reaching into a tote bag on one of the chairs and pulling out a little plastic pouch of blue jelly beans. He smiled a little more this time, watching her shake it just in front of him before grabbing it and putting it into his coat pocket. 

Then Sally smiled sympathetically, crossing her arms over her stomach and waiting for Percy to look back up again before speaking. “Mr. Brunner called me too. He told me about Grover.” Percy began blinking again, feeling the tears burn the backs of his eyes and his mouth scrunched up a little. “Do you wanna talk about it?” His blinking slowed down again but he stared at the carpet a little harder, letting out a long breath. Sally straightened up a little. “Is there something else you wanna talk about?” She asked, concern dropping her voice a little lower. Percy looked up and met her eyes for a second before dropping his gaze back down. He took a deep breath in and began toying with the hem of his coat. 

“Something happened to me. Something has been happening to me. More than just my mind wandering, and it got worse, and…” he trailed off. They both listened to the rain as she waited for him to speak and he gathered his words. “I’m scared.” He looked up finally, staring straight into her eyes as he said the words. They just looked at each other for a moment, Sally’s lower lip pulled slightly into her mouth. Then she simply looked past Percy and yelled, 

“Gabe!” 

“Aunt Sally?” Percy asked, staring at her, suddenly worried she was going to tell Gabe everything he had just said, but she simply waited for Gabe to appear in the hallway. He grumbled as he got up and came down the hallway, adjusting his pants higher onto his hips and pointed back to the living room as he spoke. 

“I don’t know how anyone expects me to get any work done-” 

“Percy and I are leaving for Montauk.” 

Percy didn’t realise he had fallen asleep in the car until after he woke up from the bone-chilling nightmare. After witnessing Aunt Sally put Gabe in his place and hurriedly packing a bag for the weekend, he had simply fallen into the passenger seat and passed out when they hit the road outside the city. 

He looked to the left slowly, shifting a little further up in his seat, watching Aunt Sally hurriedly wipe tears off her cheeks when she realised he was still awake. She smiled at him, mumbling out a ‘we’re here’ as she watched him fully sit up straight. 

“On three?” He asked quietly, and she smiled, nodding as she looked ahead and began counting. On two he bolted out of the door, smiling widely as she squealed and struggled out of her seat. 

After they had settled everything into their rooms and Sally started the fire in the living room, he went to the bathroom to change his clothes and have a quick wash up before dinner. He washed his hands and splashed his face, then stood in front of the sink staring at the mirror. He couldn’t keep pushing it off anymore. He had to tell Aunt Sally about what happened and how something needed to change because nothing was right anymore. 

By the time he came back out, Aunt Sally was standing at one of the kitchen counters with a pack of marshmallows. The table hadn’t been cleared from dinner but more candles had been lit and placed around the cabin, only one or two lamps flicked on here and there. He tapped her on the opposite shoulder and smiled when she looked there then back to the other side where he stood. 

“I found the good marshmallows, the ones that don’t burn so easy.” She sounded so proud and happy, but Percy could only nod. 

“I don’t think it was ever the marshmallow’s fault that I wasn’t paying attention,” he sighed, and she paused. She put down the marshmallow she had been holding and turned to look at Percy. The serious look on his face made her fully turn and lean her hip against the counter. She waited for him to say whatever he clearly wanted to say, crossing her arms loosely.

“Aunt Sally… I need to talk to you about something.” She simply watched him for a moment, then nodded, standing up fully again and telling him to head to the couch and get cosy by the fire. They would talk there. 

Sally curled up on one end of the couch and Percy sat down on the other. He leaned his elbows on his knees and stared into the fire. “I’m used to feeling weird. I’m used to the world feeling weird to me. Like a puzzle with half the wrong pieces. I try to pay attention, I really try,” and he looked at her as he said this, his face so earnest, “but then I’m daydreaming. I can’t help it. But lately it hasn’t felt like daydreaming. It’s felt…” he paused, looking back down at his hands. “I don’t know. More real, maybe?” He took a deep breath in, and Sally averted her eyes to her lap. “And then we were at the museum, and…” 

“You saw something,” she said quietly, knowingly. He nodded, stilted and slow, but a nod nonetheless. “Something that felt real to you, but no one else could see?” Again, he nodded, lips pursed. She tilted her head down a little to look at his face, then put her hand on his back and rubbed it softly. “What did she say to you?” Sally asked apprehensively. Percy’s head snapped up to look at her, and he frowned in confusion. 

“She? How did you know it was a she?” 

Sally paused, and he could see the millions of thoughts running around behind her eyes. She leaned her head back and looked at the ceiling before clenching her eyes shut tightly, as if fighting with her lips. She pushed her lips out and shook her head, like the fight was raging and she was in pain. Then, with her eyes still closed, she asked, 

“Do you know why we come to this cabin every year?” Her head came back down but now she was the one looking into the fire and avoiding his gaze. 

“Because it’s near the septic tanks so it’s cheap,” Percy answered quickly, still bewildered and shaking his head a little as he spoke. “Aunt Sally, how do you know about the thing I saw?” 

“We come to this place every year, because this is the place I met your parents,” she spoke quickly, only turning to look at him with her face set firmly as the last words left her lips. He stared at her. 

“My parents? What do my parents have to do with this? And what do you mean ‘met them’?” 

She smiled a little, a sad little thing that said ‘there’s so much you don’t know’ then gently cupped the side of his head, pushing some of his curls back. 

“A long time ago, I met a woman, here, on the beach. She was kind, and brave, and sweet, and… noble. And she introduced me to her husband, and he was just like her. He was wise, and caring, and they loved each other like no love I had ever witnessed before. And…  ugh, look Percy, I can’t tell you about your mom, but your father? He was a god.” Sally paused, gulping then letting out a whooshing breath. She looked at Percy and he was just staring at her like her head had popped off. 

“God? Like Jesus? Like you met some woman who said she married Jesus and you believe her?” He asked, one eyebrow curling up slightly with his sceptical tone. 

“Not God, Percy,” she sighed, “a god.” She turned to sit facing him and gently held his hands in hers. “Look, Percy, the stories that I have told you, about Greek gods and monsters? About Norse mythology? They are real.” Percy began shaking his head. 

“Aunt Sally-” 

“In those stories, I have told you about how gods fight, and get married, and sometimes they have children with mortals…” 

“Aunt Sally, please, stop.” 

“How they can have demigod children…” 

“Aunt Sally!” 

“And sometimes they are known as half-bloods.” Percy paused, slowly turning his head to look at his Aunt Sally, at the desperate look on her face as if she needed him to believe her. 

“That’s what the monster called me. Aunt Sally, what’s happening?” 

“You are a half-blood.” She breathed out, eyes roaming over his face for any sign of belief. “And half-bloods are not safe in the world. Once they reach a certain age and they begin… to understand what they are, terrible forces are drawn to them, driven to harm them before they can become strong enough to fight back. That is what you have been feeling.” She gripped his shoulder tightly, shaking him just a little as if it would make him believe it any more. “It has always been a part of who you are, it was always coming,” her words were beginning to become frantic, “I just-” 

“Why are you telling me this?” He asked angrily, shaking his head and staring at her as she moved even closer to him. 

“Percy, I know this is hard to understand, but you have to believe me that this is real,” she pressed. 

“No, this is crazy, ok? I am not a god. There is something wrong with my brain.” She clenched her eyes shut, tears leaking down her cheeks and sweat collecting on her upper lip as she leaned back to look at his face, slowly shaking her head like she was flexing her neck. “I understand that I’m weird, believe me, I get it,” and she smiled in pain at that, her face saying that it hurt her that he believed that, that it simply wasn’t true, tilting her head to the side and huffing out a breath as he continued. “But I’m afraid something may be really broken now!”

“Oh, honey, no-”

“And-and now you’re telling me stories, like it’s gonna make it ok?” She pursed her lips and looked down. “Well I’m not a baby! I know there’s no such thing as monsters, I know there’s no such things as gods, and I know for certain that there is no such thing as demi-gods.” His words were final, and he only got to stare into her eyes for a moment before there was suddenly a knock at the door, and Grover was calling out for Aunt Sally. 

And it was only moments later that Grover was standing in the hallway with goat legs. 

When Grover pulled his beanie off as they drove down the highway, Percy felt for the first time that Aunt Sally had been telling the truth. The little horns poking through his curls were so… real. And then the explanation for Grover’s betrayal was so crazy that he was angry again, and this concept of ‘the Mist’ was so confusing that he felt lost all over again. 

“The sooner we get you to camp, the better of you’re…” Percy snapped his head back to look at Grover. He paused, mouth open, staring at Percy then turning to look at the back of Sally’s head. “You told him about camp, right?” 

“Not yet, no,” she answered, exasperated, and Percy just sat back in his seat and looked at her. She glanced at him, just a moment, and he frowned. 

“Camp is a sanctuary for half-bloods. A safe space where you can learn who you are and what the world is like on the other side of the Mist.” Grover leaned back a little and looked out the windshield before tapping on the shoulder of Sally’s seat. “Uh, it’s not far, actually, just a little ways past the bend up there,” and he pointed to somewhere in the rain in front of the car. But Percy didn’t look, he kept staring at his Aunt Sally and frowning. 

“Aunt Sally, what else haven’t we talked about? What else haven’t you told me?” He paused for a second, settling further into his seat. “Why can’t you tell me about my mom? What’s so dangerous that you can’t tell me about her?” 

Just as Sally opened her mouth to respond, to say anything about all the secrets that had suddenly opened up between them, the road under them shuddered, and something roared in the distance behind the car. There was a flash of light, and Percy watched as the silhouette of something huge dropped down onto the road. 

“Is that the Minotaur?!” 

In the yellow glow of the totaled car’s headlights, Percy watched as the only parent he had ever known was crushed in the hands of a monster. He watched his mother disappear in a flash, watched the woman who had tried to fill the role of a father disappear into dust. His chest filled with rage like a gallon of water being poured into a shot glass. His mind suddenly quieted, only the rush of his blood pounding in his ears. Aunt Sally’s face flashed before his eyes, glowing in the yellow lights, dripping with rain. Her hands gripping his face as she tried not to cry, biting at her lips as she pressed out the words. “You… are not not broken. You are singular. You’re a miracle. And you are my kid. Hold fast. Brave the storm.” She stroked his cheeks with her thumbs and smiled, sad yet hopeful, sweet yet resigned. “I love you.” Her watery voice. He saw her reaching for him before the crush. He uncapped the pen and watched it grow into a sword in his hands. And then he charged. 

Percy was hoping he had dreamed everything from the conversation with Aunt Sally to the creepy girl standing over his bed. But when he woke up and the first thing he saw was Grover with his little horns poking out of his head, he knew he had really killed the Minotaur, and that Aunt Sally was gone… 

Grover tried to talk to him about it, desperately wanted to talk to him about it, but he wasn’t ready. His mind was already playing everything on loop for him and he didn’t want to talk about it too. 

“Your job is done,” he told Grover, and it hurt. Because it had all been a job. Every laugh, every moment of their friendship had been a cover. And he didn’t want to talk about that either. 

As he headed for the door, Grover asked where he was going. Percy clenched his jaw and turned back to look at him, his mind set on one thing and one thing only. “It was so important I get here ‘cause my father is a god. So I’m gonna go find him.” The words were so simple but he spoke so gravely. 

“It’s not that…” Percy was already out the door, “simple.”

As Percy stepped out and onto a porch, he couldn’t help but look around in wonder. The house had been built on the banks of a beautiful lake with turquoise green water and a pebble beach. Orange kayaks and rowing boats were sitting near the treeline with people in equally orange shirts milling about around them. On his other side, a type of orangery was jutting from the house, made of pristine white-painted wood and huge panes of painted glass windows. 

Inside the orangery, a man was sitting reclined in a chair, sunglasses over his eyes and face tipped up to the ceiling. Even from the distance he was stood at, Percy could see the man was wearing an absolutely abominable Hawaiian shirt and had quite a long salt-and-pepper beard. Percy walked closer, pausing in the doorway to observe the scene. A wheelchair with a blanket draped over the seat was placed next to the man and both seats were placed around a pink marble table. The doors on each of the walls had all been thrown open and the natural light of the sun painted the window patterns on the hardwood floor. A small candle chandelier hung from the ceiling and there were even huge candelabras on the floor, flanking even bigger ornate white pots of flowers and small trees. 

“Excuse me?” Percy began quietly, “I’m Percy Jackson, I’m new here.” The man didn’t budge from his seat. He simply took a long breath in, twisted his head slightly to the left and yelled, 

“Peter Johnson is here!” 

“‘Kay. That isn’t… really my name,” Percy responded awkwardly, holding up one of his hands, “I guess I’m looking for the office? Or whoever’s in charge, so…” The man began sitting up a little and removed his sunglasses to look at Percy. A faint ‘wait, wait, wait, wait’ reached Percy’s ears and Grover came running into the room, stopping just beside Percy and quickly touching him on the arm. 

“Um, Percy,” then he gestured to the man at the table, “Mr. D, Camp Director.” Then he gestured back to Percy while looking at the man, “Mr. D, this is, uh, Percy Jackson.” 

“Yeah, Grover, I heard him the first time,” the man responded breezily, frowning at the satyr as he threw his sunglasses onto the table. 

“Yeah. But did you?” Percy added, tilting his head as he looked at Mr. D. 

“Ok,” Grover breathed out, pulling on Percy’s shoulder and turning him back so he could lean in closer. “You really don’t wanna start with this guy.”

“He’s starting with me,” Percy argued back, gesturing to Mr. D with his arm. 

“Percy, the D is for Dionysus. That’s Dionysus.” Grover urged, glancing to Mr. D then back to Percy who was squinting at him. 

“What do you mean, Dionysus? The- like the god, Dionysus?” He asked, staring at Grover. 

“Yes.” 

“No way.”

“Yes.” 

Percy looked around then simply gave Grover a little nod before they both turned back to face Mr. D who was looking up at them with a bored face. 

“Excuse me, Your Highness?” And Mr. D grimaced, shaking his head and letting out a little ’oh’ that was part exasperation, part annoyance, and part disappointment, but Percy simply continued. “I think my dad may be around here somewhere. I don’t know how to ask for him,” and Percy looked around because he didn’t have a single clue about who he was looking for or how to find him, and it all sounded kind of delusional and crazy when the thoughts became words that came out of his mouth. “I don’t-I don’t even know his name. But I think I should see him. I just…” Percy sighed, “I think I really need that right now. Can you help me?” 

Mr. D slowly sat up with a dignified smile on his face, depositing his drink on the table as he nodded. 

“Actually… I think I can.” He spoke slowly, and Percy’s eyes began to fill with hope. “Son.” He stared at Mr. D. The man was smiling in a self-satisfied way and simply watching Percy. 

“Dad?” He questioned. 

“Yes, Peter,” Mr. D answered, folding his hands in his lap. 

“It’s Percy,” he mumbled, not being able to tear his eyes away from Dionysus’s face. 

“Exactly,” the man brushed off. “Now, before we get to know each other, there’s something very important I want you to do for me, okay?” Mr. D gestured with his hands as he spoke, a grave look falling onto his face. Percy only nodded in reply, hesitant shakes of the head. Mr. D smiled and leaned back a little in his chair. 

“In the galley,” he pointed out one of the doors, “there is a bottle of 1985 Chateau Haut-Brion.” He spoke with such reverence, gesturing with pinched fingers in front of his face as a giddy look crossed his face. “Will you go fetch that for me?” Percy stood still for a moment. 

“Is that really all you have to say to me?” He asked, everything inside him suddenly agitated. 

“Hey, um, Mr. D, even if Percy was-” 

“Uh, uh, uh, bup!” Mr. D made a pinching motion in the direction of Grover’s mouth. “Grover, quiet, please. This is a nice moment, don’t ruin it. The galley is right down that path,” he pointed out the door to his right again, “grab that bottle and I’ll talk to you about whatever you want. You know, uh…” he moved his head around as he tried to come up with something, “you, uh… me, who cares?” He batted his hand around in the air and frowned. 

Just as Percy stepped toward the door, he stopped again and stared at Mr. Brunner as he came walking up the dirt path to the orangery. With a horse attached to his body. Or… the body of a horse attached to his… body. The centaur walked up to the entrance of the orangery and stood in front of Percy. Everyone was silent for a moment. 

“Percy.”

“Mr. Brunner?” He asked, staring up from the horse legs to the old-man cardigan and grey blazer. 

“Uh, Mr. Brunner’s real name is Chiron. Camp activities director, immortal trainer of heroes, he is-” 

“Grover, thank you. I’ll take it from here,” he politely interrupted, smiling at the excitable satyr who simply pursed his lips and nodded, swinging his arms back and forth. “Oh, Percy, this must be a lot for you to process,” he said kindly. 

“Oh, no. It’s-it’s fine. I mean, you’re a horse,” he gestured to Mr. Brunner’s lower body, “my father won’t talk to me unless I get him a drink.” He pointed at Mr. D who simply gulped from his can then brought it down again when he noticed they were all looking at him. Chiron looked between Mr. D and Percy, a look of surprise slowly widening his face. “Well, this all seems totally normal and reasonable.” 

“Oh, no, no, no. No,” Mr. Brunner began shaking his head, “Mr. D is not your father.” Percy and Grover simultaneously turned to look at Mr. D. He simply shrugged and held out his hand as he looked at Chiron. 

“I could be.” 

“Yes, but are you?” Chiron asked, hands holding the lapels of his blazer. 

“Why must you ruin everything?” Mr. D answered petulantly, but Chiron ignored him and turned back to Percy. 

“Mr. D knows that Zeus has forbidden him from consuming alcohol. And that demigods are able to do things for gods that gods are forbidden to do themselves,” and Mr. D sighed in the background, reaching for his can and bringing it to his lips again. “Mr. D was taking advantage of that, hm?” Percy turned to look at Mr. D with a frown and the man simply let out an ‘eh’ and shrugged. “Percy?” He turned back to Mr. Brunner - uh, Chiron - and the man smiled comfortingly down at him. “Walk with me and we’ll start again, hm?” He only shot one last look at Mr. D before walking out of the room. Grover went to follow but Chiron held up a finger. “Uh, Grover, please give us a moment.” And with an approving smile, he followed after Percy. 

Grover stumbled backward into the room then walked to the other door to watch Chiron and Percy walk along the path down to the lake. 

“This doesn’t feel right,” he murmured. 

“What, success?” Mr. D answered from behind him. “You got the boy to camp alive. Don’t overthink it.” Grover nodded a little and turned back to look at Mr. D. 

“Yeah, but it’s…” Mr. D shot him a look, head tilted forward and eyes saying, ‘really?’. Grover turned back to the door and watched the centaur and the boy walk farther and farther away. 

Percy stood in front of the rolled up sleeping bag and his backpack set on the floor of the Hermes cabin. He stared at it for a moment before getting onto his knees and opening the flap of his bag. Right at the top was the little plastic pouch of blue jelly beans Aunt Sally had given him before all the craziness had occurred and he held it gently in his hand, tears burning at the backs of his eyes all over again. He could see the happy little smile she had given him as she shook the bag in front of his face, the damp hug she had pulled him into. 

A little group of campers was gathered to his right and he could see one of them begin to approach. He sighed, a sense of despair filling his limbs with exhaustion. He couldn’t do this today. 

“Look, if you want to give me a hard time, just do it tomorrow. I can’t do anymore today,” he sighed as he got back onto his feet, looking at the boy in front of him. He had a scar on his face running down his cheek from under his eye and he simply brushed off Percy’s words. 

“Heard what happened to you on the hill. And I just… wanted to say I’m really sorry.” Percy nodded, looking away from the boy’s face. “I know what you’re going through. Believe me. Losing your mom is…” The boy gave a rueful little smile but Percy just began shaking his head. 

“Oh, she wasn’t… she wasn’t my mom.” It felt wrong to say that though, because Sally had been Percy’s mom all these years. She was the one that did everything mothers do while his real one was gods know where. “She was my aunt, Aunt Sally,” he told the kid, pursing his lips. 

“Oh,” the kid reared back a little in surprise, tilting his head in question but not choosing to ask anything further. He simply nodded then held out his hand. “I’m Luke.” Percy reached out and shook his hand. 

When Percy jumped awake, Luke was already standing near the end of his make-shift bed. He smiled at him in commiseration. 

“Intense, recurring nightmares. That’s normal here.” Percy stood up and stretched his back a little, feeling the stiffness and soreness in his muscles slowly began to dissipate. “And the daydreams, and the ADHD, and dyslexia. Demigods just process reality differently than humans do.” Then Luke smiled and gestured to the cabin. “For the first time in your life, you’re just like everyone else.” Percy squinted at Luke in question. 

“So are you also… Do you not know who your-” 

“Am I unclaimed? No. Hermes is my father.” For a moment Luke’s face was stormy but the look was gone so quickly Percy didn’t question it. “That doesn’t matter,” Luke shook off, “we’re all on the same team here.” But Percy couldn’t let it go. He frowned at Luke as petulance brewed in his expression. 

“Why is that ok? Why do they get to bring us here to just ignore some of us?” 

“Spend too much time trying to figure out why the gods do whatever it is they do, you’ll drive yourself crazy,” and the way Luke said it made Percy think he was speaking from experience. “Sooner you stop worrying about that, the sooner you can enjoy what this place actually does offer,” Luke smiled. 

“And what’s that?” 

“Glory.” 

As Luke went about explaining what exactly glory was and why in the world it was so important at Camp, Percy listened intently. He liked the way Luke spoke, the way he was so comforting and treated him like he was his little brother who he wanted to teach things to, to spend time with. 

Percy had always thought it was great with just him and Aunt Sally. They didn’t need anyone else. Even when Gabe came to live with them it didn’t feel like he was actually joining the family, just hanging around. But it felt nice to have someone treat him like a sibling would. He wouldn’t have minded having a brother if it was Luke. 

Just as they followed the curve of the path around a little grass nole in the middle of the circle of cabins, someone shoved past him, sending him into Luke’s side. He turned to look at them, a loud ‘hey!’ leaving his lips as he frowned at the girl standing just there. She only stepped forward and shoved him in the chest so hard he went straight into the dirt onto his back. She was glaring down at him, a look of annoyance and superiority on her face as Luke came to stand between them. 

“Hey. Know it off, Clarisse. It’s like his first day, come on.” Luke glanced at Percy to make sure he was alright as one of the other Hermes kids helped him up, before turning back to stare at Clarisse with a hard look in his eyes. She only smiled, a cruel smile as she gestured to Percy. 

“Wait, so this is the kid who killed the Minotaur. Is that right?” She turned to look at Percy properly and he only frowned, looking at her warily like she would shove him again. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’ll bet.” But she didn’t look impressed with what she saw. “Look, you want attention around here, dummy? You better be ready for when it comes.” Then she pressed forward like she was going to attack him and he stumbled back, but she was already walking away with a gleeful smile, the people following her laughing together as they glanced at him in all his scrawny glory. 

Percy stood there for a moment, watching her walk away. 

“Well, she seems nice,” he said sarcastically. 

“Ares kids.” Luke said it like it was all the explanation he needed but Percy just looked at him with a raised eyebrow. He shrugged, “they come by it honestly.” 

“Why don’t they mess with you?” 

“They know better,” Luke answered with a smirk, hands on his hips. 

“Luke’s the strongest swordsman at camp,” Chris chimed in. Percy looked up at him and began connecting dots in his head. 

“So, they leave you alone because ‘glory’?” Luke just nodded. “So if I get glory, Clarisse wouldn’t mess with me either?” 

“Exactly,” Luke nodded again, clapping him on the back, and Percy finally felt like he was beginning to understand how things worked around this place. 

“And people think I’m a big deal?” 

“Well, sorta, but-” Luke tilted his head to the side, a very simple gesture that said ‘I wouldn’t choose those words yet’. 

“And my dad’s got no choice but to claim me,” Percy added, finally feeling like he had a solution, but Luke just frowned a little bit. 

“You can’t force the gods to do anything.” 

“Well, yeah, but… it would make it harder for him to pretend I don’t exist, right?” It all sounded so simple when he said it like that. 

“Maybe,” Luke answered quietly, nodding in thought. 

“Well, great! Where do we start?” And Percy smiled properly for the first time since he had arrived at Camp. 

As Percy sat down at the pavilion table with Chris and Luke after a dismal afternoon, he let out a long sigh.

“Is there a Greek god of disappointment?” He asked, raising his eyebrows in exasperation, “maybe someone should ask him if he’s missing a kid.” Luke looked up in thought, squinting and tilting his head. 

“Oizys… but she’s a goddess. And her whole thing isn’t really disappointment, it’s more like failure.” Chris answered, fiddling with his fork. Percy sighed and gestured at himself. 

“Well, that works too. Maybe she’s my mom,” he shrugged, looking down at his plate. 

“We’re gonna find the thing that you’re good at. I know it.” Luke leaned forward so Percy was forced to look at him and he smiled in that soft, brotherly, way. They were quiet for a moment and Percy continued picking at his food when Luke brought his elbows to rest on the table and folded his hands under his chin. “So you don’t know either of your parents?” He asked, frowning at Percy. 

“No, my Aunt Sally raised me. At least, that’s what I’ve called her my entire life. She’s the one who told me about my dad, that he’s a god…” Percy paused, staring at the table. “She didn’t tell me anything about my mom though. I was asking her about it before… everything.” Luke nodded in understanding but Percy didn’t look up from his plate until a gong sounded throughout the pavilion and Luke sighed. 

“Our turn,” he told Percy, smirking in exasperation before grabbing his plate and standing up. 

“Our turn for what?” 

“Burnt offerings,” Luke and Chris answered simultaneously. “The gods like the smell, so it gets their attention before you say a prayer,” Luke added. Percy just stared up at them in confusion. 

“They like the smell of burnt mac & cheese?” He asked. 

“They like the smell of begging,” Chris answered, smirking sarcastically. Luke just chuckled quietly as Chris walked off with his plate. 

“You burn what you’ll miss the most. Then they know you really mean what you’re about to say, so they listen.” And Luke walked away with a shake of his head. 

But an idea was brewing in Percy’s mind and he needed his jelly beans for it. 

Percy went as deep in the woods as he wanted to risk, and built a fire in an old can he had found in the trash. Aunt Sally had taught him how to build fires on a camping trip a couple years ago and the dry sticks and leaves on the floor were perfect kindling. He stared into the little pot of flames and held tightly onto the pouch of blue jelly beans. Slowly, he picked one out of the pouch and dropped it into the flames. It began to melt and he could hear the sugar sizzling at the bottom of the can. 

“Hi, Aunt Sally. I don’t know if I’m doing this right. I hope you can hear me.” He paused, gathering his words. “I think you used to hate this. When the phone would ring the night after you left me at a new school. I’d tell you that the people are awful. That I wanted to come home.” His voice felt so heavy, and he cleared his throat but the feeling didn’t go away. “Well… the good news is… this isn’t that call.” He smiled a little. “I hope you’re sitting down, but… I think I’ve made some friends here. Like, real friends.” He stared into the fire like soon the flames would form her face. “I think they might really like me. Imagine that.” A huff-laugh left his lips and he looked away from the fire. “He isn’t here. My father, he just… didn’t show. I mean, ignoring me is one thing, but he doesn’t get to ignore you.” He clenched his jaw, face twitching in anger. “I’m gonna make him come down here. I’m gonna make him see me. I’m gonna make him see us both.” 

Percy flexed his jaw and closed his eyes. He was angry, and scared, and disappointed, and hopeful, and determined. He was going to do it. Whatever it took. And then, slowly, he picked another jelly bean out of the pouch and dropped it into the fire. He thought of someone he didn’t know, someone who could look like anyone, sound like anyone, be like anyone. 

“Hey, uh, mom?” The word felt so awkward coming out of his mouth. “Long time, no speak,” he chuckled awkwardly and winced at himself, pressing his face into his knees and rubbing his hair aggressively. “Uh, sorry. Look, I don’t really know who you are, or what you look like, or anything, so, sorry about that I guess. I mean, it’s not really my fault, ya know? 

“Anyway, I don’t even know why I’m talking to you right now. It’s not like you’ve ever been around either. But I guess with everything changing, now’s the time to try and talk to you.” Suddenly tears collected in his eyes and his hands began to shake and he turned to stare into the fire as pain filled his chest and a lump grew in his throat. 

“Where are you? Why haven’t you been here? Aunt Sally once said she thinks you’re the one sending all those birthday gifts, and-” he took a shuddering breath in, lips quivering as he tried to control the urge to sob. “Why aren’t you here to explain them all to me? Why aren’t you here to explain this entire world and tell me what I should do? Why aren’t you here to tell me who my father is, and why in the world you loved him?” Percy paused, wiping haphazardly at his nose. “Why don’t you love me?” He breathed out.

Far away, a woman sat dazed on one of the roots of Yggdrasil. You were staring into a pool of water that had collected between the roots of the tree of life, willing it to show you something, anything other than your own reflection, willing it to listen to the power you had that no longer seemed to work. Your knees hurt from pressing on the unforgiving branch but you didn’t move. The edges of your white dress were turning grey and brown with the grime and water, and your bare arms and shoulders were beginning to get cold. 

Then, as if by the very magic that was threaded into the air of Asgard, the smell of burning sugar reached your nose. It was soft, barely a hint at first, and it mixed with the smell of food colouring and gelatin being burned as well. You frowned, closing your eyes and sniffing the air. And slowly, like someone was moving one side of a pair of headphones closer then farther away from your ear, a voice began to reach you. You tried to follow it with your head, to find it and bring it closer, but it faded in and out. 

The voice was full of pain, and you felt that pain within yourself, now. It filled up your throat and made your fingertips hurt. Your eyes began to burn behind your eyelids and tears slipped past the cracks. You could hear some of the words now, “where are you…” a child’s voice, desperate. “Why aren’t you here…” through shuddering breaths and a cracking voice. A voice you would know like a song from your childhood. You smiled through the pain, the tears streaming down your face like unstoppable rivers now, dripping into the puddle before you. And suddenly the voice was clearer, coming from right in front of you, and you opened your eyes hurriedly, breathing in big gulps of air as you saw your son’s face right in front of you.

His eyes were red, big and blue just like his father’s. And you couldn’t help the little laugh that left you, a watery, relieved, sound that mingled pain and joy so perfectly. His hair was curly and blond and unkempt and you reached out, hoping you could brush your fingers through it, but your fingertips only met water and rippled the image of his face. His cheeks were wet with tears and he was almost glaring into the fire. 

“Why don’t you love me?” He whispered, and you shook your head, entire body shaking as you sobbed out, ‘no, no, that’s not true.’ Your voice crackled and your face was scrunched up as if someone was stabbing you in the chest and twisting the knife. Your very organs were in turmoil. 

“Perseus,” you whispered, reaching out to the puddle again. He looked up and then around himself, as if someone had spoken behind him, and this time when your fingers touched the water, the image dissolved with the ripples. You cried out, your hand fully immersed in the water and sat there, shaking with sobs. Then a frenzy overtook you. 

You had to find him. You had to get to your son. Something had happened, you were sure of it. If he knew how to make a sacrifice now, he had entered your world. And if he had entered your world, then something had happened. And if something had happened… He needed you now. You stood up and clambered your way back to the feast hall. No one else was there yet and you hurried past the head table where you would be expected to take your place in the evening. If everything worked out, you wouldn’t be there to hear the questions about where you had gone. 

Just as you got to the centre of the table, a raven flapped down onto the back of Odin’s throne. You paused, where you stood opposite it, watching another raven circle down then hop onto the opposite end. Another raven squawked from somewhere behind you and you turned to look for it, dread creeping up your spine. When you turned back around to look at the two ravens on the throne, you gasped and jumped back. 

Odin was sitting on his throne and watching you with pursed lips. His eyes were pained when they met yours and you stepped closer to the feast table, wanting to reach out to your father and soothe whatever ache was ailing him. 

“Where are you going?” He asked simply, watching you clench both your hands in the skirts of your dress. 

“My son, he… Father, he needs me,” your lower lip wobbled as the tears returned with your force. 

“You know you cannot go to him. For his sake, and your own,” his voice was low, a tone you had not heard before. “You would be risking his life.” “It is already at risk!” You exclaimed, throwing your hands up in the air. “Something has happened, and he is aware of the world he comes from. He has always needed me but I was too much of a coward to stay with him and risk the fight. I reasoned that he needed to be hidden,” you clenched your eyes shut at the pain of the years missed, the time lost. “But now… he has entered a world that he knows nothing about. He still doesn’t know even the extent of himself. And-and… he needs his mother.” You were resolute, clenching your hands into fists and staring at your father. 

Odin stayed silent. He watched you straighten your back and press your fists into the sides of your legs. He could feel the power you exuded, could see the little waves of sparkling particles that emanated from your skin, the raw magic only he was capable of seeing. He sighed, rubbing his forehead for a moment. Your own face seemed to draw downward as you saw the look on his face, a bone-deep sadness, a raw despair that added lines and wrinkles before your eyes. Then he looked up and directly into your eyes. Into your soul. 

“I have been protecting you from yourself, for so long,” he sighed, and you watched him slowly peel his eyepatch off and set it on his knee. His eye socket was a gaping black hole, the red scarred flesh at the edges had healed long ago and was just threads of red blood vessels under thin skin. “You have always been my favourite child,” he told you with a soft smile, and you returned it, suddenly feeling like you had only just been a little child the day before and Odin had been leading you around the halls of Asgard. “And I only do what I do, what I have already done, out of love.” You frowned, mouth parting to speak. “You would understand, I hope, the inherent need of a parent to protect their child.” 

“Father, what are you-” 

You glanced back into the socket of his eye and suddenly your limbs could no longer move. Images assaulted your mind, flashing one after the other as the sound of ravens screeching and squawking and calling hit your ears. You tried to bring your hands up to cover them but you couldn’t. Every muscle felt like it was stuck in syrup and you couldn’t even lift your fingers up let alone try and swim out of it. And then the images, your little Percy’s eyes flashing in front of your eyes. Every moment you had missed, every little word he said and every movement he made. 

You watched him wail in Sally’s arms as she desperately tried to soothe whatever was bothering him, walking around in the living room of a small apartment at one in the morning. You saw him carefully pull himself up onto his chubby toddler legs and begin precariously waddling his way to Sally as she clapped and teared up, reaching out for him and pressing kisses to his cheeks. You watched him on his first day of school, hands shaking and eyes tearing up as he tried to read what was on the paper and couldn’t get the letters to stay still. You saw his downcast face as the principal told Sally the school couldn’t support his needs. You saw him run up the dank stairwell of a school building, desperate to get to the roof and see the Pegasus before it left. You watched him lay in bed at night and whisper goodnight to a mother and father who weren’t there. And you watched him grow, and grow, and become a sassy teenage boy who was kind and loyal, even to a fault. You saw him smile happily when Grover found him and struck up a game of mythomagic cards. You smiled and laughed and cried without moving a single muscle. 

And then you saw the minotaur chase the car. You saw Sally push Percy away in the rain and begin screaming at the monster to come for her. You saw the creature pick her up, the flash of her disappearance, and a soundless scream parted your lips slightly. But nothing else moved. Not an eyelash. A constant stream of Percy’s life played before you until it disappeared in a flash. You stared at Odin, unmoving as a tear slipped from the corner of your eye and slowly tracked down your cheek. He watched its trajectory until it dripped off your jaw. You wanted to open your mouth, to scream at him to let you go. You wanted to ask why, why did he hide everything, why would he do this? You wanted to go to your son. But he just looked at you with that never-ending pain in his eyes and whispered, 

“I’m sorry.” 

A flock of ravens descended on you. Pitch black wings hit you and flapped in your face until you were lost in the flurry and didn’t know if you were awake anymore…

Taglist: @thicficbich1, @pasta-warlord, @turtleshavesoulmates, @wolfgirl294, @stanswifties, @mrsinclaire, @homanoid, @bellamysnatblida, @mooncleaver 

[proboblynotstriaght]

Probobly silly of me to do another screenshot post as I watch episode 45, but I'm in a good mood, and things seem pretty light so far so

Minor spoilers under the cut

Kremy getting jump scared but something only he sees legitimately startles everyone else lol!

I love his face when he does the funny expressions

"Second worst way to die is... getting mauled by a bear, and the first one is drowning!" "Ohhhh, Agdon did both of thoooose"

"I don't know if you know this about me but I'm an empath..."

"... So I am uniquely qualified to tell you he died in terrible, terrible agony" "ohhhh, only you Gricko"

I think Richie just like startling people

"It's like the knife fight the the Yuu Yuu Haku show in the dark tournament" "I have no idea what that means'

AND MACE ROLLS A NATURAL 20!!!!

"I'm going to dread both of them, I'm just kidding that would ruin your life forever"

The train whistle makes a fun noise

"Hold on I didn't think about damage" *empties bag full of dice and.... bananyas?*

I just realized that my brother has the same exact shirt that Mikey is wearing but in a child size lmao !!! I think the shirt is from like, Old Navy

"Oh you still take damage, 8 points of cold damage"

Gricko summoning the Bananyas "I'm going to take all of these I'm not sharing"

He's actually stuffing the foam banana in his mouth! lol!

"It is wild how often we fight monsters with erections"

Andy, whispering : Ask a question Kremy, ask it

Maces face was too funny to not put in

"Here blow on my dice... Thanks Gid"

Richie, singing : ~I wanna know what the plaque saays~

"That gave me swoose-bumps" "that was good, that was good"

"Did that mean anything, or was it just some weird shit to say before you give someone the mummies curse"

"It's not a threat it's a promise because threats are empty"

*Nikkie, retelling the poem* *Derek miming frost telling Kremy the clifnotes*

"I'm gonna guess that it's time" "time for what?" "It isn't a riddle Gricko" "It's time to eat more Bananyas"

"There's only one thing I've ever done against my own free will swoose, and this ain't it"

"So it's not really Frosts thing" "Yeah, sorry Frosty" "I know"

"... and then there was man, from a certain point of view, who had giant pumpkins" great retelling of the King of Hearts (als my wife, trust me) Gricko, 10/10

"We hit rock bottom and we picked up shovels" there's so many banger quotes in this episode that you would never guess the funnier context

[safarigirlsp]

The Museum Beast

Historian Nicholas Mills x OC

Word Count: 13.8k

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Horror. Lots of Violence. Gore. Chasing. Monster Action. This is heavily inspired by one of my favorite novels, Relic. If you like any of this, I highly encourage you to read it!

I’m willing to continue this and write more if people like it!

Note: Going forward, I'm going to write characters from now on instead of Readers just because it's really annoying trying to switch back and forth for the non-fic writing I do. However, the female characters will be totally physically vague aside from having a name, so they can still easily be read as an insert by anyone who chooses to insert themselves.

Based on two requests I combined then butchered from @iamburdened and @queeniebee

AO3 Link

Two of the world’s tallest free-standing dinosaurs were frozen mid-battle in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda on the second floor of the New York Museum of Natural History. In dramatic repose, a Barosaurus reared to protect its young from an attacking Allosaurus. The skeletal titans made the browsing museum patrons look like ants milling at their feet. Alice was never unable to walk past the dinosaurs without craning her neck upward to admire their towering presence. The great saurians were much more interesting to focus on than the throng of chattering primates that inhabited the museum during business hours. Walking through the past with her heels echoing on tile hallways that stretched the length of city blocks, she allowed herself to be distracted by the jungle of extinct species giving life to their dioramas. From the tiny, feathered dinosaur skeleton displayed in a dramatically lit shadow box to the gigantic open jaws of a megalodon framing the entrance to an adjoining hallway, there was always something interesting that caught her eye.

If she walked briskly it was a decent cardio session to make her way to the North American section of the museum. A special exhibit had just opened, an exhibition on the American Old West. It had all the good stuff. Cowboys, gunslingers, train robbers, mountain men, and miners. The exhibit was livelier curated than most, or maybe the subject simply lent itself to action and movement. Standing guard on either side of the entrance were the wax likenesses of Buffalo Bill, wearing his original buckskin outfit, bedazzled with fringe and conchos, and Sitting Bull, dressed in a magnificent headdress boasting a rainbow of colors in its plumage. In one corner was a round table of wax men dressed in full regalia, engaged in a heated poker game. A man with luxurious curly hair sat with his back facing the audience, displaying his hand of aces and eights, the famous Dead Man’s Hand, held by ‘Wild’ Bill Hickock when he was gunned down. The mural painted in the corner Hickock faced even showed the characteristic swinging doors of a saloon, being pushed open by a man with a gun in his hand and murder in his eyes. In another corner ‘Hanging’ Judge Parker sat at his desk, writing in his ledger, backlit by a mural of a man swinging from the gallows outside his office window.

Alice was delighted to see some of the famous men of the old west depicted in less obvious settings than gunfights. These exploits were detailed in paintings that supplemented the exhibits and dozens of informative plaques, but many characters were shown in niche exposes that spoke to the true enthusiasts among the visitors.

The most famous lawman of all, Wyatt Earp, was depicted indulging in his guilty pleasure of gambling with his notoriously beautiful actress wife playing right alongside him as she smoked a cigar. Instead of being shown in his best-known role as Wyatt Earp’s right hand in the infamous Tombstone events, Doc Holliday was portrayed as a suave gentleman, dressed in a fancy brocade vest and cravat, focused on the smiling attentions of his consort, Big-Nosed Kate. The deadliest outlaw of all and likely psychopath John Wesley Hardin was shown lounging on a dirty bunk inside a jail cell. He was intently focused on a large law book. After serving his time, he turned from gunfighting to the practice of law. The plaque detailing his exploits explained tongue-in-cheek that he had traded the illegal form of lawlessness for the legal alternative.

Ample attention was also given to women of note. From saloon owners to cut-throat madams, women’s stories were interspersed with the male narrative. There was of course a display devoted to Calamity Jane, dressed as a man and just as dangerous. Prominently featured was the lesser known but equally successful outlaw Belle Starr, shown wearing a pretty red dress while brandishing a six-gun astride her huge, coal-black horse, Venus. The most famous woman of all, and arguably one of the most iconic figures of the Old West, Annie Oakley, was given a full diorama of her own. A wax figure depicted the pint-sized sharpshooter holding a rifle as she aimed for the cigarette held between her husband’s lips.

An armory worth of firearms from the period were on display. From iconic Colt .45 revolvers and Winchester 30-30 lever action rifles to unique pieces like tiny six-barreled pepper-box derringers and huge Sharps rifles, there were enough firearms to lay siege to a small country. It was befitting for the period, when a man’s gun and his horse were the best friends he could ever have. Without either, a man’s lifespan would likely be reduced to weeks or even days.

The exhibition hall was spacious, even with a veritable herd of visitors milling through it like buffalo on the plains. School children raced through the halls and between dioramas as unchecked as packs of coyotes, while their teachers and handlers tried in vain to wrangle them under control. It was afternoon and most groups were on their final turn around the exhibits before leaving. A few pairs of surly teenagers lingered on the sidelines, looking like they were trying to find a place to whip out a cigarette to enhance their cool, and probably having escaped their own class trip from some other section of the vast museum. Despite the chaos the minors instigated, snippets of intelligent conversation also fluttered around the room.

In an attempt to avoid the class field trips, Alice moved to an adjacent room inside the sprawling exhibit. This spacious room was devoted to art of and from the period, Native American weavings and pottery, animated bronze sculptures, and vibrant oil paintings. The more sedate nature of the art exhibits appealed to a more sedate crowd, unable to hold the interest of children and teenagers. The only other people in the art room were an elderly couple, a group of three college-age people who looked like modern beatniks, and one impressively built man standing off to one side, studying the plaque of a detailed mural-size painting.

Alice couldn’t help but appraise the man discreetly as he stood quartering away from her. He was tall and broad, his robust physique apparent through his flannel shirt and jeans. Even from her angle, she could tell his features were strong and masculine. Dark hair curled around his collar and his strong stubble-covered jaw flexed as he read, his bright eyes darting quickly over the text. She wondered briefly about approaching him – men that attractive were rare to find out in the wild – but it struck her as ridiculous to approach the man like she was in a bar and ask him if he came here often. Rolling her eyes inwardly at herself, she turned her attention toward the opposite wall and a painting of a painfully skinny man riding an equally emaciated white horse on a moonlight night.

It was rewarding when out of the corner of her eye she saw the man turn and pause just to look at her. The man glanced toward the doorway leading back into the main exhibit then back at her, seeming to decide whether or not he too wanted to risk making an ass of himself with a clumsy come-on in an art exhibit. Alice fought to hide her smile when he made his decision in her favor.

The handsome man sidled up to her, his approach practiced and laissez-faire. His shoulders were squared and his stride confident, but he angled across the exhibit hall from the side, his eyes fixed on the oil paintings instead of his prize, like a lion casually strolling by a gazelle to gauge distance before an attack. There was an impulse to turn to him with an accusatorily arched eyebrow to show she was onto him. But he was attractive enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. Being pursued added a certain spice to the air, after all. With his large hands in his pockets and his posture confident but relaxed, he dripped with top notes of James Dean and undertones of Clint Eastwood.

“Frederick Remington,” the man read the artist’s name when he stopped beside her. He was a full head taller and his voice was deep and a little gravely, barely tinged with a Western drawl. “I think my dad has one of his 30.06 rifles.”

Alice hoped he was teasing, that there were a few active brain cells sparking inside that pretty head. The hint of a smirk twisting the man’s lips confirmed it. Keeping her face deadpan, she played along. “Yeah? These artists must have been starving during their lifetimes, being forced to branch out like that. I hear the guy behind Winchester Arms was really into weird avant garde architecture, too.”

The man grinned and turned to face her, fixing her with a pair of bright eyes the color of whiskey. “I think that was his wife. Leave it to a woman to spend a man’s hard-earned gun money on a house in the California hills, complete with staircases leading to ceilings and dead ends. Think she had a Remington on the walls?”

“I don’t know if Sarah Winchester was a fan of Frederick Remington, but I bet there were a few works by Eliphalet Remington somewhere inside,” Alice teased.

“I’m impressed,” the man laughed. “I couldn’t have pulled that name out of thin air.”

“I bet now you’re wondering if I’m a gun nut or just a history buff. A woman should keep an air of mystery about her.” She smiled and looked at him squarely. She decided he looked at home in the Old West exhibit, exuding a ruggedly masculine quality that was all too rare in modern society. He had a face that belonged on the streets of Dodge City, those crisp hooded eyes staring down the barrel of a Colt .45. She realized she had been staring into those eyes for a rudely long moment, and continued talking to smooth over that faux pas, “I never cared much for Remington’s paintings. They’re drab and all the subjects are in painfully sorry condition – horses and men alike.” She pointed to an incredible scene of two cowboys roping a grizzly bear, their movements frozen on canvas mid-stride, mid-lasso, and mid-snarl, painted with confident strokes in a vibrant palette. “Charlie Russell is my favorite. You can’t beat the color and the action in his paintings.”

“I wonder if that’s worse than having a tiger by the tail,” he pondered, pointing at the lassoed grizzly, snarling and swiping at the horse and rider. “What would your boyfriend say?”

“That position is currently vacant. What a brash way to inquire.” She smiled and nodded back at the snarling grizzly. “I’m sure three out of four ex-boyfriends would say they’d take their chances with the bear.”

“It’d take more than a bear or a tiger to scare me away from such a pretty face,” he teased, using those impressive eyes as tactically as a gun. “I never did have much instinct for self-preservation. Plenty of brash though, and other things synonymous.”

She laughed genuinely. “You’ve covered art, guns, tigers, and balls in three minutes flat. That’s quite an icebreaker without even introducing yourself. What else should I know?”

“Nicholas Mills.” He grinned handsomely and extended his hand, it was callused and powerful and large, easily swallowing hers in his warm grip. “I’m here consulting on this exhibition, on loan from the Old West Museum in Cheyanne.”

“Alice,” she returned, giving his hand a firm shake. “You’re a historian?” Her tone was skeptical as she pointedly eyed his flannel shirt and jeans. “Is tweed out of vogue for you types these days?”

“In the west it’s all denim and cotton.” He popped the collar of his shirt. “Linen if you want to be pretentious. Dust sticks to tweed like hell, not to mention burs.”

“What about your ten-gallon hat and dinnerplate-sized belt buckle?” The question gave her a convenient excuse to gauge the way he filled out his jeans. He wasn’t a man who skipped leg day.

“Those are only fashion accessories in Texas. Maybe Santa Fe. Where I’m from, if you’re wearing a cowboy hat, it better have a sweat ring around the headband, and if you’re wearing a belt buckle, it better be tarnished. Those are work accessories for working ranch hands, not fashion statements.” He let his eyes travel the curves of her figure under the guise of admiring her outfit of jeans and a blazer. “I suppose those duds work equally well for business or pleasure in most fields.” He smirked, but moved on before she could wonder at the double entendre. “Do I get a last name or just Alice?”

Smiling coyly, Alice replied, “I’ll give you a hint and see how well you know your stuff. It’s the name of one of my favorite songs and of a color that looks terrible on me, and I share it with a gunfighter who I’m sad to see isn’t featured in your exhibit. He had one of the best names in the business. That’s three hints, actually. So, are you posing as a historian to hit on unsuspecting women, or the real deal?”

“I’m not up on music and I can’t imagine there’s a color that could make you look terrible,” Nick frowned and pursed his lips. “I know of a couple of noteworthy Browns and even a Dunn, but their names don’t have any special ring to them. If I was a betting man, I’d put my dollar on ‘Texas’ Jack Vermillion. Alice Vermillion?”

“If you were betting, you’d have hit the jackpot,” Alice said with a genuine smile. “A man who knows Texas Jack and Charlie Russell. I’m not yet impressed, but I am intrigued.”

“If this goes the direction I’m hoping, I may yet hit that jackpot and you’ll be very impressed.” He didn’t give her the chance to address that sentiment before changing the subject. He cocked his head toward another painting depicting a man and woman seated side by side beneath an upside down canoe propped above them, taking shelter from a torrent of rain in a thick forest. Despite the weather, the couple was engaged in smiling conversation. “I’m a Goodwin man, myself. But I’m biased. Every time I look at his paintings of cowboys packing up in Alaska or canoeing in the Great North, adventurous couples fishing and hunting together, I get nostalgia for a place I’ve never been.” He smiled to himself. “Someday.”

“Isn’t New York about as far away as a man can get from canoeing up in the Great North and fighting grizzlies over your catch of the day?” she teased. “Not much chance of facing down a maneater on the mean streets of NYC. Although, I hear these days you’re more likely to get bitten by a New Yorker than a shark.”

“You must not know about the Museum Beast.” He flashed a grin that was lopsided and full of mischief.

Alice cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s a little early in the day for ghost stories. Shouldn’t you invite me someplace nicer before you start trying to rattle the delicate woman into wanting to cling to your big, strong arm?”

“I’m appalled you think I’m that easy, miss.” He flexed one of those big, strong arms in question in the sluttiest possible way. “It’s no campfire ghost story. The folks who work here believe it. They say there’s a huge beast living in the basement, roaming the halls at night.” Holding up his hands, he hummed the Twilight Zone theme. “They say it preys on researchers who embezzle grant money and curators who hit on their secretaries.”

Alice laughed, maybe snorted a little, decidedly unladylike. “So, you’re saying I’m safe then?”

“I’ll keep you safe,” he teased with faux gravity. “Just stick close to me.”

“That sounds like a pretty firm offer to help with some research to me.” She put her hands on her hips in a playful challenge.

“Would it be smart of you to trust the research skills of a man who’s not wearing a tweed jacket?” He grinned. “What kind of research? Are you a student?”

“God no!” she laughed. “I haven’t been a student in over a decade. I’m something much worse.”

Nick raised his eyebrows, inquiring.

“I’m a defense lawyer, trying desperately to find an angle to show my very guilty client has a mitigating defense.” She mirrored his expression, raising her eyebrows. “You want the facts? They’re not for the squeamish. You don’t have a full stomach, do you?”

“A pretty face with a shady job and an iron stomach to boot?” he laughed again. “You have my attention.”

“Have you ever gotten carried away and gone down some weird rabbit holes?” she asked with a self-deprecating grin.

‘Sure.” He nodded. “I’m not surprised you’re one to go chasing rabbits, Alice.”

“My client is a murder, a serial killer. A cannibal, to be precise.” She watched him for any of the silent tells she was used to seeing when a listener wanted her to stop, or to chew their arm off and escape her work stories. Seeing none, she continued. “He grew up in Centralia, Pennsylvania before the town was evacuated, then worked in mines all of his adult life. He tells me this affected him. Sadly, conventional psych evals don’t back up his claim. So, before I lay out the big bucks on an expert to say whatever I want, I wanted to do some research on the effects of heavy metal poisoning on miners and a correlation with cannibalism. I figured looking at the Old West miners before there were regulations might be a good place to start.”

“Cannibalism, huh? Romantic topic. Did you see the Donner Party exhibit?” He smirked and jerked his thumb in the direction of a diorama of several wax figures huddled around a dying campfire, clutching furs around them to fight the bitter blizzarding cold while suggestively roasting skewers of meat.

“It’s very nice.” She looked back at the macabre display. “But not what I’m looking for. They had a different defense to cannibalism. Duress, definitely. If I were representing one of them, I’d also argue self-defense, in an eat or be eaten sense. I’d win.”

Nick grinned then pursed his lips, nodding as he considered her problem. “You won’t find anything useful up here but if you want to go deeper down this rabbit hole, you’d want to have a look in the museum’s archives. This museum has the largest collection of natural history artifacts in the world. That’s one reason I’m here, frankly, is a chance to explore their collection of Old West relics. It’s better than being a kid in a candy store. It’s almost as good as an occultist getting a backstage pass to the Vatican Archives.” He fixed his intense eyes on hers. “I bet we could find some good stuff in there.”

“Are you offering to sneak me into the museum’s archives with you?” She added a seductive edge to her voice and added, “You’re going to lift up the museum’s skirt for me and show me her goods?”

“I’ll have you know skirt-lifting is a great talent of mine.” He waggled his eyebrows playfully. “Yeah, I’m offering, so long as you let me take you out afterwards. We can discuss our findings over dinner.”

“You won’t get in trouble?” she asked sincerely.

“They can’t fire me.” He shrugged. “The worst they could do is chew me out and deport me back to Cheyanne. What do you say? Dinner in exchange for a private curated tour and me risking getting a big ole ass-chewing?”

“Deal.” Alice smiled, offering her hand again and they shook on it.

*******************************************************************************************

It was creeping toward five when Nick led Alice out of an employee service elevator on one of the lower levels of the museum. They had met an exodus of employees heading the opposite direction on their way home for the day.

“Is it too late for this adventure?” Alice asked as they walked down a hallway so long she could barely see the end of it. The lights were dim and there were no windows on this lower level. They passed dozens of closed doors and multiple other hallways branching off. She thought the minotaur could get lost in this place.

“I have my all hours, all access pass.” He tapped his jeans pocket where a laminated card was stowed. It served as both an ID card and a key to most of the locked doors in the museum and the employee-only areas.

“How do you not get lost in here?” Alice asked, looking around the endless halls. Especially with no natural light or signage, it seemed impossible.

“Nah, I get lost all the time. I consider it part of the adventure,” he laughed, then saw her askance look and added sheepishly, “Sorry, I forgot I was supposed to be your intrepid guide. I won’t let on if I get lost. Just consider it exploring.”

“That’s comforting,” she laughed too. Secretly, she thought it might not be the most terrible thing to be lost for a few hours or even the night in a place with so much to explore with a handsome man.

Alice was convinced they had covered the distance of several city blocks before they arrived at a pair of heavy oak doors with a plain brass plate announcing they had reached the B Archives.

“Does that mean there’s an entire alphabet of archive rooms and collections?” she asked as Nick held the door open for her.

“Probably.” He shrugged. “I’ve only poked around in Archives A, B, and C. Those collections date from the recent past until the eighteenth century or so.”

Inside the B Archives, Alice was reminded of an enormous library that had seen better days. Or the basement of an ultra-rich hoarder. Rows of metal shelves streaked away as far as she could see in the dim lighting, seven-feet high and with another foot or two of boxes piled on top. Between rows there was enough space for two people to walk abreast if they wanted to get a little cozy with one another. At various intervals in the rows there were alcoves fitted with small tables where one could examine their find without taking it up to the front. The light added to the aged feel, the bulbs candlelight-yellow, a few of which were weak and flickering. The front of the room had a kind of sitting area with chairs and a spattering of small tables. There was a small office inside too, a door with a smoked glass window open ajar.

A hunched old man with white hair and coke bottle glasses poked his head out from the office door, squinting at Nick for several seconds before addressing him. “You’ve been bothering me a lot lately.”

“This time I brought a pretty girl who wants to bother you,” Nick said, placing his hand on the small of Alice’s back as he led her toward the old man. “She’s curious what you have on mines in the old west. Particularly mines with gruesome histories. Murders, deaths, breakouts of illness or insanity. All that good stuff. Cannibalism in particular, if you have any of that on the menu.”

“Cannibalism? On a perfectly decent Friday afternoon?” The old man scoffed, but proceeded to ponder the matter, his bushy white eyebrows drawing together in thought. After a moment, he held up a triumphant finger. “You know, there is a rather curious box of effects that might interest you. It’s some remnants of an old Colorado sheriff’s things. He led quite an illustrious life, it seems. His heirs donated most of his effects to the museum. I took a quick peek through it years ago when it came in, but I haven’t thought of it since.” He pointed a bony finger down the row of aisles. “Aisle S, box 5425, if memory serves, and it always does.”

“How in the hell do you do that?” Nick asked, shaking his head.

“Photographic memory.” The man tapped his temple. “Which also means I’ll remember you precisely if you mess up my boxes.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Nick assured him then led the way toward aisle S.

It took them some time to locate box 5425, partially because many of the labels were faded beyond readability. When they found it, Nick had to stand on his tiptoes and stretch his arms to their full reach to nudge it off its perch on top of another box on the top shelf. He nearly dropped the box when it came free, catching it with one hand and fumbling for balance for a harrowing second. Once he held it securely in his arms, he smiled cockily at Alice and headed toward the nearest alcove in their row.

The alcove was centered in the row and seated directly under a flickering yellow light. Nick set the box down on the small table, barely large enough for a coffee date. The lights were sparsely spaced, leaving shadowy stretches between pools of yellow light. There were still several towering rows of shelving between them and the entrance, but sound carried well in the sepulcher-like room. He was spreading the contents of the box out on the table when he heard then entrance door creak open and a voice bounced down the aisle toward them.

“I’m clocking out for the day.” The old man called. “Put that box back where you found it and don’t tell anyone I left you unattended in here, and we’ll still be friends tomorrow.”

“You got it,” Nick replied, projecting his deep voice so it boomed through the archives. Then he turned to Alice with a wolfish expression, “I hope you didn’t want a chaperone.”

“All a chaperone does is keep an honest man honest,” she replied, appreciating just how close they stood at the small table. “I think you’re a man who will break as many rules as I let you, chaperone or not.”

“Maybe so.” He grinned sideways and chewed his lip as he opened the box.

It may have been a mistake, she realized, allowing herself to be shut away privately and in such close confines with this man. Her profession was dominated by men, she was used to working closely with men and attractiveness or lack thereof never entered into it. Rarely, at least. It was a foreign feeling to be dominated by hormones the way she was now. Her senses felt assaulted, a gate failing before a battering ram. The way he looked and the rich gravel in his voice were bad enough, but now in the close space, Alice couldn’t ignore the masculine scent that subtly infiltrated her nose. She didn’t know if the scent of pine and leather mingled with musk was cologne or if it belonged to him. The small table necessitated him being close to her, their bodies almost touching. He didn’t crowd her, but still the size of him was tantalizingly imposing with the minimal space between them. She felt the heat from his body on her skin when he leaned over to study the papers spread across the table next to her. It made her think of being overpowered, manhandled, taken, even – the things that modern empowered women were supposed to have evolved beyond but that the base part of them craved when they sensed a man masculine enough to give it.

Nick pulled a letter from the box, the paper brittle and yellowed with age. Protocol dictated he should be wearing gloves to handle it, but he didn’t want to leave Alice alone long enough to fetch a pair. Despite his bravado, he had always found these dark and mostly abandoned places inside the museum creepy. He never let it get to him or get in the way of anything he needed to do, of course. But it was still an unsettling sort of environment, surrounded by the dead and their effects, in a place where voices echoed and shadows creeped. It was easy to imagine wakeful spirits watching him from the corner of his eye, just at the edges of the feeble light.

Not unlike being inside a deep, dark mine, he thought as he looked at the letter. He read aloud to Alice, thinking he might have actually struck gold, at least in terms of finding something to keep their afternoon interesting.

October 13, 1882

Darlin Belle,

I’m sure missin you tonight. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this but I hope it will find its way to you. I’m gonna write you like you was here with me and I was just talkin to you over dinner. It makes me miss you less. Every time I think about bein home, all that is to me is bein with you. The men in the posse kid me for bein whipped by you but I can’t find a damn to give over it. Miserable lonely bastards, the lot of em. But I guess they didn’t leave no one behind to miss em when they died. I hope you’ll miss me and remember the things that were good about me. There aren’t many, so it shouldn’t be hard.

“That sounds romantic,” Alice said with a wistful lilt. “I’m not sure it’s useful for my purposes, but I like it.”

Nick grinned and nodded. He read ahead to himself, but decided not to share it with the woman who was now looking at him with a pretty, hopeful smile. Best not to spoil the mood. He read the next few paragraphs to himself, feeling a prickly chill drag along the length of his spine like ghostly fingernails.

It’s been snowin up here in these mountains for days and it’s up over my knees now. Sure makes me miss the warmth of your touch. There’s nothin finer than holdin you in my arms, smellin your hair like flowers and cinnamon, feelin you soft n warm. I think you might be the only thing that can thaw me out ever again. Here I gone and got myself all hot and bothered just thinkin about you. But the snow’s been a blessin for me. It made the blood trail of the one I wounded easy to follow. I found him holed up under a ledge and finished him off with my knife so as not to fire off a shot. Sound carries in these mountains. The snow got thicker after dark. Thick enough to hide my tracks from the rest who are huntin me.

They haven’t found my hideout yet, but they will. I have to beat em to the punch.

I ain’t got much time cause they know the mountains better than me. It makes hidin hard and ambushin harder.

Sorry my writins goin from bad to worse fast. My fingers are numb as hell.

Curious, Alice leaned in to look at the letter and read it along with him. Spender folded it back together with a snap, too rough for the old paper and cleared his throat. He hastily put it back in the box – in the bottom of the box, under some other more innocuous looking items. “I don’t think the rest is worth reading today.”

Instead, he reached for a pocket watch with a gold hunting case, beautifully engraved with an elk hunting scene. Holding it delicately in his hands, he popped open the cover and read the engraving aloud, “To my handsome sheriff. You carry my love for you wherever you go. Belle.”

“That’s beautiful.” Turning toward him, Alice looked into his eyes as she spoke. Though his composure remained steady on the surface, she saw the way his chest expanded, his jaw clenched, his throat bobbed. It gave her a feeling of power knowing Nick was just as affected by their proximity as she was, maybe even more. She told herself she wouldn’t completely give into hormones. But she could give a little. How long had it been since she’d made out with a man like a horny teenager during a study session? Probably not since she had been a horny teenager. She could live a little now. Resting her ass against the tale, she leaned back against it and looked up at him, intentionally giving him the image of her laying sprawled beneath him. It would be a perfectly innocuous posture if the air wasn’t so charged between them, the attraction so tangible. The way he swallowed thickly told her that it wasn’t innocuous to him either.

The next move was his, Nick realized. Smirking to mask the way his pulse thundered, he stepped closer to her, using the excuse of setting the watch down on the table near her hip resting against the table’s edge. He left his hand there on the table, and when Alice kept looking up at him rather than anywhere else, Nick knew he had her tacit approval to act bolder. With his next step, he positioned himself in front of her. His right hand still rested near the pocket watch that held less interest to Alice than the man. He flattened his right hand on the table beside her then planted his left hand on her opposite side. There was still space between their bodies, if only inches, but he now caged her against the table and loomed over her.

“Find anything that interests you down here yet, darlin?’” he asked, letting the huskiness in his voice reflect his mounting arousal.

Alice heard something that sounded like a faint scratch from somewhere inside the archives. It was hardly enough to pull her attention away from the stupidly attractive man who was doing his best to make her forget all the dating rules and run every base right here in this dusty archive.

“I don’t have enough information to know if I’m interested in anything yet,” she teased. Angling her chin up, she presented her jaw and neck in a favorable angle for kissing.

“What do I need to clear up for you?” he played along as he lowered his head, trailing his nose over her cheek and his lips over her jaw, kissing lightly and teasing her with the scratch of his beard.

A box shifted on a shelf deeper in the archive, as though something had bumped it or rubbed against it. Alice heard that too, but she didn’t care. Not when Nick’s lips had moved to her neck and were giving her goosebumps, making her breath come short and her spine tingle. Encouraged by the way her body arched toward his and the way her hands had flown to his shoulders, Nick hooked his hands behind her thighs and hoisted her up onto the table. Pushing her legs apart, he stepped between them, bringing their bodies together then letting his hands caress her thighs and back as he continued kissing her neck. Every part of his body was hard beneath her roving hands, each plane and ridge of muscle a new excitement to discover. She could feel how hard he was inside his jeans too, but she would save exploring all of him for another time. She had talked herself into a nice makeout session with a handsome stranger, but she hadn’t yet abandoned all of her morals.

Bringing his hand to the back of her neck, he cradled her head while he exerted that subtle masculine control that could make a woman want to submit to him. Nick teased the side of her neck with his teeth, also teasing her restraint. He grinned against her skin when he pulled a soft moan from her throat, beginning to lose himself in the feel of her body against his, her soft skin under his callused hands.

When she moaned, Alice heard a strange response from somewhere in the dimly lit room. Something like a wet huffed breath, or a sloppy inhale. It sounded like a large dog snuffling. It was unmistakably not something she could attribute to the old room or hear ears playing tricks on her.

“Nick,” she whispered, not from arousal but trepidation. “Did you hear that?”

“’Course, darlin,’” he muttered dismissively as he nosed and kissed along her collarbone, his fingers digging into her thigh.

“What is it?” She was starting to pull back, making him tighten his hold on her.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing,” he spoke against her skin, trying to placate her. He hadn’t heard anything, but if there was something, it was probably a fucking rat the size of a wiener dog. They had those fuckin’ things in New York. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that. Giant rats wouldn’t do a damn thing to keep her revved up for him. Forcing the thought from his own mind, he resumed kissing her, rubbing his words in with his lips. “It’s an old place. There’s bound to be some weird noises.”

“Listen!” she whisper-yelled, grabbing a fistful of his thick hair and yanking far too harshly to be mistaken for anything sexy.

He winced and frowned at her through one eye, the other was squeezed shut from the pain in his scalp. “You could just tell me to fuckin’ stop, you know?”

“Listen,” she said again, this time her whisper was barely audible. She heard another scrape and maybe another sniffing breath. But everything was quieter now, more subtle. As if whatever was making those faint noises was trying to be stealthier.

“That could be anything,” Nick said at full volume with a laugh on his voice. His voice seemed to boom throughout the archives, sparking off Alice’s inflamed nerve endings.

She clapped a hand over his mouth, hard enough to make him flinch. Her body was bolt upright, incidentally pressing her body flush to his, her every muscle taught. She knew her system had shot into a fight or flight response, but she didn’t know why. Her consciousness hadn’t registered anything that warranted such a reaction, a few odd sounds in an old museum was hardly noteworthy. But something about what she heard struck a chord in her core, deep in her subconscious where instinct reigned. Every sense she had sparked like live electric wires, screaming at her to run away as fast as she could, but she didn’t know what she was running from or even which direction to bolt. Her eyes were wide and terrified when they met Nick’s and she whispered, “Something’s in here with us. Listen. We have to get out.”

His eyes crinkled with amusement and he kissed her palm still held over his mouth. Taking her wrist, he plucked her hand away and kissed her there on her pulse point. He did it teasingly, but he lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, “I spooked you good with that story about the Museum Beast.” He smirked and teased further, “I thought you were a big girl who could handle some campfire tales.”

“Can you not hear anything over the sound of your hard on?” she hissed, placing a restraining hand on his chest. “Listen, and try to think with the right head for a minute.”

Nick laughed, he always had a weakness for the feisty ones. He was about to tell her as much and steal another kiss when he heard it. A kind of snuffling, like someone with a runny nose, but also different and unmistakable. Growing up in Wyoming, he had spent plenty of time outdoors around wildlife, hunting, fishing, and hiking. He’d heard that sound once before when he’d come face to face with a grizzly around a bend in a trail. Given their poor eyesight, grizzlies tended to grunt and sniff their way along, their way of assessing their environment. He didn’t believe what his mind registered. There couldn’t be a fucking bear in a New York museum. But he also couldn’t rationally attribute the sound to some wheezy curator or a congested janitor, especially not when paired with a stealthy padded footfall.

“We need to run.” Alice fisted his lapel. Her voice had dropped below a whisper to an urgent breath.

“No, darlin,’ don’t run.” He grabbed her waist and pulled her off the table, returning her feet to the floor. Taking her arm, he pulled her behind him, placing himself closest toward the strange noises and whatever creature made them. He began to back slowly away down the aisle, pushing her behind him, trying to keep his steps silent. His mind raced frantically, but he forced his body to remain in control, repeating, “Don’t run.”

“Can we fight it?” she asked, touching his back from behind, trying to calm herself by keeping contact with him

“We may have to,” Nick gritted, unsure what to do since he had no idea what was creeping toward them from a few rows away. “Just don’t run. If there’s some kind of animal in here with us, the worst thing you can do is run.”

*******************************************************************************************

That little bitch, Warren thought petulantly as he walked down the dim hallway. The hallway that stretched on for the length of a city block. It was such bullshit. He hadn’t walked this much since he got kicked off his co-ed flag football team in junior high. Fuck her, he thought again as he kicked at a piece of crumpled paper on the tile floor, missed, and stumbled sideways. At least no one was around to see him. His uppity date was nowhere to be found. She had the gall to shove him away when he tried to fondle her boobs before running away from him. The ungrateful bitch. Warren had used his lunch hour to help her sneak out of high school, had paid her admission into the museum, and wasted his afternoon leading her around the exhibits and thrilling her with his acumen. She owed him a feel. He would just tell all her friends she sucked his dick in his car and have the last laugh.

Sullenly picking at the chipped black paint on his stubby fingers, he turned down yet another pointlessly long hallway. Despite being as blonde as a California It Girl and having a dumpy potatoesque physique, he thought that his crooked guyliner and black skinny jeans that revealed a tantalizing glimpse of a sweaty plumber’s crack gave him the hot goth look the girls liked. Not so much the girls in his peerage at college – they were stuck up bitches anyway, already hounding after the guys who were studying law at Harvard – but the girls who were just about to graduate from high school, just turned eighteen, maybe a little homely and desperate for a date to prom. Those were his preferred prey. He usually had some meager success with them, before their fathers found out about him and heartlessly separated them. It enhanced his view of himself as a tragic, long-suffering Shakespearean love interest who had turned to goth rock to bemoan his existence.

Since Warren had somehow managed to get turned around inside the maze of hallways until after it closed for the day, the museum was also devoid of employees. He thought it was only a matter of time before he ran into a security guard. He had a story lined up for why he was inside after hours, a grand tale that emphasized his victimhood. Maybe he could even end up with his name in the paper over it. That would really impress the girls.

Now, Warren lumbered along a random hallway, trying to find his way to an exit. He needed to find an elevator first. He had sneaked into some kind of service elevator with the girl and gone down several floors in his search for privacy. He thought he was in some kind of storage area or basement now, every room he passed was vacant save for troves of weird antiques. He had found the door to a stairwell a few turns back down the hallway, but he wasn’t about to walk up several flights of stairs. His day had been shit enough so far without climbing stairs.

After what seemed like an eternity, he came to a pair of double doors marked B Archives. He couldn’t remember the last time he had walked so far. He must have put in over two miles inside this stupid museum already. Like, a month’s worth of walking. Maybe there was a desk inside with a chair he could rest in even if he couldn’t find an employee to lead him out of this suckhole.

Success! Inside the B Archives were rows of forgotten looking shelves that Warren couldn’t give a shit less about, but there was also an office with an open door and the promise of a desk and cushy chair. The lights were on inside, giving him the additional hope that some diligent employee still remained there after hours.

“Hey?” he called out to anyone who might answer. His voice echoed eerily down the rows and off the tile like tumbleweeds rolling down the streets of a ghost town. “Is there anyone here? I need some directions to the way out.”

Something sounded in response from far back in the archives, down one of the dim rows. It sounded like a startled step, like he had caught someone off guard and they had turned around fast.

“If you could call a guard or even just tell me how to find the exit, that would be great,” Warren shouted. He walked toward the sound, down toward the back of the archives past the ends of the phalanx of aisles. A strange feeling began to creep into his senses, like the uneasy feeling he got when he watched horror movies alone. The feeling that had made him instigate a rule that he didn’t watch scary movies after nine. He even thought he heard the sound of something breathing heavily. Maybe he needed to ration his porn intake too, now he was blending porn sound effects with horror reactions. He mumbled to himself, “Who wouldn’t be creeped out by all this stupid old shit?”

Warren hadn’t paid attention to the way his walk had slowed without him meaning to or the way his mouth had gone dry. He jumped like he had bumped into an electric fence when one of the lightbulbs overhead surged then dimmed. He was glad the girl had run off now, so she couldn’t see him sweat and his hands shake. He heard something down the aisle to his left, something like a single impatient rap of nails on a desk.

The flickering of a waning yellow bulb drew his attention down the aisle. In the flickering light, it looked like something was moving in the aisle, just beyond the reach of the light on the far side. Something crouched and hulking in the shadows. It must be a trick of the dim light. That and being a little freaked out from being stuck down here all alone for what felt like hours. Still, Warren wished he had worn his smudged glasses. He didn’t wear them when he was trying to impress a girl because they weren’t cool.

He was focusing too hard on the shadows. Focus too hard on something and it can seem like the thing is moving. It was a common optical illusion, and the flickering light didn’t help. It made the weird shape in the shadows look like an animal with its head lowered, stealthily sneaking toward him down the aisle.

“Fuck this,” Warren exclaimed, throwing his hands up like an overwrought woman. He didn’t need to be in the creepy old room in the creepy old museum basement. At least the never-ending hallways weren’t filled to the brim with weird antiques.

Down the aisle something sniffed, like someone with a runny nose. Something definitely moved just beyond the light.

“Shit’s probably haunted,” he decided. That made it easier. He was a staunch Ghost Hunters fan and he’d learned a thing or two from them. Forcing a laugh, he added, “Suck my balls, ghosts!”

Turning on his heel in a flippant insult to the ghosts, he walked briskly back the way he had come. He heard something else, seemingly misplaced inside the haunted archives. He very distinctly heard the sound of a footfall and what sounded like a muffled voice, maybe two if one was whispering, coming from deeper down one of the aisles. But it was immediately overshadowed by the sound of a heavy body rushing down the aisle with the flickering light, and nails scraping on tile. Or claws.

Looking back over his shoulder, Warren saw a huge dark body moving fast down the aisle toward him in a kind of lope. An animal, grunting and running toward him. His mind couldn’t process all the details, or it didn’t want to. What his mind hitched on were the teeth. When the creature ran through the scant pool of light, vicious exposed teeth glinted inside its snarling jaws.

Warren ran.

The beast lunged after its prey with the instinct of a predator to chase after a fleeing animal. Warren felt it when the beast gave chase, like the stale air had chilled and all the ghosts inside the archives were watching him. Claws scrambling on tile and heavy galloping echoed behind him, punctuated by grunts.

Warren could see the exit door. It wasn’t far. He could make it. Trying to make his legs pump faster, he looked back over his shoulder. The creature had rounded the end of the aisle and was charging straight at him in large bounding strides. It was bigger than a lion with terrible yellow eyes and teeth like ivory daggers. And it was close.

With a sob, Warren tried to eke out more speed from his already failing legs, but his steps were clumsy and his breathing labored. All that walking all day had done him in. Something slammed into his back, heavy and sharp at the same time, sending him careening forward face down onto the tile. His back felt like it was on fire, stinging and melting at the same time with hot fluid slicking his shirt to his skin.

Crying, Warren looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the creature’s mouth open as it came in for the killing bite. But the beast sat on its haunches, poised like a giant cat, flicking a broad reptilian tail from side to side and drumming the claws of its forepaw on the tile. It watched him with evil yellow eyes, and it waited. With another blubbering sob, Warren staggered up to his feet and tried to run again. He didn’t get as far this time, only a few steps. The beast bounded after him, swiping one of its razor-clawed paws at Warren’s legs. Warren felt his flesh tear as his feet gave out from under him and he collapsed again. He had played enough gory video games to guess the beast had clawed through his calf on one leg and severed his Achilles tendon on the other.

The creature paused again, watching its crippled prey with a curiously cocked head as the pitiful human crawled away, one foot turned the wrong direction and flopping lifelessly on the floor, leaving a wide swatch of delicious smelling blood in its wake.

Warren couldn’t stand back up this time, and he barely had enough gumption left to crawl. After a few desperate flailing attempts, he turned over and flopped onto his back. He stared at the horrendous beast, his watery eyes meeting those of fearsome yellow. With a sickening horror that churned in his bowels he realized what the beast was doing. It was playing with him. The fucking monster was toying with him like a cat with a mouse. The beast cocked its head to the other side as it gave an impatient flick of its tail. Just like a cat with a mouse, the fun was over when the mouse stopped running.

Warren swore he saw an excited gleam flash inside those eyes as the monster lunged at him one final time. He looked into its ravenous eyes, as a heavy weight landed on his chest, pinning him in place. He felt his body being ripped open from throat to crotch with a sound like tearing burlap. The pain was extraordinary, but he couldn’t close his eyes against it.

Gruesome wet smacking noises filled the archive and Warren’s body jerked, tugged from someplace deep inside. He tried to scream but couldn’t with his diaphragm slashed open. Warren was still very much alive when the monster started eating him.

*******************************************************************************************

Nick could hear it clearly now, a heavy body moving with great stealth and wet breathing. Closing in on them from a couple aisles away. There could be no doubt, no mistaking it for the noises of an old room or for scuttling vermin. He had placed his body between the approaching animal and the woman. It was a protective male instinct and gallant, but not an act that would be overly helpful if the thing attacked them. A human’s top speed was equivalent to a chicken. If an Olympic sprinter would have a hard time outrunning a rooster, Nick had no delusions that he could outrun an apex predator. All running would do would trigger it into attacking. He also didn’t think he could fight it off, not if it really wanted to attack. He didn’t have a weapon and humans were really quite feeble animals without their tools. He knew the ways a man could try to survive a predator attack – play dead with a grizzly, fight a black bear, shout at a lion to try to scare it off. None of them would work if the animal really wanted to get him. Then, a man could only hope the animal lost interest before it killed him. Balling his fists, he decided that if it came to a fight, he’d fight until his last breath. Or until he was torn apart.

“Hey! Is there anyone here? I need some directions to the way out,” an unfamiliar voice sounded through the archives.

Nick froze, every sense piqued. He reached behind him and grabbed Alice’s hand, squeezing tightly, silently willing her to stay calm and quiet. He didn’t know the woman and he hoped to hell she had enough sense to stay still and silent, not to yell back toward the stranger or to run in his direction. A mistake like that would be their death sentence. Alice squeezed his hand back, reassuring him, and placed her other hand on his back. The monstrous beast had stilled, its attention captured by the noisome intruder instead of the quieter, more boring quarry. It sniffed the air, assessing the stranger.

Each heartbeat pounded in Nick’s ears like war drums, each second an agony as they waited for the monster to decide which prey it wanted to hunt. With frightening quickness, the beast turned and vanished into the shadowy depths of the aisle.

Keeping hold of Alice’s hand, Nick turned to her and met her eyes. Very deliberately, he brought his forefinger to his lips in the universal gesture for utter silence. He tugged her with him down the aisle in the opposite direction the creature had gone. They heard the stranger’s voice asking the room if someone could tell him how to find the exit. Nick led Alice away from the stranger and away from the beast.

The unknown man was toast. There was nothing Nick could do, and he wasn’t going to waste the life of a woman trying to save a man he didn’t know. He was also smart enough or shellfish enough to value his own life over that of a foolhardy stranger. He hoped the fool would distract the monster enough for them to sneak around it and make the exit themselves. His mind raced ahead of his feet, thinking past the exit to the museum. If they made it out of the archives, they would find themselves back in a long, straight hallway with nowhere to hide and no chance of outrunning whatever the hell this animal was.

To reassure himself, he felt his pocket for the museum key card. He didn’t know if it would help them, but without it they had no chance.

The stranger’s footsteps echoed through the archives as the man started walking down along the ends of the forest of aisles. Nick gambled that the beast’s attention was fixed on that sound and that victim. Pulling Alice along beside him, he trotted down the aisle as swiftly as he could while keeping his footsteps light. For such a large man, he could move stealthily, a skill ingrained by a youth spent hunting with his father and refined by a stint in the military. He was pleased that Alice matched him in both pace and silence. He ran to the far end of the aisle, listening to the intermittent mutterings from the idiot bumbling around at the front of the vast room. The beast could no longer be heard, which worried him, but he had gambled on this hand and now he had to let it ride.

The back of the archives was notably darker than the front and even in between the aisles with the temperamental lightbulbs. An animal stink hung in the air along the back wall, as if the animal used this shady area as a trail of sorts. They moved quickly past the ends of the aisles in the direction of the exit. Nick was a step ahead, still holding Alice’s hand. Looking down each aisle they passed, the archives flashed in time with their steps, giving a visual picture of the room pieced together in morse code.

Nick stopped suddenly, causing Alice to collide with his back. He was so solid, she didn’t even knock him off balance, like running into a warm sculpture. He didn’t so much as look down at her, his wide eyes fixed down the aisle. Thirty feet away from them down the aisle, a hulking silhouette crouched in the center. It looked black in the feeble light and had no discernable features, but they could tell it faced away from them by a broad crocodilian tail flicking back and forth as it watched and waited. Nick didn’t dare move again, not even to step back behind the end of the aisle. It was blind luck the beast had been so focused on the stranger that it hadn’t seen or heard them creeping up at its back. His heart thundered so loudly in his own ears that he thought the beast must surely hear it too.

“Suck my balls, ghosts!” the fool shouted from the end of the aisle, then he started marching away back toward the exit. The beast’s tail stilled, as it watched its prey retreat.

Nick squeezed Alice’s hand, a signal to make ready. The stranger hadn’t taken three steps when the beast launched itself forward down the aisle, entirely focused on its prey. Nick whispered urgently, his voice little more than a growled breath, “Now, we run!”

Nick charged ahead, sprinting full tilt down the back of the archives, pulling Alice along with him. She gripped his hand tight, letting herself be all but dragged along, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground. There was no other way she could keep pace with his long surging stride. Their running footsteps were overshadowed by the sharp sound of claws scrambling on tile and a heavy pounding gallop, then by the sobbing screams of the stranger when the beast caught him. There was no mistaking the anguished cries that filled the archive like a whirring saw in a butcher shop.

At the end of the room, Nick careened around the last aisle, his boots slipping on the tile, and pushed himself even harder down the last straight stretch along the wall toward the door. The screaming continued, now imbued with a gurgling wet quality and sickening chewing and crunching. Alice had heard sounds like that before on National Geographic shows featuring lions over a kill. A meaty abattoir smell engulfed them as they raced down the aisle, bringing them closer to both the beast and the exit.

There was open space at the front of the room, where the beast presently feasted on its dying prey. About fifteen feet worth of open floor between the ends of the aisles and the exit door. There was no option of hiding or stealth when they crossed it. Nick made a mad dash when he reached the end of the aisle, bursting out onto the open floor like a pheasant breaking cover in front of a hound.

The beast reared up from its kill, startled by the two humans erupting from the aisle. It took a second to assimilate these new targets, enough time for them to cover half the open floor. Gnashing its bloody jaws, the beast lunged after the two new fleeing morsels. It landed on forepaws slick with blood, its front legs slipping and splaying out on the tile. Its wet claws found no purchase on tile, and the beast fishtailed before getting its balance.

Nick turned loose of Alice’s hand a step before the double doors and barreled into them with his shoulder at full speed. The doors exploded open, shooting splinters of wood out into the hallway, with Nick falling through off-balance. Alice jumped through on his heels and he pushed her ahead of him as he recovered his footing and ran. Reaching into his pocket for the museum badge, he heard the beast grunting and scrambling through the broken wooden doors, very close behind them.

The nearest door down the hallway was marked obscurely Lab 754, a single door with no windows and a scanner beside it. He didn’t know what was inside, but he knew they couldn’t outrun the monster down a straight hallway. Grabbing Alice by the waistband of her jeans, Nick skidded them both to a stop at the door. His fingers felt clumsy when he articulated the badge over the scanner. A militant light flashed red and an insolent tone told him the card was declined.

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” Nick growled as Alice’s nails dug painfully into his arm. Turning the badge over so his gawky picture faced outward and the barcode on the back faced the scanner, he pressed it against the scanner again and gripped the doorknob in a blanched white fist. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hulking creature charging down the hallway at them, eyes gleaming yellow, teeth glinting white.

A green light flashed, taking too long to approve their entry with a pleasant tone. The beast was another stride closer, close enough to see individual drops of blood slinging from its jaws. The lock slid open with a metallic click. Nick wrenched the doorknob and yanked the door open toward him. Alice rushed inside, but he shoved her ahead of him anyway as he slipped in behind her. The beast crashed into the open door, slamming it shut right behind Nick’s back with violent force. He had thrown himself inside and barreled into Alice, all but tackling her to the floor as he fell and sprawled over her. He cringed involuntarily at the sound of the beast colliding with the wooden door, hunching over Alice beneath him.

All doors opened outward in public buildings like the museum, pursuant to fire code regulations. And most of the doors in this older basement area of the museum were thick, sturdy wood. The door shuddered ominously, but it held.

Nick looked down at Alice from the position of a lover with his hands planted on either side of her head, his hips pinning her down, their chests touching and their noses nearly so. “Are you alright? We have to keep moving. That door won’t hold for long.”

“Waiting on you,” she said breathlessly, shoving on his broad chest to push him back.

The beast roared and hit the door again. This time splinters shot into the room from the dying doorframe like tiny javelins.

Nick pulled her up with him as he pushed up to his feet. They each looked around the room, trying to quickly assess their surroundings. Fluorescent light lined the ceiling instead of weak yellow bulbs. A long central table ran the length of the room piled with what looked like various artifacts and fossils, including the impressive skull of a sabretooth tiger. Chairs were pulled up to the table at intervals, demarcating different workstations. The air inside was cool and crisp and a subtle whirring indicated a local air system. A shop broom leaned in the far corner, its bristles chalky white with bone dust.

“A restoration lab, damn it to hell.” Nick slammed his hand angrily on the tabletop. “We won’t find anything useful in here.” But he began looking anyway as he made his way through the room.

Alice lingered behind him, turning on several bright lamps placed over the table and pointing them at the rapidly weakening door. She turned on one of the drills on the table, leaving it to buzz and bounce across the tabletop. Nick looked at her with a frown and she shrugged and told him, “It might buy us a few more seconds.”

The back of the room ended depressingly in a simple wall. Nick glared at it as if he could burn a hole through the plaster with his anger. He grinned sardonically at Alice, “The hallway makes a U bend. The service elevator we came down in is probably less than twenty away on the other side of this wall. You don’t happen to have a battering ram hidden in your brassier, do you?”

“That would be my other bra,” she said, looking back at the door as it took another thunderous hit, this time accompanied by the squeal of the metal hinges bending inward.

Nick leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling in frustration. His body jerked like he’d been startled and he ran to the broom standing in the corner. Grabbing it, he sprinted back to the far wall, holding it like a spear. Using the wide, bristled head, he rammed it straight up above his head and into the square air vent in the ceiling. Another hard thrust and the vent crumpled and fell out of the ventilation shaft, leaving a gaping square hole in the ceiling ten feet above their heads.

“Here!” he told Alice urgently, clapping his hands together before linking his fingers to form a stirrup with his hands. The beast struck the door again, tearing a hole through the wood. It pawed through the hole with its claws, scraping and tearing at the wood as it snarled in frustration.

“Can you get up there too?” Alice asked as she placed her foot in his hands.

“Don’t think about it,” Nick grunted as he hefted her up into the square vent like she was nothing but a doll. She hoisted her high enough to bring her chest level with the inside of the vent. Planting her elbows on the flat metal and kicking her legs, she struggled inside. Laying on her stomach, she looked back down through the square hole at Nick below.

Bending his knees, he jumped straight up into the vent opening. It was at the far reach of his vertical jump, but his fingers caught the metal lip. But there was no purchase on the slick metal and his hands slipped off almost instantly. Alice leaned down into the opening, reaching a hand down to him.

“Get out of the way!” he waved her hand away. She began to protest, but he shouted, “Can you curl two-thirty-five? Then I’ll only pull you back out with me.”

The beast crashed into the door a final time, bursting into the lab in an explosion of splinters. It halted immediately when the brilliantly bright spotlight hit its eyes, sitting back on its haunches and shaking its head.

“Give me the broom!” Alice said.

Grinning with understanding despite it all, Nick shoved the head of the broom up into her hands. The beast snarled and swiped the light out of its eyes, then turned its attention to the jumping drill and its grating, high-pitched whine. Alice maneuvered the broom so its handle spanned the square opening, wedged as tightly against the sides as she could get it. The beast crushed the drill with its teeth, shaking its head with the drill in its mouth like a dog with a squeaky toy, then throwing it aside. Fixing its ferocious yellow eyes on Nick at the far end of the room, it charged.

Nick bent his knees, looking up at the broom handle inside the vent. He would only get one shot. Swinging his arms, he jumped up with everything he had. The beast swiped at Nick’s legs as he caught the broom handle, but he jerked them up just in time. Using the broom handle like a pull-up bar, he hoisted himself up into the ventilation shaft. Alice shoved herself backward to make room for him as he lunged forward into the small space, making sure his long legs were clear of the opening.

The beast jumped up after him, slamming its head into the metal of the shaft, denting it upwards. Roaring in frustration, it jumped again, making another dent. Then it reared on its hind legs and clawed at the metal. The sound was a terrible, deafening squeal inside the shaft, ringing in their ears. There was enough space for them to crawl on their hands and knees, and Alice crawled frantically away.

“Can’t beat the view,” Nick quipped, following right behind her.

The beast tried jumping at the vent once more before apparently realizing it was futile. The silence when it stopped was much more unnerving than the banging and scratching and snarling had been.

It didn’t take long for them to come to another vent. Looking through the metal slats, Nick quickly assessed they were now over the section of hallway that housed the service elevator. He easily yanked it open and dropped down through it to the floor. Alice lowered herself down feet first until she felt him catch her legs in a reassuring bearhug and let her slide the rest of the way down his body. Holding her against him, he grinned at her and jerked his chin to the side, “Look what we found.”

The service elevator was no more than fifteen feet away. As she sighed with relief, collapsing into Nick’s arms, Alice heard the now familiar sound of clawed feet scrambling on the tile. “It guessed where we were heading!”

They sprinted to the elevator and Nick punched the Up button over and over. The arrow above the doors illuminated green and the bell dinged. But the doors were old and slow to open. The beast rounded the corner of the hallway in a fury of claws and teeth and lather, charging at them with its horrible teeth bared in a snarl. But claws for all their ferocity did not keep traction on smooth tile. When the beast rounded the tight corner, it did so in an uncontrolled skid. The beast scrambled to keep its balance, but it had charged into the corner too fast. Its shoulder slammed into the opposite side of the hallway as it slid, paws flailing haphazardly beneath it, buying its prey an extra second to live. Nick shoved Alice inside when the opening between the doors was still too narrow for him to fit. Even as the doors still opened, she was pushing the button for the upper floor. Nick slipped inside as the beast ran him down, only one good lunge away.

Nick and Alice pressed themselves to the back of the elevator, watching helplessly as death charged at them and the doors closed too slowly. Their view between the doors narrowed with terrible sluggishness until all they could see were those slitted yellow eyes and bloody frothing jaws. The beast lunged at the gap in the doors, striking the metal with a horrendous crash. Saliva and blood spewed through the opening, splattering Alice and Nick, just as the doors closed and the elevator lurched upward.

The doors opened to a main hallway on one of the upper floors, home to the biggest and most popular museum exhibits. Large windows lined this hallway admitting the moonlight and there was enough light in the individual exhibits to allow the security cameras to identify a thief if needed. Many smaller hallways branched off this main one, each leading to an exhibit. They were near the entrance to an exhibit that glowed green in the dim light, labeled Rainforest. A metal stairwell door was beside the elevator.

“Now at least I know where we are,” Nick could have laughed with relief. He ducked into Alice and stole a quick kiss from her lips.

“Freeze!” A militant voice sliced through the silence in the hall. “Put your hands up!”

They turned to see a short and corpulent museum security guard standing behind them, holding a revolver trained on Nick. He had just rounded a corner of the hallway and shuffled toward them as quickly as his pendulous gut would allow, his utility belt jingling with every labored step. Using his gun, the guard gestured from Nick to the far wall, and ordered, “Turn and face that wall right now. And I better see your hands while you’re sniffing plaster. Move!”

“There’s something in here with us,” Alice said, trying to calm the guard. “You need to take us all out before it finds us.”

“I’m sure there is, honey,” the guard sniggered and took a belligerent step toward Nick. “I gave you a command, hoss.”

The security guard held his gun on Nick, the barrel shaking in his uncertain grip. He was the most dangerous sort of person to hold a man at gunpoint – nervous and unfamiliar with a weapon or with apprehending a suspect. Those were the men likely to shoot first and ask questions later, or even shoot accidentally when they shook hard enough to spasm their trigger finger.

“Turn around now!” the guard shouted again, spittle flying from his lips, his jowls quaking.

The guard was too far away from Nick to make a grab for the gun or knock it away. So, he turned, faced the wall, and planted his hands flat on its smooth surface. He made a great effort to keep his voice calm when he spoke over this shoulder, “Look, buddy, there’s something after us. Something chasing us. Something monstrous. None of us are safe here, including you. You have to get us all out right now. Arrest me and charge me with whatever the hell you want, just get us out.”

The guard spoke into the radio clipped to his belt, “I caught someone sneaking around inside the rainforest exhibit. Looks like a pair of lovebirds who broke in to get it on. I need backup. The guy’s giving me hell. He’s a big bastard too. Threatened my safety already.”

“Ten-Four,” a voice crackled through the radio static. “Sending backup. Just cuff ‘em and keep ‘em where you have ‘em until backup gets there.”

Risking a bullet, Nick growled, “Look, you stupid bastard. You can get all the backup you want and you can arrest me. So long as you get us the fuck outta here, and you do it now! We need to move, goddamnit!”

“The big guy is making more threats,” the guard radioed.

The sound of a door being shoved open inside the stairwell echoed behind the door. It sounded like it came from a flight or two below. Alice heard claws scrambling up the stairs. She met Nick’s cool eyes and she winked.

“Excuse me, sir,” Alice said to the guard in a demure tone. “Our friend’s in the stairwell. Go see for yourself. He’s the one you want to arrest.”

“What the Christ are you all doing in here?” the guard scoffed. “Bunch of assholes ruining my night to have a goddamn orgy!”

The scrambling reached the nearest steps, the sound of a heavy body closing in on the door. The guard heard it too. Keeping his gun pointed at Nick’s back, he stepped to the stairwell door. Grabbing the doorhandle, he yelled with gusto, “Hey asshole, this is museum security. I hear you in there. I’m gonna open the door and I better see your hands!”

He didn’t need to open the door. The door exploded open with a metal screech and a monstrous creature burst from the darkness of the stairwell, aiming for the blustering guard. The guard yanked the trigger when the beast struck him with the force of a wrecking ball, sending a bullet into the wall as man and beast went careening together twenty feet across the floor. Its body had passed Alice by inches, close enough for her to smell the fresh blood and older rancid death on its scaly hide.

Nick shoved away from the wall, grabbing Alice’s arm and running with her in the opposite direction from the carnage. The guard was screaming, but it lasted only as long as a few of their running strides before it was cut off with a wet gurgle and replaced by a sound like an overfull trash bag bursting.

They ran into the thick of the rainforest exhibit, where they were surrounded by vibrant dioramas and luscious vegetation. The windows on this floor admitted silver moonlight, allowing them to see it very clearly. Birds of every color of the spectrum were frozen mid-flight, golden jaguars prowled, and ancient Amazonian architecture formed a visual feast. The highlight of the rainforest exhibit was also the centerpiece of the exhibit hall. A huge glass terrarium filled with tropical vegetation housed an army of living butterflies. Thousands of beautiful butterflies of kaleidoscopic colors flitted through the plants inside in a living whirlwind of colorful wings.

They ran past the butterflies to the far end of the exhibit where another hallway branched off. Nick pointed down it and whispered, “The old west exhibit is just down that way. The guns in there are all functional, and a few of the gunbelts still have live rounds. Maybe…”

“Will the bullets still fire after sitting for more than a century?” Alice asked skeptically.

“As long as the primers haven’t gone bad. Or gotten wet. And the cartridges have remained sealed, and the gunpowder hasn’t leaked out.” He grinned sardonically.

“So, probably not,” Alice surmised.

“Probably not,” Nick agreed. “But do you have a better idea?”

The beast entered the rainforest exhibit with its nose held high, sniffing the air. Nick pulled Alice to him and backed against the wall, hiding them as best he could behind an Amazonian monolith decorated with carvings of ancient deities. The beast froze, its eyes fixed ahead, its posture rigid. It looked as if it stared right at them through the length of the butterfly terrarium. With an excited grunt, the beast swiped at the end of the glass cage, breaking it open, and jumped inside. Thousands of butterflies came to life like confetti, fluttering around the beast that had disturbed them. The beast was captivated, cocking its head curiously at the butterflies, flicking its tail as it swiped its paws at them and tried to chomp them between its jaws. It jumped and twisted and twirled inside the terrarium like a cat confronted with a thousand laser dots. It grunted happily as it pounced on a large Monarch then snorted when another flew at its nose.

Slowly, Nick pulled Alice with him toward the hall leading to the old west exhibit. They edged along the wall at a crawling pace so as not to draw the beast’s attention while it chomped and swiped at the whirlwind of butterflies. The old west exhibit came into view at the end of the hallway, horses and cowboys and bison materializing in the dim light. Nick brought his lips to Alice’s ear and told her, “You go grab all the guns you can find. I’ll start looking through the gunbelts for live rounds. .45’s and 30-30’s are going to be our best bets for a match.”

She nodded her understanding as another sound boomed through the hall. The sound of several running footsteps and the clink of metal. Narrow beams of light bounced around inside the old west exhibit from flashlights held by running men.

Nick stopped short, his hold on her arm keeping Alice beside him. He pulled her down with him when he dropped to his knees, raising his hands above his head in a clear posture of supplication, just as several armed security guards ran into the hallway from the old west exhibit. The light hit Nick’s face, momentarily blinding him, as the men rushed them, guns drawn. Alice looked behind them and saw a huge shadow looming in the entrance to the rainforest exhibit, watching them with gleaming eyes. The guard’s light didn’t reach it and they were too focused on Nick to notice the real threat. The shadow seemed to disintegrate back into the darkness like a receding nightmare. The beast must be intelligent enough to avoid confronting so many drawn firearms. Or it was simply biding its time for the right moment.

“You’re under arrest!” the lead guard shouted as he rushed Nick. Turning him bodily around, he shoved him to his stomach with his face pressed into the tile and yanked his arms behind his back.

“We didn’t do anything, you idiot!” Alice said futility. “There’s something in here with us.”

“Save it, lady,” the guard said gruffly. “You both have the right to remain silent and I suggest you fucking use it.” He prodded his gun rudely into Nick’s back and cuffed his hands. “I heard all about you on the radio. Some big bastard resisting arrest after breaking in. And I saw some of your handiwork already.”

“You have to listen, it wasn’t me,” Nick gritted. “There’s some kind of animal in here with us.”

“Yeah, get started on that insanity defense right off the bat, you murdering sonofabitch,” the guard hissed. “Just keep talking so I can testify to all your bullshit.”

Two guards came and hefted Nick up by his arms, yanking them painfully back and straining his shoulders. Alice looked at him when he stood, giving him her steadiest and most reassuring gaze. “Don’t tell them anything. It won’t do you any good. Let your lawyer do the talking for you.” She winked at him for the second time that night. “I promise you have a good one.”

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 © safarigirlsp 2024

Tagging some buddies!

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