#shadow people in the woods yesterday was spooky

[put-me-through-the-wall]

𝜗𝜚 Down the Rabbit Hole 𝜗𝜚

━━━━⊱♡⊰━━━━

Captain John Price x Fem!Reader

Work Count: 4.9k (I don't know what happened...)

Summary: Reader wanders a little too far off the path. Good thing such a nice older man came to help.

A/N: It's halloween y'all!! I freaking love halloween and all things spooky and scary. So I thought maybe I should write something really scary to fit the occasion. Okay so technically yesterday was halloween but better late than never. Let me know what you guys think. I don't think I have any smut out yet?? So please let me know any feedback or thoughts you have. I love you all so much!! 𝜗𝜚

Warnings: This story contain dark themes. Not to spoil but this one does contain DUBCON/NONCON elements, intoxicated reader, drugging, light bondage, kidnapping, forced impregnation. If you are not in the headspace the read this please scroll on. I will write some nicer things in the future.

━━━━⊱♡⊰━━━━

With a sigh you pull out your phone, the blue light illuminating your face in the dark night. Just to find you have no cell signal this far out, of course. You try calling a few people but not a single call would go through. A simple dial tone rang out much to your dismay. Leaning back against the bumper of your car, you can feel the heat radiating off your exposed engine. You look towards the propped open hood of your tired vehicle. 

The hissing machinery creates a pillar of steam when mixing with the chilled October air. Your leg bounces nervously while your eyes scan the surrounding forest. There are no street lights, no houses, not even the sound of cars whizzing by on a nearby roadway. Just dark woods and the crickets chirping. You mentally curse yourself and your friends for convincing you to drive so far out on your own. 

You spend a long twenty minutes going back and forth between trying to find service along the road way and seeking warmth in the shelter of your car. Your costume doesn't provide much cover against the autumn cold. Clad only in a restricting corset top, tiny ruffled shorts, fishnet stocking, and shiny white heels. Topped off with a pair of fuzzy bunny ears fixed to a headband and a little white tail attached right above your butt. It looked better in your mirror at home when you were imagining sitting in a hot crowded house party surrounded by familiar faces. 

Your focus breaks from the car's owner manual when you hear a distant rumbling. You hop out of the driver's side seat and look to see a blinding set of headlights coming your way. As the lights come closer at a rapid speed you wave and step closer to the asphalt to catch the driver's attention. 

Thankfully it begins to slow and rumbles to a stop a few feet short of your car. The driver kills the engine along with the annoyingly bright LEDs. Thet turn their hazard lights on, bathing the area in a blinking orange glow. You are stunned for a moment while your sight adjusts back to the dim night. You make out the shape of a large pickup truck through spotted vision. Its boxy silhouette shows a vehicle past its prime and out of style. You take that as a good sign thinking the owner must know something about taking care of cars. 

The driver's side door creaks open and out comes a pair of boots dropping onto the roadside. When they slam the door you see a large shadow saunter towards you. Heavy steps crunch on the earth below. 

"Thanks for stopping" You cross your exposed arms over your chest hoping they don't see the way you're shaking. You pretend like this isn't a total horror movie scene right now. Telling yourself the shivers are from the frigid air, not fear.

"You alright?" A thickly accented english voice asks. The figure finally reaches you. You have to crane your neck up to look him in the face, his broadness could swallow your quivering frame. 

"Yeah, I'm fine. My car not so much" you gesture back to the front of your lifeless automobile. He looks over you and hums in understanding.

"I can take a look for you," He steps past and takes in the sight under your hood. “What happened?” He takes a moment to unbutton the cuffs of his shirt and scrunch up the sleeves. 

“I don't know. I was just driving and then I heard some weird sounds then it started driving funny.” you attempt to explain.

“What kind of sounds?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” you shrug.

“Like a rattling, a pop, what?” 

“If I am being completely honest I had the radio up kinda loud so I can’t really remember. I just know I heard something then it started to shake and slow down.”

You watch as he leans forward, large hands braced against the low bumper. "Do you have a flashlight?" his tone is flat, is he mad at you?

"Yeah," you pull your phone and click on the flashlight. You stand on the side of the car and try to hold it steady with both of your shaking hands. 

"You can come a little closer," he looks up and smiles. "I don't bite"

You give a nervous chuckle and step around to the front of the car. Still careful to keep a good amount of distance from the stranger. 

"Can you- here let me just," his large hand wraps around your wrist and gently draws your hand further out until you're almost bent over reaching across the space. "That's better." 

He checks different areas, twisting and tapping on a few parts. Checking the levels of the various fluids. Occasionally repositioning the angle of your flashlight with a firm yet polite adjustment of your arm. 

"Have you called anyone yet?" His gentle eyes look up from underneath his thick brow. 

You hesitate for a moment considering the implication of your answer. He holds your stare as you try not to appear nervous. "Yes, I called roadside assistance but they won't be here for a while. They know I'm here though." You rush out a lie. 

"Hm, yeah we're pretty out" he looks back at the machinery. He stands up straight, brushes his hands off on the thighs of his jeans. "Looks like you're not going anywhere."

Your stomach tightens and you pull back your flashlight leaving you both in the darkness. 

"I can fix it but I'm going to need to go back to my place and grab some tools" He pulls the hood of your car down and slams it shut. "Or you can wait for the guy to get here. You'll be waiting for a while though"

You hold your phone tight in your palm feeling torn between trusting this stranger or going back to being stranded. "Um," it's hard to think with the constant waves of shivers going through you.

"Or you can stay here in the middle of the woods by yourself. Up to you," He pulls his keys from his pocket with a jingle and walks around you, back in the direction of his truck. 

You look between your own car, the dark tree line, and the tall man getting further away. 

"Okay!" You call to him. He turns and watches as you reach into your open car door to grab your purse and keys. You lock the door behind you and walk towards him. 

You hear his door squeak open then his truck rev to life you. You quicken your pace to reach the passenger side, not wanting to be left alone here for another second. Before you can grab the handle he is reached over the long bench seat pushing to open from the inside. 

"Glad you could make it," his cheeky smile causes his eyes to crinkle in the corners.

"Better than getting mauled by a bear" You haul yourself up and into the seat. The interior is still warm which allows you to relax a bit while your shiver subside. You take in the roomy cab of his truck. Nice leather seat, very clean, smells good. Surely he is just a kind older man wanting ti help out a stranded, clueless woman. 

"You'd be alright. Bears normally hunt in the mornings. Bobcats on the other hand, that's what you've got to watch out for." He places his hand on the gear shifter, "Seatbelt," and nods down towards the unclipped buckle.

"Okay but first, can you promise you're not going to kidnap or kill me?" You stare him down as he holds a faint smile.

"I'm not going to kill you," he chuckles

"You see, that's exactly what a murderer would say," you are only half joking with that statement but buckle yourself in anyways.

"I guess you're going to have to trust me then" He focuses his eyes forward and pulls onto the road. 

"I don't even know your name." 

"I don't know yours either" he counters

"Fair enough," you consider it for a moment before telling him your name, and he tells you his. 

"I don’t mean to be rude but, what's with the outfit?" he glanced your way for a moment. You don't miss the way his eyes trace down your figure. 

"I'm a bunny, duh." You point to the fluffy ears fixed to your headband. His brows remains drawn in confusion. "It's halloween," you continue stating the obvious. 

"Is it?" he finally puts it together. "My work has been hectic. It's easy to lose track of time. Heading to a party, then?" he asks.

"Was. I think I took a wrong turn a few miles back but I lost my cell signal so, I couldn’t get the map to load. Then my car died."

"That's some bad luck. Maybe you should look into getting a lucky rabbit's foot." He raises his eyebrows and chuckles.

"Ha ha," you respond humorlessly. "Look, the costume would've been a lot better with my friend. She's supposed to be a magician. Y'know like a magician pulls the white rabbit out of the hat."

"Right," he nods.

"Yeah, but it looks like I won't be making it tonight. I'm not too upset though. I'm not much of a party person."

"No?"

"No way, I'm a homebody. I hardly ever leave my house if I'm being honest. I work from home too so that keeps me pretty busy. Wow, sorry I didn’t mean to tell you my whole life story," you chuckle nervously.

"’S alright, I don’t mind. Your boyfriend doesn't take you out?" he asks.

"Boyfriend? No, I don't have a boyfriend." 

"Sorry, I just assumed. I mean, you're a pretty girl. Hard to believe you don't have someone to look after you." 

"Oh, thanks" a bashful blush rises up your cheeks. "Like I said, I don't get out much. Not many opportunities to meet people. Which is part of the reason my friend gets so mad at me. I've canceled on her the past three times she has asked me to hang out. She had to beg me to come tonight. I kind of feel bad though. She's probably going to think I bailed again."

"When we get back to my place you can use my phone to give her a call if you'd like," he offered. 

"Yeah, I probably should."

Looking out the windshield you can make out speckles of light ahead, breaking up the dense forest. John makes a final turn and you find yourself pulling up to a very nice cabin. Wood paneling lined the exterior framing several expansive windows which emit a warm yellow light behind the closed curtains. The glass panels stretch high to the sloped asymmetrical ceiling. The architecture looks straight out of the seventies. 

"Wow, this is your place?" you ask in amazement. "What do you do for work?"

"I work for the government," he states simply before turning off the truck and exiting. He walks around to your side and opens your door. He offers his hand to you which you shyly take as you hop down from the elevated cab. "Your hands are cold," he gives your hand a small squeeze fully enveloping it in his palm. "Let's get you warmed up inside."

He ushers you up the driveway, his hand now transitioned to your lower back. You can't deny the way his touch makes your stomach flip. He opens the door and you step into the cozy home. 

You are greeted by a vast living room. A long espresso colored leather sofa sits among matching chairs all facing towards a large stone fireplace. The space is washed in varying shades of warm browns and oranges. A beautiful thick rug lays across the glossy hardwood. 

"Sit, let me get you a drink. Would you like some tea, coffee, a beer?" 

"I'll have a coffee," with your confirmation he stepped through the living room to the connecting kitchen. Your eyes follow him as he disappears through the doorway. "Government job, huh? You must be very important." You step to one of the bookshelves that sit on either side of the fireplace. Scanning the many titles there. 

"I guess you could say that." He laughs. "Do you take cream and sugar?" 

"Yes, please." Your finger grazes the spines of the books. Many biographies and historical nonfiction among his collection sprinkled in with survival guides and warfare tactics.

"How about some Bailey's?"

"Sure,” you shrug. Maybe a little spiked coffee and make you relax a little.  

He reappears with two steaming mugs in each hand. He offers one to you which you happily accept. Wrapping both hands around the cup, allowing the hot drink to unfreeze your fingers. He holds his gaze while he takes a sip and then releases a gravelly groan in satisfaction. You follow suit taking a sip, feeling the warmth descend in your throat and radiate in your chest. 

"Not bad?" 

"No, not at all, thank you,” you smile sweetly. 

"How about a fire? Get you warmed up and then I'll go grab those tools, ay?" He doesn't allow you to answer before he sets his mug on the coffee table and kneels in front of the fireplace. 

You sit on the couch and watch while he makes quick work of getting the fire started. It's not long until he nurses the little flame into a roaring fire. He grabs a few fresh logs to throw on top before getting up and taking a seat next to you. 

"Feeling better?" He asks as grabs his drink once more and settles into the cushions, arm slung across the back of the couch behind you. 

"Much" With your cup now half empty you begin to feel the alcohol go straight to your head. You aren't surprised though. You haven't eaten all day in order to fit into this strangling outfit. 

"I like your costume, by the way. I don't think I said that earlier. Not sure if I would've stopped if you didn't look so cute" His hand reaches from behind you and flicks your artificial ears.

"Hey" You adjust the head piece back in place. "This was a lot of work to put together, I'll have you know." You attempt to convey your seriousness but can't help the giggle that escapes. 

"Oh, I can tell." His hand slips down from the back cushion to brush across your bare shoulder. The light touch makes your skin erupt in a flurry of goosebumps. "You're still pretty cold, bunny. Let me get you something warmer to put on." 

"I'm okay, really. I'll warm up." You take another long sip on your hot beverage. "I feel fine."

"I insist" He rises from the couch and politely holds a hand out for you. 

You are hesitant for a moment but seeing the persistence settled on his face you accept. "Alright," you relent.

He leads you down a dim corridor to the last room on the right. He pushes open the cracked door to reveal his neat bedroom. Very much resembling the rest of the house. A giant perfectly made bed sits in the center of the clean area. Makes sense considering the large man that sleeps in it. A lone lamp illuminates the room giving it a hazy appearance. Or maybe that's just your clouded mind. 

He steps past you towards his dresser and pulls open one of the drawers. He pulls out a large shirt then a pair of pajama pants and hands them to you. "Not sure how well these will fit but it'll be more comfortable, I'm sure"

"Too bad" You look down at the folded clothes in your hand. "Feels like a total waste of a costume."

His eyes scan down your body once more. "I don't think so" He walks past you towards the door. "I sure got a kick out of it" He smiles and turns to close the door on his way out. 

"John," you rush out before he goes. 

"Hm?"

"Can you, um-" You look over your shoulder at him. Still facing away from him. "Can you untie me?" gesturing to the lace up back to your corset.

"Yeah, uh,” he clears his throat. “I can do that" he takes measured steps towards you. As though a hunter may quietly stalk up to its prey. 

You look forward again and stand up a little straighter when his warm hands rest on your shoulders. They slowly slide down your back and onto the dense fabric. Fingers trailing over the layer of ribbon and boning. Finally he reaches the large bow at the base of your back. You feel the ribbon unwind to hang limply. Edges skimming the back of your thighs.

His strong fingers wedge themselves in the gaps between the laces. Tugging each intersection with meticulous movements so as not to throw you off balance. Your hands rush to press the front of your corset to your chest when you feel it begin to slip. At last you can take a full breath. 

Feeling his touch retreat after finishing the task you turn back towards him. Neck craning up to meet his eyes. The height difference was much more apparent from this close proximity. 

"Thank you,” your voice coming out just over a whisper.

"It's no trouble" He matches your hushed tone.

Your heart is beating out of your chest. Maybe it was the drink, or the fact that you were touch starved, perhaps even the fact that it was halloween but you felt bold. Bold enough to release your hands and allow the undone corset to fall to the ground below. 

Without a moment's hesitation John harshly grabs the back of your neck and smashes his mouth into yours as if thats the sign he’s been waiting for. Lips collide in a hot rush. His stong arms pull you flush against his broad frame. Deep groans rumble from his chest. 

Your sluggish movements make you struggle to keep up with his hectic pace. Your hands sliding up his neck to tug at his cropped hair. One particular harsh tug draws a growl from him. 

He walks you backwards across the room until the back of your tight clad legs meet the soft comforter. He releases his hold and you fall backwards onto the mattress. 

He towers over you. His chest heaves with each breath as he stares you down. Your stomach flutters, unsure if it is due to excitement or fear. You begin scoot backwards up the bed but as you make your way towards the pillows his hand encircles one of your ankles.

"Not so fast little, bunny," he tugs your leg harshly and pulls you back towards him. He doesn't waste time as he dips his fingers into your tiny ruffled shorts yanking them down in one swift motion. 

He climbs over you, wedging his thigh between your legs. His hand maneuvers around your lower back and behind your neck. He pulls you back into a heated kiss. 

You feel the pressure from his muscular thigh press against you. You unconsciously grind your hips into his leg while he swipes his tongue across your bottom lip. He assists in your movements as he grips your hips, rocking you back and forth.

"That's it, pretty," he leans down to mumble in your ear. "I can feel you soaking through those little panties," then giving your earlobe a nip.

Moans slip from you with each movement. Rutting pathetically, unable to stop yourself as you near closer to your edge. He dips down to your neck expertly finding your sensitive points. Biting your pulse then soothing it with his tongue. The friction from his jeans rubs against your little cotton underwear and fishnets. 

"John, please," you whine, unsure of what you're asking. 

"Go ahead sweet girl, cum for me." His powerful grip digging into your waist. 

With his words of approval paired with his hot mouth moving along your throat, you begin to unwind. Tipping over the edge, your legs tightening around his own. The knot in your stomach finally snaps. Back arching into him and loud moans pouring from you. A rush of heat fills you and until you finally slump back into the bedding. 

John loosened his hold around you. A hand coming up to move hair away from your face. "You're a dirty little girl, aren't you? Humping my leg to get off. Nasty thing, you are." 

A blush of embarrassment rising across your already flushed face. The shame morphs back into lust as you feel a tightness reform in your stomach. 

John sits back on his knees and begins to unbutton his shirt. Your eyes can't help but to land on the massive bulge formed in his pants. A thick outline straining against the restricting denim. He finishes stripping off his shirt revealing his burly chest. You sit up to run your hands down his bare skin. Leaving kisses along the line of hair leading from his chest into his happy trail. 

Your hands skim lower to find the buckle of his belt. You make quick work unbuckling and unfastening of his jeans. Hurriedly yanking down the offending material just enough to give way to his tight boxers. Your mouth salivates at the sight of his hard cock straining through the thin material.

Before you can rip away the final layer he grabs your wrists. “Not so fast,” he chuckled. Gathering both your wrist into one of his hands easily he uses the other to swiftly pull his belt from it loops. He takes the belt and wraps it around your wrists, securing them tightly together. 

“Needy girl,” he mumbles. His rough palms traced down your arms then along your waist. “Taking whatever you want,” his fingers skim along the pattern of your fishnets. “It’s my turn now, bunny,” once he reaches your still clothed center. Finger grip the threads of your tights and rip them open. Completely tearing the flimsy strands to fully expose your panties. 

He slides his fingers across your sensitive clothed cunt making your hips thrust into him. “Oh, bunny. You’re soaked,” his eyes flick back up to meet yours. The black of his pupil now blown out almost completely consuming the previously blue iris. 

He takes your bound wrists and pulls them over his head. Your arms now wrapped around his neck, your bare chest flush against his. He pulls you into his lap, your legs straddling his hips. Not bothered enough to fully undress he jerks down the waistband of his boxers. Allowing his thick cock to spring out. Fingers frantically pulling aside the drenched material of your panties, exposing your throbbing heat. 

He grinds his hips up to meet yours. Sliding his cock easily through your wet folds.

“Oh god,” you whimpered as his head rubs against your sensitive clit. “Please, fuck me” 

Needing no more prompting he pulls your hips back and lines himself up with your needy hole but not yet entering. “You want this?” He dips just the tip of his head in, teasing your dripping entrance. 

“Yes, please,” you beg, looking at him through your lashes. You desperately try to grind your hips down but he holds you in place. 

“What good manners you have,” he continues to tease and thrusts the tiniest movements, never fully entering. 

“John, I can’t wait anymore, please, just- please. I need it. I-” Your string of pitiful begging is interrupted when he finally yanks your hips down. His length fills you completely in one smooth thrust. Your eyes roll back at the sensation as he fills you to the hilt. 

He lets out a guttural moan once he is fully inside of you. “You’re so fucking tight,” he groans. His head dropped in the crook of your neck, biting the soft skin there. Mustache and stubble scratching along your collarbone. You yelp at the pain of his bite but he doesn't relent. Your pussy tightens around him as his teeth sink into the tender flesh. 

His arms move from their grip on your hips and fully wrap around your back. He begins to thrust up into you. Not easing into the movement as he immediately drives his hips up at a brutal pace. As if he were unable to wait another second. 

Unable to grip into anything with your bound hands, you find purchase digging your nails into the leather of the belt. Your head tipping back limply as you can only take his cruel ministrations. 

“Is this what you wanted?” He grits out through his teeth, each word punctuated by his hips driving up into you. His cock pounds into your cervix making a flurry or stars burst behind your eyelids at every hit. “Is this what you’ve been needing? A good fucking?”

You mumble out a pathetic, “Mhm,” unable to fully process his words. His fingers dig into your shoulder and back. You are fully engulfed by this giant brute of a man. 

“I know you do. I knew from the moment I saw you. Looking so sweet on the side of the road.” He chuckles darkly. Continuing to hold you tight against him he leans forward until your back hits the comforter. Your legs lock around his back while he holds your hips in place. The new angle has him pounding into your sweet spot over and over. The friction of his hair rubbing onto your clit creates the building of renewed heat in your stomach.

“You gonna cum again, pretty? Let me see you do it,” his thrusts slow from the frantic pace to a slower harder stroke. His arms lay on either side of your head while he studies your features. Hard length easing out of you slow enough for you to feel each ridge and vein. Then jerking his hip harshly back in. 

Your head was feeling fuzzy. A drop of salvia trailed out of your lips and down your cheek. Your high was getting closer with each thrust. Eyelids fluttering shut as you feel the knot tighten in your stomach. So close to release. Your walls contract around him causing your legs to tighten, toes curling. 

“Hey,” John snaps harshly. When he receives no response he gives you a light smack on the cheek. Hard enough to make your eyes pop open in shock. “Look at me, pretty girl. I need to see those eyes,” his words sound warm but he grips your jaw in place with a stern hold.

Your eyes flutter while you struggle to keep them focused on him. Coming closer to the edge. “Come on, you can do it. Don’t make you give you another smack. I don’t want to hit you, pretty girl. Don’t make me” his tone dripping in condensation. “That’s it, give it to me. I wanna see you come undone, bunny.”

Then you snap. A series of shockwaves ravages your tired body. Shooting sparks of electricity race through your limbs. Your unfocused eyes stayed fixed on him throughout your climax. Your back arches high into his chest. Fingers ball up tight, desperate for something to grip. Your mouth drop open agape in a silent cry. Tear form in the corners of your eyes threatening to spill from the over stimulation. His harsh movements not granting you mercy in your fraile state.  

“God, I can feel you squeezing me. Oh, pretty girl, I'm gonna fill your sweet cunt,” he moans. Hips increase in pace as your tense muscle loosen in exhaustion. 

“Wait-” You murmur, hardly able to get your words out. Only a string of incoherent mumblings follow. Your brain is completely clouded. You know you can’t let him finish inside. “Please, no,” you whimper. “Can’t”  

“It’s gonna be okay, sweet girl. I’ve got you. I’m gonna fill you up and maybe I’ll get you pregnant.” He says with a wicked smile. “You want to be my little house bunny? Fuck you until you get big and round. Walk around pregnant barefoot,”

Alarm bells ring in your ears but you aren’t able to fight against his strong hold. Your limbs remain weak. Useless to pull away from his embrace “Please” you whine, “I can’t”

“You can, bunny.” His thrusts grow erratic, losing their rhythm. “Gonna be such a pretty mommy,” His hand slipped underneath your head allowing thick fingers to tangle into your hair. His hands closing into a fist giving the strands a sharp tug. The other hand wanders down to your hips. Holding you firmly in place with a bruising grip. 

With one final thrust he releases a loud, guttural groan. Teeth bared in exertion as he reaches his own climax. Cock pulsing inside of you, draining his seed into your weeping womb. All you can do is tighten your jaw as you attempt to push, kick, scream, anything but you just lie there. The faintest gasp leaves you when you feel his warm load pool inside of you.  

“You made it so easy for me,” he laughs. “You just got in my truck. Walked into my house. Silly girl, you don’t even know me. Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to talk to strangers.” 

He gives a few more gentle pumps before pulling out completely. Leaving your aching cunt feeling empty. He leans back and stares down, watching him cum drip out of your still quivering cunt. 

“You know, I put something in your drink. Took a little while to take, though. Got to you just in time I think. I was going to wait but you wanted it, didn’t you? I like seeing that dumb look in your eyes.” He grabs your jaw and moves your head back and forth while you stare blankly back at him. 

“Couldn’t let a little bunny like you get away, could I?

ﾒ𝟶

Taglist:

@azkza @Miss-mistinguett @contractedcriteria @hidden-treasures21@Sprokat @ebodebo @coooookie15 @from-vuka @ninman82 @talooolaaloolla @​​roastyyytoastyyy @mipitt141 @doingitfortheplot @Hatterripper31 @Fleurydelacoury @eternallyvenus @loversroxk @Creepingeva @mackzack08 @nishim

[iggy-x-lucien]

Maybe using my bedroom mirror to Conjure the Man In Black various times wasn’t a good move? It lags. My reflection is fucking lagging. Maybe Lucien can use that to speak to me. But I’m not good at lip reading. Meanwhile, I haven’t seen the “Girl Behind Me” in months. Hope that haunt is okay. I enjoyed her presence. Last I saw her was in the restroom mirror at a McDonald’s. Maybe she left my house and now is wandering the world untethered?

[starrysupercell]

Happy Halloween! 🎃🦇

This is my take on (most of) the spooky tales that we saw in last year's (2021) Brawl-o-ween animation.

Enjoy!

The Gene of Swamp:

Piper doesn’t know what compels her that night, but she walks deep into the woods that lays outside the village.

She spends the evening there, enjoying the quiet and relaxing scenery. It was actually a nice choice. Peaceful, even. Sometimes the villagers were a bit too much, even for a social butterfly like her.

It’s chilly, but she decides that a swim wouldn’t hurt. Just a few laps and then back home, because it felt right to end this night of solace on a refreshing note.

It was only its looming shadow draped over her that she turned and gave a yell at the monster that bared its sharpened teeth growled at her.

As she finishes her rounds and goes to dry off, she didn’t feel sharp eyes on her, nor as the creature slipped through the water to trail her.

The creature was deathly silent whilst it climbed up onto the dock she stood on, intent on one thing, and one thing only...

Its claw swiped down toward her at an alarming speed and the girl squeezed her eyes shut instinctively, thoughts of shock and fear running through her head.

It’s a monster! MonstersarerealandI’mabouttodieandthat’sIT--

She felt a sharp pull at her neck, and heard a light snap along with... small content growls? Opening her eyes, she witnessed the monster happily stomp back into and dive back into the water.

Piper looked after it in surprise, placing a hand to her chest as if to reassure herself that there was no open wound, to breathe enough to calm her heart's fast rhythm, and to ensure that this creature of the deep in all truth did just steal her necklace and retreat right afterwards.

She exhaled and neared the edge of the dock, trying to see the beast past the murky waters. No success.

She stood, dried herself completely on edge, redressed and then headed home.

She awoke, and the day passed like normal. Greeting, polite talk, mundane activity, work, errands...

That was real. But it was so odd and unrealistic. The creature had only gone for her jewelry? Had she somehow began to doze off after exiting the pond? Because a failure of a nightmare seemed like the only reasonable explanation for this.

Soon the distant thoughts of the fishy beast was nothing more than a way to lull her to sleep.

It was... boring. And she realized throughout the long stretches of hours in the day, that it’s always been like this. There was no doubt that the comparison of last night’s scare magnified and genuinely showcased how dull this town life really was.

That evening, she returned home and gathered up a few pieces of fine jewelry she knew she'd be fine with losing. In the cover of the night, she stole away to the woods she had ventured the night before.

Piper made it back to the same marsh and inched towards the dock. She tried looking for the beast, but to no avail yet again.

She reached a hand out with a ring trying to lure the beast back out. After a few minutes, she began to wonder if she really did just imagine that event yesterday.

But then it was like the moonlight’s glint shone ever brighter at that moment and reflected off the ring to beckon to the creature.

She saw a pair of eyes start to surface and couldn’t react to the creature's lash out.

It snatched the ring from her hand and nuzzled the ring before making to leave, but Piper stopped it in its tracks by showcasing a couple of necklaces. The gold and silver enthralled the beast and it gave her a curious look.

“There’s more of this, where it came from,” Piper said with a careful smile, “But I would like a favor.”

The Monster stared up at her. It seemed to understand, because it eyed the delicate chains and reached out for it, letting the woman place it in its clawed hands.

Piper grinned. This monster was harmless, but the people of the village didn’t know that. What better gift could she give them by opening their eyes to how dull this town has become? The same old rut everyday. This would be better for everybody.

The plan was to use the monster to terrorize the villa. Nobody would be injured. She’d be painted as the hero. She’s praised, and given gifts and money as rewards... which she uses a portion of to gift the monster.

While her jewelry manages to tide the peaceful monster over for a while, the town’s inhabitants’ fears have only grown.

One fellow trails the monster in his retreat one day and discovers its living place. The town plans to storm the swamp as an angry mob.

Piper slowly starts to see her little façade of an exciting life slip from her grasp. However, she didn’t try defending the monster. That would just look suspicious on her, so she tries to warn the swamp monster...

But it’s too late.

The town’s civilians make it to the marsh and swarm the place. Realizing he’s been made out as the enemy, the monster flees from his swamp, not harming a single townie.

However, as he’s rounding about, he stumbles into the woman who dragged him into this mess in the first place

She looks stunned at seeing him. “I...I didn’t expect them to go after you.” She stammers out. “..But you should have kept a closer eye out for anyone who could have followed you.”

The creature stares at Piper. She was saying it wasn’t her fault!

Surprisingly, the monster grins at her, and his claw swipes out. He leaves a   single scrape on her arm. Piper clutches the wound in pain. It was shallow, but it burned with so much intensity. She looks at it, and green is inching from her scar.

“Thank you so much for giving me this chance, Piper!”

Piper looks at the monster. “You can talk!?”

“Yes, now I can...” The monster cleared his throat. “The curse is wearing off. I mean, it’s being transferred. To you.”

Piper could only glare as she held her arm. She could feel skin hardening to scales. The monster is looking less green...

“But since I’m a changed man, I’ll give you a fair warning: This curse is transferable through one way only. You have to prove somebody is much more deserving of this horrid form. Once you do, you give them a scrape. One cut is all that’s required.”

Piper frowned.

“Once you do that, then and only then, can you pass on... the Gene of the Swamp.”

There was commotion in the woods.

“You better run along, Piper. Find a safe marsh to live in. And don’t let them catch you.”

She felt like she couldn’t breathe, as the former monster walked off.

Piper had to make it back... even if both options of getting mauled by the mob, or living in that swamp until further notice was both as unappealing to her.

~~~

The Squeakbusters:

“Oh noooo....” Gale shook his head and rubbed his eyes tiredly. He knew he wasn’t exactly a spring chicken, or anything remotely near said term, but hallucinations? It was such a shame... he didn’t think he would ever have that.

But all the Ghosts he could see floating around his home with mischievous sneers clearly proved otherwise.

He sighed and tried ignoring them as he went about his day. After all, nobody would believe a crazy old coot who cried “ghost.” That would get him landed in a hospital, or worse, a nursing home.

On his way back home from his errand (and continued sightings of the spirits around the city) of grocery shopping, his idle glance rose to a construction site’s crane lifting up necessary lumber high above to scaffolding with a construction crew looking to gather it.

“Hey Gale!” His friend, Dyna-Mike, greeted him in passing cheerfully as he continued down the street.

The greeted man stopped in his tracks. He had a bad feeling.

Gale looked behind him to look at Mike, and then upwards. A ghost was playing and hopping around on the wooden beams, throwing the entire thing off balance and making it sway enough to loosen and send lumber falling down below... right where Dyna was strolling through casually.

With all the speed he could muster, Gale sprinted and shoved Mike further down the sidewalk just into a safe zone. A mere split second later, the heavy thuds of the wooden beams battering the concrete resounded.

“Holy shit!” Mike exclaimed. “...Ow!” Gale pushed himself up, a bit dazed. Mike stared at him, completely bewildered. Did he just tell the FUTURE....?!

“....Well, at least I know I’m not crazy.” Gale muttered.

____

“You can see Ghosts?!” Dyna Mike paced around in Gale’s home, in front of the couch where Gale himself currently sat.

“I thought I was just seeing things.” he shrugged lightly.

“It’s real as hell alright!” Mike shouted, “How are you still calm over this!!?”

“Well, I’m baffled, really. But I’m not gonna make a big deal and get lugged away.”

“YOU-!!” Mike paused, “Well, there’s a real chance for that, you’re right. Hmm...” he laughed, “If it were me I probably would have been screaming my head off at everyone on the street.”

Gale chuckled. He could see that.

“I just don’t get why you’re the only one can see it.” Mike shook his head.

“Maybe I’m about to die?” Gale guessed casually. “It’s bound to happen...”

“Ehhh,” Dyna squinted, “Maybe? But outta the two of us, I’m pretty sure I’d be the one cheatin’ death!”

The conversation eventually shifts over to what can be done about this, although it doesn’t really reach a point..

Until the duo catch wind of a pair of scientists claiming paranormal activity on an international scale to which, as they called it, were met with doubt and ridicule.

Luckily, they were only ignored! Dyna thinks their best bet would be to contact them, and does so.

Rosa is skeptical, being abrasive at first, because sure, this isn’t just someone who’s reaching out for the mean spirited laughs. Though Bea is optimistic!

Luckily! Gale and Mike are serious about this.

The gals eventually believe this when Gale’s able to pinpoint exactly where (and what) some ghosts are doing around the vicinity.

Together, they find out that the sudden ghost invasion is because of a small rift that opened up. It connects the Spiritual Realm and the Living Realm.

Sprout is a prototype of a soul jar type. The bulb is a ghost, and is the first one the Squeakbusters have successfully caught! Soul Jar Sprout and Ghost Squeak get along pretty well!

Then, things take a turn for the worse when the Rift broadens.

Their new business gains traction and they start seeing a profit as their friendship grows!

The Group decides that the best course of action is heading to the source and sealing it shut with the tech they came up with. To hell with money if it means the universe is at stake!

They arrive at the rift, and there's a spirit there, different from all the mischievous, miserable or evil ghosts. (Played by Bo.) This Spirit informs them that the Rift wasn't meant to be opened. He's here to ensure that all the ghosts are rallied up before he seals it for good.

However, Squeak seems to realize that this means he’d be sealed off from the living world. But he can’t leave yet. He was here for a reason after all...

So he dashes away to finally focus on what he came here for. He feels a pull.

The Squeakbusters chase after him, but when they see he’s in front of a house and the door opens, they freeze.

Squeak finally finds the one who he’s been looking for.

His dad... still alive. Colonel Ruffs himself.

It’s a tearful reunion. Ruffs apologizes. That incident, whatever it may have been, Ruffs clearly blames himself.

It sparks inspiration at least... Responsibility for one’s actions.

With one last hug and a proper goodbye to his dad, Squeak heads back to the Rift.

It is time to go. <3

After overseeing the last few traces of ghosts, [Bo] thanks the heroes, the Squeakbusters for their valor and dedication.

...He can trust them, he feels.

~~~

If any ghosts do manage to slip through after today, he knows who he can contact.

The Headless Stuntman:

--- There's a futuristic and very carefree place that's streamlined through advanced tech and mechanical work. Robots make the world go round,

However, some of the population don't treat them as well as they should. Neither in their time of servitude, nor proper disposal.

This ranged from old rusted construction bots, to overworked underwater machines, to entertainment robots who were repaired and used past the extent of their recommended life.

One such stunt bot was dumped quite a ways from the tech-advanced society where they put every other useless pile of scrap, in a closed off landfill.

By some unknown force, something just happened to align just right in, his wires connected, and his power source got a kickstart.

Stu reactivated then and there...

But he couldn’t see.

He does manage to feel the layer of bolts and mechanical parts under and around him. He realizes with fright that those are robot parts, and that is very unsettling, you should understand.

Imagine waking up with bones and corpses all around you, won’t you, dear reader?

Stu scrambles back, before slipping and feeling himself fall and clamber down, down...

He lands heavily to solid ground, and suddenly feels a grab at his arm which causes him to freak out even more. He tries fighting the assailant that he can’t see-- and then a wire is pulled from behind him and he is rendered immobile.

He doesn’t know how long he’s there...

Suddenly he hears a “--I? Did I get it right?” a scratchy voice rings through. He reacts slightly. It hadn’t quite registered that he couldn’t hear earlier. What had happened to him?...

“If ya got it right, it should be able to hear just fine right now. Lemme check, Pen.”

He felt a tap at his chest. “Hey, there. Ya getting sound?”

Stu didn’t exactly feel like answering so he refused to. He felt fingers sift through his wires. He would shudder if he could. “Everythin’ is in order. Ya did well, Penny! Our buddy here is just shy, I’m guessin’!” Stu heard.

“Alright!” the voice he took to be Penny cheered.

“Now run along and try finding other parts we can use for ‘em. Voice box, audio receptors... a head. And ya still got that list for the other projects?

“Yeah! Got it!” Penny confirmed enthusiastically.

“Good, now go on.”

“Aye-aye!” Stu heard the tell-tale rapid footsteps of the girl darting off.

“Hey now, Bot.” The woman’s voice said. “I know it’s jarring, but we can help ya if you let us. I know my way around repairs, even if it is less than brand new shinin’ pieces. What d’ya say? My hand’s right in front of ya. Just shake it if it’s a yes.”

Stu contemplated this. Refusing meant he still had the junkyard to himself after these two left. He’d be functional and could likely rebuild himself, though no doubt it would be slower.

If he joined them, they could help him out, and they seemed pleasant enough, from what little he heard of their conversation. It wouldn’t hurt to have a couple of friends either.

He lifted his hand and searched the area in front of him. He caught the woman’s gloved hand, and the deal was sealed.

“Glad to have ya! Name’s Belle, by the way.” she said. “Welcome to the Gang, Bot! I’ll just have to wait ‘til we find a head for you so you can introduce yourself properly.”

They couldn’t find a functional head, being that some folks bought scrap and heads were sought after a lot.

The introduction to the rest of the Gang, (Brock, Rico and Tick,) was friendly, and Stu felt like he found a good place to be.

He got to know them through sound for a while- jokes and unintelligible noisemaking and snarky remarks.

Stu stubbornly wanted one though, and Belle said she could make a makeshift one if he really wanted. They had the parts, just not the thing that would help connect it all.

Stu stomped his foot and all but gestured yes wildly.

“Take a chill pill, will ya?” Belle said, “I’ll work on it! Don’t lose your head.”

Oh, very funny, Mom.

It’s a little silly, but Belle connects all the vital visual sensor components and a few other important connections... through a pumpkin.

Stu’s screen flickers on and for the first time he gets to see the friends he’s made so far.

Brock gives a peace sign. Human.

Rico. Robot.

Penny. Robot parts.. though, simple ones, like to improve her eyesight and such.

Tick: robot.

Belle...a cyborg?....

“W-w-wow. You’re all w-worse off than I th-th-thought!” Stu exclaimed. His tone was absolutely ecstatic though.

“Oops, maybe you still need some tweakin’, c’mere, hair-trigger.“ Belle motioned, but Stu waved her off.

“I’m fine, r-r-really!” he rolled off triumphantly. He could see!

This was a night for celebration, not fussing!

Unfortunately, the next few weeks were downhill from there.

With the new visuals, came access to old, stored memories too.

But it didn’t matter. The Stuntman glowered as the army of bots marched on into the city. The yellow glow of his 

When it was nighttime, and everyone was asleep or charging, Stu laid awake.

His eye glowed yellow, shining through the shadows.

He recalled everything.

How he was built to be nothing more than a test dummy. How he strived to rise above that, and became a stunt devil.

He used to ignore the ridicule, and forged a pedestal for himself so the spotlight can hit him.

And it worked! For a few wondrous weeks.

He was the trend of the month.

Then people got bored, and the designers pushed and pushed him.

He pushed himself.

He needed that high again, and by his creators, he'd do anything for it.

Stu was angry. Because this next part was his downfall.

He was in need of repairs again, after putting on the show of all time.

"...not worth the price." He heard, and he couldn't move, couldn't talk.

"Alright. I'll just pull the plug on our old friend, Stu."

He felt a hand on him.

And there was nothing.

His next memory was with Penny and Belle.

....

Stu got up, and he simply left the Gang.

Now, come morning, the Gang would be puzzled over Stu’s whereabouts, and they’d suspect foul play.

Sure, anyone is allowed to leave, but out of the blue? With no note or a head’s up?

Something had to be up! So the Gang brainstorm on how to track down Stu.

Easier done than said, actually.

When they make it to the next city, they find it’s under attack.

It’s their very own unhinged bot, leading the charge of bots, glitchy, broken or otherwise.

“He’s raving like a lunatic!” Penny said.

“What should we do?” Brock asked with concern.

“...” There was only one answer. “Well. I fixed up, We’ll have to break ‘im down again.”

Stu felt invincible. This was the highlight of his life, for sure this time. Nobody could stop him, and Robots would be heard.

In the Gang’s attempt to stop Stu, it’s a mix of threats, of pleading, and trying to talk him down.

People have wronged him, everyone in that gang has been wronged in one way or another. But he needs to stand down, so they can resolve this.

“S-s-so you can shut me down o-o-once and for all!? I d-don’t think so!”

In his struggle to get away from his former family, he shoots, and sets off explosions, managing to hit one of them. It’s fatal.

“NO!”

Stu hears the anguished, angry yell from the leader, from his friends, and he’s filled with guilt and sorrow. But what’s done is done. He flees, since the Gang’s focus is no longer on him.

He feels nothing but fear and shock, because he realizes just what happened back there.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no...

.......Penny...

In order to keep on with his goal, he decides that it’d be best to cut ties, permanently. The Gang would only prove to be a weakness.. He was sure of it.

This would lead to an endless cycle of hate and selfishness, perhaps, but the future was of little importance...

There, on that day, Stu carefully compiled every memory of the Golden Bolts Gang, and deleted them all.

Now was the time for Robots to rise.

~

The Narrator:

Mortis fiddled with a robotic piece in his hands, and his eyes rose to address the Listener.

“What terrifying tales, wouldn’t you agree? Though, I suppose that last one could count as a horror story, or one of triumph. It depends on who you ask, I suppose!” he flung away the metallic head and leaned his chin on his hand. “So, are you satisfied~?”

...

“How do I know these stories, you ask?” Mortis grinned. “My drearies, I made them happen! All it takes is a push in the right direction!”

The Narrator cackled, his amusement shining through.

After his little fit, he continued. “Oh? You seem puzzled. Perhaps some explanation is in order, although I genuinely think that takes some fun out of it...”

“Did you think it was that woman’s mere whim to go out for a swim that night?

“Or that Gale possessed ghost vision because he was near death? Who do you think opened that Rift in the first place?”

“And the Headless Stuntman just happened to reactivate on his own right around the time Belle was searching the place with Penny, right?”

....

“Oh? Why do you look upset?”

“...Some tales take a little more tweaking than others, my ghoulish audience, but it’s all worth it for the exciting spirit of Brawl-o-ween~”

“Ah-hahaha! Now, now. You mustn't blame me for affecting the lives of these people drastically. After all, it was for your entertainment. Tell me, did you not enjoy these tales of the crypt that I provided you?”

“That’s right. Do not try to play the righteousness card~ You all are the real monsters here. I am merely, the Narrator!”

"Have a haunting night! I shall see you next year... That is, if I don’t decide to tell a story about you!”

[mosswillow]

Come back (Dark!Steve Rogers x Reader)

Word count: 2.3k

Warnings: Dark! 18+, stalking, cults, kidnapping, blood, drugging, bondage.

Summary: Your father's death brings you back to your childhood home and the cult you grew up in. You just need a few days to pack things up before selling the place and leaving forever.

A/N This is for @tansypoisoning​ spooky challenge. I picked the words nostalgia and ritual as a prompt. It’s supposed to have a horror element. I was going for more of a suspenseful/creepy vibe.

It’s been eight years since you left. You walked away and never looked back, at least not until you got the call that your father had passed away in his sleep. His only possession, the small cabin you grew up in, was willed to you. So now you stand outside the cabin, suitcase in hand, taking deep breaths before opening the door and walking in. You look around the one room cabin, taking it all in. you’re surprised to feel nostalgia creep into your bones. A blanket on the couch reminds you of forts you used to build. The smell of the forest brings back memories of climbing trees and picking wild fruit. You notice a knife sitting on the kitchen counter and imagine your father whittling figures out of wood. You look back on your childhood with mixed emotions. It was a cult, plain and simple. Leaving was the hardest thing you ever did but it was necessary. You feel happy and free now. You’ve made new friends and family. You’ve gotten an education, a job. You’ve fallen in and out of love multiple times. You’ve lived life to the fullest. So looking around now and feeling loss is both unexpected and unwelcome.

“Y/N?”

A voice brings you out of your head. You look over to see a mountain of a man standing in the doorway. The last time you saw him was right before you left. The cult had told you that you and him were chosen to marry. It’s not that you hadn’t liked Steve or anything, you just couldn’t do it. You had made friends in the city who had helped you get out. They introduced you to the internet and taught you that there’s more to the world than the little community in the woods. You were to marry him as soon as you turned eighteen but instead you left without a word.

Steve stares at you with an intensity you’ve never seen before. His eyes travel down your body, stopping at your breasts for a few seconds. You cover them by crossing your arms and force yourself not to step back. You don’t owe him anything and shouldn’t feel intimidated by his presence.

“You look good Steve.”

“So do you.”

The two of you stand in silence for several moments longer than is comfortable.

“What are you doing here Steve?”

“Come back Y/N.”

Steve cuts in without interlude, his voice strong and commanding. You close your eyes and brace yourself. He’s always been like this, all of the men you grew up with had the same attitude, Stubborn and assertive. You had hoped you wouldn’t see Steve because you knew exactly what his reaction would be, that he would aggressively try to make you stay.

People in the cult can’t remarry. They have the belief that soulmates exist and once yours is picked that’s it. When you left you were condemning Steve to a lifetime alone. The price of your freedom was Steve's. He would not be allowed to rise in the cult without being married, would never have children or have what the cult deems is a fulfilled life. You remind yourself again that you don’t owe Steve anything. He can leave just like you did.  

“No.”

you make your voice sound as strong as you can. you were taught from childhood that women are supposed to be submissive and docile. It comes back now in full force, pushing you down like an invisible hand. You’re a boss now, having worked hard to create the life you have. You’re strong and confident but here, under the watch of Steve's cold blue eyes you feel like a child.

A look of apathy moves across Steve's face before his expression lands in a controlled smile.  Your body language wavers and you take a step back. Steve smirks at you, leaning against the doorframe.

“How long are you staying?”

“Just a few days, I’m just going through some stuff before I sell the place.”

Steve nods and places his hand on his chin, scratching the stubble that surrounds his jaw.

“Stay safe Y/N”

With that he leaves, shutting the door softly behind him. You walk to the window and look out to see a group of cult members dressed in white cloaks surrounding the cabin, half hidden in the woods. They just stand there, unmoving like zombies. You shudder and close the blinds, locking the door quickly. You need to get out of this place as soon as possible.

---

That evening you hear a knock on your door. You walk to the window and peak out. Nobody is there. You open your door and find a dead rat. A steak knife punctures through the eyeball into its head. You gasp and close the door quickly, locking it and stepping back. You check every window to make sure they’re all locked and look out at the woods only to see darkness.

After the sun rises you open your door and run to your car. It won’t start. You curse, returning to the cabin and grabbing your cell phone. There’s no reception and you curse again. You had reception yesterday. A knock makes you jump and you see Steve in the doorway, eyebrows knitted in concern. You could have sworn you had locked the door when you came back in.

“You ok doll?”

You always hated when he called you that.

“My car won’t start and my phone doesn’t have reception.”

“You want a ride to town?”

You eye Steve wearily.

“Do you think I’m going to kidnap you or something? I could do that right now if that’s what I wanted to do.”

He looks at you like he might pounce at any second. You can tell that’s exactly what he wants to do and the thought of him kidnapping you makes you want to lock yourself away. You’re in a tight spot though and don’t know what else to do.

“Ok, thanks Steve.”

You get in Steve’s truck and he drives you to a mechanic. He puts his right arm on the back of your seat casually, brushing his hand over your hair. the action is purposeful and you both know it.

“Did the cult, uh, leave a dead rat on my doorstep?”

Steve scrunches his face in disgust.

“Um, no we didn’t.”

You look out the window, not totally convinced Steve is telling the truth but also not sure that he’s lying. You never experienced any of the cults rituals as only married adults were allowed to do them. You have no idea if the dead rat is a cult thing or not but can’t really think of any other reason for the events of the evening prior.

You park at the mechanics and get out. It looks the same as when you were a kid. you remember running around playing hide and seek with other children in the woods nearby, coming over for a soda after an afternoon of playing.

“Y/N, long time no see.”

You smile sweetly at the mechanic, Mr. Stark.

“My car isn’t starting and I need to leave tonight.”

“Soonest I can come look at it is tomorrow sweetheart.”

You shift uncomfortably on your feet but nod. One more night won’t hurt. Steve drives you back to your cabin and walks you to the door. He leans over, placing his shoulder beside the door and looking at you. You refuse to make eye contact and unlock the door, opening it and walking in.

“Thanks for the ride.” you say, shutting the door and locking it.

“I’ll see you later.” Steve yells through the door. You hear him whistling as he walks to his truck and you watch though the window as he drives away.

---

That evening you sit at the kitchen table, hugging your knees and biting your nails. As soon as you hear any noise you stand up and open the front door confidently.

“Go away!” You yell to the empty yard.

You slam the door and lock it, moving to the window to look out. Shadows move through the woods but you can’t make out any defined shapes.

You find a baseball bat in the closet and check all of the doors and windows once more before getting in bed. You fall asleep cuddling the bat.

Half way through the night you hear whispering outside your window. It doesn’t sound like talking, more like chanting. You clutch onto the bat and sit up in bed waiting. There’s rustling outside and then suddenly banging on all sides of the cabin. You cry, holding onto the bat for dear life like it can save you. The banging stops as suddenly as it started and the cabin becomes eerily quiet. You run to the window and pull the curtain back but nothing’s there. The rest of the night is spent awake and shaking. You’re not sure if they’re just trying to scare you or do something more nefarious. You’re not going to wait to find out. Tomorrow you’re leaving and never coming back, if you stay here any longer you may never leave again.

---

Mr. Stark drives up around noon and you meet him outside. He takes a look at your car and you sit on the porch watching.

“I need to order a special part.” He yells and you walk to him.

“I can’t stay here any longer.”

“It’ll be in tomorrow and I’ll come as soon as I can.”

You’re stuck. Panic starts rising in you but you push it down. One more night. As soon as your car is fixed you’re getting in and leaving. You don’t care anymore about finishing work on the cabin. You’ll sell it as it, heck give it away. You’re sure the cult will take it.

Mr. Stark gets in his truck and drives away. You spend the rest of the evening working in the cabin, sorting and boxing things. You’re just trying to pass time by at this point and not actually trying to finish everything you originally wanted to.

You check all of the windows and doors obsessively. They’re always locked but that voice in your head tells you to check again and again. As the sun sets, your anxiety rises, finally falling asleep out of pure exhaustion.

“Y/N”

You jolt awake to find Steve standing over your bed.

“What the fuck are you doing here Steve?”

“I won’t tolerate that language once we’re married.”

“Get out!”

“It’s our wedding night Doll.”

Steve reaches out to grab your arm and you pull away, falling out of the bed and scrambling up. Steve looks like a monster in the dark. His tall frame blocks the light coming from the window, blurring most of his features. The only thing you see aside from his outline are his eyes. They glow in the dark, ethereal and terrifying. You run past him and out the door. The woods are familiar, having played in them all growing up and you take a well worn path. You hear Steve calling after you.

“You can’t fight this. We’re soulmates.”

You keep running and crouch down behind a fallen tree. You peak your head over to look back toward the house and see a white figure walking towards you. You stand again and run only to see another ghost like person. Every time you turn in another direction someone is there, walking slowly towards you. You’re surrounded and soon you’re standing in the middle of a circle of people, dressed in white cloaks. You kneel down, tears streaming down your face. Steve breaks the circle and walks toward you, needle in his hand. He sticks it into you and your eye’s flutter before closing.

---

When you wake up you’re strapped to a large stone slab. Memories come back of being told over and over never to touch it, never come near it. It feels wrong to be strapped onto it now and you wiggle trying to get away.  you look down and see that you’re wearing matching clothing to everyone else. How long have you been out? It’s dark outside so you assume it’s the same night. Everything is fuzzy and you look around at the people’s unintelligible faces.

“Steve, do you promise to love, to care for, and to control Y/N” You recognize the voice as an elder of the cult.

“I do.” Steve speaks clearly and you perceive a hint of pride in his speech, like he knows he’s won.

The elder brings a knife to your hand, making a small cut, doing the same to Steve. Your head becomes more and more clear and you pull on the restraints.

“You may kiss your bride.”

“No!” You yell before Steve’s lips cover yours.

When he finally pulls away you yell at him again.

“Leave me the fuck alone Steve, you have no right.”

Steve ignores your cries, undoing your restraints. You try to fight against him but he leans over and whispers in your ear.

“It’s done Y/N, your mine. Do you really want me to punish you now in front of all these people? You know I will.”

You still long enough for him to carry you to his cabin. You’ve never been here before, have never wanted to be here.  He sets you on the bed and you back into the headboard.

“Let me go Steve.”

“It’s done now Doll, you can’t leave ever. I own you.”

“You don’t own me Steve, none of it is real. It’s a cult. I’ll run away the first moment I can.”

Steve's eyes darken and he stalks toward you. You roll off the bed and try to run making it out the door but  fall as soon as you hit the treeline. It feels like something is stabbing your chest and you cry out in pain. Steve slowly walks toward you, letting out a displeased sigh before picking you up. The pain disappears as soon as you’re in his arms.

“It’s ok doll, You’ve just gotten false teachings in your head but you’ve been brought back to me like it’s always meant to be. I’m here to help you learn your place. Soon you won’t even be thinking about leaving.”

“This can’t be happening.”

Steve gives you a look of pure joy.

“Oh, trust me it is.”

[itcantbe]

Zelink Week 2021: Day 4

Hello and welcome to day 4 of @zelinkweek2021 (I remembered to tag it this time!). Today's prompt is "Trust: Broken/Forged." I tried to address both aspects in this chapter of "Under the Boardwalk." Just a reminder this story is rated M and will shift to E with the last chapter (but the E bit can be skipped if you want). This chapter takes place the night of the first chapter, if you're getting confused with the timeline. Yesterday's chapter took place sometime in the future. Enjoy!

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | Read chapter 3 on ao3

Under the Boardwalk: We'll be Fallin' in Love

Ice cream. Coffee. A movie.

“What’s in here?”

Dinner. Ice skating. Mini golf.

Link can’t help thinking of better date ideas than sneaking around the amusement park he works at after hours. He had hoped they might walk around a bit, Zelda would get her fill of the empty park and they could leave and go do something else. Though he holds out some hope that she might get a little scared, and maybe clutch his arm to her chest, crushing it between her breasts as she clings to him. He’s distracted by the idea for a moment, until he hears the rattle of a doorknob.

“Don’t — ! That’s an electrical room, it supplies power to some of the lights. It’s dangerous.”

“Then why isn’t the door locked?”

Link takes Zelda’s arm, hoping he can pull her away from the door plastered in signs that say WARNING! and DANGER! with pictures of little sad people surrounded by lightning bolts. He attempts a distraction.

“Why don’t we go look at The Molduga? We can sneak into the part in the middle where it’s like a little forest.”

He hears a little click before Zelda turns to him, flashing a brilliant smile that makes his insides go watery.

“Ooh yes! Let’s go!”

And then she does take his hand, and he feels a thrill, glad she can’t see the goofy grin that crosses his face as he turns to lead her into the park.

******

Link knew where there was an opening in part of the fence that surrounds The Molduga, the giant wooden roller coaster that’s the main attraction of Hyrule Castle Amusement Park. The Molduga has been the highlight of the park for decades, and over the years a mini-forest grew inside each of the loops and curves the ride takes as it sprawls around the north side of the park. Of course, they don’t want people going in there when the ride is open, so they put up a fence that surrounds the ride on all sides.

But the fence is nearly as old as the ride, and hasn’t been well maintained in all of its years of existence. Much like everything else at the park, regular maintenance was allowed to slide in the name of maximizing profits. The fence has developed several gaps and holes over time, and the wooded areas of the interior are a favorite place for park employees to hide out while on break, to have a smoke or a nip or just enjoy nature for a minute before you have to submerge yourself in the tourist hordes again. Link knows of a gap in the fence hidden in the backside of the ride, where the track runs by the main fence between the park and the parking lot.

Maybe she’ll get bored and we can leave, Link thinks as he leads Zelda there. Surely by now she has been satisfied with the relative spookiness of the park after closing and is willing to head off and do something that’s actually fun. He can barely see her in the darkness of this part of the park, the black ball cap she put on covering her golden hair, her dark shirt and pants hiding the rest of her. He had to admit he’d been hoping she would wear some night-time version of what she wore each time he saw her at the park, the little dresses that left her shoulders bare and showed off a lot of thigh. The dresses that often came to mind when he had some time to himself at night before bed.

He had been surprised when she arrived to meet him that night.

“You look … uh, you look nice,” he said, rather stupidly. She always made him kind of stupid.

Zelda saw right through him, smirking as he scrambled to seem gentlemanly despite his obvious disappointment.

“Well I don’t think strappy platform sandals would have been very practical for sneaking around, do you?”

No, but they did nice things for her legs and he liked the pretty pink nail polish she wore on her toes.

“I … uh … I guess not.”

He wasn’t an eloquent guy on the best day but this was getting pathetic. He was nervous, and she made him feel so flustered.

“Besides, this way I can blend into the shadows so we don’t get caught!”

She brought out a black ball cap with a flourish and put it on her head in one smooth motion before turning to him and winking.

“So let’s go!”

Link’s brain shut down when she winked at him, nothing but white noise for a moment, only coming back online once he saw her head off into the dark, and he scrambled to catch up with her.

Despite him being the supposed tour leader, it was Zelda who led him about the park, asking questions and taking off with “Ooh, what’s over there?!” so often that he felt like he was constantly just trying to keep up. He should be used to the feeling by now, he thinks. He’s always attempting to keep up, and never quite making it.

But this time he led her, pulling the fence open so that she could go in.

“Are there a lot of gaps in the fence like this?”

“Um … yeah. I only know about this one but there’s gaps all over. I don’t think they do a lot of inspections.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“I guess.”

“Hmm.”

He followed her through, then took the lead again, hoping he remembered where the little clearing was that had the least amount of trash in it and had a fallen log they could sit on. It was a nice area, a little further in than most employees were willing to go, and so it was relatively clean and untouched. Maybe they could sit for a while. Maybe she would let him kiss her. Maybe she would kiss him. Maybe they could do a lot of kissing. Maybe she would push him down into the grass and let him run his hands up the inside of her shirt … Lost in his daydream, it was a minute before he realized she wasn’t behind him, and turned to see her jogging up to him.

“I stopped to tie my shoe,” she said by way of explanation.

“Oh,” Link said, confused. Why hadn’t she said anything? He would have waited for her.

“Just a bit more,” he told her.

He took a right where the tracks crossed each other, soaring a hundred feet over their heads, and followed the wooden framework that criss-crossed in a huge lattice to support the ride in the air around … and there they were. He stepped over a piece of the wooden framework that had fallen; there were a few of those around, pieces dropped off the antique ride frequently. Link realized what he’d thought was a log was actually one of the giant cross beams from the ride that had fallen who knows when and had grown soft and green with moss.

“Is this part of the ride?” Zelda asked as she sat next to him.

“Yeah, this ride is pretty old and parts fall off a lot.”

“That doesn’t seem safe!”

“Well, I’m sure they replace them.”

“When?”

How was he supposed to know?

“I dunno. I’m just. Sure they do.”

“Do they ever shut the ride down for any reason? Like for safety? Or if someone gets hurt?”

Link laughed.

“No, they never shut down the Molduga. It makes them too much money.”

She hummed thoughtfully at that.

It was a lovely night, the heat of the day having dissipated, a cool breeze soughing through the trees. Without the crowds of people, the noise of the cars and the roar of the rides, it was peaceful, the noise of the city distant and muted. It was, dare Link think it, almost romantic.

“Oh!” he heard Zelda exclaim next to him. “You can see all the stars!”

Link looked up. She was right, the sky twinkled with a number of stars that couldn’t be seen normally with the light pollution of the park and the city. He leaned in a bit closer to her. He could smell her perfume, the one she wore every time he saw her, the one that had rooted itself in his brain, that he thought he could smell every time he thought of her. Which was a lot. The scent pulled his attention away from the sparkling wash of the stars and back to Zelda, and he resisted the impulse to bury his nose into her neck and breathe her in.

“Zelda, can I k—“

“Do they ever shut down any of the other rides for repairs?”

They spoke at the same time.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“Ah, forget it,” he mumbled, the moment gone. “Um, I don’t think so … Can’t we … can’t we talk about something else? Why do you even want to know?”

He could see her eyes widen in the dark as she looked at him.

“Oh … I was just curious!”

He’s struck with the realization that they rarely talk about anything else. Even before, when she would come and talk to him at his booth. Questions about the security at the park. About the rides. About the money. About Mr. Ganondorf, like Link would know anything about that. An icy tendril of dread began to worm its way through his middle, wrapping around his stomach and snaking its way up to his heart.

He stared at his hands, not really seeing them, but unable to look at her, either.

“You’ve been asking me a lot of weird questions. And wanting to look at a lot of weird stuff.”

Link began to feel very, very foolish. Foolish for ever thinking someone like Zelda would actually be interested in him. He should have known.

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“What is this really about?”

Because it's not about me, is it, he thought.

He heard Zelda sigh.

“Link … I’m so sorry.”

He couldn’t help the groan of dismay that crawled out of his throat at her words, pushing his hands into his hair as he dropped his head onto his knees. He laced his fingers over the back of his head as if shielding himself from more disappointment.

It had been such a shitty year. After struggling through a few semesters of college, anxiety had finally gotten the better of him, and he dropped out when his grades slipped and he was in danger of failing. He had taken the amusement park job because it was easy, and he thought it might be fun, and it would keep his dad off his back. But it turned out standing in a game booth all day was really boring, yet also exhausting, leaving him with just enough energy to get on the bus home and collapse in his bed. Of course once he dropped out his student loans had come due, and all of his income went right into the payments. He had no degree, no goal in life, no energy, and no money. And no Zelda.

His voice was hollow and muffled as he spoke into his knees.

“Do you even have a sister?”

Her silence told him all he needed to know. Zelda had told him that her family had a season pass to the park and she was chaperoning her sister while she ran around the park, which is why she was there so much.

“No,” she whispered. “I’m an only child.”

Link sat up, covering his face with his hands as if he could hide from the truth. Zelda had been the bright spot of the summer, appearing at his booth one day like some gift from the goddess. She was so beautiful, and he couldn’t believe it when she came up to talk with him one morning, not long after he started working at the park. He had mumbled and stuttered, and yet, a couple of days later, she’d come back and talked with him some more. And then a few days later, again. Soon he was jumping at every blonde head of hair he saw, scenting the breeze like a dog seeking her perfume. It made coming into work bearable, almost exciting, the hope he might see her enough to get him through the day.

She had played him. She’d used her short dresses and big green eyes and played him for the horny idiot he was. Link felt like his heart was going to crack in half.

“Why?”

He jerked his hands away from his face and looked over to her. Zelda sat on the log next to him, shredding a dead leaf in her fingers. She continued to stare at her hands as she spoke, as if she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes.

“I’m a reporter with the Hyrule Star Fragment. I think something bad is going on in the park. I needed some way to get access to the inner workings of the park so I could gather evidence.”

“And I was that access.”

Link gave a bitter laugh.

“I should have known,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “I should have known someone like you wouldn’t really want someone like me. Well, I hope you got all the information you needed. I hope it was worth it.”

Link stood up to leave. He didn’t need to sit here and continue to be humiliated.

“Come on, I’ll show you back to your car.”

“Link, wait! Please, let me explain.”

He stopped, arms wrapped around his middle like he could hold all of his heartache inside of him. He turned around to look back at her, still seated on the log, face just a light blur in the deep shadows of the trees.

“Mr. Ganondorf is not a good person. This park is dangerous, and people are getting hurt.”

“So? What does that have to do with me?”

Zelda huffed in exasperation, then stood and came over to him. She stood close to him, so close he could feel the heat of her body. It seemed so intimate, like they were the only ones in the whole world, and he felt the stupid animal part of him react to it. He squashed it down and took a step back.

“People’s lives are ruined because they get hurt here and Ganondorf just covers it up. They are injured and he makes it out to be their fault and then they lose their jobs and their homes because of their medical expenses. That he should have paid for! The rides are dangerous and are in disrepair and it won’t be long before someone is killed!”

Link really didn’t want to listen. He didn’t want her to make him care. But the park employees talked. He’d heard some stories, stories about people getting injured, employees disappearing. He’d chalked it up to gossip, but maybe there was truth to it. Maybe it wouldn’t be long until he was next.

“I’m trying to gather evidence so I can write an exposé for the paper. Help people to learn the truth about this park and what happens here. But I can’t do it alone. I’m sorry I misled you—”

“Lied to me.”

Zelda sighed.

“I’m sorry I lied to you. I didn’t think … I didn’t think you’d want to help me. So I did what I thought would work. I didn’t think I’d …”

She dropped off there, leaving whatever she thought he’d do unsaid.

“You didn't think you'd what? You used me. How far would you have gone to keep me on a leash, telling you whatever you wanted? Would you have kissed me? Would you have fucked me? And then what, just dropped me once you got what you wanted?”

Link’s hurt and anger had boiled up so hot in him it made him nasty. He never talked like this to anyone, but it was as if all of his pent up rage at failing out of college, having to move back home, having his dad on his case at all times, had come pouring out. He hated himself more in this moment than he had all year. And he already hated himself quite a bit. But the words had been said and there was no taking them back now.

“No! I’d never!”

Link suddenly felt very weary, the rage flooding out of him almost as soon as it had filled him up.

“Then what?!”

Link had wanted to shout at her, but instead, his question came out as a quiet plea. His anger was quickly replaced with desperation. He just wanted to know how he fit into her grand scheme before they left the park and he never saw her again.

Zelda was silent for a moment, as if she battled over what to say to him. Or maybe she was just cooking up more lies to string him along some more.

“I didn’t think I’d actually like you,” she said, sounding defeated. “I thought I’d … I thought I’d just flirt with you, and ask you some questions, and maybe you’d show me around the park like you did. And once I knew where to go to get the answers I needed, I could disappear from your life and do what I needed to do.”

Link scoffed. He didn’t think his self loathing could get any worse but the way his heart lifted when she said she liked him proved him wrong. He just wanted so badly to have one right thing in his life.

“I hated lying to you, but by this time I didn’t think I could tell you the truth. I had planned to do as much as I could tonight and then …”

“And then drop me after that, right when I thought I had a chance.”

The fact that she wouldn’t meet his eyes confirmed that theory.

“Let’s just go,” he sighed, and started to walk away.

“Link, please!” she cried, and grabbed his hand. In his mind he yanked his hand out of her grasp and stalked away, indignant. In reality, he stopped, once again relishing the feeling of her hand in his.

“I promise, no more lies,” Zelda said, quietly and urgently. “But I do need your help. I need employee access into the park. Ganondorf cannot be allowed to continue to ruin people’s lives just to make himself richer. And I’ll try to make it up to you.”

He huffed a disbelieving laugh.

“How?”

“Let me at least buy you dinner, and I’ll answer any of your questions. And if you want to part ways after that, then fine. And if not … maybe we can do this together.”

He looked at her, her hopeful face bathed in the light of the newly risen moon. Despite the lies, despite all of the deception, he believed her. He still felt like he should say no, remain on his high horse and leave her behind, drop her just as she had planned to drop him, but as usual, he was weak to anything she asked from him. It was just one night, Link reminded himself. He wouldn’t have to see her again if he didn’t want to.

“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “But I pick the restaurant.”

Zelda exhaled in relief.

“Oh thank you, Link! I promise you won’t regret it!”

Before he knew what was happening, she’d leaned in and kissed him on the cheek before yanking on his arm and dragging him out of the trees, through the gap in the fence, and out of the park, all without being spotted by security, just as he’d said.

Link thought he probably would regret it. But in the end, he decided he didn’t care.

[red-riding]

A Spell Please: Kili x Witch reader

Here is my entry for the 10th day of the 13 days of spooky writing event hosted by the wonderful @dumbassunderthemountain​ for the prompt of spell book. Sorry that I missed yesterday, I could not come up with an original idea around spiders that had not already been done. This is my first time writing for Kili so I hope I portrayed him okay. 

You sighed as you pushed out a disgruntled costumer with a gust of wind from your wand. You ran a small business out of your cottage in the woods where you would perform spells for people for gold. You loved your job since it gave you the opportunity to use your gift of magic for good however there was downsides like in any profession. One of the hardest things about your job was denying customers who come in. You carried the belief that magic should only be used for good reason, so if someone wanted a spell for something you deemed an unpure cause you would gently deny the costumer service. 

The door to your cottage pushed open and a hooded clock figure walked in. You could tell the figure was a male by his silhouette, but could decipher nothing else. He was short, but not to short to be non human, as well as not too tall to not be a dwarf. The figure looked around, and by his movements you could sense he was nervous, but why you thought.The figure walked over to you, making sure to keep their head turned down, their face clouded by shadow. 

“Hello. Are you the witch who owns this place?” The figure asked. His voice confirmed your notion of the figure being male. 

“That would be correct sir, may I be of service of you in anyway?” You politely spoke. 

The figure looked around the room again, almost as if he was scared of being seen. “Yes, but would you umm.. Is there any way to close the shop or talk in a different room? I can't have anyone seeing me here.” You quirked you're brow at his strange request but agreed nonetheless. You swayed your wand through the air making the bolt lock on your cottages door slide into place.

“There, now what may I help you with? I spell I presume.” You prompted.

The figure pulled down his hood to reveal a rather handsome face. “Yes I am looking for a hair growth spell.” The handsome male spoke, in a quiet tone almost as if he was embarrassed. You looked over him, a little taken aback by the request. This man had thick dark brown hair, he did not seem to have any need for a hair growth spell from what you could see. 

“Is this a spell for a friend? If so they must come here themselves.”  You responded.

“No umm, its for me.. You see, I need a beard, I won't be respected without one... I can pay you whatever you ask, I am a prince i can afford what ever price you name. “ The prince rambled. 

It then clicked, this man was no man at all but a dwarf. That was the only culture you knew of where a beard would correlate to respect. You were talking to a dwarven prince. 

“Do you only wish for a beard to gain respect?” You asked. 

The prince nodded his head, cheeks red with shame of having to cheat to grow a beard.

“Im sorry sir, I must deny your request.” You explained.

“What why? I will pay you anything please.” The dwarf begged.

You sighed, almost wanting to give in to his pleads.”You should not want to change yourself for anyone but you. You want this spell to please other people, when you should only seek to please yourself.“ You elaborated. 

“But i do want it for me, without a beard I won't be attractive, no girl will ever love me and I will continue to be the laughing stock of my people. What sad excuse of a dwarven prince can't grow a beard?” The dwarf begged. 

“that's not for you, that's for those around you. You are already plenty handsome, if a girl can't see that she's blind.” You quickly responded pink painting your cheeks as you processed what you just said.

“y-you think im handsome?” The dwarf spoke, shock evident in his voice.

You nodded your head, suddenly becoming shy. A smirk grew on the dwarfs face and he suddenly was imbued with confidence on a snap. 

“The names Kili! And what is the beautiful maidens name?” Kili flirted. You chucked at his change in demeanor but responded. You and Kili ended up talking until the moon came into the sky and he had to leave. From then on out Kili would visit your shop weekly just to talk to you, an unexpected love blossoming and the Dwarvin princes confidence growing no longer paying mind to the teasing words that surrounded him among his people. 

[janekfan]

hmm prompt time... jon angst about his humanity or lacktherof? worrying about him not being good enough for+worthy of+safe for martin/general guilt/self hatred? before or after apocolypse idk maybe safe house maybe post change? maybe season 4 after coma? could end up being jmart h/c or just be jon sad time whatever works

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232381

For everyone else it had already been six long months.

And for Jon.

Well. For Jon, it was just yesterday.

Sasha.

Gone.

Tim.

Gone.

Martin.

Gone.

Himself?

And wasn’t that the question of the day Jon thought as he dragged himself up the steps of the Magnus Institute. He didn’t have anything with him. He didn’t have anything left that he knew of. Just the Oyster card and set of clothes the hospital had been kind enough to give him as his own were thoroughly shredded in the explosion. Everything else was gone.

He should be gone.

He’s the only one who should be gone.

But he’s still here.

And they’re just.

Was he even allowed to grieve?

“Jon” Melanie’s sharp, irritated voice raked over his ill-fitting skin like claws and he lifted sore eyes in acknowledgment.

“Hm, y’yes?”

“Been calling your name. You up to your spooky monster shit already?” He winced, wishing the scratchy two-sizes too big tee shirt would swallow him the rest of the way. “Barely through the door and you can’t resist.”

“N’no. Was. Was thinking, s’all.” Rubbing his arm, trying desperately to feel something, Jon didn’t know if he was allowed to leave or not. If he moved would she be upset? If he stayed?

“Least keep to your office. Don’t want you...watchin’ me.” She shoved past him, knocking him against the wall, still unsteady on his feet, the effects from the statement earlier were wearing off, or whatever the supernatural equivalent was and he slipped like a shadow through the halls to his door to hide himself behind it.

Things did not improve. He was always in the wrong, always a menace and he’d caught a glimpse of himself in the restroom mirrors a couple times, surprised at how thin and pathetic he looked. But they were afraid of him. He Knew it. Because the Eye gravitated to these heavenly tastes of fear like a starving man did to food.

So he kept to himself.

I’m sorry.

As days crept in and out, Jon tried to keep stock of what was different and the only thing he could conclude after his careful analysis and study was that he. Jonathan Sims. Was now something less than human.

Less than.

That made sense. That was okay. He’d always been better off alone because when he was alone he couldn’t hurt people and all he seemed to do was hurt people.

Wasn’t that true?

Georgie Sasha Tim Martin Daisy Georgie Sasha Tim Martin DaisyGeorgieSashaTimMartinDaisy

What was the point of learning that hard-won lesson if he had no one left?

I’m sorry.

And there was no way to go back. He’d caused it. Been causing it since he was a child, alienating, precocious, and so unlikable.

And there was no way for him to fix it. Not when he was in so deep. Not when he was addicted to these, these tales of dread and panic and horror and pain and death and terror and loss. Not when he had taken from those that he haunted and hunted through nightmare and dream. Took what they had and made it his, feeding, feeding, feeding like some animal.

But animals didn’t have a choice did they?

I’m sorry.

He’d already been judged and found wanting. Georgie was right. He should have died, or stayed in the coma, or anything other than turning into whatever he was now. Something inhuman, un-human.

Un-made.

Twisted.

I’m sorry.

Pity there was no one left who would accept his worthless apologies. Not from whatever he was now.

Jon was barely in control, not in control. Not really. Exhausted and hungry and lonely, lonely, lonely. He decided to take control back, just a little, whatever he could because to be human was to stay in control.

And he takes it.

In the only way he can think how.

Blood wells up from scratches Jon gouges into his arms, from beneath the blades of dull knives and keen razors, deep and dark and dangerous if he were human. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t harm himself enough physically, healing too fast to really feel it like he wanted to feel it and the marks never stayed long enough. Didn’t, didn’t bleed long enough, fast enough, never enough.

There’s no one left to notice the rust and ruby lining the bin so Jon doesn’t bother putting effort into cleaning up evidence. It’s around him in the florid streaks crossing the blotter, the cardinal fingerprints on old envelopes, the scarlet trails of irregular constellations mapped beneath his chair.

The answer to his problem became clear soon after. The statements. Addicted to them, it wasn’t until Basira pointed out that he should stop that he realized the easiest way to hurt was to deny himself. And they wanted him to stop. They want him to hurt and he should hurt. It’s fine, it’s okay, it’s what he’s been looking for.

Maybe when they thought he’d hurt enough, they would forgive him.

The pain was good. Every time he denied the Eye was good. Better than, it was intoxicating. The smallest act of rebellion and he revelled in it. Knowing he was weak, that he couldn’t be used for whatever purpose he’d been created for while he was like this, filled him with a perverse hope.

Restless, Jon retraced his steps through the Archives, trying to avoid Basira and Melanie where he could though they didn’t do anything more than ignore him unless he had a purpose or interrogate him about leaving, finding a victim. Compelling them against their will.

“You look shite, Jon.” He avoided their eyes, stared at their feet and watched them fade in and out, as he swayed back and forth, and he knew they were sneering because he could hear it in their voice. “Proof enough, I suppose.” Melanie lifted his face with a gentle finger placed under his chin. “Haven’t been galavanting in people’s dreams?” Back bowing under the weight of her scrutinizing stare, Jon did his best to stand straight. Removing the influence of the Slaughter didn’t make her undivided attention any easier to stomach and he put effort into quelling the ever present shiver thrumming through his bones, playing his sinews like strings.

“Uh, n’no. I don’t leave much. Or at all.”

“Mm.”

“Melanie?” Narrowed eyes stared through him, followed the quick rush through the highways of his veins. She knew where to strike to do the most damage.

Jon Knew it wouldn’t stick if she tried.

He was sure he’d seen him come this way. Martin. Whom he missed more than he ever thought one could miss someone. And, really, what did he know of Martin? Other than how best to ridicule him? He’d done this, or at the very least pushed him toward it. A victim for the Lonely. For Peter Lukas to control and manipulate and Martin assured him he was fine. He was fine and Jon shouldn’t look for him anymore because it was making it harder, it was making it worse. And Jon could do that. Could do one thing to make it easier for Martin?

But when he saw him, pale and small and Martin should never seem so small, Jon abandoned all his promises. He’d never been good at keeping them anyway. Why start now? Dizzier than he thought, the first step almost sent him sprawling and he just managed to catch himself on the wall, resting against it long enough to lose him. He pushed off, caught himself again as the hall twisted around him, spiraling like Helen’s eyes when they burrowed into his own and he followed, stumbling, a body ricocheting from surface to surface; floor, window, door, battered and bruised where no one could see. Not like the scars and the timeline they’d scripted silver and hoary on translucent brown vellum.

Martin is not there.

Jon has arrived too late.

He was good at that.

The first sob cleaved him in two, the second carved his chest clean out. Empty. Painfully empty and worse than anything he’d done to himself thus far. There wasn’t room to breathe between, there wasn’t time or space and rather than cower in the open doorway Jon threw himself into the office, crashing to his knees and pressing his face into the wood of his neatly organized desk before he gathered the wherewithal to pull himself into the chair, nicking the jumper folded over the back of it before crumpling again. Soft against his cheek, the well worn wool comforted him enough that he gained tentative control over himself again. He spent the time there dazed between bouts of crying, gradually tugged into the deep and the dark, exhausted and guilty.

He’s visited by dreams instead of nightmares. A cool palm gently coaxing the blazing, feverish heat from his skin. Stroking back tangled curls from his damp face and murmuring gentle things, lovely things, that he had no right to take comfort from. Jon dreamt of being hushed, of tears swept away by mindful fingertips, of clinging to Martin’s cardigan so tightly his hands ached. There was warmth here. Softness here. That he didn’t deserve and stole anyway, greedy and covetous because that’s what monsters did. And he took it, held it close, let it soothe the aches and the agony he carried so deep in him it hurt to let free.

Sasha.

Tim.

Martin.

Jon woke to the smell of sea air and surf.

To the last of a thick fog clinging around his ankles.

To a mug of tea, still hot.

And a statement.

[when-residents-are-evil]

Entry #4

A/N: Aaaaaand, with this chapter, the Bestiary and House Beneviento’s entries updated! You don’t actually need to read them, they’re note my OC is taking to help them go through this mess. Notes that I need to organize better, too.

23th April 2018

07h47

Today's missions:

Find a doctor

Learn more about Lords and Miranda

Stack up on provisions for the day I'll escape (long lasting food, medical stuff, weapons (?), money, etc)

I think I need to investigate about Miranda. Iulian isn't really talkative, but I guess my already-dead rabbit and the two fish I bribed him with yesterday must have impressed him, because he agreed to let me know a few things.

According to him, I wouldn't be the first tourist to 'disappear' if anything were to happen to me. Villagers disappear from time to time, mostly when they want to leave the village for good. Apparently, they need to ask for her blessing so they won’t get torn up to pieces on their way out.

But tourists? Sometimes, people will end up here, like I did, for various different reasons. Maybe they heard about spooky rumors and wanted to have a good scare and brag to their friends about the place. Or maybe they just got lost and tried to roll with it. I'm case number 2, by the way. A few escape (or at least, leave the village and are never to be seen again).

Most of the time, if they get an audiance with Mother Miranda, they don't come back.

Now, if I never got attacked by the lycans, I would brush it off as some lame ghost story or hink that Miranda, for some reason, agreed to help them leave or something ike that. But then, Iulian said these people weren't taken by the woods. And it's weird, because I'm almost sure the lycans are the n°1 death cause around here, and that no one from the 'outside world' would want to stay here. But he insisted it wasn't them, and he said they didn't left. So I have two theories:

1) Miranda killing those people, for some reason. That would explain why everyone is so damn scared of her.

2) There are other kind of monsters here. Aside from the lycans, I mean. I'm also thinking it could be the Lords?

I don't know which one would be worse. There has to be a reason Miranda is feared like she is. She must be either incredibly powerful, or… All these people are brainwashed. I don’t think she’s the kind and generous protector they all claim she is. Why wouldn’t she get rid of the lycans if she truly had good intentions?

And why am I not dead yet? I'm 100% sure she knows I'm here and trying to escape, so why isn't she kiling me? Is it because she likes watching people fail or something?

Because I could understand. I ran into a tree on my way back home last night because I was too scared to see straight. I'm sure she's entertained.

Or maybe I'm too insignificant to be worth the effort. I hope it's that one.

_____________________________________________________________

09h36

Okay, I need to write this down.

There's a weird old lady that's been following me around for at least 3 days. She's really sneaky, and I can't hear her despite the bones rattling at the end of her staff. The only reason I noticed her is because I'm becoming paranoid and keep randomly turning around. That's how I caugh her. Also, not a big fan of feeling observed.

She keeps lurking at the edge of my sight. It's freaking me out. I think I should comfront her, but again, I'm not good with people and don't want to be rude to an old lady. I get she's creepy, and weird, and she follows me everywhere I go, but is it a reason to call her out? She didn't technically do anything bad, in the end she's just observ

... She's hiding behind a tree again. Okay, no, it's freaking me out. I think I'm going to talk to her.

_____________________________________________________________

10h12

She’s so fucking weird. She asked me what would I sacrifice for Miranda and I didn’t know what to answer, so I returned her question. She laughed, didn’t answer, then left and threw some ominous warning abover her shoulder. I don’t remember what exactly. What the fuck. What’s her problem? I think I need to ask the Duke about her. Not sure he’ll tell me what I really need to know, but I can still try.

_____________________________________________________________

14h55

I met the doctor on my way to the Duke. He used to be a herbalist and learned the most… gruesome stuff on his own. He gave me a cream of his own making for my arm, and was kind enough to give me the ingredients. Apparently, these herbs grow near the windmills, but it’s in Moreau’s territory, so it’ll have to wait.

Now, about the Duke.

As expected, he didn’t really tell me a lot about that old lady, aside from the fact that she’s weird and old. Nothing I didn’t knew. Either he doesn’t want to help me, or he just doesn’t know as much as I thought he did. Or maybe he works for Miranda and doesn’t want me to escape ? I don’t know. I don’t know if I can trust him, I just…

I want to go home.

_____________________________________________________________

21h23

I have good and bad news :

Bad news: I got attacked on my way back from Hous Beneviento’s territory. Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have gone in the first place. I’ll get to that later. Anyways, I’ve got three huge slashes on my face, cutting my lips open. It’s going to leave a nasty scar, and it hurts like hell. Every time I open my mouth to eat or talk, it reopens the cuts. I couldn’t stitch myself up, as I didn’t have any suture and couldn’t find my needles (I used all of them on my arm). I tried putting tape instead. We’ll see how that turns out.

Good news: It wasn’t a lycan! Which means I got to observe a new kind of monster. They were after the suspended bridge, behind the door leading to Beneviento’s territory. I also learned more about this place, I think.

I know I shouldn’t have been there. I knew it was a bad idea. But no one would tell me why and I had to figure it out. The thing is, if I’m ever going to run away from this place, I need to know what I’m up against. I don’t regret going despite what happened.

The door was open. Maybe Lady Beneviento was in town ? Something tells me I’m lucky I didn’t see her on my way back. And it’s a good thing I had the map with me (knowing myself, I’d be able to get lost on a straight path). There were breanching paths, but they were closed off my vines. In any case, I kept going, slowly but surely, and at the end of the path, I could see Lady Beneviento’s house from afar. I didn’t dare come closer, just in case she came back.

There was something odd about this whole thing (aside from the monsters who chased me on my way back, I mean). At first, I thought it was my nerves, but the whole time I was in her territory, I felt… Sick. And watched. I don’t think it was just my anxiety acting up. I kept seeing things at the corner of my eyes, moving shadows and things I still think were fake to some extent, despite everything I’ve seen here.

But I kept going. I wasn’t stupid enough to go inside the house, but my self preservation senses aren’t exactly... developped. I felt dizzy, too lightheaded, and I know there was something inside. I tried looking through the windows but it was way too dark. I left immediately after sending a few glances inside, I really wasn’t feeling well. It felt like I was drugged, somehow. I don’t know. I still feel weird from that whole fiasco. Maybe it’s more because of the burning gash on my face, but I don’t think so.

I ran as fast as I could, hid behind a tree during when my asthma was acting up, and then ran some more. Then some weird ass… Monsters... Zombies things came out of the ground. I thought I was hallucinating at first, and then I felt a horrible burn across my face as my head got sent to the ground, and it got me right back on track. I didn’t even bother fighting back. My poor little knife wasn’t going to damage them, and there were too many of them.

I ran all the way down to the village, and saw the Duke here. He gave me some bandages and herbs for free when he saw me come back. He also held my hand when I told him about what happened. I don’t know if I can really call him a friend, but I’m still glad he was here. I still don’t know if I can really trust him, though. I hope I can. I need someone I can trust.

He said he’ll answer my questions once I’m feeling better, that I wasn’t in the right state for it right now. I think I’ll just go to sleep.

[fordanoia]

I Think I Saw You [Ch 2: Interference]

Fandom: Gravity Falls || CW: - || Stan comes to Gravity Falls upon receiving a postcard from Ford, but he can’t find him and he has to figure out what’s going on. || Ao3 || Fic Tag

Prologue || Ch 1 || Ch 2 || Ch 3 || - || - || -

______(~6.3k words)______

Stan squinted up at the small ceiling light, eyes adjusting to the sudden change in light. When he could see again, he was able to make out shards of glass from the light bulb sitting at the bottom of the foggy dome.

Great.

He quietly flipped off the light switch for all the good it did and walked back to the pantry, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Light bulbs going out wasn’t that out of the norm though. Even as he tried to reason that out to himself though, he knew it was bull.

Sure. Light bulbs going out was pretty common. What wasn’t ordinary was faulty lighting that followed you into a different room in a house that was working with zero problems beforehand. 

That wasn’t normal. Nothing about this - any of this was normal. 

Stan sighed, rifling back into the cabinet for food and making himself a can of soup.

The house could have had bad wiring, and maybe it actually did, but not one light bulb even so much as flickered yesterday when he’d had every light on in the house at the same time.

It was suspicious, and he knew it was still just a light bulb blowing out, but he wasn’t an idiot. Well, he wasn’t that much of an idiot. There was ‘weird,’ and then there was ‘something is definitely going on here.’ Heck, Ford’s house was chock full of weird stuff and half of that stuff looked supernatural so it’s not like it would be that much of a surprise. 

In all honesty, he still hadn’t ruled out something supernatural for what had been going on with Ford. Not like he’d been able to rule out anything since he’d started actually thinking about how to find him though. 

In a matter of days he’d gone from not caring about Ford to caring a whole lot about finding him. If Ford hadn’t written him, Stan wouldn’t have even known or worried about this. Maybe Ma would have written to him about it though.

Ma’s letters had gotten a lot shorter and started showing up a whole less often a long time ago, but Stan still got them now and then. The few times she had mentioned Ford in her letters it had been with a quick, lone sentence slipped between sentences about something else entirely. She didn’t even use his name, it was always ‘your brother.’ Shermie was Shermie, but ‘your brother’ was only ever Ford.

‘Your brother’s off at school now.’

‘Your brother’s got a research job all the way in Oregon.’

The comments always stuck out in the middle of her words like a sharp tack. No matter how she tried to slip it in casually and pretend like stuff was fine, it still stuck out like a sore thumb. 

It was like some bad joke, except there wasn’t a punchline here. 

Stan smiled to himself, imagining how she would have told him about this. 

‘I’ve been doing tarot readings on my calls now. Your brother’s missing. Describing the card’s meaning adds up so much time.’

He tried to think about that, about how funny that part of the situation would have been, how funny it was because it was pretty much how it would go down if it happened. 

His own word choice eventually sunk in though. He hadn’t really thought of Ford as ‘ missing’ before. ‘Missing’ brought with it a lot of other meanings and implied situations than just ‘not home’ or ‘gone’ did. 

This whole thing with Ford may have looked bad... and it was, but if Stan could bounce back from going missing missing a dozen times then Ford could do it at least once, right? 

All Ford had to do was be alive.

The thought sat heavy for a moment with half formed ideas that he immediately pushed away. He didn’t need to get caught up thinking about- about dumb stuff. 

Ford was just... missing. Ford was just missing, and all Stan had to do was find him. That wasn’t too bad. It was still bad and Stan was having a hell of a time since he’d gotten that postcard, but it definitely wasn’t the worst situation Stan had ever been in. 

Stan had food, a roof over his head, and so far nobody in town wanted him dead! If it wasn’t for the missing brother he was trying to find, he’d be doing great.

Even weird spirits messing with lights weren’t that bad. It just was giving him some bad ideas about what was going on here. 

He wouldn’t be surprised if something in Ford's house could mess with lights though. Between all his nerdy science junk and the nerdy supernatural stuff, there was something bound to mess with electricity. 

Stan had spotted more than a dozen homemade looking gadgets around the house, and he didn’t know what a single one of them did. He’d tried picking up a small remote looking thing in the kitchen and pressed a button on it. It had made a quiet hum noise, let out three angry beeps, then shot out a piece of metal into his palm and shocked him.

He stopped messing with the gadgets after that one.

So there was a good chance Ford had something hooked up that was zapping the power in the house weird. Or Stan had awakened a vengeful spirit from its resting place of some spooky vase he’d nudged.

Either one was fine by him. Honestly, he already had plenty of people that wanted revenge against him so one spirit that couldn’t even throw a knife was really low on his list of worries for his own life.

Heck, even thinking about some ancient cursed spirit or invisible wizard floating around him made him feel better. It was like having company around. Invisible, probably floating company like an annoying upstairs neighbor he never actually saw.

“Hey,” Stan spoke, his lips quirking into a lopsided smile. “If there’s a ghost here then knock over a chair or something.” He half joked. “Oh, or slam open all the cabinets at the same time. I always wanted to see something like that happen.” If he was in a haunted house he might as well make the most of it.

He didn’t hear anything though, besides the noises of the microwave. Eventually the timer went off and Stan popped open the small door.

“Eh, suit yourself.”

Once he finished eating, Stan got ready to head into town. As fun as reading barely legible notes were, he could only figure out so much from them and he wasn’t going to find Ford in that house. 

Either he’d find someone suspicious in town or someone suspicious would come after him if he stirred things up enough about Ford. If they tried to get rid of Ford then chances were good they’d try to get rid of him if he just kept bothering enough people about him. 

Stan picked his bag up and headed towards the front door. He hesitated at all the mismatching locks drilled into the wall beside the frame.

He’d already seen it, but it was still an unsettling reminder. A guy doing fine didn’t have seven different locks on his door. 

His ears buzzed in the silence, the stagnant air at his back pressing in on him. 

On a whim, he looked backwards into the dim hallway and reached for the light switch near the door, keeping his finger against it as he flicked it on.

The hallway illuminated in a soft warm light that did nothing, no changing brightness or unsteady flashing that could hint at anything else being here besides himself. 

If Stan just kept his eyes on the hallway, and not down at the mess near his feet or into the shadows of any of the rooms, it looked like a cozy wooden shack. It looked like a place that could have been nice. It would have been too. If the rest of the house didn’t practically scream that something was wrong. If Ford wasn’t...

Stan scoffed at himself, and flipped the switch back down again before undoing the locks on the front door to leave.

  All things considered, it looked like a pretty regular small town, and for some reason something about that pissed off a small part of Stan. 

Okay, maybe... half of him...

Okay, so it pissed him off, but he didn’t know why. 

Something about Ford choosing to come to a small town. He couldn’t care less to follow down the why of it though. Besides, that didn’t matter. A small town right now was great because it meant less places Ford could be holed up at and that he didn’t have to waste gas to get around.

He drove around once to get his bearings and hopefully spot something good. The snow had been plowed off of the roads and he’d seen a few people walking around on the sidewalk. No sign of Ford, of course though. The universe couldn’t make it that easy for him apparently. 

The town had a pretty basic layout with everything centered around the town square and a water tower you could always see that made it easy to tell where you were in the town.

Stan parked at the nearest place to Ford’s house which turned out to be a diner on the side of the road not far from the outskirts of town called Greasy’s Diner.

The diner was in front of the woods and the building itself was shaped like a friggin’ log laying on its side. He went inside, the bell ringing as he opened the door.

It didn’t look too busy. There were a couple people scattered throughout the small diner, and only one waitress who was standing behind the counter. 

She had bright blue eyeshadow and shiny earrings that caught the light when she turned towards him with a smile, cheerfully greeting him. “Hi, stranger! What can I get for you?”

“Do you have a menu?” He asked, with absolutely zero intention of buying anything as he sat down on one of the stools at the counter.

She turned to point at a chalkboard that had a small list of items on it. No big surprise when he saw the same breakfast food every diner had. 

“I might need a minute.” He said. 

“That’s alright, take your-” She stopped suddenly, her voice quickly and excitedly picking back up. “Wait a second, I know you!”

Shit... Shit.

Stan laughed tensely, turning his face away and pretending to look at the arm wrestling machine. “Me? Ha, no way. I just got into town, see. You must be thinking of someone else.”

He hadn’t even been to Oregon before, how did she know-?!

“No,” she insisted, “you’re that- you’re the mysterious science man from the woods, right?”

Stan’s mind stopped running through where he could have seen her before, and he looked back at her again.

She lit up at his reaction. “I knew it!” She said happily. “I knew I recognized you. I’ve got great eyes.”

His own face recovered before he did, giving a practiced, winning smile. “Close! I’m actually his brother.” He stumbled over the final word.

"Oh brother, huh?" She said with interest, and then the light just behind her began to flicker, and Stan wasn't looking at her anymore. "Well, nice to meet you, I'm Susan-!"

"Does your light always do that?" He interrupted. 

Susan turned, catching sight of the flickering bulb. “Ohhh, I just replaced that one!” She took a step stool tucked away, and set it underneath the lightbulb, stepping onto it to reach the light.

As soon as she started touching it though, it stopped flickering, and she set her hands on her hips with a self-satisfied smile.

Then the next hanging light bulb started flickering. 

Amidst the waitresses’ commentary that he was tuning out, Stan realized the light was flashing a pattern he recognized. He pushed himself to stand, hands on the counter, staring at the signal. It wasn’t perfect, but it was there. Three short, three long, three short, and over again.

Whatever was doing that, it was signalling S.O.S..

When Susan's hands settled on the flashing light bulb, it stopped and the next light bulb over immediately picked up the pattern.

A small cry from his right finally broke his attention from the flashing bulb, and Stan glanced over. A light bulb hanging over a booth burnt out, and Stan realized all the lights past that one had gone out already, leaving the far end of the diner dim.

The next closest light, the one hanging over the counter, fizzled out then burnt out next. Stan glanced to his left and saw the same thing happening on his other side.

One by one, it kept happening, the lights going out slowly all in a line headed right to him. Indiscreet murmurs made it hard to hear the buzzing of fluctuating electricity. 

And still, still, the light bulb right in front of him was signalling S.O.S., flashing quicker, more insistent, as the lights burnt themselves out in quicker succession the closer they got to him.

Stan braced for an unseen impact that never came as the last few lights broke. 

As it reached the last bulb, the one that had never stopped flashing over his head, the bulb shattered. Sharp, thin sounds of glass hit the counter and floor, punctuated by Susan shouting in surprise. 

“Darn transformer!” Susan said, brushing her apron free of any glass shards.

He slowly shook his arms to throw off any glass on him and ran a hand through his hair. 

“The transformer?” Stan slowly looked at her. “The transformer ? Transformers don’t do that. Lights don’t-” He cut himself off, glancing up briefly at the broken light bulb that had been flashing S.O.S. not even knowing where to begin thinking about that yet.

She looked back at him, confused before awkwardly picked out a dustpan. “Well, sure.” She thought for a second, then added on as she swept up the glass. “Well- You know, the power used to go out all the time here. All across town! It’s probably just that starting back up again, actually!”

“Why though?”

She hummed. “I dunno.” Susan said as she dumped the broken glass into a trash can then carefully wiped the counter for any glass. “Always thought that it had something to do with whatever mysterious thing your brother was working on. It stopped a few months ago though. Maybe he’s working on something again in that house! Have you been to his house yet? I bet it’s filled with all kinds of experiments.”

“Not yet. I better go see him actually. I’m shoplifting something to eat anyway.”

“Huh?” She stopped cleaning to look at him. 

“Uh- I said I’m eating with him anyway.” He smiled at her. “Hey, has anyone ever told you you’re really good at wiping counters?”

She immediately brightened up at the compliment. “Oh, thanks! I wipe in zigzag patterns! ”

“...I noticed.” He backed up to leave. “Well, anyway see ya.”

“Bye! Come back soon.” 

The door chimed after him once he left. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned out onto the sidewalk heading further into town.

Okay. Okay . 

His thoughts just kept swirling around over and over, none of them settling long enough for any of them to go anywhere. He already didn’t know what was going on here, and now? Now there was something weird in the mix that apparently wasn’t just stuck at Ford’s house?

Maybe it had something to do with all this, maybe it didn’t. Either way it wasn’t telling him anything.

“You know I’m kinda busy right now, yeah?” He muttered to the air. “You need help? Then actually say it or- hell.”

Stan stopped walking along the strip outside of some shop front. The large glass wall showcased some antiques set up front for display and past that there were shelves lined with more knicknacks. He leaned close to the glass, taking in a deep breath of air and letting it out to fog up the window. 

“Alright.” He said, writing a question mark into the fogged up glass. “Say something.”

He waited, watching the fogged spot. 

Instead of messages getting written in the glass, one of the lights on the strand lining the window began to flicker. You know what, fine, that worked too.

Three short blinks, S. No- four. No. No, it wasn’t- it wasn’t morse code. It was too erratic and fast. It was just... flickering.

“That’s nothing, you’re saying nothing.”

As if angered, the light bulb burnt out in response. Then three more of the lights started flickering then quickly burnt out. Again though, it wasn’t any kind of morse code, it just looked like a light going out.

Stan turned on his heel without hesitation and walked down the sidewalk. “Yeah, yeah, I got that the first time.”

The ghost- spirit, whatever it was - he didn’t care and he didn’t pay attention to it. As he walked, lights would dim or flicker when he passed by them. If he couldn't understand it then there was nothing he could do about it anyway. 

This was exactly what he needed, one more confusing layer on this whole thing, because apparently now there was a spirit involved in all of this now. This was his life now. 

He couldn’t even care less if he was being haunted right now, at least up until it started throwing knives at him. What he did care about though was if it had anything to do with what was going on or if Stan really had just accidentally cursed himself when he was rifling through Ford’s junk. 

He also wasn’t sure why it would need help and even less sure what he could even do to help a spirit that he couldn’t even understand. He was half thinking it was just messing with him.

Why did it signal for help, then just decide to go back to ‘spooky flickering lights’ instead of using morse code again even if it was just S.O.S. over and over? It didn’t make sense. Nothing since he’d gotten here made sense.

Stan twisted his knuckles against each other through the fabric of his pockets, ignoring the occasional flickering light. Eventually the lights stopped, taking the hint.

  He might not have had any leads about where Ford was at, but he knew at least one place Ford had to have visited.

The library was a pretty small wooden building, cozy and by the looks of it empty too. Ford probably would have thought it was the perfect place. 

The second Stan pushed in the front door, he heard a buzzing to his left and the light in the small foyer flickered haphazardly. He rolled his eyes, ignoring the bulb burning out and kept walking inside.

A quick glance around, he didn’t see anyone around. After looking down a couple aisles though he spotted someone glancing over a row of books. Stan was about to dismiss it as another patron before they glanced over at him and jumped.

Their hair was pulled back into a haphazard bun that looked like it was gonna fall loose when they turned their head from whatever hair tie or clips that were holding it together. 

“Oh-! Uh.” They paused, looking at Stan, uncertain. “Ford?”

Fucking Bingo. 

Stan walked closer so he could talk with them. “Hey, really close. I’m his brother. I was actually looking for him.” 

“Oh.” They straightened up. “Sorry, uh... I haven’t seen him around here lately.” 

Stan hummed. “Hey, you work here, right?”

“Yeah. Can I help you with anything?”

“Yeah,” Stan said. “Yeah, could you tell me what books Ford’s got checked out right now?”

They agreed easily enough and led him back towards the circulation desk and turned to the rows of small square drawers on the back wall behind the desk.

Once they pulled out one of the drawers, the desk lamp Stan had only just really noticed started to flicker, and Stan shot a warning look at it. 

It stopped flickering. 

The librarian, Lee going by the name tag that was close enough for him to read now, turned back around, looking at a card in their hand. “Yeah, this is it.” They said, looking up and holding the card out to him. “Here.” 

As soon as Stan grabbed it the desk light suddenly burned out into a dark grey as it went out.

The librarian paused with their hand out, looking over at the lamp before focusing back on Stan again and retracting their hand. “Uh, anyways, this card has all the books he had checked out. They're all overdue..."

"Ha, yeah, that's Ford for you." Stan said with a short smile. “Booknerds, am I right?”

Their mouth opened a couple times like they had a couple different things to say before they finally settled, frowning at him. “They’re really overdue...”

Eh, that’s on him for trying to talk about nerds to a librarian. “Yeah, yeah, right. I’ll tell him when I see him.” He looked down at the card, quickly realizing the dates on the books checked out. 

"Hey, nothing's been checked out in the past few months." Stan said, looking back at them. "You got a newer card?"

"That's it." They answered simply. 

Stan half smiled, feeling a laugh curdling and souring in the back of his throat. "Come on, ha, you're telling me he hasn't been here for what, weeks?"

Quietly, they looked back at him with a half concerned expression. 

The silence quickly stagnated the air around them.

He cleared his throat and checked the card again, reading it all the way through this time. “Okay then...”

It looked like there were still five books checked out. Most of them had some kind of occult or supernatural title like 'Exploration of Demons & Spirits’ except for one that had a really long title about neural oscillation and electricity. His thoughts went dead in the water, trying to make sense of that one.

Who went and decided a title could go on for two or three sentences?

Even the short titles didn’t stick out to him much past them being about supernatural ghosts and fairies. No matter how he turned all the titles over in his head all he could take away from it was that Ford was reading up on ‘supernatural stuff and science junk’ which covered everything Ford studied. 

Stan heard the tail end of a question, “-ng alright?”

“Huh?” Stan looked up to see Lee watching him. 

“I said, is he doing alright?” They asked again, brow slightly furrowed. 

Lee had only been the second person he’d talked to Ford about today, but It felt like Stan was getting asked the same annoying question for the thousandth time. This person had to know something.

“How'd he look when you last saw him?" Stan asked instead.

They paused awkwardly and glanced aside, meandering with their words. "The last time I saw him... he seemed like he was in a hurry. Maybe he had a work deadline? I think he was stressed out.”

“Did he ever mention some guy?” 

They paused. “I’m... sorry, what?”

“I said, did he ever mention some guy?” Stan repeated himself. “When he was stressed out, did he ever talk about anybody. Or have any friends? Hell, did anybody ever come in here with him or seem like they were looking for him?” 

Lee’s eyes widened before their whole face shut down into an even expression and they took the card back out of his hand, busying themselves with putting the card back in its place. "I actually don't know." They said in a clipped tone. "Sorry."

Stan wanted to reach over the desk to pull them back by their shirt. He knew, he knew he was asking suspicious questions and he should have been playing it cool. They were hiding something though. 

“Hey, buddy.” Stan said, waiting for them to turn back around.

They tensely turned back towards him with a polite expression. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" Their fingers tucking into the edge of the check out desk.

"Cut the bull." Stan told them, well beyond irritated. “Whatever, you know, I don’t care, but whatever it is I need to hear it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nope. Try again.”

“I don’t-” Lee put up their hands. “Look, he was getting really suspicious about people last I saw him, but I don’t know anything about- whatever all this is about.”

Stan felt something in him, some tiny thread just snap.

“You have to know more than that.” Stan said, not even looking at them now. “You talked to him.”

He started to walk around in a short circle and gestured as his voice climbed, getting gradually louder. “This was the goddamn library, he was probably here- what? Countless times. More than- more than the friggin' grocery story or any other stupid building in this whole town outside of his own house!”

Stan pulled his voice back down, straining his voice. “Someone has to know something about my brother.” He said, finally looking back at them. 

If even the damn librarian barely knew anything about Ford...

Lee was watching him, fidgeting with their hands. “Alright... Uh.” They pushed their hands flat onto the desk, continuing calmly. “Look, he was here a lot, yes, but he didn’t talk about himself a lot and... and I really don’t know why he stopped showing up.”

“He never mentioned a name...?” Stan tried, hoping for something.

“No. Have you tried asking his neighbors or friends?”

Stan shut his eyes for a moment, all of his energy just leaving him all at once. “He lives out in the middle of the woods, and... and if he has friends I don’t know who they are or how to find them.” 

Stan opened his eyes back up again. “I’m just trying to find him.” He said. “I know you just work here or whatever, but I don’t know anybody that knew him and I don’t know where he’s at. Just...” He breathed in, feeling his ribs pressing in on him, “gimme something here.” 

They looked at him quietly and then their eyes shifted downwards in thought “He did come here once with someone a couple times... but that was- half a year ago?”

“You know who?”

Lee shook their head. "I don’t. He came every now and then, without your brother, but I haven’t seen him in a while either. He was tall and lanky though." 

“Anything else?”

“Uh.” They shrugged their shoulders. "He... might have had blonde hair? It was too long ago, I’m sorry, I really couldn’t tell you.”

A guy. A guy that was maybe blonde.

“Great...” He said.

“You know- he picked out textbooks mostly. I could check through some name cards and see if maybe I can spot him.”

Stan perked up a little. “You really think you would recognize him by some  books he checked out?”

“Well- maybe.” They said. “The textbooks don’t get checked out that often except by students so it’d stick out.”

Wait.

“You said textbooks? Do you remember what kind?”

Lee steepled their hands underneath their chin, squinting in thought for a long moment.

“... Math?” They finally said. 

“So definitely another nerd then.” 

That sounded like someone Ford could be friends with, also could be someone that was behind this. Either way if Stan could find him, he’d consider that a win.

“It’ll take me a couple days to check through the cards though.” Lee said.

“You’re actually going to do it?” Stan asked, a little surprised. 

“I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna beat the guy up or nothing, right?” They half joked, smiling.

That depended on what the guy was like.

“Oh, course not.” Stan scoffing and waving his hand nonchalantly. “Ha, no. No, I’ve never even gotten into a fight.” He said casually, swinging his arms then planting his fists against his side.

A brass knuckle fell out of his coat pocket and hit the thin carpet with a dull thud.

Stan swiped down to pick it up, putting it back in his pocket before the librarian could see it. “Paperweight.”

“You carry a paperweight around with you?”

“...It’s Ford’s.”

“Ahh.” Lee nodded their head in sudden understanding. “Okay, well, anyway, try coming back here in a couple days.”

“Will do.” Stan turned to leave with a wave. “If you see him then just let him know I was looking for him.”

  After long enough of poking around town, it’d turned dark and he’d gotten zero leads after asking practically half the town. Nobody besides the librarian had even seemed to know Ford’s name or anything about him. People only seemed to know him as the mysterious man who did science out in the middle of the woods. 

Even the seediest looking place in town, a bar that didn’t even look bad, hadn’t given him anything. Well, he could get a job smuggling some dogs, but he’d come back around to that offer later. 

He’d even wandered around the town after it turned dark and the streets had cleared out in the hopes someone would just jump him for asking too many questions. The town stayed quiet and he remained untouched even through barren streets and dimly lit alleyways though.

His faint reflection followed beside him in every darkened window he passed by as he headed back towards his car at a sluggish pace. He got so used to the accompanying shadow beside him that he didn’t even glance over when he saw it out of the corner of his eye anymore.

Which was why it took him an extra moment to realize that there was a second shadow casted onto the brick wall beside his own, moving at the same pace as him.

Stan spun on his feet to see the culprit, already pushing his fingers into the brass knuckles in his pockets.

He just turned to an empty street though. He glanced back again to the wall, only seeing his own shadow there, alone.

“Where..?” He looked down both ends of the street, not seeing or even hearing the signs of another person. Stan double checked again thinking maybe he’d missed a trashcan or something someone could have ducked behind when it finally hit him.

If there wasn’t anything physical around him, that didn’t leave a whole array of options.

“Hey.” He said. “Hey, buddy, I saw you.” 

The spirit, because what the hell else could it even be now, hadn’t done anything for a long time now. The flickering lights had sometimes started as morse code that never went past two letters and the rest of the time just looked like flickering. They always ended with a burnt out light bulb no matter what though, and after the millionth time he’d figured the thing was either purposefully trying to mess with him. The lights messing up around him had been steadily lessening throughout the day, and he hadn’t seen anything for the past couple hours so he thought the thing had finally gone.

Instead, it was apparently still hanging around him. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

The low light washing over him began to flicker and Stan looked up at the lamp post responsible. It flickered (not morse code) then burnt out.

Stan lifted his hands. “Ooooh, spooky lights. Talk to me when you got something new, pal.” He turned to keep walking to his car.

He could hear buzzing lights behind him and ignored it. He was fully prepared to ignore it too until he saw a lamp post at the end of the street falter. 

It only flickered once, staying on, then the next lamp post coming towards him flickered as well, before moving onto the next one. 

Stan sighed heavily.

“You already did this bit before too, buddy.” Stan said, as the flicker kept heading in his direction through the lamp posts overhead. 

The light flickered overhead of him, and then a light behind him flickered, going past him this time. Confused, he turned to look behind him. 

The flicker of light bulbs was heading in a clear path back along the street.

After a moment, it happened again, the lamp post over his head flickering once and then the flicker went in a line down the street and back around a corner further into town.

He perked up, watching it happen again.

“You better be actually showing me something.” He warned, following the faulty lights.

There wasn’t any answer, no surprise there, but he kept following the trail anyway.

Stan was frustrated and tired of shooting in the dark all day, and right about now he was willing to check out anything out of the ordinary for some answers.

He wound up back in the middle of town again and saw the trail turning around the corner into town square. Before he could make it there, the street lamp at the corner shattered with an explosively loud buzz of energy.

Stan slowed to a stop and the flickering lights that were still trailing in the same direction picked up speed, urgently flashing in a fast line to the corner building, some dance studio.

He ran to the dance studio, trying to avoid stepping all over the glass shards on the sidewalk. The studio had large windows that made it easy to see inside, but he didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious inside.

Stan paused and checked for a door when he heard the buzz of electricity further on, and looked around the corner that led into the town square. All the lamp posts he could see from where he was at had gone dark.

He pushed against the building’s edge, running into town square, glass crunching under his feet every time he went under another dark lamp post until he went into the street.

“What the hell...?”

More than half the square was shrouded in darkness from broken lamp posts. To his left was the only side of the square that had any lamp posts left, and he could see them still breaking.

He heard the distant buzz of electricity and tinkling of glass hitting cement as the remaining lamp posts’ lights continued shattering, one after another. The first one he’d seen had bursted within a second, and it had been loud, but he swore these were quieter and taking longer to break. After a few more broken lights he was sure, with each one it was taking longer like the thing was running out of energy.

The trail of flickering lights had since stopped by this point so Stan just kept watching the breaking lamp posts.

With only a few lamp posts still shining, a lamp post weakly flickering for long enough that Stan wound up walking towards it. Even once he got to it, it was still going. Within seconds, the flickering eventually died down to nothing.

He looked at the building in front of him.

“Ice cream shop’s super important, huh?” He asked, slowly walking under the lamp posts that were still lit, no flicker from any of them. 

Maybe something was here, but he also wasn’t going to break into five different shops to find it. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be looking for though. 

He continued wandering around the square. Nearly every window to every building was dark. The library, the museum, the shoe store, all of them. If there was anything or anyone suspicious around here then he wasn’t seeing it.

Stan stopped, watching one of the still shining lamp posts. “You ran out of juice, didn’t you?”

After a moment, the lamp post dimmed slightly, but so briefly Stan would have missed it if he hadn’t been staring right at it.

Alright. He rubbed his face with his hand.

“Again,” he said, starting the walk back to his car again, “this vague, ominous shit isn’t helping me understand whatever you’re trying to get across.”

He got into his car and turned on the radio, flicking through stations until he found something playing music he liked. The music station he’d picked out turned to quiet static once he was inside the woods though.

His car made its way along paths that wound around trees that took him further and further away from town. Driving to Ford’s shack was a lot easier this time, following his tire tracks still leftover in the snow from when he had left.

Stan sighed, pushing buttons for a station that was strong enough to make it through the thick trees. He eventually let it go, leaving the static on so he wouldn’t be driving in absolute silence. It filled the car with sound and made it feel less empty.

Driving through the woods was actually pretty nice when there wasn’t a blizzard threatening to push his car this way or that.

A garbled voice came through the static, a few words unintelligible through the static before it went back to silence.

He continued to drive, reaching for the knob and turning up the volume.

Sound came from the radio again, syllables half mangled. “ -t an - e y. ” It sounded like-

Stan slammed on his breaks, car sliding a few feet on the snowy path before stopping. He stared at his radio, cold needles pricking up his forearms. 

The static fluctuated, then more sounds came as a distinct voice forced its way through the static. 

“ S t--- ----. ---l o ? St an, s--- - a n- -- - -e-r ---? -- --- -. ” 

A cold weight settled into Stan’s stomach.

“...Stanford?” 

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 2: Academics and Debates

Due to DnD being scheduling hell, Clem the fighter is Definitely Standing Just Offscreen this session. Meanwhile, the DM introduces two mechanics he has been dying to try out: Corruption, and the Deck. 

There will be a full post about Corruption later (when DM tells us how the rest of it works, lol) but the point is this: the longer you stay in the cursed forest, the deeper you go, the more you experience there - the more cursed you become. It corrupts you. You can earn corruptions in various ways - cosmetic (looking more monstrous and less humanoid); psychological (e.g. feeling a compulsion for bloodlust or gaining a terrible phobia); or others I have forgotten about right now, at 9:50pm, while eating lasagna. 

Certain things that happen when in the woods give you points toward a score called Taint. (Heh heh heh.) We, uh, lost our Taint virginity this session. (No, DM, we will not stop. You brought this upon yourself.)

The Deck is a deck of cards used to determine encounters. Again, full post later, but it has such cards as “The Hunt,” “The Crown,” “The Wanderer,” etc. Each one can symbolize multiple things. For example, “The Crown” represents authority and government, so it could mean help from Duke Shieldeater’s forces - or it could mean a dangerous clash with enemy soldiers. 

ANYWAY, STUFF HAPPENED:

We woke in the Temple of Rack in the village of Ovruch, early in the grey dawn hours. There was brief scramblin’ around as the players did math to figure out how much starting wealth we all had and how much spare change those bandits had left lying around for us. Valeria spent some of the money overnight to make some Holy Water.

We scooted on out of the town without really saying much to anyone - the few people awake and the guards on patrol were definitely giving us Looks, but we didn’t really stop to chat.

Shoshana leads the way towards the ravine she had directed Sir Balderich to. Even in the 8 months since she’s been out in this direction, the woods have gotten darker and more foreboding, alarmingly tangled and twisted. A decent Survival check does right by us, and DM directs Shoshana, as the one rolling it, to draw a card from the Deck. She draws The Crown.

The Crown: Authority, government. A bit of good luck (and perhaps DM guilt?) leads us to a fortuitous find: an abandoned cart bearing the seal of the Royal House of Valdia, smashed and overgrown. There’s a strongbox off to the side, nestled in a hard-to-see place, miraculously untouched by bandits. Gral examines it, wondering if he might be able to coax open the lock...when the pommel of a shining sword just slams down and smashes the lock mechanism to smithereens. Thanks for the crit, Valeria.

We find: 100gp, 4 jewelry items of 25gp value each (1 mirror, 1 bracelet, and 2 rings), a silver dagger (given to Gral), and a bladeless sword hilt carved in runes. Gral and Shoshana determine that the sword hilt is not evil and probably magic, but hell if we know what it does.

We travel onward, and Valeria draws the next card: The Wanderer. The DM cannot suppress his glee, because he has an NPC he really really likes and it’s time to use him!

We hear shouting in a strange language - Draco-Aquilian, which only Valeria knows. Also generally crashing mayhem noises. We hustle on closer, and Valeria understands that the person is shouting “OH GOD! LIGHTNING DOESN’T WORK! LIGHTNING DOESN’T WOOOORK!”

There is a cart, drawn by two lizardlike beasts of burden. There is a Shambling Mound trying to engulf the cart and its inhabitants. Two Goliaths, a male and a female, are all tangled up in the thing, and there is a skinny, fancily-dressed blue Dragonborn generally panicking atop the cart. Being PCs, we attempt to kick butt. It eats Valeria (a helpful Goliath pulls her out), Shoshana sprays it with weedkiller, and we all go “???!?! WE ARE LEVEL 2″ but we don’t die. Valeria uses a Smite of some sort that looks like glowing vines snake through its plant form and burst into roses!!! It’s very Sailor Moon. Valeria gains 3 Taint for dropping to 0 HP while in a Cursed area.

The fancy Dragonborn hops down from the damaged cart and addresses Valeria in Draco-Aquilian, which nobody else speaks. “Greetings! I certainly must say, I did not expect to be rescued by a Knight of the Rose! I am Lucinius Galvan, Professor of Archaeology of the University of Aurentium!” He and Valeria chat a moment - “Argent? Oh I’m sure I’ve heard that name-” “Daughter of Renata and Bastion of the Silver Steppes.” “Oh, of course! The princess who became a knight! I’m merely an Earl myself-”

a) Yes, I wrote down your lore, feel free to correct my spelling; b) They’re speaking Fancy Dragon Words so the other characters don’t know any of this.

We also meet his Goliath bodyguards, Bjorn and Ingborg, who speak...not that much Valdian. They are Vangarians - part of a highly professional force of mercenaries rented out by the Draco-Aquilian Emperor. Extremely practical in the face of nonsense. Lucinius, meanwhile, requests them to bring out Tea! and Fancy Teacups! and Breakfast! and little stools to sit on! Bjorn complies, long-sufferingly. Shoshana is Awkward Turtle about fancy rich people things, and Gral is pretty suspicious but definitely has some jam and toast.

“I say! Are you local to this area, madam?” he inquires. Turns out he’s searching for some Aquilian ruins in the area, and Shoshana is able to give him decent directions to the spot she used to play in as a child. He describes his research - there’s a presentation, with visual aids. Bjorn tries to save us from having to sit through it, but academia cannot be stopped. Why did the Aquilian Empire never conquer the Greatwood? We must DO ARCHAEOLOGY about it!!!

Also, he identifies the mysterious sword hilt as, functionally, a scroll of Flame Blade. Neat! Due to a conversational mix up between etymology and entomology, he gives us a magic beetle that acts as a floating lamp. We love our Rune Beetle. (He pulls it out of “one of his many pockets,” and is immediately declared to be wearing the world’s fanciest Tacky Fisherman Vest.)

He’s ready to cheerfully forge on into the forest! Gral and Shoshana quietly pull Bjorn aside and warn him that the Cursewood is, like, super cursed? Did you guys not notice??? Bjorn and Ingborg thank us for the information, and continue on their way, almost certainly figuring out how to put a child leash on the adorable fancylizard.

Gral draws the third and final card of the night: The Outlaw. We come across a small camp: the bandits who attacked Ovruch the night before. Gral overhears them - their leader, the largest and most imposing, is threatening the others into compliance. They are uneasy - the wolves ran away last night after the werewolf was killed; can they trust the freaks in the ravine not to betray them? Doesn’t matter! The freaks in the ravine will eat them if they don’t cooperate, and they’ll get better loot by working with ‘em. 

Shoshana is like “welp,” and rolls up her sleeves, but Valeria very nobly goes “NO, there must be Another Way.”

“Uh, you do realize those are the guys who KILLED INNOCENT PEOPLE yesterday, right?”

“And we just heard they’re being coerced! We don’t have to just kill them.”

Valeria strides into the bandit camp in a Nonthreatening Pose, weapons down. The bandits all jump to alertness, because Large Dragonperson In Armor, Oh No. She begins to offer them another option - we don’t know if she’s thought of one yet, but dang does she roll well on her Persuasion check to get them to listen. The bandits are going “...hmm, IS there another way?” but their leader, the madness of the Curse in his eyes, orders them to attack.

We kick their butts; Valeria deliberately nonlethals the bandit leader into unconsciousness. Gral offers the other bandits a harsh but fair option out: “Travel south, to where Duke Shieldeater’s forces are clear-cutting forest in order to hold back the Curse. Volunteer yourself for manual labor there. You will be treated fairly, if you work. In your spare time you will learn Orcish, for we have need of translators.”

The bandits, who have all gained Brooklyn accents, say, “Okay, deal, but...your friend there ain’t gonna kill us as we leave, is she?”

Because as they spoke, Shoshana had definitively Chill Touched their leader to death.

She agrees she’s not going to kill the bandits, but they better get the fuck out of here.

We also grill the bandits for information on The Hunt, which is what the “freaks in the ravine” call themselves. We learn that they sleep with wolves around them, and those that disagree with them are hunted for sport. There are traps set up around the perimeter of their territory - that’s how they captured the knight, who they are now keeping in some kind of cage. The bandits are unsure of the identity of the main leader - there was Lupo, the werewolf we killed last night, but they mostly listen to this Weird Guy In A Hood. Also, there is a huntress-woman, an archer girl. Shoshana freezes, and carefully asks who the huntress is, and what she looks like. They say she’s spooky; the shadows cling to her.

The knight is caged in the ravine, the part where it gets supernaturally dark. Most of the camp is outside The Darkness, but there’s a cave down there where the Huntress and the Weird Hooded Guy and Lupo lived. They bring the bandit leaders down there sometimes, to show them who’s in charge.

Also there’s this war-boar running around, with a dead Demish knight still strapped to its back?

We let the bandits (whose accents have swapped to Southern) escape, and then Valeria and Shoshana have what some folks call a “spirited ethical debate,” which in layman’s terms means they are PISSED at each other.

Valeria is shocked and appalled that Shoshana would kill an unconscious man. Especially when the bandits were surrendering and cooperating! Monstrous and brutal behavior. How could you?

Shoshana angrily stands by her decision. “How many people did those men kill last night?” she asks. “People I grew up with. And you think letting these bandits go free is worth letting them do that to innocent people again? Their leader was already Curse-mad. Too far gone.” (To be fair, she is too pissed off in the moment, and her player too awkward, to articulate her position this eloquently.)

Valeria erases 3 Taint for doing something so noble and heroic against the will of the Curse. Shoshana gains 3 Taint for acting in a way encouraged by the Curse.

With nothing to do but simmer at each other, and Gral diplomatically not choosing a side out loud, there is nothing to do but move on.

DM agrees that we could take a long rest now and reach the ravine by 4 or 5 pm. We jump at the chance to get our spell slots back, but each take 3 Taint for spending so long out here in the cursed lands.

All characters are now level 3.

[wordfather]

SovietWomble Prompts!

(Because his videos are the funniest and most uplifting thing I know)

“Me and my flip-flops are ready to go.”

“I am now poor.”

*Alone in the woods* A: *weirdly calm* “There’s something walking towards us from behind you guys.” *B and C freak out*

“How can someone be so cute?”

“UNCLEAN!”

“I thought you were watching?” “Yeah, I was, I stopped paying attention.”

“My scuba suit protects me from your bullshit.”

“God, fucking damn it A, you piece of…good job.” “What was that?” “I’m rebranding myself as the nice guy.” … “You lasted all but 7 seconds.”

“Surprise!” *explosion*

“English is not my first language, okay?” “You’re American.”

“A, what’s wrong with him?” “Many things.”

“I have got a plan!” “Which is?” “A terrible plan.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to you when you’re not eating.”

“A, I think you should take one for the team and run off as bait as the rest of us survive.”

“I’m under attack by a bucket!”

“I haven’t heard a word of the briefing, I was too amazed by the hand gestures.”

“We have a small technical issue.” “Which is?” “I seem to have run out of bullets.” “…it’s been five minutes.”

“You need your medication, come back here!”

“Why do you have a gun, A?” “’Cause it’s Thursday.”

“You lied to me!” “It’s not my fault you’re an idiot.”

“I really like dolphins, I wanna see one!”

“You can’t have a secret dance club, we have a job to do!”

“I’m a funky janitor.”

“If A starts saying something odd, just ignore him/her/them.”

“There are civilians in the village.” “I think the way you pronounce that is acceptible casualities.” “NO.”

“So you’re now just gonna kill people for just being tempted for deserting?” 

“I’d like for you to know you are a piece of human shit.”

“OH MY GOD ALMIGHTY, JESUS CHRIST, MARY AND JOSEPH!”

“Turns out these are just the noises A makes when he/she/them is alone in his/hers/their room.”

“Clearly we lead different lifestyles.”

“Were you dropped on your head as a child?”

“SHUT UP, I’m trying to impose Zen you dumb bitch!”

*inhales helium* “Fuck you A.”

“Do NOT search that on Google!”

“I don’t know whether to eat Pringles, breathe or laugh!”

“He’s never gonna shut up about that now.”

“No more button pressing, okay?!”

“Everything is black, is this heaven?”

“Really? You’re gonna hide under the building like a house cat?”

“A? Can you stop touching my knee?”

“Um, my vision has gone green.” “You have green sunglasses on.” “Ah, that might be the reason.”

“If you’re not on a no-fly list somewhere in the world, someone is not doing their job.”

“Don’t open that.” “Wha-” *explosion* “…You could have told me you put a freaking bomb in there!”

*runs by* “EVERYTHING IS OKAY!”

“I HAVE ACHIEVED ULTIMATE POWER!”

“Did you see the way my hips were moving?”

“Are you in the habit of tattooing everyone unconcious?”

“My echolocation was not very effective.”

“My tummy hurts.”

“Is he going to go sulk in the corner?”

“That’s um… staggeringly unhelpful actually.”

“No, I’m having a snack, leave me alone.”

“Do those things and then jump off a bridge.”

“Look, think of it as science.”

“A,” “Yes?” “I want you-” “I want you too!” “-to…” “Oh we were talking about something else, my bad.”

“SOMEONE SHUT HIM UP.”

“I didn’t appreciate your insults to my mother yesterday.”

“I have an auto-sniper and exactly zero shame.”

“Ahahahahaha, you’re so- fuck you.”

“Whenever you do something awesome it’s ‘Oh look at me’ but whenever you screw up it’s ‘Oh we’re a team’.”

“You are actually hiding in a hedge.”

“Don’t worry boys, pappas’ got this.”

“I know Psychology, I use it on you.” “What do you you mean you use it on m-” “Nevermind.”

“I’ll hit you.” “Sorry.”

“A continues to amaze me.”

“We only had about three hundred bullets, and you’ve just wasted all of our ammunition in case we get attacked?”

“Dude, something’s happening.”

“I literally have no control over myself.”

“I just wanted you to know that I genuinely despise your existence you piece of shit.”

“In my eyes A, you are a beautiful caterpillar.” “What?!”

“Oh no, what appears to have happened?”

“I will not leave you A.” C: ”I will.”

“I do not trust you, turn around!”

“Where were you guys when they were trying to BLOW UP THE FRICKING BUILDING?!”

“Sorry, is this supposed to be spooky?”

“I technically landed.”

“Make it interesting…nOT THAT INTERESTING!”

“I thought there was a guy in front of me but it was my own shadow.”

“Well we can tick ‘genocide’ off our to do list.”

“That’s a lot of dead people.”

“You ran in front of a machine gun?!”

“I don’t have Medi’stuff’, I didn’t expect the two of you to be this incompetent.”

“Stop parkouring and come get this jewelry.”

“Gayness?” “Gayness.”

“I don’t want to look because I’m scared.”

“Something just went ‘boom’.”

“Okay, that wasn’t where I left it!”

“We’re gonna go around the tornado.”

“No, no, no, don’t you dare say you can’t fly! FLY!”

“You’re so useless it’s not even funny.”

“Hey guys, I have an idea, why don’t you fuck off?”

“I’m going to hide and if that fails…surrender.”

“Dipshit?” “Hmm?” “….the fact that you responded to ‘Dipshit’…”

“I have been trapped in my bathroom for the last 3 hours.”

[maartje-writes]

YOUR BEATY SAVED ME PT.3

I didn't say a word at the table. When asked, I said I was tired and not hungry. I was allowed to leave the table to go to my room. There I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The images of that night that I wandered through the forest all came back to me. I hoped and prayed that he would stay unharmed. If anything happened to him... I wouldn't forgive myself. Late at night I woke up to a soft sound in the living room and a door that was silently closed. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I was afraid for him. And with that thought I fell asleep. Nightmares followed.

The next morning I woke up from the sunlight shining through my window. It took me a while because of what had happened yesterday. I shot up and threw the blankets off. Quickly I walked into the living room where I spotted my parents with a newspaper and a cup of tea. Good morning," my dad said, without looking up from his newspaper. Have you seen Bram," I asked, looking around me. Hoping that he would be somewhere in the living room. "No," my mother said. "I think he was out early to hang out with his friends. "Okay," I shouted. I ran back to my room. He hadn't come back from last night. That can't be good. Maybe they got lost or something found them. Terrible thought haunted my head as I put on my clothes. I rushed out of the house without answering my mother's question where I was going. I rushed through the streets of our village. So fast that I almost ran over people, which made many people look at me strangely. But I was used to it. I could only think of one thing.

I kept staring into the woods. There I was, on the edge. I hardly dared to take a step closer. The thoughts of a monster walking around kept me from going any further. For many minutes I stood there. Sitting on the ground, waiting for the return of my little brother and his friends. I was scared, so scared. Every second and minute that passed made me more desperate. It was only when the sky darkened and it started to rain when I finally heard a sound coming from the forest. I jumped up. Did I hear it right? Somewhere between the trees I saw figures coming my way. But they weren't walking. They ran, almost stormed out of the forest. I counted the figures I saw coming. Four, there were only four. Someone was missing. The boys came out of the woods and stopped in front of me. Panting, sweating, dirty and terrified in their eyes. My little brother wasn't one of the four boys standing in front of me. I came up to them, grabbed the first one by his collar. ‘Where is he? Why isn't he with you? What happened?’ I almost screamed in the boys' face. His face was dirty and so was his clothes. Panting, he tried to stutter the words out. "The castle was... All dark... Didn't see it coming... the monster... Couldn't escape... "Took him away," he gasped. I let him go. The panic inside me went crazy. With my hands in my head, I walked go in circles. "Is he still alive?" I almost cried. The boys looked at each other. ‘We don't know that. The beast dragged him somewhere’. I heard David squeak. This was all my fault. I should have stopped him anyway. I should have told my parents. Why was he so anxious to prove something? He's far too young. I shot up. No, it can't be like that. I have to fix this. If there's any chance he's still alive, I'll take it. Without saying another word to any of the boys, I ran into the woods. "Don't do it!" I heard them calling after me. But I didn't hear it again. The adrenaline was flowing all over my body. I had energy for ten. I didn't think about my fears I had before. This was about my little brother's life. I had to find him. It couldn't end like this for him. I ran and ran as if my energy wasn't running out. Branches bumped into me, tribes got in my way, but nothing stopped me. I tried to run from my fears. I couldn't let it take control of me. This was no time to be afraid. What seemed to take forever came to a standstill to catch my breath. I hit my hands on my knees and breathed heavily. The sweat dripped over my forehead and my legs trembled with effort. It couldn't be far now, could it? Actually, I knew if I was going the right way. I damaged my head. No time for these thoughts. I have to keep going, before it might be too late. If it wasn't too late already. I threw my body forward in a sprint.

There it was at last. Less than a hundred yards from me, I saw the shadows moving across the forest. Fear finally caught up with me. The moment of many years ago. I was trying to calm myself so I could think clearly again. Just go looking, don't think, just look. I couldn't just stand here and wait for it to find me. I stood before the gates and opened them. With a loud metallic sound, the gate openend. I openend it just wide enough to get me trough. I didn’t bother to close it behind me. As I took a look around my surroundings, I stept closer to the castle lying in front of me. I walked in what seems like a garden. But as i looked closer, I saw that the plants weren’t blooming no more and seemed more dead than a life. As I walked closer to the castle, somewhere in the I heard a monstrous sound. Like a low growl. I hesitated. I was so scared at this moment. But I couldn’t chicken out. My brother could still be alive. I walked up the stairs and stood before a pair off an enormous door. I swallowed and placed my hands upon them. With a lot off effort the heavy doors openend, but with no sound. I stood still and listened. Nothing. Absolutely quite. I walked in and took a look around the place. It was enormous. High ceilings and stone pillars with statues where surrounding the hall I was standing in. I questioned in which directions I would go. Going up the stairs seemed illogical to me. So I started to follow a corridor to my left. Long meters of corridors I walked through. One in and one out. I carefully opened the rooms, but there was nothing to find. Eventually I came out again in the hall by the door where I came in. I decided to take the next corridor. I couldn't lose hope. I kept looking. Corridors and rooms. Darkness filled every room. Some parts of the castle I saw were still in pretty good condition. Harnessing and painting with a layer of dust on it. I calmed down a little by walking and searching. I was relieved that I hadn't come across anything yet. But that could quickly turn the other way. Maybe it had seen me for a long time and was waiting for the right moment to strike. The sweat just broke out again when I came left into a corridor. It looked different from the other corridors. More empty, darker and meaningless. There was no robes of decorations in the corridor, like I had seen in others. They were just stone walls. At the end of the corridor there was a stone staircase leading steeply up. I looked up, but it was so dark I couldn't see its end. Gently and step by step I walked up the steep stairs. With one hand I looked for support on the walls. With little breath I stumbled over the stairs. Step by step, slipping over the dusty stones. I looked up and wiped away a tuft of hair that had fallen before my eyes. I could already see the end. With the last bit of energy in my exhausted legs I gave myself the last push. Finally I stood upstairs. I had clearly entered a tower of the castle. I felt the cold wind tickle along my legs. From warm I suddenly got it stone-cold. To my left was a small window. From there you looked over the forest. The moon and stars lit up the sky. Normally, this sight always calmed me down. I always thought the stars had something enchanting about them. Something most beautiful that stretched so far across the sky that it could only ripen the eye. But not this evening. Now it seemed rather spooky in this dark night. I was startled out of my own mind when I heard a little shuffling sound somewhere in the dark. I didn't move a fin. It seemed as if my heart stopped and I didn't dare breathe. What was sitting there in the dark of the tower. I just wanted to move towards the stairs again when I heard a little sobbing. No sound that belonged to some animal. No, this was the sobbing of a human being. Like it was crying softly. Carefully I took a step towards the sound. Another snif. Something clear this time. Again I took one step closer. More and more I could see what was in the corner of the tower. From the faint light still shining inside I could make out a bars. Again I shuffled closer. "Hello," I said softly. I thought almost unintelligible, but in this silence it was clearly audible. "Who's there?" I heard someone sobbing saying. It sounded frightened and relieved at the same time. It was a boy's voice. It was him. I knew it for sure. I could recognise his voice out of thousands. My little brother. "Bram!" I almost cried. And I rushed to the bars. "Bram, it's me! I saw my little brother's figure shuffling towards the bars. In the vague light, I saw his face. It was dirty, full of tears, but the worst... It radiated fear of death. "Y/N, what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here," he said in a soft whisper.  His eyes grew big and shot in different directions. As if he was looking for something in the darkness. "I'm coming to get you out of here. I'm gonna take you home. I'm sorry, little brother. I should've stopped you,' I said almost sobbing. But I almost had to laugh. So glad I saw him again. Still in one piece and safe. As far as that was still possible. Bram was startled. "Did you hear that?" he asked anxiously. I looked behind me. Somewhere far below me I could make a vague noise. It's coming back! It's coming!', he looked at me with big frightened eyes. I took his hand. As a sign that I was with him. That he didn't have to be afraid. A hopeless promise. But what could I do as a sister. "Y/N, I'm so sorry, I should have listened to you. "Please get out of here while you still can,"he said. "No," I said. I suddenly felt calm. Like I already knew what was going to happen to me. I didn't want to do it to him that he'd see his sister panic too. "No, I'm not leaving you here," I said determinedly. I looked at him sternly and held his hands tightly. Sounds of something moving in the darkness, not far below us, came closer and closer. It had to be something big, because the ground began to tremble as it came up the stairs. As it seemed to take minutes, it was only seconds. As if the monster that would now be standing right in front of us in a few moments managed to make huge jumps over the step. It had found us.

[cursewoodrecap]

The Hunt for the Teal Deer

Due to some changes in our player lineup, I figured our party’s newest member might want a tl;dr of the Campaign So Far without having to read the enormous bricks I put out on a highly irregular basis. HENCEFORTH, A SUMMARY. (Contains spoilers for stuff I haven’t properly recapped yet. I mean...I’m pretty sure this blog is mostly read by the players? But fair warning nonetheless.)

It’s still kind of a brick but here have a couple thousand words instead of fifty billion.

ARC 1: THE WITCH OF OVRUCH

Near the tiny Valdian trading village of Ovruch, four adventurers meet:

1. Kyr Valeria Argent, a paladin of the Order of the Rose, who is here to investigate a Beggar Knight going missing. Silver dragonborn Paladin, Oath of the Crown.

2. Sgt. Clementine Haxan, a former soldier of the Kevan empire turned soldier-of-fortune who is investigating a Beggar Knight going missing. Drow Fighter, Battlemaster.

3. Gral “Joybringer” Omokk’duu, an orc bard who serves Duke Shieldeater, here because he’s trying to recruit translators to help Orc/Valdia relations. Orc Bard, College of Whispers.

4. Shoshana bat Chaya, a local who’s been outcast from her village since a close run-in with the curse that left her with dark powers and a mildly inhuman appearance. Half-elf Sorcerer, Shadow Magic.

The three foreigners interrogate the young witch, who was interrogated yesterday by the Beggar Knight. They realize the Beggar Knight, Ser Balderich, went to investigate the place where Shoshana had her Curse accident. 

They are interrupted by the village being attacked by a group of bandits and wolves, led by a werewolf, who seem to want to capture Shoshana as some kind of Chosen One. They defeat the bandits and head into the woods to find Evil Wolf Guys HQ.

In the spooky dark ravine of Wolf Guys HQ, they find a) the imprisoned Ser Balderich, who they free; b) a shadowy nasty guy who has direwolves, who they beat up; and c) a trail of corpses and some diary fragments from a mysterious huntress who had been one of the evil-wolfguy leaders before she rebelled against them. The letters clearly indicate she had some kind of close relationship to Shoshana before Shit Went Down.

Shoshana is like, “alas, they shall believe I am forever tainted by evil magic and it’s only a matter of time until I turn evil, they’re probably going to execute me” and the rest of the party is like “wtf no we’re not gonna do that. Stop being emo.”

ARC 2: THE MISTS OF HOLZOG

The party heads to the town of Holzog to meet up with Ser Quentin Morozov, a Cursebreaker Knight who’s a friend of Ser Balderich’s. On the way, they meet Flynn and Fiona Fairgold, a dramatic, theatrical knight and his practical, mute sister. They also find out that in Holzog, strange mists come out of the lake every couple of weeks, filled with strange noises and creatures.

Gral recognizes that shit and tells his backstory: Duke Shieldeater’s son, Bullbreaker, led an expedition into the heart of the wood to try to defeat the Curse. Gral was part of Bullbreaker’s party. Strange, warped creatures seemed to appear out of nowhere and attack, and most of the orc battalion vanished into the mists, no bodies ever found. The takeaway: Gral believes that the Curse isn’t random; it’s coordinated and it has leaders and commanders.

Our investigations lead us to a former artists’ colony on an island in the lake. Turns out the artists had been tempted by some strange power to open a portal to a weird space between dimensions. The portal keeps closing and opening, causing the mists. Like idiots, we hurl ourselves into the portal, and find Weird Shit inside. Doors to other dimensions that are different story genres! Weird eyeballs everywhere!

We find out Gral’s old commander Bullbreaker has been lost in one of these other dimensions, and is trying to Samurai Jack his way home.

Most importantly we get some info: The Curse is caused by four entities, who are Prisoners. We’re unsure what imprisons them. We’ve figured out two so far: The Hunt, which is the werewolves and bandits and murder and stuff; and the Key, which is the pursuit of knowledge and the bending of reality. 

Anyway we escape and close the portal. Also we met some mad scientists from Sturmhearst University, which was fun.

ARC 3: THE DEAD OF MORNHEIM

Our Cursebreaker friend hires us to investigate why a squad of elven war veterans seemed to turn to the dark side while fighting the curse in Mornheim, a city which is experiencing a zombie apocalypse. Turns out the squad is Clem’s old unit! Drama!

Mornheim is really Tim Burtony. It used to be a place where undead could not rise, so everybody buried their dead there. And then the Curse happened, and now ALL the dead are rising. Welp, fuck.

We meet up with Lady Aubrey von Mornheim, Ser Balderich’s daughter (there’s family drama there), who gives us the inside scoop on the local lore.

We fight through the catacombs and investigate the old manor house. We find three important things: 1) Lady Aubrey’s mom, who’s haunting the shit out of the place; 2) a SECRET WIZARD LAB with a MYSTERIOUS SPELL SCROLL; and 3) some cultists.

The mysterious spell scroll, which is weirdly druid-y, seems to be a ritual for purifying a water source. The local lore implied that the undead curse began/stems from the source of the local river. HMM.

Meanwhile, there’s cultists, led by...A MEMBER OF CLEM’S OLD UNIT. One who she hates; she accuses him of getting their beloved Captain killed. He’s like “it’s cool we’re gonna bring her back from the dead!!! The Pale King says we will get eternal life if we serve him!!!” and Clem is like “okay that sounds terrible” and stabs him. We kick his wight ass and the ass of another of their squad, who “came back from the dead” but was actually possessed by a dybbuk, a malevolent spirit that takes over corpses and impersonates them.

Seems like this “Pale King” is Prisoner #3, in charge of Undead Shit.

We fight some other cultists and find an aaaancient corpse that indicates some kind of ancient collaboration between the old Aquilian Empire and the Valdians, which is a Fun Lore Mystery.

Clem’s old squad also has an assassination plot going against their former commander, who they hate.

Valeria the paladin really wants to do the spell scroll ritual to protect the town, but we need several rare plants as spell components. We decide to go to Bad Herzfeld, where we hear there’s lots of plants.

ARC 4: THE ROOTS OF BAD HERZFELD

Our concerns going into Bad Herzfeld:

1. We need spell component plants.

2. We know about this evil fungus that infects people and makes them into Evil Fungus Monsters.

3. We hear there’s about to be a huge gathering of trolls. Valdian trolls are generally peaceful, but, like. A fuckton of trolls + evil brain fungus that makes you evil = BAD.

We fight an evil circus, but that’s more of a side quest.

We get to Bad Herzfeld and it’s a jungle out there, folks. We manage to get all our spell components even though we have to fight various angry plantmonsters and hallucinogenic fungi. We also meet a very nice troll who is a Doctor for Trolls, he is one of our favorite NPCs.

We have a brief encounter with one of the reclusive druids who resides in the forest. The druids seem to be fighting the Curse as well, with sporadic guidance from the old gods of the Greatwood, but it turns out they don’t have many more answers than we do.

A former druid, however, has become the spiritual leader of the local farming community. Which is a problem because she has turned it into a cult that infects people with the Evil Fungus Spores. It’s a very “Insiders Good, Outsiders Evil” mindset. They are planning to wait until more trolls show up for the big troll gathering, then infect them all with fungus. This is Prisoner #4, The Growth.

We burn down their temple with extreme prejudice. Unfortunately, guarding the temple is a plantmonster that was once Valeria’s beloved mentor, Kyr Marius. We destroy him but it’s tragic.

The trolls are like, “oh evil fungus? Aight we’re out.” Also we met more of those mad science doctors, but botanist ones this time.

ARC 5: PENITENTS SUCK

On the way back to Mornheim we go through the crossroads trade stop of Three Oaks Junction, which has been taken over by Penitent Knights, who are very into inquisition, and self flagellation, and persecuting the hell out of anything that even blinks the wrong way. Sinners must be purged from among the faithful!!! Anyway they’re violent jerks and we free the town. Penitents suck.

ARC 6: THE TROLLSTONES

Back in Mornheim, we go to the source of the River Morn to do our fancy ritual. Turns out there’s an ancient troll-king buried there, who rose as an undead. His demigoddess mother blessed the waters there so that no undead would ever rise. That blessing is gone now, of course. Problem is, there’s ancient Aquilian ruins that indicate the blessing was later used as a Containment Zone for something super evil, and whatever evil thing was there has now escaped. Hella lore, though.

We do our fancy ritual, which doesn’t restore the No Undead blessing but does provide some protection for the citizens. Yaaay!

ARC 6: HOESKA

We jet off to Hoeska Castle, HQ of the Cursebreaker Knights, because we have hella knowledge about how the Curse works now and we should probably, like...let the experts know? Turns out Hoeska Castle is owned by an ancient vampire, who has teamed up with his longtime nemesis - the vampire hunter Ser Brigid Koenig, who is now trying to solve the dang curse and has founded the Cursebreakers. We share our information and also fight a big nasty wolfmonster who’s been eating the knights. There’s a professor from Sturmhearst the Mad Science University, who confides in us that the Dean keeps vanishing and leaving strange otherworldly gifts. Sounds like Key nonsense; we’d better go check it out!

Clem’s player decides to leave the campaign at this point; in-story, Clem has gone to prevent her former unit’s assassination plot while we confront threats closer to home.

~AND THAT’S WHAT YOU MISSED ON THE CURSEWOOD~