#polish slenderverse | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sugarandice3 · 1 year ago

Text

Self Destruction

AN: So this is one out of (hopefully) three chapters for a slenderverse-inspired fic I began a long time ago. Truthfully, I would love to continue it, but I am in college and leisure time is hard to find so just a little encouragement would be welcome. Also, given my lack of beta readers, this will probably resemble more of a rough draft than a polished piece, so constructive criticism is more than welcome. But, without further ado, my fic. Self Destruction.

Warnings: Mild horror and mental health issues.

Word Count: ~4K.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Chapter 1: Homeward Bound

The road stretched onward for miles across flat Montana earth, only stopping when it met the wakening horizon. Glaring light filled Keres’s vision, searing the image of the sunrise into her eyes and obscuring the abandoned highway. With a groan, she flipped up the useless sun visor and reached across to fumble around her passenger seat for the pair of sunglasses she had tossed there yesterday. Her fingertips finally brushed against the beat-up aviators as the tires buzzed against the boundaries of the road, warning her of the vehicle’s drift. Keres quickly slid the glasses on, returning both hands to the steering wheel and correcting her wayward car. Glancing at her rear view mirror, she looked through the dust covered glass to make sure that her brother’s little black truck was still behind her. Oliver was farther back now than he had been earlier, but in the early Montana morning on this empty stretch of highway, the greater distance didn’t matter. It only made her feel better that he probably hadn’t seen how far into the other lane she had drifted during her quest to block out the blinding sunrise.

Sweeping unbrushed auburn curls back behind her ear, Keres turned her brown eyes back on the monotonous pavement and focused on keeping her eyelids from lazily sliding half-closed. It was only day one of a three-day road trip back home and Keres was already exhausted. College had not been kind to her.

“College is never kind to anyone,” she mumbled, correcting the self-pity that seemed to be more incessantly tainting her thoughts lately. Just because she wasn’t able to handle the pressure doesn’t mean that classes and being away from home were harder for her than they were for anyone else.

Rubbing her leg, Keres adjusted her grip on the steering wheel and checked for her brother one last time. She sighed again and reached for her phone to turn on some music. It was going to be a very long couple of days.

The red Toyota pulled into a silent motel parking lot, gravel and grit crunching under the tires. Orange street lamps shone weakly around the wings of the building, giving spots of haunted color to the monochrome of the lightless evening. The car came to a slow stop in front of a worn motel door and after a moment, the engine cut off and Keres stepped out.

“We definitely could’ve picked a better place,” Keres muttered, taking in the patches of wind-peeled paint and the withered grass filling the cracks in the pavement.

It definitely wasn’t a 5 star motel, but Keres and Oliver had known that when they made the reservation. What they hadn’t known was that the reviews had been extremely generous.

The motel sat on the outskirts of town, bordered by derelict, trash-strewn roads. Eerie silence pervaded the area, occasionally broken by a passing car, but nothing more. Even in the patchy lot, there sat only a handful of vehicles and Keres wasn’t even sure that most of them were guests here. At least, she hoped that the van emblazoned with the name of the pest control across the street wasn’t here for an extended stay.

The sound of tires spraying gravel announced the arrival of her brother, prompting Keres to cease her critical assessment of the place. It was just one night after all, and it wasn’t like a good night's sleep would cure her exhaustion anyway. Letting out a heavy sigh, Keres turned back to her car to retrieve her backpack while her brother pulled into the parking space beside her.

“Well, this place certainly isn’t gonna win any Google maps awards,” Oliver said grimly, keys jangling as he hopped out of the truck.

“It’s just one night,” Keres said, to remind herself just as much as him, “And the less time we spend awake in this place, the better.”

Keres pulled on the dusty handle and opened the door, pushing away all the stuff that had shifted during the winding drive through the hills of Montana. With a grunt, she pulled her backpack out and swung a worn strap over her shoulder, settling the weight more comfortably as she straightened.

“Well, we should probably go check in,” Oliver sighed, leaning over the front of his truck and running his hands though brown curls in desperate need of a trim.

Keres leaned back against the car as she turned to her brother and replied, “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you look up some places to eat while I get the room key?”

Oliver nodded, pushing off of the truck and walking around to fetch his phone from the passenger seat. The old door gave a grating creak as he opened it, sharply breaking the heavy silence. Both siblings froze, an unnatural apprehension taking hold of the two. The night air seemed to condemn them for the desecration of its quiet, a palpable threat riding the echoes of the noise. For a moment, Oliver and Keres stood there, both of them pretending that they didn’t feel that shiver up their spine or the nervous buzz of a mind on edge. Several beats of silence passed before she stopped holding her breath.

“Roomkey,” she breathed carefully.

Her voice broke through the miasma, the unease beginning to dissipate like a bad dream the moment her words left her mouth. Oliver straightened, as if surprised, and glanced at the door handle his hand was still resting on. He thought for a moment then slammed it shut with more force than needed, rebelling against the irrational anxiety that had almost faded away. He half-turned to her and nodded his agreement.

“Right.”

Keres glanced at her own door, shut it gently, and turned away from her car, ready to follow her brother. Then the two moved together, passing under the orange street lamps like a pair of ghosts, all color washed away in alternating gray and orange. They slipped past door after door, all of them so quiet that it seemed as if the entire place was vacant. The slightest noise echoed under the overhanging roof and washed loudly into the parking lot, making it feel as though anyone nearby could eavesdrop on their presence here. The feeling was slight enough to easily be ignored, allowing it to twist uncomfortably in their subconscious without their hindrance.

As they made their way to the brightly lit office at the end of the wing, Keres became puzzled at the hollow and oppressive feeling of the place. Yes, the reviews weren’t glowing, but they didn't mention anything about the place feeling unsafe in any way. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she shook her head tiredly and lagged a bit behind her brother. They were just tired, that was all. She and Oliver had been driving by themselves all day, creating the perfect conditions for mental exhaustion. Stress and sleeplessness was putting them on edge.

A few paces ahead of her, Oliver called to her.

“Come on.”

Keres looked up at him and realized that they had reached the end of the wing and that he was holding the door to the main office open for her.

“I’m coming,” she replied, lingering a moment longer before walking the building.

A current of cold air blew past her as she entered, unexpected after standing in the dry heat outside. Keres smoothed her hair back and walked up to the reception desk in the far corner of the lobby. Although the consistent lighting of the room was something of an improvement from the scattered lamps outside, the unsettling feeling of the whole property continued even here. She looked back at her brother as he let the door swing closed behind him. He stood stiffly, strung up to his full height with his shoulders drawn tightly forward, noticeably on edge. Keres looked around for an explanation to the feeling they both shared, something that she could blame for the uncanny nature of this place.

The room decor was as lifeless as the rest of the building. Chairs that were clearly hardly used but were worn down all the same, plastic plants potted in dust, soulless paintings that Keres somehow felt were outdated despite the generic abstract pattern. Everything seemed out of place, yet she somehow knew this is exactly how everything was meant to be. There was a purposefulness about it, something that she couldn’t contribute to the sleepy manager who just stumbled from the room behind the desk and was trying to pretend she had been there the whole time. Oliver and Keres walked over together, but Oliver stepped forward to talk to the woman, temporarily shaking off his stiffness to put on a warm smile. Keres took a position a step behind him, flashing the woman a small smile as well, but she went unnoticed while he was the focus of the manager’s attention. Oliver was always a charmer, so that didn’t surprise her. Keres usually left the social interaction to him anyway. Having no interest in the small talk going on, she paced over to the window on the other side of the room. Looking through the streaked glass, she vaguely wondered if she could’ve also been capable of easy charisma like Oliver. It didn’t feel impossible, but there were walls that would have to come down first and then learning how to see people the way they wanted to be seen.

“Alright, thank you so much! Have a good night Mia.”

The closing of the conversation broke Keres from her ponderous staring, prompting her to turn and look at the woman waving goodnight to her brother. Mia looked out of place here, merely because she was alive in a place that only pretended to understand what that meant. Other than that, her appearance fit what you might expect of someone who ran a shabby motel. She had shaggy brown hair with grown-out, trashy highlights pulled into a messy bun and jarring makeup gave her face an unnatural business that was entirely too much to look at this late at night. Keres didn’t necessarily think less of her for her entirely avoidable appearance, but it did make her curious. What did people see in that? What did she see in herself? What did she see in others?

Once again, Keres was absorbed in her thoughts, her brother’s wake pulling her out the door and back into the heat of the night.

“She seemed nice,” she mumbled, walking behind her brother.

He counted out the numbers they passed each door, searching for their room. She watched the back of his head, curls bouncing as he nodded and replied, “Yes, she was nice. A bit odd, but I don’t think you could expect normal in a place like this.”

“A place like this,” Keres repeated thoughtfully.

She was still trying to figure out what that meant. What was this place like? Because what she felt here was not like anything she had felt before. It was unique.

They stopped in front of a door near the end of the row, thankfully close to where they parked. Oliver slid the dull key into the lock and attempted to turn it, but the old knob was loose, twisting and jostling with the key. Her brother heaved a sigh and muttered something under his breath as he leaned closer to the door and began delicately messing with the troublesome apparatus. While he struggled with the door, Keres turned around to scan the sagging fence that bordered the parking lot. As her eyes roved over it, she wondered how it was still standing. The fence was caged by the brittle remains of whatever short-lived vine decided to weave between the rotting boards and it rattled like old bones whenever the hot breeze blew against it. She couldn’t see beyond the fence, even though she knew there were buildings out there. Cocking her head, she squinted at the darkness. Even though there weren’t any buildings close by on that side, there should still be some light, some glow that she would be able to see outside the perimeter of the fence. Keres took a few steps into the lot, searching for any shape or light outside of the area.

Something was there.

Keres froze, tendrils of terror constricting her chest and locking her limbs in place.

There was a figure standing beside the lamp post, just behind the fence. And it wasn’t human. Nearly as tall as the pole next to it, its form was grotesquely stretched, thinned and elongated beyond any natural capability. The head, thin and elongated like the rest of its body, was completely featureless and sickly white like deadman’s flesh.

Yet somehow, without any eyes or expressions to tell her so, Keres knew that it was looking at her. The ambient world faded away, leaving her no familiar comfort while she faced this figure. Blood rushed in her ears and her ragged breathing came quick and shallow. She knew that it was looking at her, but there was more to it. It knew her. She could feel it in her bones, the invasive knowledge of her mind that it possessed.

It knew. It knew everything.

Panic buzzed on the edges of her vision like static and all she could see was that face. That expressionless, featureless face.

Keres suddenly couldn’t breathe anymore. Choked by her own fear, she wanted to crumble under the sightless gaze of this thing because standing under the weight of her own shame was too much.

Her knees buckled and she hit the ground. The collision jolted painfully up her spine and the rush of blood in her ears climaxed to a shrill whine. She could not move, she could not look away, she could not speak.

“Keres!!”

The word echoed faintly around her, holding no meaning as it faded away and became part of the static hellscape.

“Keres!!!”

Firm hands grabbed her shoulders as her name rang out again.

Everything stopped. The shrill whine of bloodrush, the black dissolving the edges of her vision, the fear-locked limbs, all of it stopped as her mind was slammed back into the reality she didn’t know she had been pulled from.

Free will suddenly coming back to her, Keres desperately drew in a breath, filling lungs that had been too constricted by fear to act on their own accord. She keeled forward onto the crumbling pavement, catching herself on her elbows as he coughed roughly and sucked in air. The hands on her shoulders provided a steady pressure and banished the spell of isolation from before.

“Keres!! Can you hear me? Keres, answer me!!” Oliver shouted, voice gripped tight with concern. His fingertips dug into her skin, almost as terrified as she was.

“Where did it go?” she gasped.

She lifted her head to scan the fenceline, and upon not seeing the figure, another shock of fear lanced through her body and her insides roiled violently with adrenaline.

As she twisted to find the phantom attacker, Oliver caught her by the shoulders once more and spun her to face him.

“Keres, what are you talking about?” he snapped, using one hand to make a large, sweeping gesture around them, “There’s no one here!”

That made her pause, staring back at her brother with hunted eyes. She saw her own fear reflected and magnified in his eyes, clearing the racing thoughts the residual panic was flooding her mind with. Traces of fear still remained, but it was now hidden away out of sight, festering until it could be triggered later.

She took an anxious glance around them and whispered, “You didn’t see it?”

Oliver shook his head. Some of the tightness left his shoulders as he carefully let her go now that the urgency of whatever fit she was having had passed.

“There was no one there,” he replied carefully, “I just turned around and you were kneeling on the ground, but you weren’t breathing and you just kinda went rigid.”

They stayed silent for several moments, each looking intently at the other as if they could find the answers underneath the fear in eachothers eyes. While Oliver’s face was struck by concern, Keres’s remained a mask and showed only what she could afford to express. How could she explain what she had seen, what she had felt? It was built on so much that she had kept hidden that to talk about it would require her to bare her soul, and Keres couldn’t do that. If she wasn’t convinced before, now she was. That other being had known her and all she felt was judgment and shame. She was almost crushed by the weight of that knowledge, of the stranger that showed her how revolting her true nature was. How much harder would it be to show that to someone who she cared about? To reveal the twistedness inside and still ask to be loved? It wasn’t possible. As things were right now, at least she was able to pretend that she was faking just as well as everyone else.

Drawing in a long, steady breath, Keres finally crushed what was left of the fear and met her brother’s eyes with a firm gaze.

“I’m okay now,” she said, “I’m sorry I scared you.”

However, Oliver’s fear would not simply be brushed aside. He had not seen the being, he didn’t know that this was something personal.

He shook his head in response and said, “I think you had a seizure or something. We really should get you to the hospital-”

“No,” she cut him off. The last thing she wanted to do was be stuck in a hospital for hours, only to be told nothing was wrong with her. Keres knew that the problem wasn’t physical.

“I think I just locked my knees,” she lied, “I’m fine now, really. Let's just get into the room so I can sit down.”

Conflict visibly flickered across Oliver’s face. Keres was too drained to argue, however, so when he didn’t make any move to insist on anything contrary to her wishes, she reached over and took the key from his limp fingers. Slowly, she turned her back on the fence line, now shadowed with a dull city glow, and stepped up to the motel door. The knob rattled loosely in the door, but it let her in, stale air drifting past her as the door swung inward. Keres didn’t look back at her brother, whose eyes she felt on the back of her neck, and went straight to the bathroom. She rested her elbows on the greasy, discolored linoleum for a moment, rubbing at her temples.

“I’m fine,” she chanted to her haggard reflection, “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

The girl in the mirror solemnly shook her head in response, the lies rolling off the glass like water droplets. They both knew that wasn’t true and hadn’t been for some time. Frustrated, Keres stared into blank eyes, tears welling up and clinging to her lashes. Why couldn’t she make that true? She looked down, unable to look at the lies the reflection showed her, and turned the worn faucet. The water gurgled out and splashed in the stained basin, swirling hypnotically around the slow drain. Cupping her hands beneath the flow, Keres brought the cool water to her face and washed it over her skin. She let it trickle down her neck and drip off her nose, grounding herself in these sensations as she tried to find any emotion left inside her after what had just happened. Like the sink, she numbly wondered if all the emotions had drained away, leaving her a stained shell. Everything would come back, it always did, but somehow she knew that she wasn’t in charge of the faucet anymore.

Straightening, Keres spared one last look at her reflection, at her hollow face, and left the bathroom. Oliver was laid out on one of the beds, watching something on the TV. His face wasn’t quite relaxed, his whole demeanor seemed troubled, and more so when he heard her exit the bathroom. He tensely sat up a little, watching her with apprehension. He opened his mouth to say something as he swung his legs off the edge of the bed, but Kere held up a hand to stop him.

“I’m fine,” she said, the lie coming easily after so much practice. Drawing some power from the dregs of emotion in her gut, Keres offered him an easy smile as she sat down on her bed.

“I’m sure I’ll feel better in the morning.”

Oliver nodded and returned her smile with a relieved grin of his own, the tight lines of worry in his face easing a little at her false assurance.

“I’m glad,” he responded quietly, “You really scared me back there.”

Keres looked into her brother’s eyes and saw the pools of fear her episode caused that haven’t yet drained away. Nodding, Keres smiles at him again, lightening her expression so that she won’t be able to see fear reflected in his eyes anymore.

“I’m sorry I scared you. I don’t know what happened, but I’m sure you won’t see it again.”

He smiled at her and laid back down, loudly yawning as he settled back against the mattress. The springs groaned as he moved and Oliver winced in disgust at the sound. Keres mimicked him, laying down on her own lumpy bed, and stared at the buckling popcorn ceiling. The two laid in sleepy silence for quite some time, food forgotten now that both of them were too tired to have an appetite.

Eventually, her brother got up and got ready to go to bed, flicking on lights as he went. Keres closed her eyes and sighed, pushing herself up to a chorus of squeaking springs and slid off the bed. She felt like a mimic, an echo that followed behind Oliver’s actions as he went through his evening routine. It felt strange, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about it.

In a few minutes, everything was done and they were both ready to go to sleep. The two slid into bed, and Oliver clicked out the light after wishing a goodnight to his sister. Keres hummed in response and lay in silence, listening to her brother’s breathing slow as he fell asleep. The darkness pressed in on her, thickening until it was almost palpable. It wrapped around her like a bad promise and fear resurged within her as it writhed around her. Huddling under the blankets, Keres closed her eyes and submitted to the fear, allowing it to crash over her until she fell into an anxious half-sleep

#slenderverse #slenderman #creepypasta #creepypasta fandom #creepypasta fanfic #original character #dark fic #horor #fanfiction #fanfic #oc #no beta #no beta we die like supernatural extras

7 notes · View notes