#the only appropriate answer to being in a haunted house

[justreckin]

Same energy

[nelkcats]

And they were roommates

After years of living on his own in the Infinite Realms, something strange began to happen to the retired hero. Every time Danny closed his eyes to sleep, a life that was not his own played in his head. And he began to see memories of someone who had passed away, from his birth to his death. That would be fine if he didn't remember the dreams in such detail.

Unfortunately when the first dream kept repeating itself continuously, and Danny investigated, he discovered that it was not a normal nightmare and was the life of someone real. Someone who wanted a closure.

Every time he woke up, he found himself feeling the same as in the dream. Which led him to do a couple of things: yell at Nocturne (who strangely had nothing to do with it), annoy Clockwork (who was definitely involved), and solve crimes that had been deemed "impossible", and bring them to an appropriate end.

The police were extremely confused when a note from "Sleepy King" was next to the evidence of a cold case. The truth is that Danny wanted to sleep, and the souls were extremely insistent about their 'unfinished business' that came to haunt him in his sleep.

Every time he cracked a case he earned a few hours of uninterrupted sleep or downright disturbing memories, but that wasn't enough. Unfortunately, it seemed that solving the cases was only attracting more souls, and he was starting to regret wanting to help. He had ended his life as a hero for a reason.

Usually his notes to the police would say something along the lines of "I'm doing this for me, not for you, good night" or some similar nonsense. The halfa was tired, very very tired, dreaming with memories wasn't fun or pretty, it was exhausting, the deaths made his skin crawl and his insomnia worse. He didn't want to relive the deaths of anyone else, but he had no way to scare away the souls.

When Martha Wayne showed up in his dreams showing him about a "court of owls" Danny made up his mind. This had to stop. He had been a hero but he retired. And it wasn't that he hated the souls, he just wanted to sleep, the mental exhaustion was too much.

So he did the stupidest thing possible: he hired Constantine (pretending to be a fairly normal human client, getting his attention after offering a lot of alcohol and some useless books from the Realms as payment) to make him a dream catcher or some wizard thing. All he wanted was something to help him sleep.

Constantine couldn't do that of course. The hellbazer was disturbed by the man with more than three hundred avenging spirits swarming. That was fucked up. So he offered him the only solution he could think of: inviting him to sleep at his house. A place where spirits could not pass without permission. It wasn't a permanent fix, but it would work for a while.

John had no idea why he was doing so much for a client (inviting him to his house? bold move), but the man looked so desperate, and he was fucking cute. If he could get an adventure or two out of it he wouldn't complain.

Constantine's guest bed felt like heaven to the halfa, despite being almost destroyed. Danny repeatedly thanked, and before they both knew it: they were roomies, lived in the same place, took turns cooking or cleaning, etc. They grew comfortable with each other to the point that Danny answered Justice League Dark's calls on a few occasions.

And well, if Constantine stopped rushing to find a long-term solution that was his business, and his alone, okay? Zatanna's comment asking when he got married was fucking out of place.

[notbecauseofvictories]

I think I saw you shared a list of books you’d read a couple years ago and was it you who read something like 350+ books in a single year? If so that’s absolutely remarkable and I’d love to see a list of top ten (or twenty or whatever number) of books you’ve read this year that you recommend

Don't be ridiculous, I only read 303 books in 2021! That's much more reasonable than 350. And I've read fewer and fewer each year since---this year I don't think I'm going to crack 50, though I still have a couple days.

Still, always happy to talk about what I enjoyed. Books are listed in vaguely chronological order, though I make no promises.

Patricia Wants to Cuddle, Samantha Allen

I've mentioned this book before, but essentially I put in the library request solely for the improbability of the premise---The Bachelor heads to the PNW and encounters Bigfoot? Fortunately, it delivered on that promise magnificently. A breezy and delightfully gruesome little novel with a bodycount.

Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel

I didn't viscerally connect with this one as much as "Fun Home" but I think it might be because it's…closer to the bone for me. When Bechdel writes about the longing for a mother that can't be answered, pulling back, pleasing, an anger that becomes unspeakable, re-routed to anxiety…it's uh. well it's churned up the silt, let's put it that way.

Greener Pastures, Michael Wehunt

I love short stories, but finding those authors who hit the right notes unerringly, in such a brief space, can be tricky sometimes. Wehunt is the rare exception, strange and unique as a writer, dream-like in his descriptions and images. "October Film Haunt: Under the House" was my favorite, though I can't say for sure whether it's because I recognized the framing device or it was just fun to read…

Running with Scissors, A Wolf at the Table, Lust & Wonder, Augusten Burroughs

I read these out of order (Lust & Wonder first, then the other two) but even so, I was wildly impressed. Lust & Wonder was a revelation; I stumbled on it in the library and walked out with it the same day. No wonder people tell you to read his books, he's got such a clear-eyed meanness, an interesting sort of canniness to his depiction of himself, the people in his life…it really does demonstrate that there is no such thing as a boring life, just a boring narrator. But if Lust & Wonder is Burroughs at the height of his power, Running with Scissors and Wolf at the Table are the necessary steps up to it. More unfinished, more raw---a litany of horrors, not even leavened by that same canny, mean humor that flashes through L&W. It's just horrifically sad to watch every person around this kid fail him, leave, or both; terrifying and unexpectedly funny and yet tender as a sucking wound.

The Princess Bride, William Goldman

I picked this up entirely by chance and ended up being deeply charmed. I don't know what I was expecting---well, no, that's not true, I was expecting the film. But what I got instead was something almost real, pleasantly rough around the edges as Goldman's caustic narration winds its way from Florin to the machinations of S. Morgenstern's lawyers, to his struggles with raising his son. (One of the funniest scenes was when he goes to meet S. Morgenstern's lawyer, and the ravishingly beautiful attorney becomes a horrible old hag the more she talks about how he won't be granted a license.) I was afraid the book would be twee, but at the center of it is a pure (if slightly embarrassing, but truth generally is outside of Florin) love of stories, and wanting stories told.

In the Woods, The Likeness, Broken Harbor, Tana French

As I've said before, I started reading this series because I was traveling to Ireland and thought it seemed appropriate. I didn't go too deep into French's oeuvre, mostly because I couldn't shake wanting the books to be urban fantasy rather than gripping psychological portraits with a decidedly noir sensibility. Still, the books themselves are taut and fascinating, the portraits they paint of the Dublin Murder Squad (all of whom are staggering, wounded in their own ways) and the blighted, post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, are deeply compelling. Also, I do still think The Likeness is a perfect answer to The Secret History.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Kim Fu

There's something truly powerful in a short story that doesn't answer any questions or provide you with any sort of guidance---just walks in and rearranges your photographs so they're slightly off-kilter, leaves you with that destabilization. It's almost spiritual, that sense. In particular, there's a story in the collection about the world's sense of taste disappearing; a woman begins crafting art installations to try and recreate the experience of eating a pear, what your favorite family meal tasted like. Short stories are like that.

Perilous Times, Thomas D. Lee

I was surprised by this one. I know that's how I've described half the books above, but truly, this surprised me---not so much the rising action or plot (there's a sleeping king, knights around a table, a dragon) but I loved the setting so much. The depiction of a slightly-futuristic UK as drowning land sold off for parts; figures like immortal spymaster Marlowe coexisting with reborn Lancelot and Kay; the fay hovering around the edges; and then just….all the factions, the Welsh royalists and men's rights group propped up by military contractors; environmental activists, the references to the hodgepodge that existed in the 4th century AD too. More than anything, the novel conveyed how Britain's always been a place of change, the movement of people and permeable barriers, and that more than anything worked for me. (Also, it's a small thing but I loved how the Camelot crew translated modern concepts and objects into their language and knowledge of the world. It was always shown as hesitation rather than total shock, and I found it both moving and persuasive.)

A Cup of Salt Tears, Isabel Yap

I read this in a series of speculative novellas, which impressed on me yet again how hard it must be to write novellas. (Last year, one of my least favorite books was a novella; I still think about it with joyful hate.) However, Yap takes care to focus on single, brief narrative, concerns herself solely with the very small yet very significant issue of a woman, her husband, who and how she loves, wrapped up together with a kappa. Excellent, haunting.

Books of 2020 | Books of 2021 | Books of 2022

[windvexer]

Hi chicken! Apologizes if this is something you have answered in the past, but how would one get rid of entity attachments? Why do they occur and how do you identify if it’s attached? Additionally, for example, if something followed you home and won’t leave even after banishing and it got through your protections and wards, what do you do in this case?

(Entity attachment anon!) I forgot to ask, is it possible for entities to attach even if you’ve layered personal protections on? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anyone having this problem but I’m deeply curious.

Hi, Anon! Major UPG post alert ^-^

So this is a huge topic and I'm afraid there are no easy answers. If we're talking about entity attachments, what I've mostly experienced are entities who are just targeting people because they've already got a foothold.

I find the "energy cord" theory to be more effect than cause. In other words, if a linking energy cord is present it's because the spirit is haunting a person; the cord doesn't cause the haunting, but rather reflects and demonstrates the relationship between two or more things.

I don't know if I really believe in "attachments," specifically. Sometimes, certain spirits can become fixated on a person in the interest of causing harm or for deleterious personal gain, but this doesn't necessarily mean there is any special magical link between the spirit and the person being haunted. It's not an attachment so much as it is targeted harassment.

But I'm also a little hesitant on the topic because IME, it's very easy to interpret "a spirit is upset in my vicinity" to "I am being victimized by a negative spiritual attachment."

Also, if it sounds like something the Warrens would say, I'm extra hesitant to adopt it into my worldview.

For example, plenty of unpleasant spirit encounters happen because a spirit accidentally got trapped inside of a household. It's upset and it wants to leave, but the practitioner is taking steps contrary to solving the actual issue. If a spirit is trapped inside the house and the practitioner responds by redoubling wards and commanding the spirit to leave, the issue becomes intransigent; the practitioner doesn't understand why the problem is happening, so they are taking actions that seem rational, but in actuality can't solve the problem.

My take on resolving unwanted spiritual intrusions is therefore a pretty practical, but boring one: resolving them requires an understanding of why they are happening, and how to form an appropriate action plan centered around effective sorcerous techniques.

There are plenty of reasons why a person could have attracted unwanted spiritual attention, and they're all boring stuff too: You stole something from nature that wasn't yours to take, you worked magic in a place you shouldn't have worked magic in, you targeted someone who has their own spiritual protectors, you're behaving like someone who needs to learn a lesson and the lesson has arrived, you accidentally opened doorways that spirits stepped through, you modified the spell without understanding the steps, you started getting involved in things that were none of your business and now business is getting involved with you, and so on.

It's never "an evil spirit followed me home for no reason and walked through all of my wards and now it's attached to me."

It's always "oh yeah, last year I made a promise to a nature spirit in that park to bring it offerings every week, but I forgot, but trees are supposed to be cool, right? No, I don't remember the promise ritual I performed, but I do remember that I invited the spirit to come visit me whenever it wanted. Hey, wait, is that why it could walk past my wards?"

From time to time, the exact cause of an unwanted spirit haunting can't be discovered, or doesn't matter. Some times unwanted spirits kind of just do float in and start causing problems, but those problems are resolved through effective sorcery. This means not only casting effective spells, but also employing an effective strategy.

If the banishing didn't work, it was either an ineffective spell, or an ineffective strategy. The angry dryad isn't being banished because the jar wards you put up 18 months ago have a clause about always protecting invited guests from harmful magic. It doesn't matter if you're casting a good banishment; it's a bad strategy to resolve the situation.

This is probably going to sound a little mean of me, but if someone said that a spirit just walked through all of their protections and wards and can't be banished, my immediate assumption is not that it's a powerful spirit who has become specially attached. My assumption is that the person is working with ineffective magical techniques.

So a lot of dealing with unwanted spiritual intrusions isn't just attack and defense. It's also investigation, diplomacy, and strategy.

You ask if it's possible for a spirit to become "attached" to a person even if they have lots of personal protections, but I'm not sure my beliefs agree with the question itself. Could a spirit force a harmful connection with someone who is extremely well-protected? Maybe, but I doubt it. At a certain point, a point not even very difficult to reach, protection becomes so all-encompassing that it is transformative.

But also, having many protection amulets isn't the end-all, be-all of protection against unwanted spiritual attention. I suffered from unwanted contact for years that my strongest banishing and protection couldn't touch, and then immediately resolved it with a basic spell that employed an entirely different strategy.

At the end of the day, though, effectively dealing with unwanted spiritual intrusions can be complex and require a lot of different skills to appropriately tackle, even if the situation is easy to resolve once you understand what's going on.

So if you've found yourself in a pickle and there don't appear to be any doors leading out of the fun house, then I'd recommend just hitting up a spirit doctor. Not to speak too broadly, but it's the job of such folks to remedy problems caused by spirits.

Various doctors have various specializations, but many of them are able to directly intercede on your behalf or at least provide the information necessary to resolve the issue.

[raisindave]

[Chapter 72] Seeing the World Through Ballistic-Tinted Glasses

Ghost

Simon’s perspective; mirrors the previous chapter.

No setting is unequipped so long as you know where to look. Whether you’re finding yourself in a desert or tundra or dropped in the middle of a frigid ocean. Most bathrooms in these dodgy motels don't bother carting around cleaning supplies; it's easier to clean at the staff's wavering discretion. As luck would have it, the cabinet with ramshackle hinges houses a small patch of rusty steel wool. This will do. Luck also favoured the battery being in the alarm altogether. Using a lens as a firestarter would take far too long. She'd pack up and leave by the time you can fulfill your plot. Lua sat patiently enough, physically, that is, but she's never been good at concealing her true feelings behind those expressive eyes. 

"You remember our word, right?" you ask loud enough that she has no choice but to answer, carefully clearing rust from the steely pad. 

Her humming vocalization grants you the go-ahead to resume. You should command her to use her words and that hums aren't appropriate confirmations. She doesn't look like she's in a state to receive more corrective reprimands. The extent of whatever's got her so upset is beyond you, and there's no Italian bloke you can wring the truth from. Gaz and Price are so far oblivious to your tussles with Lua. That much you can say with certainty. Johnny, on the other hand, you're not too sure. He's always had a way of reading you; it's annoying. She's not exactly subtle, though, gawking at you slackjawed for days after you fuck her brains out. You'd think someone with that level of intelligence would have the mental wherewithal to recognize her lack of discretion. 

When connected with the live end of a battery, steel wool completes the circuit through conductive metal; the fragility of the wiry fibres makes them spark into an ember, an easy chemical fire. 9-volt batteries, easily sourced in most smoke detectors and stove lights, having a two-terminal array on one side is necessary or the wool won't spark. The fire is weak but fast-moving, leaving you precious seconds to transfer the infant flame to the wick. It crackles to life with a pause, and the embering metal is easily smothered with your thumb. Raised eyebrows say she's amazed, but her eyes are still haunted. 

"Where'd you learn to do that?" Her voice cracked when she spoke. 

"SAS Handbook," you grumble, setting the candle aside to focus on more pressing matters. 

Soy wax has a lower melting point, it won't leave any lingering pain beyond what's required. She's lucky Laswell didn't gift her paraffin wax, as that would've changed things. You'd never have expected that you'd use your quick-deploy paracord rope like this, but it'd been sitting idle on your keychain for years. With only seven feet of chord, you'd have to calculate the necessary rope to fasten her, a skill you'd been taught when tying skiffs and lean-to's in your training. It's a shame to unravel the paracord, it'll take hours to re-bind it. But now it's time to reposition your tango. Her ankle flinches when you grip it, but you still yank her into the center of the boxspring canvas. 

Her eyes lit up when you climbed over her, planting your knees beside her hips to better control your work, it almost made you laugh. Not yet, little Cricket. So eager. Right now, you'll need to create a stem that will connect the loop on her lower chest to the pairing one across her collarbone. Performing a figure eight knot backwards and blind is not something you'd done in this specific setting before, but it'll make a good anchor along her shoulder blades. It's hard to focus when you can feel her eyes lusting at the base of your mask. 

A half hitch on the stem and another half hitch bring the ropes back through the loop. This will make the hardpoint to fasten her wrists to. Now again, to the front, crossing a V through the two loops makes an anchor in the middle pull her breasts together just right; it's a true test of your self-control not to tear off your mask and hear what sounds she'll make when you bite those eager nipples. The effort is rewarded when you pull the figure-eight weave taut, and the soft, plump skin is utterly addictive. 

"This isn't revenge for that lil ol' thing in the bunker, right?" she squeaked, poorly shielding her apprehension.

"What thing is that?" you turn the question back to her, a scare tactic you'd used on countless warmongers. 

A taut-line hitch around her wrists will keel those grabbing hands out of reach, one of the first knots Lofty teaches. The knot is reliable and allows for flexible lengths, and it is easily tightened if a certain sergeant continues writhing. She's grinding that pretty pussy against your groin as if you won't notice. She's a fly in your web now. It's starting to make more sense in your mind why so many people enjoy this kind of thing so much, colleagues bantering about getting kinky with their wives in the workroom when they assume you aren't in earshot. She's entirely surrendered herself to your whims, and this power is fantastic, you can't help but feel pretty chuffed. 

"That time I had you on your back, lieutenant, begging for me to touch you," her words snapped you from your trance like a splash of cold water. "Don't you remember that time you were a snivelling, grovelling mess, apologizing so I might let you come?"

"Don't give me any new ideas," you smirk, sucking your teeth in thought. 

"It's not a new idea if you're stealing it outright." 

"You want a gag?" you hiss, considering the image of your fingers silencing her words. 

"But how will you hear me apologize then, lieutenant?"

She doesn't know that the way she says your rank always makes you harder than ever before, even when she thinks it's a jab. It seems she's not entirely surrendered like you'd expected. It doesn't matter. She can think she's won this petty squabble, but the truth is you let her win. You'll permit her this victory only because you've already choreographed the brutal punishments you want to inflict on her. The idea that it could mean not being able to hear her safe word was also a sobering thought. That, and that the songs she sings are just too sweet. All enough to strip the sentiment from your mind entirely.  

"You seem like you've done this stuff before," she said, stealing your attention from your work again. 

That didn't require an answer. Letting her simmer with the possibilities she's proposed is more fun. The root of your scare tactics revolves around the target creating their imaginary mythos about how horrifying you must be when you wear this executioner's hood. It's worked exceptionally well. But you weren't always violent during sex, if anything you were the opposite. You don't really do play fighting. You do scrimmage or actual combat—little else. Learning to be gentle and playful in a combat situation feels like using your left hand; familiar movements but not the same certainty. Lua seems to have pinned you as some sort of expert rigger, and maybe she'll believe your masque of certainty. The knots are known, and her breath quickens when you touch her soft skin to draw them tight. 

"Take off your clothes," she commanded, it made you grin. 

"You should've thought about trying to give me orders before you got tied up like a smoked ham."

"You weren't fucking the smoked hams when you were a butcher, were you?" she mused sweetly. 

Funny. There she is again, catching you by surprise with serrated banter. A sharp tongue that challenges your own where few people have matched this level of raillery. Johnny comes close, but he's not bitter like she is. It takes a high level of intelligence to be that witty, a trait more attractive than squealing giggles or batting eyelashes. That won't earn her the upper hand, and pinching one of those eager nipples between your fingers makes her writhe in the way you were hoping she would. 

"You're deflecting," she tried to look like she wasn't enjoying your manipulation. "What's the matter? Bashful?" 

"No." 

She's grossly mischaracterized you if she thinks you're some precious meek thing, that you'll cry and shudder if she saw your body under your equipment. Your shirt lifted over your back easily, cool air breathing across your bare shoulders. While wearing heavy clothing can offer protection in more ways than one, you'd never been described as shy by anyone who knew you. The thought of security gave you pause. You'd bet your life she didn't lock the door. If she'd locked the door as you requested, you'd go easier on her, but reignited agitation at her lack of vigilance permitted you to give her your worst. You made sure she'd hear the click of the deadbolt, she always folds when you glare at her. Hopefully, she'll commit this act to memory. The way she's panting like a dog says that she's mentally preoccupied, it's hard not to let it stoke your ego. 

Lua couldn't take her eyes off your chest for the longest time, but she managed to pry them away when she heard the clasp of your belt. That sound is evolving into a Pavlovian response to her. It could be fun to tease her or blindfold her here and now and deprive her of the pleasure. But it feels cruel to turn to punishment this early on. Leaning down wouldn't be good husbandry for a fresh injury, you'd have to lean rather than bend. That's a lesson you'd learned the hard way before. You folded your jeans, it'd be a shame to get them dirty on this dubiously stained carpet and set them aside in the chair's safety. Grinning under your mask, she followed your thumbs as they dragged your briefs below your thighs with unblinking eyes. 

By now, every other woman you've brought to bed would've asked about your scars. 'What's this one? ' 'What's that one? ' the questions become an expected tax on your psyche as soon as you undress, a predictable conversation that takes away from time you'd soon spend alone. It's a consequence of your long-lived lifestyle. Lua doesn't ask about them, though her eyes still hungrily explore your body nonetheless, but that's typical. A quick shag for convenience is great for morale, but this is more time than you've ever spent with a single person. Sometimes when you're off tour you'd find someone at a bar, but those encounters have become more and more rare through the years. At the thought of it, the last time you remembered bedding another woman was half a decade ago. Partners aren't conducive to a lifestyle where you're on the road for months at a time, not to mention the looming threat of death.

"What a good little soldier," her voice stings your heart. 

"You sound nervous," you challenge her knowingly. 

She sings so sweetly when you enter her, it inspires an unsettling instinct of aggression within you. At how vulnerable she's made herself. Like when you see a duckling or baby; something makes you want to crush her under your weight. Instead, you pull the ropes tighter, creating a deep strain that presses the swell of her breasts higher above her heaving chest. You couldn't help your wandering hands that slither over her skin, searching for what they've already found. Her lips hang open, glistening with saliva as she gasps when you thrust into her. The thought of smothering her craning mouth with yours makes sweat gather along your spine, you're already pushing your boundaries enough as is. Self-control, Simon. It would be inappropriate. What's the point? It's already inappropriate. You can't. You'd have to blindfold her if you did. But you can't, it's prohibited. You'd already intimidated her into obeying the established rules just moments ago. 

Removing your mask entirely flickered in your psyche as a possibility. Lua's position being outside of 141 makes it a complication, though. Her affiliation with the task force isn't like Las Almas, where showing your face was a necessary show of trust during a particularly dubious operation. Not only is she an impermanent foreign IA unit, but she's also alarmingly oblivious to the dangers around her. Lua’s genius in her craft comes at with the consequence of not seeing threats that are otherwise obvious to honed eyes. If she got captured, which is more likely than she realizes, having seen your face could make it possible to describe it if she's under enough manufactured stress. Farah was right to warn you; she'll never be aware of the danger she's exposed to until it's too late. She'd stop to fawn over a yellow scorpion, delighted by its lovely tail, heedless to its heart-stopping venom. You owe it to Farah to steer her from harm she'd be blind to, even if that harm is herself lately. You've taken on that responsibility because that's what you've always learned to do. Take on every burden, regardless of the cost. It’s a worthy trade for someone who takes you so well, groaning so sweetly when you punish her with your cock.

In the haze of lust, those thoughts return. Times like this make you vulnerable to slithering fantasies you'd learned to bury. Thoughts of a swollen belly, of fatherhood, of a family and domestic bliss. It's all so possible, a pipe dream that need not be. It's a terrible idea on all fronts, yet the deeply rooted cravings pry at your wit. Her eyes staring at yours whisper that she wants it, she wants to bear that burden. You try to swallow, but your throat is dry, and a twang of panic snakes through your sinews. You creep. These thoughts can't continue. Full stop. Composure. Your hand found the candle as you found yourself quickly approaching your orgasm sooner than anticipated. Finally, enough heat had created a pool under the wick. Dribbling candle wax spatters on her chest and the way her mouth warps as she cries out makes you crazy. More, more. Enough to wrench those thoughts from your mind with brute force, melting away your sin. Please do it again.  

"F-fuck you," she stammered when you were particularly cruel. 

Moments like this make you wonder if she's connecting with the irony of the situation right now. At least you're not prying an apology from her for things she scarcely even remembers, emasculating her with her own equipment. Though it's not strictly true to say there's no ulterior motive. You just have to keep drowning these creeping fantasies at all costs. Daydreams that keep you awake through restless nights. There's just something so darling to your conscience that it's been your beacon in the darkest times, imaging a hand-whittled wooden spoons degraded to an angle over years of labouring over homemade meals. A tool that's been there for ages, stable. Reliable and worn. Honed and loved. An odd mental image that keeps a spark in your cold chest that keeps a fire in your will to live. Another drop of hot wax along her belly makes you shudder, how pathetic. 

"You've always been an asshole, y'know that?" Another attempt to chastise you as if you're not immune to cheap beratement. 

That can't go unanswered. You leaned in closer, lowering to hover over her. The act tightened your abdomen, reminding you of fresh stitches, but the feeling of her clenching around you made it worth it. Pushing her to her limits came with the consequence of testing your control over her own body. Harsh staccato movements of your thumb across her clitoris seemed to bring forward the most intense reaction, only for you to withdraw it without warning. 

"Unoriginal son of a bitch," Lua made her opinion known. 

She can talk all she wants. She feels so fucking good. You have to get a hold of yourself. Her breast feels so warm and soft in your palm that you had to drown creeping excitement with bitter memories to stop yourself from succumbing. However, she can't keep up with your pace, and you now have the power to decide her fate. She gets this look on her face when she's close, unbeknownst to her, signalling you to relax your pace. The sheen of sweat over her wrought body made pinched skin shimmer, glowing in the light of the candle. 

"That's no way to talk about my mother," you whisper against her neck. She smells so good. 

"Fuck you," her voice was sharp but still smooth like silk. 

"I should make you apologize for that." 

Insolent, but a captivating challenge. During your time as a sergeant, you'd also held a certain skepticism toward your insipid commanders. It must be so freeing to be able to tell your superior to go fuck themselves, even if in private. She brings a certain unity to this team, you'd fiercely challenge any administrator or senior officer who considered changing her position. Especially if it comes to the bonus of keeping her in a position like this. Every time you're around her, you say more in ten minutes than you have in over twenty years. It's becoming harder and harder to admit that-... she recoils, gathering her lips to spit at your face above hers. Warm saliva spattering across your eyes, your mind works fast to find a process of reciprocation. Conflicting emotions and pouring outrage propose a dozen disciplinary actions to take. One in particular clicks into place in your mind. She has no idea what she's just done.

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[lokischocolatefountain]

Chapter 1– If Your Daughter Needs a Void

Everyone Loves Contractors

Everyone in Jackson had a role to play, a responsibility to fulfil towards the community. They all fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Except for Joel Miller who knew how to protect and make deals but not to chaperone children’s dances and bring cookies to the bake sale. Ellie was his purpose and he would do anything from heinous crimes to social events if it put that toothy smile back on her face. Luckily for him, he isn’t the only single parent in town who could relate.

Navigation: Chapter 1, Chapter 2

Fandom: The Last of Us (TV)

Pairing: Joel Miller x Reader

Word Count: 3.3k words

A/N: I am not immune to Pedro Pascal. Something I looove seeing in TLOU is its age appropriate relationships like with Joel and Tess. I want to see more graying older men falling in love with older graying women. So, I’m writing one.

Joel Miller walked up to his door, his knees creaking like the doors of a haunted mansion and his back begging him to lie back down on his bed. The incessant knocks had finally gotten to him. Sleep was not something he found often. Peaceful sleep was even more of a rarity. He was going to bash in the head of whoever was stood outside being an absolute fucking menace.

His anger simmered when he opened the door to find the kid smiling sheepishly at him. She was wearing a different backpack now, the one she was painting stars on just last week. It was filled with books and little knickknacks instead of the handgun, pun book and non-perishable food of their traveling days. The purple keychain had moved from that old tattered pack to the new one, a little brighter after being scrubbed thoroughly under the sink.

“Could’ve used your key,” he snapped, walking in and letting her follow him inside. The backpack fell to the floor with a thump right by the door even though he had asked her to place it on the side to keep from blocking the exit. He was deaf on one ear, but kids were selectively deaf to their parents on both ears.

“Relaaax man,” she whined, crashing on the sofa and putting her dirty boots up on the coffee table. “I just forgot to take my key with me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, walking into the kitchen even though his feet ached to climb the stairs back up to the bedroom and resume sleep. But he knew better than to try his luck. It was a miracle that he was able to close his eyes for— he looked up at the clock to check the time— 2 hours. Trying for sleep again would be futile. Besides, the kid would be hungry after running around in school the entire day.

He would ask her to reheat the rice he cooked for them and eat by herself, but that just felt wrong. Like he was shirking his duties as her…whatever.

Not seconds after putting her backpack down and crashing on the couch, she began her usual spiel about what happened in school. It was strange at first to hear her rant about everything she learned and all the games she played and petty fights she had with her schoolmates. It all felt too normal, too much like the times before. It put him on edge, like this normality would end at any second and he would be back in the wild, failing her over and over.

And then there was the guilt…there was always guilt. His past failures always came crashing in with every single thing Ellie did.

Today, it was in answering the door for her when she returned from school. It was in standing there and reheating the rice in the cast iron pan as she spoke about the asteroid belt and Jupiter’s moons. His heart clenched as he thought of his Sarah coming home, opening the door to their empty house, doing her homework and studying and reheating the food by herself. No one to talk to about her friends, no one to listen to her about her crush on some boy if she even had one… He didn’t know. He was out there working and working and working, putting food on the table and money in a savings account for her to go to college. And it was all for naught— both Sarah and money stopped being part of their world.

She would be in her thirties now, much older than the kid he was now fathering instead of her. Hell, she might have her own kid. He would be close to retirement, looking forward to being just Grandpa Joel.

“—and then I showed him how it’s done. Three bullets, one by one PEW! PEW! PEW!” She said, making guns with her fingers and shooting in front of her. “All bullseye. He was standing there like—” she gasped and re-enacted how her classmate looked at her in wonder at her shooting skills.

“Don’t forget that you were also a terrible shot before I spent many weeks teaching you how to shoot. Don’t show off around your schoolmates. Help if you can, or just shut up.” He had these ‘normal’ concerns again. Her teachers had called him for a parent-teacher conference where they expressed concerns about her behaviour— too loud, too quiet, too aggressive, too brash, too isolated. They always compared her behaviour to that of other kids her age. He wanted to scream at them, shake them by their shoulders until it registered that his kid had been through things they will never understand, that they should fucking get over it and just teacher her math. But he couldn’t.

It was some bullshit.

All he could do without having her kicked out of this safe haven was to try to change her behaviour.

“Come on, maaan! Let me show off the one skill I have. They are all better at other subjects than me and I’m the dumbass in every class. I’m gonna be the best at the shooting classes.”

“You can be the best at something without being an ass— without being rude,” he said, plating the rice and placing it in front of her. His mouth was the problem, he realised. If he swore in every breath, she would be encouraged to do it too.

She shoveled the food in her mouth, her manners still…absent. She was better behaved than on their first day here, but her behaviour still left much to be desired. He didn’t blame her. This was her first time in polite society and it hadn’t been long since they got here. Hell, he grew up in a normal world and he still caught himself behaving like an animal sometimes. That is what two decades of life in an apocalypse did to a man.

“Well, you were a smug asshole when you started teaching me how to shoot. You had that smirk on your face like you thought you were the shit.”

“Language, Ellie. I know this is the way you are used to speaking. But, it’s not considered nice here.”

“Oh, give me a goddamned motherfucking break, Joel. Isn’t this the point of having a home? Saying whatever you want and being who you are? I’m faking it outside, okay? Just let me be in here,” she snapped, getting off the chair and marching up the stairs. The door slammed and Joel froze, clueless about what to do.

The thought he was trying to push away for so long came rushing back in despite his best efforts— Sarah never did that. He knew it wasn’t productive to do that. Comparisons served no purpose. Comparing your pseudo-daughter with your daughter who died two whole decades ago was even more useless. Ellie was not the same person, Ellie didn’t grow up in the same world that his daughter did. He was not the same man either.

What was he even supposed to do in this situation? Ground her? He never had to ground Sarah. What would that even mean in this world, in this town, for a girl who had seen horrors beyond the imaginations of her peers in Jackson. Wouldn’t it be cruel to take away the freedom of a kid who had only just gotten it?

Sighing, he put away the pan in which he heated the rice, hoping that he could reheat her rice when she was in a better mood. And he was not really in the mood to clean up.

When it had been half an hour since their argument, he climbed the stairs to Ellie’s room, grunting as his knees reminded him of the wear and tear they had been through to get him to this point. The plate of rice, warm once again, sat hopefully on the palm of his left hand as his right knocked on her door.

“Whaat?” Asked a muffled voice from inside the room.

He cleared his throat before asking, “Can I come in?”

He needed to put the plate down. His palms were suddenly sweaty and he was afraid he would drop the warm porcelain plate on the floor. It annoyed him that she was taking her sweet time to answer, but stood outside her door patiently. He heard the ruffling of the sheets before she finally answered, her voice barely audible. “Okayyy…”

He opened the door to find her lying face down on her bed.

“Ellie…”

“I don’t want to be yelled at.”

He took a deep breath. “No yelling,” he agreed. Was this bad parenting? Was he supposed to yell? His mother would have kicked his butt for swearing the way she did. He didn’t have the energy for butt kicking and she would not be receptive to any rule that was enforced that way.

He put the plate down on her side-table and took a seat on the armchair he’d made for the living room that mysteriously walked up the stairs and into her room one day. She did not ask for permission to move it, didn’t even care that it would be too heavy for her to safely carry. But his heart warmed to know that she liked something he made.

He would begin by letting her know that he understood where she was coming from. Then he would bring up his justification. It should work, right?

“It must be…I… I understand. It’s a very different way of life and everything is new for you. It will take you time to adjust, I think. And umm…it can be annoying to have new rules about every single thing.”

She snorted.

“And I also get that you will want to be yourself at home.”

“But?” She asked, finally turning her head away from the pillow and looking at him. Her eyes narrowed at him and her lips were pursed. He wanted to lie, say everything was alright just to make her feel good again.

“I just wanted to break the habit of swearing. It might slip when you’re outside the house and your teachers wouldn’t be happy with that. You just need to get into the practice of speaking differently based on where you are. Formal and respectful with your teachers and more casual with your friends. Respectful to strangers too. That is hard to do, to let your guard down around new people.”

He didn’t have to explain why. She knew exactly what he was talking about. He wasn’t immune to it either. He approached people with hostility, afraid they were there to fight him or hurt Ellie. It was proving nearly impossible to get over.

“I just want you to fit in,” he continued when she didn’t argue his points.

“Why? I don’t want to be like those dickheads who don’t even know how to shoot a gun. I will never be the girl who is worried about what sweater to wear with what jeans and get nervous asking some stupid boy out for the spring dance. It’s dumb.”

He slouched in the chair, making himself smaller, feeling smaller. He had no problems with the patrols, no problems with shooting down the infected that stumbled into their radius. But this? This made him shrivel up.

“Fitting in is important. It can mean the difference between survival and…” he trailed off, struggling to explain social exclusion. He never had to explain to Sarah why she should hang out with the Alders and put up with Mrs. Adler’s preaching. A girl who had to survive all that shit might not even take this seriously.

“You need to make a good impression. Make sure people like you. Make friends. You need people.”

“I have people, Joel. I have you. Don’t need these losers.”

“I’m not always going to be here,” he said, regretting it immediately as he saw the fear in her eyes. Neither had to say it out loud, but he knew they were both thinking of the times she had to save his life. “Like…in school,” he quickly corrected. “I’m not with you everywhere you go. You need to learn to do this on your own, find more people.”

“Is that why you stay cooped up in this house and don’t leave unless Tommy or I drag you out or you have patrol duty?”

Rude. Perhaps she needed to be grounded.

“And you want to be like me? No friends, cooped up in the house, only a— as you always say, grumpy old man— to hang out with? That’s just lame, kid.”

Before she could retort, he rose from his seat. “Eat that,” he said, pointing to her plate of rice before leaving her to mull over his words in the privacy of her room. If rationality didn’t do the trick, the reminder of how pathetic it was to hang out with someone kids saw as a fucking fossil might.

————

Her

“Miller.”

He grunted that old man grunt and stepped ahead, taking the writing pad from her and scribbling his signature on the sheet under today’s date. She took the pencil back from him quickly, placing it back on the pen stand from which one too many pens and pencils had gone missing. People hadn’t left behind the habit of stealing stationery even after the apocalypse.

Rifles slung over their shoulders, they walked side by side. His condition was much improved compared to the day he came back to Jackson with his kid in tow. But he still walked slowly, his gait betraying whatever injuries he had incurred on his journey to Jackson, on his journey the past 20 years. Despite it all, he still appeared strong and powerful in a way that made everyone understand how he had survived everything without the protection of a community.

He hadn’t spoken to her much, thank goodness. He would show up at her door for medicines and checkups for his reluctant kid who dragged him in for his own treatments. She didn’t talk to him much then, the girl did the talking for him whether or not he wanted it. The girl was annoying unlike her father, asking questions she shouldn't ask a little too easily. Like she was merely asking what day of the week it was. Thankfully, he was always there to correct his daughter and apologize to her before she continued treating them.

She kept her eyes on the route, holding the oil lamp in her hand as they looked for potential danger. She was alert, wide awake, despite the sleeplessness and the amount of alcohol she’d had at family dinner. Her feet took her along the familiar path, the couple thousand nights of patrolling etched into her muscles in a way that she was sure she would circle this path even if she became infected.

He was an altogether different story. He was alert, yes. But it was excessive. His gun always pointed to shoot, his backpack loaded with more ammo than anyone else on patrols, his eyes wild and desperate like he had something precious to protect. He flinched at every noise, pointed his gun at rabbits who minded their own business and trembled as he lowered his gun before holding it up again when there was another noise. She couldn’t say she didn’t recognize the behavior. He did have a lot more to protect unlike her.

He had a bigger family— a brother, sister-in-law and soon a nephew or niece. And there was his daughter of course. Maybe he had a wife at some point. Maybe he lost her to this world like they all lost someone. Maybe she was what made him so rigid, so untrusting, so silent. She pictured him, younger with dark hair and clear skin, eyes as dark as they were now as the time this hypothetical wife was taken from him. There was a tinge of shame in his eyes, the very shame he saw him carry as his teenager complained to her about him skipping medicines and working too much in her home turned clinic. The very shame she caught just then as he pointed his gun at a housecat that had wandered out a little too far.

“You shoot that cat and her 5 year old will make you wish you were never born,” she remarked, cursing herself as soon as she said it. He already looked like he wished he was never born. She didn’t want to make him sadder and more pathetic than he already appeared to be.

To her surprise, he chuckled. “That’s one way to get kicked out of Jackson.”

He wouldn’t be expelled over a cat. He’d have to apologize profusely to the little boy for killing his cat and make up for it in some way. But he wouldn’t be kicked out. But she could understand the anxiety. Even after becoming a permanent member of this place, she was afraid she might make a mistake that would force them to throw her out.

“Yeah. Wouldn’t want to lose our wonderful contractor,” she joked instead.

“You’ll still have Tommy.”

“Yeah, but Tommy needs his assistant,” she quipped, knowing very well that the older Miller was the leader among the two. “Someone to stand by and hand him things.”

He simply smiled, deepening the lines on his face.

“How long have you been here?” He asked, surprising her. He never asked her personal questions, only questions related to their patrol. There were the empty pleasantries when he showed up at her door for treatment of course, but they didn’t count.

“The whole time. Born in Wyoming. I lived in Baltimore for a while for medical school. Then I moved to DC for my husband’s job. But, I made my way back here after it started. I was hoping to find my parents, but… Well, you know that goes. What about you?” She asked, knowing that he was from Texas. But anything she didn’t already know about him was too complex, too private.

“Texas. Grew up in Arlington, moved to Austin. Went to many places after the outbreak but I was in Boston until I came here.”

“That’s a long way to travel, especially with a kid. Must have been hell.” A hell that I know too well, she thought but didn’t voice. None of her business. Maybe his journey was like hers. Maybe the darkness in his eyes, like her own, was from the unspeakable things parents did to protect their children. She didn’t need to know the specifics to recognize it.

Silence once again filled the space between them and her shoulders slumped in relief. It was emotionally draining to keep up a conversation that wasn’t about someone's health, medicines or diet. Even more so to have conversations after the sun went down and darkness enveloped not just the night sky but her mind.

“You’re a doctor.”

“Yeah, Miller. Want something checked out?” It was the first thing people wanted from her. It wasn’t too different from random uncles and cousins showing her their weird mole and asking for medical advice at the Thanksgiving table. It was annoying and remained annoying, but she understood that people had to ask now.

“What kind of doctor?”

“Back then? Cardiothoracic surgeon— so like, heart lungs and everything in the chest area. Now, fucking everything except dermatology. So I can help with anything except if you want tret for that face.”

“You a shrink too?”

She couldn’t even deal with her own goddamn problems. What made this man think she could listen to others’? It was nice that he bothered to ask. Others did not. When she put stethoscopes on hearts and listened for issues, people took it as permission to vent about every single worry. Nightmares, pain, relationship problems, fucking everything.

“I don’t know. You don’t seem the type to go to a shrink.”

“It’s not for me.”

“Ah.”

“I’m not. I know too little about the human mind. I did a few psychiatry rounds back in med school, but that was all. But people talk to me all the time. I…” she sighed and leaned on a nearby fence. It was a painful admission, but she would say it if it would help this man and his little girl. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that he was a parent and parents would do fucking anything for their kid.

“I know this ain’t your job. And I don’t need to see your fucking graduation certificate or know how many mental patients you had. All I know is that when my wife died, my daughter spoke to a therapist and she became better. Can you do that for Ellie? Just talk to her. I know you don’t take payments for seeing patients, but I’ll pay. I have connections. Anything you want from outside, I’ll go get it. Oxy, hydro, you name it.”

He wasn’t like the others in Jackson. While the people in Jackson lived, he survived. He was from out there where everything had a price. Even a life. She knew how to work with that. She’d talk to his kid, help her out in whatever way she wanted and ask him for a favour in return. There was a simplicity to it that the people of Jackson did not understand. They did not trade within. They simply did shit out of what seemed like the goodness of their stupid hearts. All that did was keep her in their debt forever. With this man, there would be a clear payment and no guilt.

“I have oxy, better than anything you can get. I have suppliers I trust. We can even treat diabetes here. Can get glasses too. If you’re offering to trade, offer something better.”

“What do you want?”

A house.

“I don’t know. I’ll think of something,” she lied. It was hard to ask. Hard to open her mouth and say she wanted something. “But you don’t need to make Ellie wait until then. She can talk to me about anything that’s bothering her when she feels ready. Talking is good. It’s like throwing your shit into a void. So if your daughter needs a void…”

He nodded and the deal was struck.

[thepaintedlady00]

Burden

Chapter 8: The Mist Waits

Chapter 7 | Chapter 9

I finished earlier than I thought I would, so enjoy the early chapter release y'all!

TW: Violence, confrontations, The Fates, Desire, blood, Dark Daunt, cliffhanger

Rose Walker was having an odd day. So much had happened in such a short time, and the girl wasn’t sure whether the appropriate response would be to cry in joy or to scream in frustration. She had family left, a Great Grandmother that seemed to want the same things that she did. Jed back home and safe, and them to all be a family once again. Now she had the resources to start truly looking for her brother and, hopefully, to bring him home once and for all.

“I’ll just get Lyta. Be right back,” Rose said in answer to one of the new people added to her odd little circle.

“Rose,” a voice called out to her, soft and young.

She stopped walking for a moment, quietly questioning whether the voice was in her head or actually coming from within the home. “Rosebud,” another voice said, maternal and warm.

“Rose Walker,” a third replied, cold and older.

She felt afraid and uncertain for a moment as her feet carried her forward to the closest door, the only logical place one could whisper to her from. Once she opened the door, she was greeted by three figures clothed in black.

“Hello, Rosie,” the youngest said. 

The second smiled. “Come in, my butterfly.”

“You are at a crossroads, Rose Walker.”

She tilted her head slightly. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

“Names, names, names,” the eldest among them said, waving her question away.

The youngest smiled sweetly. “Each name is but a single aspect of the whole.”

“Be satisfied by the trinity you have, love. You wouldn’t want to meet us as The Kindly Ones.”

“We can only caution you, sister.” The youngest looked darker. “We can’t protect you.”

A chill ran up Rose’s spine as she asked, “Protect me from…”

A maternal laugh echoed around her. “From life, my posy.”

“And the things that hover beyond life.”

“Thrashing themselves against it,” the eldest finished.

“Beware dreams,” the youngest whispered. “And houses. And trees.”

The cold voice sighed. “You ask the wrong question.”

“Had you asked the right one, we could have warned you against The Corinthian and the ghost of mist that haunts his steps.” The warm voice said.

“Told you about Jed,” the young voice continued.

“And about Morpheus.”

The light turned on, and the figures vanished before Rose’s eyes, almost as if they’d never been there… and maybe they hadn’t.

*

He stood in the center of the throne room, staring at the steps that Daunt had stood on. Dream had spent every free moment searching for The Forest, to no avail. The realm had either vanished entirely or closed itself off from him, as Daunt had after that day in Fiddler’s Green. Sadly, he was more inclined to believe the latter to be true. His head spun with the sheer number of concerns plaguing him, awaiting to be addressed. Dream of the Endless felt like he had back in the Burgess basement, only somehow worse. He felt he was being pulled in every direction, forced to split his focus between dire events, and feared no matter what he did, one or more would slip through the cracks and result in yet another loss for him to bear.

“My lord,” Lucienne’s soft voice called him from the dark corners of his mind as she approached with a book. “Forgive me for intruding, but I have the volume you requested.”

“Yes,” he sighed, taking the heavy leatherbound book from her hand and moving to sit on the bottom step of the stairs, hoping the vision of her bloodstained gown would fade from memory if he was not looking at them. “I assume it holds nothing of use as all the others.”

His librarian nodded solemnly. “I’m afraid so.”

“Jed Walker is still in the realm of the living, but I cannot find him.”

“No. Nor I, my lord.” She answered.

“All humans are connected to The Dreaming.” He shook his head. “They spend a third of their life here. Breaking that connection would require knowledge. And power.”

“Then it may interest you to know that the last nightmare Jed Walker had before he disappeared was of Gault.”

“You think she severed him from The Dreaming?”

Lucienne nodded. “I do.”

“Why?” He questioned.

“Because he’s not just any child, is he?” She replied. “He’s Rose Walker’s brother. She is the Vortex.”

Quiet footsteps echoed in the empty throne room as a dark figure walked toward them. “Excuse me. I am Rose Walker. What do you know about my brother Jed?”

Lucienne turned to Dream with wide eyes and an open mouth. Daunt’s words echoed in his ears. Sight alone will not tell you her secrets. He stood and smiled. “You are welcome here, Rose Walker.”

She looked around for a moment before asking, “Who are you?”

“You have somehow dreamed your way into an audience with Lord Morpheus. The King of Dreams,” Lucienne answered sternly. “And now you must go.”

“Lucienne.”

His librarian sighed. “She shouldn’t be here.”

He tilted his head slightly. “No, but I should like her to stay.

Rose Walker was indeed the vortex. Dream could feel it swirling around her. Power and mystery and something else, something that felt familiar. Lucienne’s apprehensive demeanor did not shift while Rose stood in his realm. He could not blame her. After all, a Vortex was a volatile and uncertain thing. Matthew agreed to watch over her in the Waking World, and as Rose Walker returned to her bed, Lucienne gave Dream a look. “Are you certain this is wise, my lord?”

“Gault must be found one way or another,” he answered carefully. “Leave Rose Walker to me, Lucienne. In the meantime, continue your search of the library for anything that may lead us to The Forest.”

*

The Corinthian enjoyed tea. He enjoyed the smell of the soft floral notes and earthiness and found the taste to be almost comforting. Though he’d never allow himself to linger on why he enjoyed such things, a lingering nagging voice in the back of his mind told him repeatedly. It reminds you of her. This was, of course, a voice he smothered when he was able. Instead, he smiled beside Unity, listening to her so easily give up the information he needed. It was inconvenient that Rose Walker had returned to America, but The Corinthian didn’t mind much.

If she was the key to his permanent freedom, he’d go to the ends of the earth to find her. Daunt’s white form stood before him, bathed in the light from the window, but that light did not touch her. Instead, she dampened it with her presence alone. “What do you fear more, I wonder? Not finding your vortex in time or having her deny you as all others have.”

As he walked out of the old home, he clenched his jaw at her presence beside him. “Answer me, nightmare.” She insisted. “Answer me, betrayer.”

“I’m not scared of anything,” he spat at her. “Not some fuckin kid, not Dream, and certainly not you.”

Laughter echoed around him as the sky grew dark with storm clouds. He turned to face her, to find her gone once again, but before he could even breathe, he felt her cold hand wrap around his neck. Long nails bit into his skin as she leaned in closely and whispered. “You should fear me, dear Corinthian.”

He tore himself away from her, searching for the white maiden in the open streets. “Mine will be the last face you see.”

*

“My lord,” Lucienne called out as she approached with confident steps. “May I help?”

Hunched over the table, he glanced up at her. “Is this everything we have on Rose Walker?”

She nodded. “And Jes Walker. But I shouldn’t think there’s anything in those you don’t already know. Except perhaps-”

“Except perhaps why she was able to wander into my throne room.” Dream sighed. “What do you think? Why did Gault target her brother and not her?”

“Did you read about Unity Kincaid?” She asked, turning away from him to fetch another book. “The day you were imprisoned, there were people all over the world who fell asleep and could not wake up. Unity Kincaid is the sole survivor of what they called the “sleepy sickness.” The day you returned, she woke up.” She set the book down in front of him. “Rose Walker is her great-granddaughter.”

He hummed. “Which would seem to suggest that my absence caused the birth of a vortex.”

“Is that not a possibility?”

“Vortexes are naturally occurring phenomena,” he stated with a smile. “No one knows why they happen. Not even I know. But I do know they are not caused or created. They simply happen.”

Lucienne’s eyes narrowed as she thought about his words. “Then this is all a coincidence? And not an imminent threat?”

Dream sighed. “My instinct says no, but tonight, when Rose Walker sleeps, I shall see it more clearly. May I?”

Lucienne held up a hand to stop him. “There is something else, my lord.”

“What is it?” He asked, reading the way her face tightened as she spoke.

“I know every book in this library,” she began, turning away from him and retrieving something from a nearby shelf. “I know this library and these books and… yet…” she returned, holding a pale book in her hands and offering it to him with a saddened face. “Somehow, this one has been hidden from me for eons. It should not be possible.”

“And yet it is,” he said, gently running his hands along the white bindings, glistening with jeweled leaves of green. On the first page, The Great Tree was illustrated in deep tones of brown and emerald, surrounded by the smaller trees covered in mist. It was almost as if he could feel the leaves beneath his fingertips and the cold mist caressing his skin. It was almost as if this book was alive.

Lucienne looked at the beautiful thing with fondness and apprehension warring in her eyes. “I’ve tried to read it, but it’s… Incoherent.”

“How so?”

“Most of the pages are blank. There appear to be remnants of words written on some, and other pages or paragraphs are perfectly legible. The words, however, make little sense given all that is missing.” She shook her head and sighed. “Only the illustrations remain intact.”

As Dream flipped through the pages, studying the little words scribed here, he stopped at another picture. Daunt, or rather a drawing of her, white amidst a sea of dark colors. His heart felt heavy in his chest the longer he looked. “This will not tell us where she is.”

Lucienne’s soft eyes met his as she spoke, “No, my lord, it won’t. But…"

“What is it, Lucienne?”

“One of the illustrations seems to depict what happened to her… What kept her from reaching you the day she left.” He handed the book to her instantly. If there was a way to learn what befell her on his behalf, he had to see it. He had to know.

The librarian quickly flipped through the pages before holding the book back to him with downcast eyes. There on the red-stained page were three words… Daunts last words. “My dear Corinthian.” The image showed her standing on a bridge, holding his nightmares cheek as The Corinthian pushed his blade into her chest.

Dream drew in a deep breath as The Dreaming rippled with the rage that filled his heart. “The Corinthian…”

Lucienne bowed her head lower. “It is my fault. I should not have given her his location nor asked her to seek him out.”

“No.” He breathed out, tears welling as his finger glided across the worn page. “The fault lies with me. She would not have been vulnerable had I failed my duty to retrieve the nightmare.”

“My lord…” she whispered. “If this image is corrected, then… is Daunt not… dead?”

“No.” Dream looked up at her, meeting her wet eyes with his own. “Death told me she’d not been called to The Forest for Daunt. Daunt herself told us she was lost.”

Lucienne shook her head. “My lord, that… vision… that apparition spoke in naught but riddles. If it was truly Daunt, then she is not in her right mind.”

“Perhaps she is not,” Dream replied solemnly. “But the fact still stands that she lives. She lives, and I will find her if it is the last thing I do in this existence.”

*

That night he accompanied Rose in her dreams to search for Jed Walker and Gault. That night he had the chance to examine the vortex up close. Dream had expected Rose Walker to be impressive, but the way she adapted to her newfound abilities as a Vortex was surprising, even to him. She found her way through the dreams of those closest to her, following his advice and asking questions, seemingly wanting to learn from him. Most impressive was her ability to stay focused through each dream, never losing sight of her purpose within them and never seeking to abuse the power she held. 

She led him to Gault with ease, and once his nightmare was back within his grasp, he ensured she would not be free to defy him again. He did not regret his harsh punishment of the shapeshifter, but he did feel an unpleasant knot form in his stomach after his less-than-kind treatment of Lucienne after the fact. Still, he moved forward. Too much demanded his attention to focus on keeping his realm safe. The notion of that seemed simple enough until a crack appeared in the stained glass window above his throne, and the entire palace shook violently around him. After that, all he could do was watch in horror as the cracks grew before his very eyes.

“Loosh? You in here?” The pumpkin head made a quiet noise of apprehension. “Sorry, boss, I was just looking for Lucienne. See ya.”

“Wait.” He ordered. “Why were you looking for Lucienne?”

“Oh, well, we just had some minor seismic activity and a little, you know, damage I wanted to report.”

“Then why not report it to me?” He asked.

“Uh, because you’re busy?” Mervyn offered. “While you were away, Lucienne started taking care of that stuff, so I figured why bother you when-”

A dark feeling curled around him, nearly squeezing all the air as he said, “Mervyn if The Dreaming has been damaged in any way, I will be the one to address it.”

The floor shook, and the cracks spread throughout the windows and up the stone walls. “Oh, for crying out loud. Do you want me to fix that for you? Or will it just keep happening?”

“It will not keep happening because I will find the cause of the disturbance, and I will eliminate it. Thank you, Mervyn.”

“Uh, you’re welcome,” the handyman replied before turning and hurrying in the opposite direction. 

Dream returned his eyes to the glass as it continued to crack. He would not watch his realm crumble again. The halls shook around him as he made his way to the library with hopes Lucienne would be able to provide him with some information on these tremors. “Lucienne?”

She stood off to the side, re-shelving books with a slightly pensive face. “My lord.”

“I have come to return these.” He handed her the books, their eyes meeting in an awkward stare. “And to assess the extent of the damage from the recent disturbances.” She said nothing, merely watching him as he bent down and picked up a stack of fallen books. “Have you any idea as to what caused them?”

“I assumed it was you, sir,” she said almost coldly.

“Me?”

“Making further improvements to the realm… now that you’re back.” She clarified as she brushed past him.

Dream sighed quietly. “Lucienne, when we last spoke, I did not mean to imply that your efforts beyond the library are without value.”

“Oh?” She questioned, clearly frustrated.

“I merely wish to relieve you of responsibilities with which, had I been here, you would never have been burdened.”

“I see.”

“And in that time, did you experience any… similar seismic disturbances?” he inquired offhandedly, looking at the book he still awkwardly held, only peeking up at her.

I did not.”

“Have you any… theory as to their origin?” He pressed cautiously.

At last, Lucienne set down the stack of books she held and turned to him. “Speaking strictly as a librarian? I do. But you won’t like it.”

“Go on.”

“I know you’re waiting to see if the vortex will lead you to The Corinthian and Fiddler’s Green. The way she led you to Gualt.”

“She may yet still.”

She scoffed. “Yes, but while you’re waiting, she’s putting cracks in the foundation.”

“Rose Walker has visited this realm before and done no damage,” he pointed out. “This is something else, something new.”

“Perhaps, but if there is something new in The Dreaming and you did not create it, how did it get here?” She asked. “This is the vortex. I assure you.”

As soon as he could, Dream found Rose Walker’s dreams and watched her closely as the landscape marred with cracks and the house he’d not built appeared before him. Lyta Hall was indeed pregnant; by the look of it, she and her dead husband had somehow managed to find a way inside his realm in secret. He would be furious. How could he have been so blind? How could he have allowed a vortex to cause such chaos just to aid him in mending his own troubles?

Matthew cawed beside him. “So, what do you think?”

“Tell Lucienne she was right about the source of the tremors.” Dream ordered. “And that I am taking care of it.”

The raven took to the skies quickly as he moved forward, entering the house with ease and staring down the spirit that had found its way here. He knew, without Dream having to say a single word, the spirit knew that his time here was up.

Lyta and Rose entered, laughing with one another. “Hector, look who’s here.”

Both women slowed as they looked at him. Lytas face was drained of the happiness that had been there moments ago, while Rose looked confused. “Lyta, you remember I told you about Lord Morpheus, the King of Dreams?”

“What do you want?”

“He wants us to leave,” the spirit answered.

Rose looked at her dead friend and then back to him. “Why?”

“Because a ghost cannot escape his fate by hiding in The Dreaming. Nor can a living human being escape her grief here.” He shook his head. “Do you not see the damage your presence has done to this realm? I cannot allow you to stay.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“You belong with the dead,” Dream answered. “You must go to the place appointed for you. I’m sorry, but you must say your goodbyes now.”

Lyta exhaled a shaking breath and shook her head. “No. I’m not losing you again.”

The spirit approached her with a sad smile. “I love you so much.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” the woman insisted, pressing a kiss to her lover’s lips. “Get out of our house!”

“Lyta-”

A soft chill stilled the harsh words on his tongue as mist swept across the floor. Dream turned to look at her lithe figure standing in the room with them. Daunt did not acknowledge him or Rose or even Lyta, only the spirit once named Hector. She raised a pale hand, covered in frost and frozen vines, toward him as she whispered, “Come.”

“Hector!” Lyta cried out, taking hold of the spirit’s arm as he began to turn toward the specter.

“She’s here for me.”

“You can’t go with her. You can’t go!” Lyta cried. “I can’t… not again.”

“What is lost will always be found.” Her words were cold, carrying the chill of the mist and frost. Dreams’ heart stuttered at the sound of it. 

“Daunt,” he whispered her name like a desperate prayer, a plea to her. Hear me... Look at me.

Her head turned in his direction, and even from behind the veil that shrouded her face, he could feel her eyes. He almost dropped to his knees then and there in the crumbling dream Lyta Hall, and her dead husband had built, but she turned away from him and once again beckoned the spirit to her.

Hector spared Lyta a look before pressing a kiss to her lips and cradling her round belly in his hands. “Tell the baby I love them. Never let them forget just how much I love them.”

With a weak sob, she nodded. “I won’t, not ever.” She sobbed as she cupped his cheeks. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” the spirit whispered. “Goodbye.”

He turned and lifted his palm into Daunts. A wave of mist and distant wolf howls echoed all around them. Dream took a half step forward at the familiar sounds of The Forest’s call - of Daunt’s call. The spirit let the mist wash over him with a content sigh before he vanished from sight. Rose held her friend closely but never looked away from Daunt as she remained.

“Child born of death and dreams,” Daunt said, her voice echoing like ocean waves. “Evil will seek it out to steal its power.”

“No!” Lyta shouted, turning her head toward the white figure. She shook her head, holding her stomach tighter. “No.”

Rose rubbed her arms. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep them safe.” She looked at Dream desperately. “Right, Dream?”

He was frozen for a moment, still looking at her, before he nodded stiffly and looked at Lyta. “So long as I live, no harm shall befall your child. Not in the Waking World and not in dreams.”

The woman didn’t look convinced, but after a moment, she nodded and eased into Rose’s arms. 

“We are running out of time,” Daunt said to him.

“Then help me,” he pleaded. “Open your realm and let me in.”

She tilted her head. “Only you hold the power to do so, Dream of The Endless.”

“What do you mean?”

“My realm was never closed to you,” she answered.

Dream sighed, stepping closer to her. “I do not understand.”

Daunt lifted a frozen hand to his face, her thin fingers traced over his eyes. “You do not need to understand. You only need to see.”

Mist slid through his fingers and smoother gently across his cheek. Gone again from him, the crumbling dream was all that remained. The two looked sad when he turned back to Lyta Hall and Rose Walker. Sad for him. Lytas’ eyes held an understanding beneath her deep anger and loss. Rose spoke, “Who was she?”

“An immortal being,” Dream answered simply. “One that is not your concern.”

“You care for her.”

A painful longing exploded within him as he turned away from them and said, “This dream is over.”

When he finished repairing the damage to his realm, he sought Lucienne out. Matthew would have already delivered his message, but Dream owed his librarian an apology. “Lucienne?”

“My lord. There’s something I must tell you,” she said as she hurried out from around the corner.

“And I will listen. But, first, you must let me tell you that… you were right.” He said softly, noticing immediately how her eyes looked up at him with light and hope renewed inside them. “The vortex was responsible for the damage to our realm, and I was… wrong to risk our safety in the hope that she would locate the missing Arcana.”

“You were not entirely wrong, sir. She’s found them both.”

“What? The Corinthian and Fiddler’s Green? Where? How do you know?”

“Fiddler’s Green told me.” She looked over to the shelves at the man… at Fiddler’s Green as he emerged from behind the racks.

He bowed. “Apologies, lord, for having left.”

“Why?” He asked, desperate to understand what he’d done wrong. “Why did you leave? I trusted you. You were the heart of The Dreaming.”

“No, sir. You were the heart of The Dreaming. And you were gone. I was curious. And it turns out that life as a human contains substance I never even imagined when I was here.” He sounded so vibrant. “Which is why I’ve returned because… he’s murdering them.”

“The Corinthian?” It wasn’t shocking to learn of his nightmare’s recklessness.

Fiddler’s Green nodded, face twisting in disgust. “He appears to have built up a cult of worshipers who kill for pleasure, endangering the Waking World and the life of a friend called Rose Walker.”

“The Corinthian has found Rose Walker?”

“Yes.”

Lucienne shook her head. “Can you imagine the damage he could do with someone like Rose?”

“You must tell me where they are.”

*

The Corinthian stood at the podium, delivering a confident and proud speech inspiring the room of pathetic and deluded humans to imagine their atrocities. Dream stood in the aisle, watching his creation with ill-tempered rage swimming in his chest. The nightmare noticed him quickly but did not stop his speech until he’d finished. Always doing things on his own terms, Dream thought silently, for a brief moment admiring the determination he had forged. But was it not that determination that led him to plunge that knife into Daunt’s chest? To betray the one he called friend?

“You disappoint me, Corinthian,” Dream said through tight lips. “You and these humans you’ve inspired and created… disappoint me.”

His words visibly struck his creation as he bared his teeth. “I’ve done my best to be what you made me.”

“No,” he replied with a slight chuckle as he walked toward the stage. “You’ve done your worst, which was in so many ways what I had hoped. You were my masterpiece. A dark mirror made to reflect everything humanity will not confront.”

“That’s what I am,” The Nightmare nodded, straightening his back as he turned to face his creator. “That’s what I’ve done.”

“No. Look at you, walking this Earth for over a century infecting others with your joy of death, but what have you given them? What have you wrought?” His anger began to seep into his words. “Nothing. Just something else for people to be afraid of. That is all.”

The Corinthian scoffed, cocking his head ever so slightly. “So what now? You send me back into their dreams?” He pulled a knife from his jacket, a knife not unlike the one he’d used on Daunt, and shook his head. “Cause I won’t go willingly.”

“A knife against a dream?” His voice was dark wind and shadow as he stepped towards his creation slowly.

“You don’t think dreams can die? Let’s find out.” The Corinthian insisted.

Dream held his hand out, drawing upon his power. “Enough.” The sand moved at his feet as The Corinthian stabbed his knife into his outstretched hand. The pain startled him back and to his knees as he looked down at the wound. “How?”

“I’ve got Rose Walker getting stronger every second while you get weaker,” The nightmare said with a wide grin. “She’s taking your place at the center of The Dreaming. She’s bringing the walls down between the sleepers’ minds, and now they’re all dreaming the same dream. A dream that I inspired.”

“No.”

“It’s already happening. There’s nothing you can do. She’s asleep and dreaming.”

“Then she’s not beyond my reach.”

The Corinthian shrugged. “Oh, I think she is. Now that she knows you’re planning to kill her.”

Dream pushed himself into the horrific visions molding together just as she and her brother turned towards him. “You need to wake up!”

“Don’t listen to him, Rosebud. You’re the one with the power now, not him. This is your dream.”

“It’s his dream for your world,” Dream corrected.

The Corinthian smiled at Rose. “Then let’s make it yours. Whatever you want, Rose. A blank canvas!”

The dreams of her brother and the other humans vanished, and Rose’s eyes went wide with fear. “Where’s Jed?”

“Jed’s fine. He’s upstairs, asleep, he’s right next to you. This dream is yours now. The Dreaming is yours now!”

“The Dreaming is yours? Is that what he told you?” Dream demanded coldly.

Rose looked up at him, confusion evident in her eyes. “He told me you were gonna kill me.”

“Did he tell you why? When a vortex brings down the walls between dreams, she creates a single volatile dream that will collapse in upon itself, and take the waking world with it. Your world. Everything and everyone will die.”

The Corinthian bent down to Rose’s ear. “Don’t believe him, Rosie.”

“It’s happened before. I failed in my duty, an entire universe was lost.”

“He can’t kill you if you kill him first.”

“Killing me may save your life, but it won’t save the lives of those you love.”

“I’m tryin’ to keep you alive here!” The nightmare growled, the playful mask he bore slipping at last.

“I’m trying to keep your world alive,” Dream argued.

The Corinthian growled, “You have to choose one of us, Rose!”

“Enough!” She shouted above their noise, waves of power rolling off her and amplifying her voice. Rose Walker looked to The Corinthian. “If I’m as powerful as you say I am, then I will find my own way. In the meantime, the walls go back up.” She lifted her hand, willing the walls between the dreams to return.

A loud groaning sound echoed all around them as the mist began to overtake the room. Rose drifted back closer to Dream as everything around them changed. “What is this? What’s happening?”

Trees, gnarled and dripping with blood, surrounded them as dark figures moved in the woods, and all manner of noises surrounded them. The tree roots wound around The Corinthian’s limbs as The Nightmare tried to take a step back from the figure in white that now stood at the treeline. “Daunt.”

Dream wanted to reach out to her, to speak to her, anything, but Daunt was not herself. Her blood-covered form was no more than mist and bitter frost. Instead, Dream took hold of Rose’s arm and pulled her behind him. “At last,” Daunt said softly, but her voice sounded anything but. “You have come to see the damage caused by your hands.”

The roots of the trees began to squeeze the nightmare tightly. He groaned as his bones began to creak beneath the wood. “This is still your dream Rose.”

The figure in white turned her head, and ice crept along Dream’s form under her gaze. “No.”

Rose shivered from behind him and quickly uttered the words she’d heard him say, “This dream is over.”

“NO!” Daunt screamed, lunging forward as the dream vanished.

Standing back in the hotel, his nightmare breathed a relieved breath and stood once again as Dream looked down at his now-healed hand. His nightmare removed the dark shades that shielded the rows of teeth from view. That anger that filled him became unbearable as he looked over at the nightmare with watering eyes. “She trusted you, loved you, and you betrayed her.”

The Corinthian sneered. “You, of all people, have no right to judge me, Dream. After all, you drove her away in the first place! If you think I’m going back to The Dreaming with you-”

The floorboards beneath their feet began to tremble and crack. Mist filled the room as tall trees tore through the floors, and The Forest started to bleed into the Waking World. The Corinthian looked around him with stoic features as roots quickly began overtaking everything in the room. Standing in the crowd, Daunt breathed heavily, the veil gone, revealing her bleeding chest and wide eyes. “You do not get to leave me again, Corinthian.”

“Daunty,” the nightmare said softly. Roots twined around him as she walked up the stage and past Dream to stand in front of his rouge creation, the creation that had betrayed her.

“Have you any idea what it was like?” She demanded. “Knowing all this time that it was you that plunged the blade into my heart. That you… my friend… would doom me to this.”

For the first time, Dream could see the sorrow and pain in the nightmares eyes as he looked up at Daunt. “I’m sorry.”

A sob escaped her throat as everything in the room grew colder. “LIAR!”

The roots stabbed through The Corinthian in various places, digging deep into his body. He took it all with a sheer grit of his teeth, never looking away from Daunt as she stepped closer to him, a blade… the blade poised in her hands and pressed against The Corinthian’s chest. “Do it.” He told her. “I deserve it.”

Dream moved closer to her, ignoring the way it stung his skin. “Daunt…”

“No,” The Corinthian told him. “Do it, Daunty. Finish me.”

 “Was it worth it?” She demanded, her gaze shifting to the humans that sat in the crowded room. “Was all this worth it?”

“The only thing I regret is what I did to you,” The Corinthian said carefully.

“Regret?” She questioned, deathly quiet. “You do not know regret… not nearly enough to satisfy me.”

“Daunt,” Dream called out, hoping to pull her from the darkness that echoed in her words.

The blade flashed in the dim light as she drove it through The Corinthians ribs, twisting it as she knelt down, leaning her head closer to the nightmare and listening to his pained noises. “Look into my eyes, betrayer. Look and see what you wrought.”

He seemed to shake the longer he met Daunt’s gaze, the stoic features of his face twisting into pain and sorrow. The trees closest to her caught fire, and the sounds of fear and screaming. “Daunt…”

“You did this!” She screamed, tearing the blade from his ribs and stabbing him again.

The Corinthian bowed his head, pulling the blade from his flesh and holding it out to her. “Please.”

A sharp and pained scream echoed around Dream as Daunt fell back slightly, holding her chest as the wound began to bleed once more. She sobbed quietly, holding her hands to blood and crying as she looked to The Corinthian. “I trusted you…”

“I didn’t mean for this,” he whispered. “I didn’t…”

Daunt wept, “I cannot kill you, dear Corinthian. No matter how much you deserve it. Our fates are sealed, yours and mine.”

The Corinthian’s lips quivered as he looked back up at Dream. “Finish it, Dream.”

His voice was low, nearly hoarse, as he spoke, “I brought you into this world to serve humanity. Not to feed upon it.”

“I do it to taste what it’s like to be human.” The Corinthian admitted. “You don’t care about humanity, none of them. You can’t even bring yourself to care about her. You only care about yourself and your realm and your rules.”

“I contain the entire collective unconscious. Without my rules, it would consume me. Humanity would be consumed.”

“Or you might actually feel something. I am not the problem, Dream.”

With a look to Daunt, whose form slowly began to be overtaken with frost, he replied, “You are right. This was my fault, not yours. I had so much hope for you, but I created you poorly then. So I must uncreate you now.”

The sand swirled, glowing red as it ate away at his masterpiece. Daunt lifted her hand to his cheek, and he looked down at her as the last remnants of him faded. The Corinthian smiled at her, a soft smile, one he’d never known the nightmare to show before now. “Yours is the last face I will see.”

Daunt held the tiny skull of his nightmare in her bloodstained hand, standing slowly and turning to face him. More blood streamed down her cheeks as she cried tears of red. She placed the skull in his hand, and she whispered before he could even utter a word. “Find us, Dream. Please.”

And just as suddenly as she’d appeared, Daunt was gone again from his sight. His hand curled around the skull as he turned to the crowd of his creation’s flawed inspiration and shook his head. “And you… who call yourselves collectors, until now you have sustained fantasies in which you are the victims, comforting daydreams in which you are always right. But no more. The dream is over. I have taken it away. For this is my judgment upon you, that you shall know from this moment on exactly how craven and selfish and monstrous you are. That you shall feel the pain of those you have slaughtered. And the grief of those that mourn them still, and you shall carry that pain and grief and guilt with you until the end of time.”

They all rose from their seats and walked, dazed, out of the room. Dream looked around him at the lack of trees, mist, and all Daunt had brought with her. He closed his eyes and silently swore he would find her.

*

Rose Walker was not only the vortex but the child with the blood of an Endless. A child born of his sibling’s games. As soon as Dream had laid eyes on the dark heart she’d pulled from her chest and given to Unity Kincaid, he knew it. With a swiftness powered by his rage alone, Dream entered his gallery and grabbed the heart on the wall. “Desire. I stand in my gallery, and I hold your sigil. Talk to me.”

The faint image of his sibling’s wide red grin shinned from within the stone. “Why, sweet Dream. This is a surprise. Almost an event, I might say.”

“Good. I’m coming through,” he bit out through clenched teeth.

“You are?” They questioned, a slight pitch of fear entering their voice before they chuckled. “But of course. You know you’re always welcome in my chambers.”

The glossy red of Desire’s realm was hideous. He’d forgotten how much he detested the vivid color and how pungent the sickeningly sweet smell of summer peaches was. Dream took slow, deliberate steps closer to his sibling, who lounged in a chair in their gallery. “Lovely to see you,” they purred. “Can I get you anything you desire?”

“I desire nothing from you save some answers,” he replied tensely.

“Ooh, is this a test?”

“Unity Kincaid should’ve been the vortex of this era. But someone took advantage of my imprisonment and fathered a child with her, knowing full well that it would become the vortex, and I would be forced to kill it.”

Desire’s smile widened. “Was I really that obvious?”

“No,” Dream answered, circling them. “You covered your tracks remarkably well.”

“Well, that’s high praise coming from you.”

“What did you truly intend? That I should spill family blood? With all that would entail?”

They laughed. “This time, it almost worked.”

It was no secret that he and Desire loathed one another, but Dream hadn’t thought they would stoop to such drastic whims to see him dead. With a scoff, he shook his head. “My sibling, we of the Endless are the servants of the living, not their masters. We exist only because they know deep in their hearts that we exist. We do not manipulate them. If anything, they manipulate us.” Standing behind them now, his voice lowered, threatening and dark. “And you and Despair, and even poor Deliruim would do well to remember that.” He pulled their head back by their light hair and looked deep into the golden eyes that now flared with anger and fear. “Mess with me or mine again, and I shall forget you are family. Do you believe yourself strong enough to stand against me? Against Death? Against Destiny?”

“No,” they said in a trembling tone.

“Remember that next time you’re inspired to interfere in my affairs,” he whispered to them as his eyes trailed away from their golden irises to the red bitemarks that marred their hand. His hands tightened in their hair. “Where did you get those marks?”

“Is it not obvious, big brother?” They sneered with a smile. “Our lovely Mistake sends her regards.”

“What have you done with her?”

Desire’s smile widened. “So predictable, big brother.”

Anger laced deep into his voice. “What did you do?”

“I merely gave her what she always wanted.” Their golden eyes flared. “An end to her pitiful excuse of an existence.”

“You would dare to raise a hand against her?”

Desire scoffed. “She is no Endless. She is a Mistake. One that refused to see reason.”

“Where is she?”

“Right where I left her,” they answered. “In that pathetic little forest of hers with that stupid mutt.”

“How did you find it?”

Desire’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, you still haven’t been to see her? How sad. From what I hear, she doesn’t have much time left.”

Dream released their hair, practically throwing them forward as he turned and strode back down the hall he’d arrived in. “If Daunt dies, I will be back for your head.”

“Give her my best,” they called after him. “She looked rather ill when I last saw her.”

Daunt was alive, he reminded himself. She was alive, and he would find her. He would not lose her again.

*

It had been weeks since he’d finished his business with the Vortex and Desire. Months and still, there had been nothing to help him find her. He scoured every book and dream, desperately searching every corner he could reach for her to no avail. The ember of hope he’d held all this time slowly began to dwindle as the days passed… as he grew closer and closer to facing the horrible reality that he’d failed her.

Matthew had followed him to Fiddler’s Green, as the bird was known to do now that he was no longer shadowing Rose Walker, making comments on his incredibly sullen behavior, but Dream didn’t care enough to answer him. Instead, as he stood among the green fields and the flowers and the memories of their moonlit dances and conversations, Dream cared about nothing else but her. He wanted to see her again, to hold her in his arms and to beg for her forgiveness… to tell her, the real her, that he loved her and that he had for quite some time.

He stared out at the peaceful meadow for a moment longer before turning to leave. There was nothing for him here. Or was there? He halted almost instantly at the sight of white standing in the trees in front of him. The white stag stood between two large trees, watching Dream. Matthew looked over to where his master was staring and quietly asked, “What’s that thing?”

“A creature I thought had long abandoned this realm,” Dream answered as the stag turned away and began walking into the forest. Something inside him forced his feet to move, to follow the creature into the dark woods.

“Oh! So we’re following the weird lookin thing?” Matthew cawed loudly, taking to the sky to fly after them.

The trees grew closer and closer together, and darkness began to make it difficult to follow the creature forward. Mist rolled over Dream’s boots, and a chill seared his skin, forcing him to halt. This was not Fiddlers Green. This was nothing of his realm. “The Forest.”

A few steps ahead of him, the stag looked back and huffed, its breath visible in the frozen air, before it continued forward, stepping over the gnarled roots. Dream moved, too, a newfound desperation in his steps as they emerged from the thick trees into a small glen of frozen moss. Death and blood hung in the air all around them. The hollow resembled that which he’d seen in the short dream Daunt had influenced.

The stag took a half-step forward, a small frozen twig snapping beneath one of its hoofs. The sound echoed far louder than it should have, filling the silence with it. A heartbeat passed before a black shadow lunged out of the trees and dug its claws into the stag’s back, clawing and biting until the poor creature collapsed and its blood coated the white ground. Dream stood perfectly still as the beast tore into the stag’s flesh and devoured the steaming meat.

“Holy shit,” Matthew breathed from a branch beside Dream. The beast’s head turned, revealing two grey eyes locking onto Dream. It turned, claws clutching the stag’s body tightly, and let out a loud screech. Blood and spit coated its sharp teeth as its foul breath wafted to Dream’s nose.

The beast gave little to no warning before it pounced, claws tearing out of the carcass and slicing through the air as it made its way toward him, ready and willing to take the killing blow. White shot out through the forest, slamming into the black creature and forcing it onto the other side of the clearing. Growls and barks echoed through the trees before suddenly all grew silent. Matthew flew down from his perch, hopping toward the stag cautiously. “Where the fuck are we?”

Before Dream could answer the birds’ quiet question, the white blur returned. It leaped from nowhere and pinned Matthew to the snowy ground by a wing. The bloodstained teeth of the white wolf, marred with scars both old and new, chomped as he raised his head to look up at Dream. One eye was blue, crystal, and starry, while the other was faded gray and scarred. “What manner of demon are you?”

[zero-to-zero-to-zero-again]

Pest Problem (1)

Word Count: 496

Tw: Foul language, threats of violence

Just a silly little snippet to see if mcyt g/t Tumblr is still alive

Ranboo wished he could say he was surprised to see the tiny person sitting on top of his fridge. He missed the days when the sight of a being no larger than his middle finger was one that would fill him with awe. After being subjected to the presence of this particular person for a little less than a month, the only thing he felt was a twinge of irritation whenever he caught so much as a glimpse of the boy.

He folded his arms across his chest.

“Do I want to know what you’re doing up there?” he asked.

The boy on the fridge took an excruciatingly long pause to finish chewing the chunk he’d just ripped from the saltine cracker nearly half his size.

“I’m not really here. I’m a ghost who haunts people with shitty snacks.”

Ranboo huffed a long sigh.

“I can see you, Tubbo.”

“Prime. It must be a sign. Someone from the beyond is trying to send you a message. Yes, I hear them now. They tell me that your lack of cookies is nothing short of deplorable. Your ancestors are so disappointed,” the borrower informed him before taking another bite of his cracker. Crumbs cascaded down to the floor like a waterfall.

Ranboo grimaced at the pile of cracker debris on the freshly polished hardwood. His disgust only grew when he discovered it was only one of many mountains of crumbs scattered about the floor.

“Did you turn off the Roomba again?” he inquired. He was fairly certain he already knew the answer.

“It tried to eat me,” Tubbo replied simply.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Don’t ask me questions while I’m chewing,” the boy countered.

Ranboo growled in frustration. He swiped a coaster off the island.

“I will knock you off there.”

He waved the coaster around pointedly in the air. Just to ensure the threat came across as seriously as he meant it to.

Tubbo grinned from ear to ear.

“You tease.”

For a second, Ranboo really did consider pitching the square of cork straight at the little menace’s head. With his track record in ultimate frisbee, there was no doubt in his mind that he could throw it with deadly accuracy. But, of course, he didn’t. He dropped the coaster down onto the counter with another groan. A splattered borrower would be far more difficult to clean off the floor than a few crumbs.

“I can see my house from here,” Tubbo remarked.

“It’s my house,” Ranboo amended.

Tubbo only shrugged.

“To-may-toe, po-ta-toe, man. Mi casa…”

The homeowner stood there a moment in silence. After leaving plenty of time for the boy to finish his expression.

“Su casa,” he finally finished for the borrower.

“See, I knew you’d come around.”

It took Ranboo far too long to realize what he’d been duped into saying. The mental exhaustion was like a fog. He could hardly even bother to react with the appropriate amount of irritation. He figured it was likely best to let the little guy make his mess now and return later to clean it up. All he could do was pray that he could get to it before the mice did.

[siambre]

Are you safe from the earthquake? Was worried about you. Hope you are well.

hi, thank you for your concern. my family and i are alright. mentally, however, we're devastated. i don't personally know anyone who died, but i have friends who lost their whole families.

entire cities are gone. wiped off the map in 2 minutes. thousands have died, thousands will follow. the news will say 10 thousand, 15 thousand have perished. it's much more than that. so much more.

from the moment i heard about the earthquake, i've been thinking of the thousands of people stuck under the rubble. they're injured, starving, dehydrated, and breathing in dust. we're in the middle of a snow storm. those people are freezing to death. in places where it's raining, they're drowning.

i'm feeling so many emotions i can't name them all. i'm grieving thousands of people i don't know the names of. i keep seeing videos of mothers, fathers, children digging into the rubble with bare hands. their screams are haunting me. i'm terrified of a similar earthquake happening in Istanbul. scientists have been warning for it for decades — and since Istanbul is our financial capital and the most populated city in the country, that earthquake will be our downfall. not only that, but i've experienced some huge earthquakes myself. the thought of going through that, but everything being a million times worse is petrifying. i'm angry, so fucking angry at the government for not taking any precautions against disasters like this. this country is sitting on top of 3 separate fault lines. we experience 6+ magnitude earthquakes on the regular. we should be prepared for this. there's no reasonable answer as to why so many innocent lives have been lost. look at Japan. they've had a 9 magnitude earthquake, and not a single building collapsed. you know why? because they're actually aware that they're vulnerable to earthquakes, so they took appropriate actions against it. WHY AREN'T WE DOING THIS? WHY DID SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE? so many families, dead or torn apart forever. all so that greedy contractors can cut down on costs by using less and worse quality materials, sell the houses for 3-4 times their worth, and pocket all the extra money. the government knows about them. of course it does. they're voting for the govt, that's how they attain their immunity from justice. i'm so fucking sick and tired of the corruption. the government didn't send search and rescue teams to provinces who voted against it. where's your humanity, your conscience? how could you turn a blind eye to the victims? how can you be so heartless? can you not hear the screams for help coming from beneath the mountains of rubble? how can you sleep on your warm bed, knowing you left thousands of innocent souls to die, buried under their homes and snow?

and you know what the worst part about this is? this exact scenario happened before. in 1999, a similar earthquake in a different region of the country killed 40.000. we've learned nothing from it. we still build graves and sell them to unsuspecting families. the govt introduced an earthquake tax after 99, specifically to prepare for these sorts of situations, yet look at us now. we're relying on each other and foreign governments' aids. where did all the collected tax go? especially in the last couple of years, many people no longer have enough money to feed themselves. who did those people make rich this time?

i'm crying as i type this. out of sorrow or anger, i don't know. it's all i've seem to be doing for the past few days. i've donated all of my clothes i don't wear, donated food, will donate blood the moment i can. i can't eat, knowing so many can't. i can't sleep, knowing so many can't get a wink of sleep while waiting helplessly for their families' corpses to be dug out. i feel guilty for having a warm place to stay, to wear clothes that keep me from freezing, for having to continue living my day-to-day life. i feel ashamed for having fleeting moments of happiness.

i don't fucking care anymore. i don't care if the govt will trace this back to me and throw me in jail. my only hope is that the its supporters will finally wake up to reality following this catastrophe. i hope the new govt will learn their lessons and build safer homes.

as for you anon, this probably wasn't the answer you were expecting. i just have so much pent-up frustration, it has to come out somewhere. i can't sit still and say nothing while the president continues to destroy my country. in short: yes, i'm physically well. thank you.

[hlcynsouls]

& FOR HALLOWEEN JULIAN → @violentdesires CHOSE FOR CAMILLA :

👾 — a scare attempt ! ( this one once again got away from me , apologies hsdgfs )

AFTER SEVERAL MILLENNIA , it's not easy to get got her . camilla can count on one hand the number of things that actually scare her , and only one might might be reasonably provoked and appropriately timed in some way . ( well , two , but — she's absolutely not going there , mentally . not today . ) and his grumpiness may want some ( well-earned , in fairness ) revenge for her recent bugging — but he's not mean . at least not to her . ( she thought . ) safe to say , camilla expected some shit when he invited her over for halloween . the entrance door opening by itself ? fun , but cheesy . the eerie quiet ? empty hallways ? flickering lights ? great for the gothic castle vibes . the scratching below the antique floorboards ? at least tells her where to go , so she decides to go along with whatever practical joke this is . " hello? " she draws out the last vowel . " anybody home ? " an answer is not expected , and merely comes in the form of a squeaky door opening at the end of the hall . " ... cute . "

THE sitting room is empty and nothing seems out of place from the last time she was here . she tries a few potential candidates for jump scares — the mirror , the fireplace , a few cabinets — but nothing . the only new addition to the room is a little elf doll with a plastic head and a speaker in its wide , cheerful grin . camilla picks it up and finds a little string attached to it — upon pulling , it releases a tinny giggle , but doesn't do anything else of note . aaaalrighty . she gently puts it back into place for the next unsuspecting haunted house visitor , and moves on , guided by scratching and the occasional rumble . all the rooms she's being lead to are the same — unchanged , with the addition of the little elf doll . camilla wonders out loud if julian got them at a factory outlet or some shit , but once again receives no answer .

ONLY after a good while of this does the complete silence start to bother her — shouldn't he be bored by now ? she'd have expected more ... taunting , sort of . commentary , maybe . just something ... more . it can't be that fun to watch her waltz through his place with a frown and an attitude , from wherever her friend must be lurking . " not that i'm not happy about my own personal horror film , but this is getting boring . it's a nice try , but how about we go get some pizza instead ? " the demon waits a moment for an exasperated sigh and acquiescence to her wishes , but once again , no dice . fine . but if this was a horror movie , no one would bother waiting for the second act any longer .

THE wine ( slash blood ) cellar seems a good bet for whatever might be the next stage , though . the lights don't work here at all , and camilla moves a few steps down before turning on the flashlight on her phone . it's full — and she means full — of the creepy elf dolls . sitting on every shelf , on the floor , in between bottles of wine and blood . suddenly , one starts cackling — and then like a chain reaction , they all do . it's a creepy cacophony of squeaks , and okay , fine , camilla can admit ... it weirds her out . it's not scary , but distinctly uncomfortable in an almost exciting way . her pulse spikes ; she gets the nice tingles a good horror movie causes . on the same beat , the dolls fall silent — it makes the thump ! of the door falling shut behind her echo thrice as loud . tense anticipation runs through her ( okay , now what ? ) and despite expecting something , she is not prepared when she takes a step and suddenly something cold wraps around her ankle in the dark .

A high screech — more shock than fear , she'd insist — followed immediately by a surprised laugh , followed by : " fuck you , " directed at the sin's grinning face between the stairs .

[sal-9000]

Leaving the house she'd been squatting in had been easy enough for Balit. She'd spent the day filing down her horns and applying just enough makeup to appear human, but not so much that she would look like she was wearing makeup. If her ability to maintain her appearance slipped during stabtag, then it seemed almost inevitable that it would for the expedition she had ahead of her. Next was an old dress she'd taken from another abandoned house a few years back, which would fit in much better than any of her normal bright pink clothes would be. With her appearance dealt with, all she had left was to swap out her normal phone for the burner that wouldn't have any potentially important information on it. Sure, she'd promised to be careful and avoid going missing, but it was still best to take precautions.

She headed out the door once she had everything she could need, waving to the camera as she passed just in case Treekat happened to be watching. It wasn't too far to the closest transportalizer, and it was simple enough to slip inside of the home of whomever actually owned it. Once she was standing in front of it though, she hesitated. Did she really want to do this? It had been so long since she'd ever considered the world she was from as her home, but somehow it also felt all too much like her home. A home that she never thought she'd be able to escape from, and yet was about to return to. She didn't owe this to anyone, and no one would know any the wiser if she turned back now and said she wasn't able to find anything. But she had already hated all of the aspects of her existence that her demonhood brought, and the newer unpredictability of it only served to make her hyperaware of it all. Plus, maybe she'd finally get the answers she'd been seeking from the angel for most of her existence.

When she snapped back into her old world, she felt... Nothing. It seemed like there should be some monumental seismic shift in her very personhood, but it didn't feel any different than traveling to Texas, or the forest, or whatever abandoned house was her latest haunt. So she stepped forward, hoping all of her triangulations were correct and that the church she was looking for was straight ahead of her. She had left her cane behind, not wanting the additional attention it might draw, and stumbled when she encountered the first step up into the building. It was slow going to make her way up them, but she concentrated on counting how many there were and how tall they seemed to be. They weren't too tall, and there were seven of them. Because of *course* there'd be seven.

From there it was a few more shuffles to the door. She reached out and ran her fingers over the intricate woodwork that had since been weathered down, but pulled her hand away just as fast at the itching sensation that seemed to blossom under her skin. She wasn't the same girl she'd been the last time she'd been here. So she nudged the door open with her foot to avoid further direct contact, and couldn't help the shudder as she stepped inside. Every aspect of her being was screaming at her to LEAVE, but Balit had always prided herself on her stubbornness. She operated on muscle memory, slowly walking forward until she could slide into the fourth pew from the altar. She ducked her head down in feigned prayer, knowing perfectly well that the late hour didn't necessarily mean no one else was around. And sure enough, she could hear the sound of steps coming from the opposite direction of the main entrance, although it had been long enough that she was no longer able to remember what might lay ahead.

She waited until the steps sounded as if the individual had entered the nave, then added another minute or so to demonstrate her supposed solemnity. After what had hopefully been an appropriate enough amount of time to wait, she just barely raised her eyes and called out "Hello? Father?" in as timid of a voice as she could manage without laughing.

After a beat of silence, a man's voice responded "Hello my child, what brings you here so late?"

Well, it was time to put on the charm. Balit raised her eyes just to the left of where the voice seemed to have come from, then flitted them just to the right, and then centered and slightly down towards where she hoped his mouth would be.

"I'm sorry if I woke you father, I made the journey from a long way away and have only just made it here. I've come because I've learned that the church may have some books written by an ancestor of mine, and I was hoping to learn more about him... I believe he was a theologian, but his name has been lost to time."

The priest hummed in thought, and all Balit could do was hope that she hadn't put herself through all of this just to get kicked out. But after what seemed like an eternity, the man finally responded.

"Well we have a number of books here, so I don't know if I can help you based on that information alone. Would you happen to know what he studied?"

At that, Balit ducked her head to conceal the upward twitch of the corner of her mouth. Some things had changed plenty since she'd last been welcomed into a holy space without false pretenses, but the gullibility seemed to have remained the same.

"He would have written on

- Casing place while talking to priest

- Leaving to come back later to steal shit

- Symptoms start to flare

- Ignore symptoms, reenter after nightfall to steal them (determine nightfall from insects or??)

- Make a break for it

- Ugly soulcrushing allergy attack

- Flee to Fk's old apartment (curl up and feel small)

[raesnovelsblog]

Synopsis from IMDB:

It's been eight years since the opening night tragedy of Hell House, LLC and still many unanswered questions remain. Thanks to an anonymous tip, investigative journalist Jessica Fox is convinced that key evidence is hidden inside the abandoned Abaddon Hotel-evidence that will shed light on the hotel's mysteries. She assembles a team equally hungry for answers with one goal: break into the hotel and discover the truth.

My review

Solid sequel. Follows the formula of the first one, but deviates slightly. Love the additional information about the crew from the first Hell House movie. The acting was weaker in this one for me. Not horrible, but a noticeable difference. Still a solid found footage movie with creepy clowns.  Clowns will never not be terrifying.

Rating : 7/10

How does it treat…

Women? Pretty well. They have agency and aren’t there just to be tortured or saved.

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Yes. No relationships are discussed. 

How long till a women speaks? 33 seconds

Relationships? Treated fairly.

Sex? N/A

LGBTQia+? N/A

Minorities? N/A

Older People? Seen, but not demonized because they’re old.

Mental Health? Mentioned, but not a plot point.

Kids? N/A

Animals? N/A

Tone

Was it fun? Kind of.  

Was it worth it? Yes, but only so much as to complete a trilogy.

Rewatchability? Not as much as the first one.

Gore level? Minor. The blood budget is less than the first one.

Cliches

Tired? 

Appropriate? Yes

Subverted?

Spoilerly thought beyond this. You have been warned.

Notes

That dude is way too old to be playing the character the mom is describing.

The ghosts are better at new technologies than I am.

They mastered text messages faster than my parents.

That piano tune is still creepy.

I’ve watched too many true crime shows because that reporters' intro shots are spot on.

Brock Davies!? Perfect douchie name for a medium.

Woman in the blue is not great at first. She kept looking at the camera. Her character knows she’s being filmed, but it still.

That’s a lot of police resources to keep a police car out front everyday. 

“Not a trained professional paranormal investigator.”  How does one go about becoming a professional paranormal investigator? Do you have to take classes?  Is there a test?  A certificate at the end?

Putting a rock against the door to keep it open is one of the smartest things in all of these movies.

Seeing a random person standing on the stairs and then not immediately leaving, is not smart. Although I think it was supposed to be a ghost thing.

Random latin on the wall trope, check.

Heard a noise and went to investigate, check.  The door was open. It could be an animal or a homeless person.

Do not stop to pick up a hitchhiker.  Just don’t.

What are the ghost rules?  They were just in the house. Now they’re on the side of the road luring people in? Well, I guess Sarah did lure them back to the hotel in the first movie. At least they’re consistent. 

Don’t go after her.  The place is creepy and that woman isn’t right.  If you’re that worried, call for help. You don’t follow her into the abandoned haunted place.

The teen in the booth next to the weird dancing couple is staring directly at the camera.

Don’t give Molly shit about not wanting to go inside. 

They’re searching for a way in, but every other person has just sauntered in through a wide open door.

Don’t trust that wood piece in the door. Looks like it would slip out.

Why did Brock need to go to Abaddon with the film crew? He could have gone whenever?

Old timey portraits of children are inherently unnerving.

Random nooses equal get the fuck out.

The evil clown mannequins are back.

“Grab a box and start digging.” - Nope.  You take those boxes outside and read them out in the daylight like smart people.

The pan to the woman staring at them is a great example of simple scares being highly efficient.

You’ve put a time limit on your excursion into the basement. Why waste time reading the menu?

Creepy clown walking around - world of nope.

Sending the guy by himself? These people don’t watch horror movies and it shows.

Ghosts can impersonate people now?  These technological ghosts are impressive.

She’s fighting him on leaving. He warned you multiple times that they might all have to leave at a moment’s notice. Why are they acting surprised when he insists you leave?

Fuck Brock. He’s a grown man that you didn’t even want to come along.

Fuck that clown. He’s creepy AF. Just that slow movement was all I needed to send chills down my spine.

Mitchell, you've been smart up till now. Don’t stop now.

All that ghost women did was blink.  I would have run away too.

Theorizing the ghosts were compelling Alex to stay in the hotel fits. 

Are they in a room with no windows? Why not go out the window? If there isn’t a window, that’s a major safety violation.

Ghosts fucking with them on the walkie talkie, chef kiss.

So who supposedly is filming the meeting with Alex? Maybe the ghosts are trying to start their own reality show.

Why is he writing on those tapes with a dry erase marker?

That thing at the door looks like an off brand Leather Face.

Now the ghosts are leaving notes? But you were doing so well with the tech.

Molly’s with the clowns now.  Her sacrifice was worthy.  You move the fuck along.

The wall breaking open to show the lake of fire was okay. CGI is not their friend.

But that clown slowly moving towards them is.

Mentioned Russell Wynn. Set up the 3rd movie in the 2nd one. Good for them.

So did the ghosts cause the accident involving the real Arnold?

Arnold being Andrew Tulley was great.

“Pick up the camera.” They really want their own show.

Anytime you bring religion into it, the fright factor goes up.

Should have let the clown have Molly.  Now she dies slowly from a stab to the abdomen. 

So was Tulley trolling the internet looking for gullible people to send Hell House information too? How many other people have they contacted?

Killing her off camera is more effective than showing the murder.

Were the ghosts true to their word? Did they let Mitchell leave after he made his choice?

Anytime someone in a horror movie says “Do you trust me?” the automatic answer should be no.

[miaikon]

I was exposed to a lot of not-age-appropriate media during my childhood in the 80s/ 90s. Anyone else share this experience?

This is not a try to explain or excuse my mental issues, or to complain. It's just a kind of vent since I'm thinking about this a lot, on and off. For context, I was born in the 1980s and reached 18 years of age in the early 2000s. My native language is German. Also, apart from a few nightmares, I don't know how much this affected me.

My earliest memory of catching something I maybe was too young for was when I was six or seven. My stepfather liked playing videotapes of musicals while he did the house chores (he was our stay at home parent). This got me glimpses of "Hair", "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and also "Jesus Christ Superstar". I remember asking my stepdad why Frank'n'Further was dressed like he was, and him answering "because he likes it". Also, I was a big fan of the big dance scene at the beginning of "Hair" (set to "Age of Aquarius").

I don't think this chapter, while probably not stuff you'd usually show a seven-year-old, affected me too much. I watched all these musicals later as a teen and was able to re-contextualise what I saw in my head after I learned English and understood what was going on.

The nightmares came later. I must have been nine or ten. My bio father had me every weekend then, but apparently didn't want taking care of me to stunt his social life, so he brought me along to the big sci-fi watch parties he had with friends every Saturday. In retrospect, I think my mother made him take me for the weekends, and he wasn't a fan. Before that, he used to leave me with friends, who also had kids, or his then-girlfriend a lot and just go off do his own thing.

Anyways, I was present for the sci-fi screening. I don't know all the names, but three of the series they watched were some form of "Star Trek" (it definitely had Data and Picard), "Deep Space Nine" and, I think, "SeaQuest". They watched one episode of multiple series a night, and I wasn't allowed to ask any questions and usually fell asleep on the couch. Scenes from some episodes haunted my nightmares for years after (remember, my age was in the single digits!). As a teen, with the help of my now-fiancé, I managed to hunt down and re-watch some of these episodes for context.

Quick interlude - the man is a sci-fi enciclopedia. He managed to figure out not only the series, but the EPISODE, from clues like "Woman with psychic powers enters brain of serial killer, sees all his murder victims", "half-machine woman tells pale guy to rip off his own skin" and "two people scream at each other while a woman is giving birth in the same room. They argue about the symbolic value of the baby".

Paralell to all that, nobody really cared what I read. Starting with "Discworld" at age 13 was probably the most age-appropriate thing I ever did XD. I learned to read at age five, before being enrolled in school at age six. According to my mom, I wanted to learn. According to my memory, she taught me so I could read my own bedtime stories.

Anyway, anything that said "Fantasy" on it was fair game. The same way anything animated was DEFINITELY for kids of all ages ("Watership down" also lived in my nightmares for years). I got given books quite randomly. Some noteworthy ones are: me reading "The never-ending story" at age six (before I could read a clock. I refused to learn how to read a clock for a long time because, in my kid mind, it meant I couldn't be expected to have a bed time/ know when it was time to stop reading). There was also "Sorla Flusskind" ("Sorla Riverchild"), which is a pretty decent kid's adventure book - if it wouldn't start out with our protagonist's conception via assault. Honorable mention goes to "Dracula's daugther's", which I received as an Anne-Rice-Obsessed fifteen year old. It's basically soft porn. There were probably more that weren't age appropriate, but I just can't recall.

Thank you for reading! If you had similar experiences, share please if you feel comfortable to do so. I'd like to know if I'm alone in this.

[sumeru-academy]

M.U.S.E. Event Case 004. Hu Tao x Female Reader

◇ Report submitted by: Moderator Angel on ▇▇▇▇.

gory descriptions of murder, English lessons, horrible spelling

CASE FILE. MUSE-004

CLASS. POLTERGEIST

SEVERITY. 6 / 10

DESCRIPTION.  While investigating the unnatural death of a woman found bludgeoned in her home, an investigator had wandered up to the attic in order to investigate further into the house. Shortly after, his body came cascading down the stairs with a wooden object lodged deep within his throat, dying shortly after at the bottom of the stairs just as the woman had. Officials realized that the cause of the woman’s death wasn’t a murder, but rather an attack from a supernatural entity. They proceeded to call the appropriate authorities soon afterward.

A woman in her forties was found dead at the bottom of the stairs with her frontal lobe crushed to a fine and bloody paste. A few feet away was the blood-soaked object of a lamp that seemed to be the cause of this woman’s death, glass shattered everywhere as the base of the lamp was bashed so hard against the woman’s head, there were still fragments of it lodged deep within her skull. 

Authorities report that the cause of her death was a mystery. The woman lived alone and the only plausible explanation for her death was a run in with an intruder. But after a thorough examination throughout the house, authorities have confirmed that there were no traces of a break in from all entrance and exit points of the house. 

So what caused her death really? An accident? But that wouldn’t explain the lamp wound. A psychotic episode? But her medical reports stated that she was in a perfectly content state. The answer to her death was a simple one, really; and all it took was for one unsuspecting investigator that just so happened to stumble upon the attic. 

Downstairs heard a scream, and then another body came tumbling down the stairs just as the woman had. This time with a chair leg sticking out of his neck, his words trying to gurgle out of his throat but failing due to all the blood he was losing out of all the wrong places. 

The head investigator swallowed a lump, amidst the panic of his team he looked up at the stairs and felt a chill run down his spine. There was a smile, only there for a second and yet a smile nonetheless. Mocking him as it disappeared quicker than a flash, seemingly beckoning for him and his crew to come closer to find out. 

But he already knew the cause of this woman’s death, as that smile was the only clue he needed to conclude this investigation. 

This house was haunted by a poltergeist. 

Eyes glazing over the board, you itched at the surface of your wrist while contemplating whether or not you wanted to take on a job request before heading home for the night. You were a bit short on cash lately due to having to buy some new night equipment, but it was worth it as it made killing that banshee all the more easier last time you were stuck in a crisis.

Yawning, your eyes landed on a peculiar case of a murderous poltergeist found a few towns over. Apparently, according to the news article plastered in sloppy ink, there was a murder of two people in a house after having an encounter with a poltergeist in the attic. A woman in her forties who was the owner of the house, and an investigator who accidentally came in contact with the spirit after deciding to explore the attic. Both victims’ lives ended with being pushed down the stairs, along with an object lodged in the top part of their bodies. 

“Interesting…” you mouthed, tearing the wrinkled article off its pin. “I’ve never seen a poltergeist this aggressive before...” 

In all your years of hunting monsters, all the poltergeists you’ve encountered were nothing short of annoying. Sure they’ve hurled objects at you, locked you in rooms, and even tried to throw you around a few times, but they’ve never actually tried to kill you before. 

In short, poltergeists as a whole were just annoying little ghosts who needed a little exorcism. So why was this one so brutal in its attacks? Your curiosity was just too insatiable not to take on the task, and you decided that this job would be the perfect way to end your night. 

…Said no one ever.

“Zhongli, can I take this one?” you turned back to the front desk and saw the old man shifting through some paperwork. His eyes narrowed in focus while his pen scribbled out incoherent words. “Hm?” he didn’t even look up from his pen and made a gesture with his hand. “Let me see?”

Your footsteps silent against the wooden floors, you handed him the news article and watched as he readjusted his spectacles to read through the blotchy print. “A 6/10? For a poltergeist?” even Zhongli seemed concerned. “That can’t be right, poltergeists are rated either a 4 or lower depending on the space they inhabit.”

His concerned eyes reached yours like an overprotective father to his daughter. “This could be quite dangerous, Y/N. I’ve never seen a poltergeist hold such a high rating before.”

“Which is exactly why I want to take it,” you grinned a bit too confidently. “I’m curious as to why such a low-ranking monster is ranked so high for this specific anomaly. I mean, nothing is out of the ordinary about this creature except for the fact that it killed people.”

“Which is precisely why I’m a bit worried,” Zhongli let his eyes wander through the article one more time. “Perhaps the entity at hand isn’t really a poltergeist. There is a good chance this entity was categorized falsely.”

“Well, we’ll never know unless I confirm it,” you smirked whilst fastening your backpack. “C’mon, I’ve handled way more dangerous monsters before. This’ll be a breeze.”

“Sigh, you speak of this like it’s squashing a fly,” the old man shook his head and reached for his stamp. “But, I know you are a talented monster hunter, so; I will approve this just for you. 

With a loud stamp against the paper with his seal of approval, you grinned and quickly grabbed your things. Ready to head a few towns over to exorcize what could be the cause of your death. 

Oh how exciting this job was!

The town of Wangsheng was a dreary one to say the least. Clouds overtaking the sky in a blanket full of grey, homes boarded up and locked to keep all the intruders out. And, speaking of intruders, you were treated one as well considering your newest arrival amongst a town full of tightly-knit residents. 

Every step you took, every glance you made, it was followed by the scowls and glares of the residents nearby who seemed to keep their eyes tightly pinned on you. Almost as if you were a walking freakshow yourself, made to be watched and gawked at by people who thought you were the anomaly. 

“Excuse me, do you know where the Li-Mei residence is?”

At the sound of the unfortunate victim’s name, the man you asked flinched and shoved you away. You easily finding your footing and keeping your stance despite being shoved so abruptly. 

“Get lost. If you’re here to ghost hunt then that’s just plain disrespectful.” 

The man sneered at you while you could only watch in confusion. The locals around you only bad mouthing your encounter in secret as you stood there puzzled and in disarray. ‘Ghost hunting…’ you pondered for a bit and came to a conclusion. ‘In the few days that it took for me to get here, word must’ve spread about the murderous haunting here on that house.’

You looked around at the shady bystanders and chewed your lip at the sight. 

‘Ghost hunters… No wonder these people are all skeptical. They’ve probably been bothered by enough rambunctious teens and fake exorcists.’ You quickly caught up with the man and tugged on his sleeve. “Excuse me.”

“Girl are you deaf–?” the man froze when you shoved your MUSE ID into his face, your own being stern and tightly composed while you spoke. “Sir, I am a certified monster hunter from MUSE. I have come to exorcize the anomaly haunting the Li-Mei residence. Now please, kindly tell me where the Li-Mei residence is located so that I may complete my job.”

The man only blankly stared at the ID in silence, eyes dilating from each and every word printed on there, before shifting to your ID photo. Sure enough, you were the real thing. 

“Hmpf…I suppose you’re no phony,” he folded his arms and pointed to a tall hill on the left side of town. “Up there, there’s a lone house with a broken mailbox sitting at the front. That right there is where the Li-Mei residence is located.”

He suddenly leaned down to your height and scowled. “You better not be a fake. We oughta leave that house to rest if you are.”

“I promise I am not,” you swore, shifting your bag onto one shoulder and making your way towards the hill. “By the time I’m done here, that spirit will be gone.”

Waving dismissively to the townspeople behind you, you began your ascension to the tall hill in front of you. The climb proving to be quite a difficult one, as the path to the top was worn down by overgrown roots and fallen rock. How the woman in her forties managed to go up and down these all the time, you had no idea. 

‘I’d hate to come home from work every night only to walk up these,’ you grimaced, your foot nearly sliding off a piece of unstable rock and threatening you to fall back down where you came from. ‘That woman must be a mountain goat or something! Great gods…’

Finally reaching the top, you propped your arm against the broken mailbox for support and caught your breath for a second before looking at the house. It was a run down, barely functioning two story house, and if the news article hadn’t proclaimed that the owner had been killed, you would’ve assumed it was abandoned. 

At the front of the house was a porch holding up the front door. Completely bombarded in yellow police tape and boarded up with planks in order to keep intruders like teens out. Other than that, the front of the house was remarkably empty other than an old, rusted rocking chair pushed to the far corner of the porch. 

“Eerie…” you muttered to yourself, walking closer to the house itself and failing to notice a set of eyes watching you from the attic window. 

Stepping up to the old, paint-peeling steps of the front entrance to the door, you ducked under the low-swinging webs of police tape and tested the door knob out for yourself. Chewing your lip in displeasure as the knob wouldn’t turn at all. ‘Locked.’ came your thoughts as you reached into your bag for your crowbar. ‘Oh well. Nothing I can’t handle.’

Raising the crowbar at a steady distance, you carefully swung at the doorknob and grinned when the metal smacked against it with a satisfying thwack!

‘Again. At least one more time.’

Raising it again, you swung the crowbar at the knob with enough precision to completely cut it clean from the door, a hole left in its wake as you peered in through it out of curiosity.

‘Hah! That was easy,’ you let your eyes wander through the hole of what used to be the doorknob. ‘Now…where is it…?’ 

From what you could see from your position, the house inside was dark and barely illuminated. Antique furniture filling up what seemed to be the living room, and the faint splatter of blood at the bottom of the stairs from what seemed to be left from the body. 

‘Seems like they left in a rush,’ you noted, before kicking down the door and entering swiftly. ‘Pity. They couldn’t even bother to clean up the blood for me.’

You clicked your flashlight on and shined the white orb around the darkly shadows of the haunted home. Half expecting a toaster to just lunge at your head, as you had just so abruptly broken into the home of the poltergeist. “Huh. Usually at this time I’d be dodging a picture frame by now,” you awkwardly wandered around the first floor of the house and explored the various rooms to get a feel for what you were dealing with. “Hm. The house is big, but not as big as a manor,” you let your light drift across old picture frames left behind from the owner of the house. ‘Looks like she didn’t have much family.’

Suddenly you heard a loud noise coming from upstairs. Your eyes darting to the top of the stairs located near the living room, and shining your light up as far as it could go. 

“…I guess it’s up there.”

You shrugged and decided that it was about time to head up. After all, it seemed that the poltergeist liked to thrive up there as you had yet to encounter it throughout your exploration of the first floor. Which meant that up was the only other way to go. 

Oh, but that meant you had to–

You grimaced as you let your light fall to the ground, illuminating the dried up blood sitting at the foot of the stairs. Why couldn’t they at least mop it down?

Blowing out a breath of air, you swallowed up any feelings you had and quickly stepped over the splatter patch of gore, making a mental note to yourself to clean your boots thoroughly once you got home. “Hah…it gets colder as you go up,” you spoke to yourself, shivering as you tried to ground yourself by talking to the silence. 

“How creepy.”

But you were used to it. All spiritual monsters held some sort of cold chill the closer you got to them, and this one was no different. However, you couldn’t help but feel as if your chest was being knotted into thin layers of unquestionable anxiety, the lingering thought of this strangely murderous poltergeist sitting not too hidden beneath your mind. 

‘A poltergeist who murders,’ you reached the top step of the second floor and took note of the now chilly temperatures, ‘I should be ready.’

Reassuring yourself by touching the sage pouch fastened to your waist, you took out your specially crafted book for exorcizing vengeful spirits. Something you borrowed from the library of MUSE as you would need something a lot more powerful than sage to deal with a 6/10 poltergeist. 

‘Okay…’ you took a deep breath and held the book tightly in your arms. ‘I’m ready.’

Slipping on the professional hunter facade, you wandered about the second floor of the house to feel any ghostly chill or sign that the spirit was here. Clutching the book tightly in your grasp, and taking note of how some areas of the floor felt distinctly colder than others. 

All the areas in question being the rooms closest to the attic stairs. 

“The attic,” you murmured to yourself, gazing at the closed hatch above you. “One of the favorite places for a spirit to lurk around in.” 

You felt a small twinge of anxiety stun the core of your stomach, but you forced it to go unnoticed as you needed your mental state as clear as day. You couldn’t let your fears overtake you so soon, so you forced your body to abide with your mind, and discard any and all nerves you felt at this very moment. 

‘Just any other job.’ You thought to yourself, boldly going up the steps and pulling the hatch down before you could think otherwise. ‘Any other job, with any other monster.’

Nerves rattling inside your body, your fight or flight response was on the verge of kicking in as you readied yourself to get attacked. Despite being a slight nervous wreck when ascending these very stairs, you were still a trained huntress that could kill anything if you wanted. 

“What an anticlimactic feeling…” you chuckled out breathlessly, surprised when you didn’t find yourself attacked the moment you opened the hatch. “I was expecting a brutal death from you…”

You actually made it inside the attic and shivered when you felt the freezing chill of a spirit within the room. A smirk playing on your lips as you had found your target. “Hah, hiding won’t do you justice. Any rookie hunter could sense the chill of a ghost no matter how faint.”

Your nerves settled to a sea of calm as you waited for a response from the room. Standing dead center in the middle as you took in your surroundings of the dark and dusty attic. A room not frequently visited by the looks of things, as all the furniture was cracked and old, the floor encased in a fine layer of thick and cakey dust. 

‘Well this room has seen better days–’ your eyes widened as you narrowly dodged an oncoming vase headed for your skull, your instincts saving you yet again. 

“Woah–!”

It shattered into one corner of the room, breaking into millions of tiny pieces and alerting your senses to a higher degree. “Haha! Now I really know you're in here!” instead of being afraid, you laughed nonchalantly and seemed to be enjoying the way you exposed it. The ‘it’ in question seemingly getting more and more angry as the room dropped a few degrees colder. 

A picture frame rattled before being flung off the wall. Flying towards your head, but narrowly missing as your insane reflexes kicked in and dodged it. A chair suddenly slid across the room and towards you at a rapid pace, your legs instinctively moving out of the way, and even twirling as you seemed to be having fun with this. 

“Ah! You’re really good at this,” you chuckled, ducking under a flying alarm clock and watching as the room suddenly started getting louder and louder the more these objects came to life. “Hey–! There’s a toaster!”

You could just feel the atmosphere getting heavier with anger as the spirit in the room seemed livid with how you were dodging its attacks with ease. All at once, as if movement didn’t exist, the objects in the room stopped their movements and a mirror was pulled out from underneath a white cloth. Skittering to a stop right in front of you as the ghost started scratching out some letters in jagged, ear-piercing lines. 

“GET OWT!!!” read the thin scratches as silence filled the once loud and chaotic attic. All the objects falling to the ground at once whilst you read the words and contemplated on what to say. 

“...Hmm,” you tilted your head at the words before a smile overtook your features, “Hehe, you spelled out wrong. It has a U.”

…Silence.

Pure silence. 

And then another scratch started forming under the word OWT. Smaller, more quieter scratches soon following after and forming the word “UWT?” Question mark and all. 

“Pfft. No no no,” you giggled and breathed out a hot breath of air against the mirror. Your breath steaming up the glass, while you used your pointer finger to write out the correct spelling of ‘out.’

“See? The U is where the W is. There’s no W in out.”

You felt a cold chill right next to you, and assumed the spirit had taken a presence beside you. 

“OUT.” the ghost wrote underneath the UWT. Impressing you with how calm it was being, despite trying to kill you moments prior. Could the aggressive poltergeist you were after be a child?

“Great job!” you exclaimed joyously, breathing steam against the mirror again and writing “GET OUT” in proper spelling to show the spirit how it looked like in proper English. “Try writing it like this.”

“GET OUT.” The words perfectly mimicked yours –although a bit more sloppy– and you’ve never felt prouder. 

“Ah, you did it!” you cheered, “You’re amazing!”

Your eyes widened when you caught glimpse of a young woman in the reflection of the mirror. Her face seemingly surprised before disappearing in an instant once you noticed her. 

Okay…so your target was definitely not a child…

“You’re a woman?!” you exclaimed rather loudly, the cold spot beside you suddenly getting warmer. 

“...Yes.” was the ghost’s answer as it scratched the word rather sloppily. 

“Oh, I see…” you stared at the cracked mirror in wonder and amusement. “I didn’t expect a ghost as old as you to be so bad at writing.”

You ducked as a teacup lunged at the back of your skull. Shattering against the cracked mirror and falling into pieces at your feet. Uh oh, it seems as if you pissed her off. 

“Wah! I didn’t mean it as an insult!” you waved your hands shakily and turned to face the emptiness beside you. Despite not seeing anything at all, you could still feel the animosity right beside you and stared as if you were making dead eye contact. “I mean…I just found it, y’know. Kinda cute.” The cold chill in the air grew warmer. “Such a vengeful spirit like yourself calming down like this. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The lonely attic sat idly for a while. Your words lingering like a wisp of smoke as there was no response from the vengeful spirit. 

“If you want…” you began, eyes trailing over to the cracked mirror in front of you, “I could teach you how to write proper English.”

More silence followed. Though you could sense a tinge of uneasiness in the air as the entity beside you grew faint, almost invisible as you could barely detect her at all. “Miss?” you whispered out quietly, eyes widening when you felt something cold wrap around your hand and pull your body like an invisible string, dragging your hand over to where the ghost was writing, and splaying your fingers over a word.

“Yes.” You whispered, a shiver running down your spine as you realized that the ghost woman was touching you. Holding your hand with hers, and helping guide your body to the response she wanted to tell you. 

“Alright then,” you gasped with a baited breath, fingers twitching under the frosty feeling,  “I’ll teach you.”

To say your intentions were pure was a lie. I mean, it wasn’t a complete lie, you did want to help her study, but you weren’t exactly a good person to her to begin with. The whole spiel of wanting to help her improve was all a ploy to get her to be compliant. A peaceful and willing ghost was always an easier ghost to exorcize, and what better way than to make this spirit compilable than to befriend her through lessons? Admittedly, this was deception at its finest. But it’s not like you haven’t done this before! You were a monster hunter, and this was your job.

You held your breath as you gazed up at the Li-Mei residence above you. This time with a children’s alphabet book under your arm, and a few school supplies to match on your belt. You looked more like a school teacher than a monster hunter if anything, but you swallowed up any leftover pride you had and made your way up to the front porch. From your peripheral vision, you caught the curtains of the attic window shift, and looked up to see a young woman dart away as quickly as you looked. A small smile stretching over your face, as you contemplated on whether or not to wave. 

‘Makes me wonder if she watched me walk in from the very first day.’

Your hand went to reach for the doorknob only to remember that you had broken it beforehand. “Oh, ha! Silly me,” you grinned and simply kicked the door open with your boot, shining your flashlight in through the dark and musty house, as you had half expected for the spirit to be waiting for you. “I hope she didn’t mind me breaking down her door…”

Not like she’d even need to use the door… 

“Yoohoo! Madam Ghost!” You cheered through the hollow walls, “I’ve come to help you study!”

Silence.

“…You can’t hide from this, I’ve already purchased this Sesame Street book from the shop and there’s no going back.” Realizing that the ghost must be hiding upstairs, you let out a pathetic groan and quickly made your way up in order to confront her. “Madam Ghost!” 

You grabbed the cord to the attic and yanked it open only to scream when a dinner plate hurled at your face. “Son of a—!” luckily your reflexes saved you as you ducked just in time to avoid the porcelain piece shattering in your eye. “Miss Ghost!”

Annoyed with this sudden attitude, you gripped your exorcist book hidden just beneath your alphabet one and prepared yourself to deal with a violent spirit. “What was that for?!” You felt the hairs of your neck stand on end as a ghostly shiver passed from just behind you. The dusty layering on the floor shaking as jagged letters formed words from the poltergeist’s invisible touch.

“Sory.” Read the ghost’s wobbly handwriting. “It was just a pranc.”

“It’s not a very funny one,” you scoffed, sitting down right in front of the handwriting and fixing her spelling. “I could’ve lost an eye.”

The ghost’s chilling prescience lingered closer to your warm, living body. Practically standing over you as you could feel the cold breath of death brushing over your forehead. “This is how you properly spell it,” you spoke calmly, despite your flight or fight response kicking in. “Sorry. It was just a prank.” 

You felt the cold prescience draw closer and had assumed that the ghost was now sitting right in front of you, writing a sloppy trail of letters that loosely resembled yours, and even trying to write it small just like you. 

“Hm. Not bad,” you noted, plopping the Sesame Street book down and gesturing to a dusty patch on the ground. “Can you write your name? I’d like to put a name to my student please.”

Wow, you really did feel like a school teacher.

Some silence followed after your request, and you contemplated on whether or not you should take it back as you were unsure if the ghost was comfortable or not. Before you could open your mouth to say anything however, a sudden shift in the dust caused your eyes to settle. 

“Ah! Hu…Tao.” You read aloud at the sloppy array of words. “Hu Tao. Your name is Hu Tao?”

A quick scribble of “yes” was written right beside it.

“Hu Tao! Ah, what a pretty name,” you complimented, the room growing warmer for a brief second before resuming its chilly state. “That’s of Chinese origin, yes?” 

Your hand was pulled along by that same ghostly string and sprawled against the previous “yes.” So cute! The ghost was holding your hand! 

“Ah…” your eyes trailed over to where the ghost held you and noted the buzzing chill in your nerves at the sensation. It was cold, unfamiliar, and far from comfortable, but you endured it because you thought the action itself was cute for such a violent entity. “I see you like holding my hand.” You chuckled, smiling even more when your hand regained its warmth, indicating that Hu Tao had let go. 

“Aww, so soon?” You giggled playfully and opened one of your alphabet books. “Well that’s okay, we’re going to be studying now anyways.” 

You pointed to a pencil and flipped to the very first page of the book, starting with the letter A and its lowercase counterpart to make things easy. “Miss…Hu Tao. Can you move that pencil and follow the dotted lines here? We’re going to be working on your handwriting because uh…well,” you shifted your eyes over to the wobbly letters of English that could barely be comprehended as English. “It’s not the best.”

A rush of cold air blew towards the back of your neck and you only shivered in response. Picking up the pencil with your hand and extending it out towards the air beside you. 

“Here. Try writing with this.”

You didn’t really expect anything to happen but lo and behold, the spirit grabbed the utensil from your hand. ‘So gentle…’ you remarked, watching as the pencil shakily lifted itself from your fingers and pointed downwards towards the book. “Yeah, you got it,” you mimicked the pen with your finger and traced a slanted line upwards to start writing an uppercase A. “A small line going up, and then a similar one going down.”

You dragged your finger downwards, and if Hu Tao was visible right now, you’d see just how hard she was concentrating just for you. The pencil in her grip shaking as she formed a trembling line from start to finish, all the while glancing at you every so often. 

“Pretty good for your first try,” you hummed, now taking your finger and dragging a middle line to connect the two slants. “Now draw a smaller line connecting these two, to form an uppercase A.”

Hu Tao did so. Yet she did so all too sloppily as she wasn’t looking at the paper, but rather at you. You couldn’t see it, obviously; but Hu Tao was indeed looking at you. The glare of violence and brutality no longer present, as it was only replaced with wonder and curiosity. 

You were cloaked in leather, yes; and despite not knowing much English, Hu Tao was smart enough to realize that you were a monster hunter. Probably paid to come here and exorcize her is what she assumed, yet despite trying to drive you out and even kill you multiple times, you retained that same innocent smile and laugh. It was unnerving, which is ironic for a spirit of her level, but Hu Tao couldn’t help but feel relieved that you were so nice to her. Even if it were a trick, some foul play to kill her in the end, Hu Tao couldn’t help but feel as if she had finally met someone she could potentially talk to in all her years of isolation. 

“Miss Hu Tao?” your brow crinkled as the pencil was now dragging lazily off the dotted line, off the paper, and scratching onto the hardwood floor. “Miss Hu Tao?!”

You watched as the pencil jerked and caused the streak of lead to make an ugly turn upwards. “Oh, sorry…” you sucked air through your teeth at the ruined uppercase A before smiling. “Well, that’s why erasers exist, right? To fix all our unwanted mistakes.”

Hu Tao couldn’t agree more and eagerly flipped the pencil over to erase the embarrassingly long streak from when she zoned out. 

“And that’s how you write a lowercase Q…”

Your voice barely above a whisper, your eyes narrowed in on the near perfect lowercase Q that Hu Tao had drawn after hours of practice with the letters before. You had to admit, for a ghost with horrible motor skills, Hu Tao was a very fast learner. So much so that you basically speed ran the alphabet and managed to get to the letter Q by late in the evening. 

“Wow…that’s near perfect…” you yawned, Hu Tao practically buzzing with excitement at your praise and resisting the urge to hug you right then and there. 

‘Near perfect! She’s so impressed! I impressed her!’

Nearly about to do cartwheels on the attic floor, Hu Tao glanced at your face to see whether you were smiling, and paused when she saw your eyes fluttering closed like a butterfly’s wings resting in the wind. ‘Sleepy?’ Hu Tao questioned, watching as you struggled to stay awake due to your instinct as a hunter. You were used to staying up on restless nights due to your job mostly taking place at night, yet for some reason you were extra sleepy today as you let your body relax around Hu Tao for the majority of the mission. ‘Ah. I forgot. Living humans need to sleep often to stay healthy.’

Hu Tao watched with curiosity as you consciously tried to fight the sleepiness in order to continue teaching her. Yet the coldness of the attic just felt so…alluring. And all the dust scattered around you two did not aid much in helping you stay awake. 

“Next…page…” you sighed, losing the battle to sleep as the weak human inside the hunter submitted to the depths of slumber. “Going onto R…”

Hu Tao panicked as you began to slump over and rushed around the attic to find something soft for you to fall in. Finding a dusty throw pillow and shaking all the dust off before sliding it between your soft head and hardwood floor. 

Plop. Went your head as sleep deprivation had taken over and made you fall deep asleep despite the dangerous circumstance. It was so unlike you to be this sleepy while on the job, but since you were so relaxed around Hu Tao your body couldn’t help itself. 

‘That was close…!’ Hu Tao remarked as she watched your unconscious body rise and fall with every passing breath. ‘Almost smashed her skull in…’

Hu Tao passed over to your sleeping body as quietly as she could. Watching as you dozed off soundly and almost unprofessionally as well, a hunter sleeping on the job was nothing to be proud of. And quite frankly, Hu Tao was sure you’d get fired if your higher ups ever caught wind of this. 

Yet the spirit couldn’t help but find your sleeping figure cute. And stupid. But mostly cute as you were cozy enough to slumber in the presence of a vengeful spirit. A vengeful spirit that just so happened to be her, and a vengeful spirit that just so happened to find you endearing. 

‘The living are way too trusting,’ Hu Tao thought, leaning over to where you were sleeping and watching as your lips parted slightly to exhale every time your chest fell. ‘Especially this one.’

Shifting to lie on her stomach, Hu Tao propped her head up on her hands and watched as your hair cascaded over your face like a curtain. Blocking your simple beauty from her sight, and causing her to shift in frustration as she wanted to stare at you more. 

…Was that creepy? Well, for a ghost’s standards, maybe not…

Hu Tao couldn’t help herself as she shifted her ghostly body to brush the stray locks away. Your brows scrunching up in your sleep as her cold presence made you shiver. ‘Cold…’ Hu Tao noted, turning her hand to look at it with crestfallen eyes. ‘I’m cold…’

Was it selfish of her to want to keep touching you? Hu Tao let her frosty fingers trail over your leather-covered arm, watching as your body trembled under her touch. Cold. She was cold to you. But your body was just so warm. So warm and full of life, pumped with a body full of warm blood and flesh. How Hu Tao missed the feeling so…

‘This one is so naive…’ Hu Tao gazed up at your heavy eyelids and ended up lying right beside you. Gazing adoringly at you as if you two were lovers in a painting. ‘And yet so beautiful she is…’

If there was anything that Hu Tao learned in her years of purgatory isolation, it was that eternal loneliness was a punishment worse than death. And to have such a friendly soul come wandering up just to see her…she swears she’s never felt more alive. 

It was almost like you were an angel sent down to save her.

“Y…/N…” Hu Tao spoke gently, her first words uttered since meeting you. “Y…/N.”

You had told her your name a few alphabet lessons beforehand, and told her that if she managed to write your name neatly, you’d give her a wish. Hu Tao had never been so determined before to earn said desired wish. “Y…/N!” She sounded out in her own whispery voice, pulling the alphabet book from beside you and deciding to study on her own. 

She was determined to get that wish. 

She knew what she wanted from you.

Days had blended into weeks and before you knew it, you were coming to visit Hu Tao on a daily basis. What started as simple English lessons to ease her spirit had slowly turned into something more, and while you didn’t want to admit it, you were slowly growing attached. 

Taboo. Growing attached to a monster while being a monster hunter was taboo. Your job was to kill her, not befriend her. But it seemed like your body was betraying your morals as you couldn’t help but find the invisible spirit endearing. Was it possible to love something you couldn’t see? You hoped it wasn’t the case, as you found the company of the invisible girl comforting. 

Hey, you had gotten better at scaling the hill! You watched as you set your foot on the last step without having to wheeze like you were an old lawn mower. Finding comfort in the way your boots sank into the gravel, as before they were only a hindrance to your hike uphill. “Hu Tao, I'm here!” you called up at the broken attic window, waiting for the curtains to shift to indicate her presence. “Hu Tao!”

Odd. Usually she’d be waiting by the window for you. 

“...Hm.” You made your way comfortably up the front steps and traversed through the house with ease. No longer feeling any anxiety or panic as you had done this routinely multiple times. “Maybe she’s just busy with her homework…”

Shrugging it off as something of no concern, you grabbed the cord to the attic door and yanked it down, ready to step into an empty attic room like you always did. Instead however, you walked in on something –or rather, someone– you did not expect to see. 

A young woman was sitting on the floor of the dusty attic, scribbling with a pencil you left her and surrounded by several sheets of notebook paper torn from the journal you bought. She didn’t seem to notice you at all, all too absorbed in her kid-like scribbling and it’s there that you realize the whole attic is covered in papers! Circling the woman like some sort of beginner’s ritual as the papers were scattered on the walls, furniture, even ceiling!

“...Hu Tao?!” your eyes widened when you felt a ghostly presence coming from the woman. ‘Wait. That’s Hu Tao?!’

You watched as the woman before you stopped scribbling and turned to see who was calling her name. Eyes lighting up once she saw you and eagerly standing up to greet you. “Y/N!” she cheered, your brain doing a double take as this was also your first time hearing Hu Tao’s voice. 

“Ah, so it is you,” you chuckled, still in shock from seeing Hu Tao’s physical form and hearing her voice. “This is…the first time I’ve actually seen you,” you muttered, noting how livly her eyes looked despite being long deceased. “You look cute.”

She perked up at your compliment before laughing to herself and nodding. “Hah! Yeah, I’ve been told that a couple times back when I was alive.” She seemed to emit a feeling of bashfulness from the way she was speaking. Who knew a dead person could have so much personality? “I haven’t been able to show myself in a while because I never really felt the need to. It takes up quite a bit of my energy however, so I’d need to use it wisely.”

“That’s…interesting,” you clicked your tongue at this reveal and tilted your head in confusion. “But why show yourself now?”

“Oh! Well, you see…” Hu Tao picked up one of the scattered papers on the ground and handed it to you, your hands reaching over to brush against the floating object and turning it over to see your name. 

‘Y/N.’

Your name written all over the sheet. Scattered as loosely as the papers around you as each individual letter grew more and more neater with each passing stroke. Y/N. Y/N. Y/N. All rambunctiously ordered in a swerving line that tried its best to straighten itself the further it drew on.

Y/N. Y/N. Y/N.

When you looked down at the papers at your feet, it was there that you noticed that all the papers around the attic had your name written on it. Your name only in a sea of scribbles and ink as somewhere along the way, Hu Tao must’ve broken a pencil or two. “Hu Tao…?” you seemed incredibly confused (and rightfully so) as your eyes slowly started to dart over to the ceiling. “What is this?”

Should you be creeped out? Your gut is yelling “YES?!” but your brain is going “I’m curious though, let’s wait.” And so, you listened to your brain because let’s be honest, even I’m curious too. 

“Remember when you told me that if I had perfected writing your name, you’d grant me a wish?” Hu Tao spoke with a giggle. 

Oh.

So this is what this is about. 

“Ah, yes but–” Hu Tao rushed off before you could say anything more. 

“I’ve perfected it! I can write your name Y/N!”

Never in your life had you seen a ghost so excited before. Zooming around with giddy as if she were told that she had just won the lottery. 

“You’ve really been practicing all this time?” you murmured in awe, watching as one by one, the papers sticking to the ceiling fell like a paper shower. 

“Yep! Ever since I could write the alphabet, I was dead set on learning your name!” she floated around the attic with the grace of a dragonfly. Zipping and zooming through the air in a way that made you think she was actually a fae. “Found one!”

You looked up and nearly choked on air as Hu Tao floated down to stand right in front of you. Her locks of brown hair floating idly like gravity never existed, all the while her eyes seemed to glow with a strange jack-o-lantern-like light that made you feel warm rather than creeped out. 

“Watch this!” came her haunting voice as she scribbled some letters onto the paper she picked out and showed it to you with the enthusiasm of a child. “Look! Look! It’s your name! I wrote your name!”

And she did. Your pupils widening at the sight as Hu Tao had successfully written your name in correct spelling, perfect size, and perfect calligraphy. A feat to most certainly be proud of as you had only begun teaching Hu Tao proper English for about two weeks. 

“It’s beautiful…” you muttered, tracing the straight lines with your finger and watching as Hu Tao lit up at your praise. “And you practiced writing on all of these papers?” You lifted your foot which now had a Y/N paper sticking underneath it. 

“Yep! That’s what I did last night since you left,” Hu Tao hummed. “Now can I have my wish?”

“Hm, you are quite demanding. Though that’s not surprising considering how your first words to me were ‘Get out.’” She pouted at your words. “Butttt, you did write fifty something pages of my name for practice. And you did get it perfectly written.”

“Actually I wrote seventy two pages of your name.” Hu Tao clarified. 

“Hm, yes, your practice definitely paid off too,” you chuckled. “What would you like to wish for?”

Hu Tao was hesitant in saying what she wanted before reaching her ghostly pale arms out and enveloping your hands with her own. That frosty feeling you’ve grown to love slowly numbing your senses and causing your skin to prickle with goosebumps as she raised your hands to her face. 

“Y/N. I want to be with you.”

Your mind had short-circuited. Did you hear her correctly?

“...I want you to take me away from here.”

Her eyes looked so sad and sombered. Mellow with a dread of loneliness you’ve never seen on a person until now. “I want you to help me leave this place. I want to be with you and live with you forever…please.” 

She looked so serious. Desperate even as she pleaded for you with her cold, dead eyes to help her be free of this eternal purgatory. ‘I want to be with you.’ Her words echoed, and you felt the one emotion you’ve forced to disappear now re-emerge at the simple begging of a trapped ghost. An emotion that all monster hunters must hide for fear of the guilt that comes after finishing off a job.

Empathy. 

“...Okay.” Your voice sounded hoarse, defeated by the choice you had made up in your mind. “Really?!” Hu Tao blinked in surprise. “Yeah.” You mumbled, trying to smile like your life depended on it. “There’s a ritual I can do to relocate spirits if they’re forever trapped in one place. I could transfer you to my house and you can live there with me from now on.”

If you thought Hu Tao was happy then, oh boy, she was ecstatic now. 

“Living with you…in your house…” Hu Tao muttered to herself, the room growing warmer as the papers around you started floating due to her excitement. “I’d love that more than anything else! Really I would!”

And then she threw her arms around you. Embracing you in a cold hug and yet she still felt more alive than anything you’ve ever felt before. The scattered papers with your name on them flying around like a whirlwind as Hu Tao was simply too excited not to show it. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you Y/N!” she laughed, a noise akin to a windchime since it was the prettiest thing you’ve heard in a while. 

“...No, thank you.” You murmured quietly, hesitantly embracing the trapped geist as you wondered if you’d soon regret your decision. 

You really hoped you wouldn’t.

When you walked up the broken steps leading up to Hu Tao’s house, you felt your mood dampen despite the sunny skies hanging up above. How mocking. The sun just loved to tease you when you were at your lowest point. ‘Please let this go smoothly…’ you told yourself as you looked up at the familiar broken mailbox and police tape-covered porch you’ve come to grow used to. ‘Please don’t let anything go South…’

The walk up the porch steps felt like entering hell. The walk from the first floor to the second felt like walking through flames. The walk from the second floor to the hatch of the attic felt like you were about to greet Satan. A churning feeling in your stomach replacing the once comfortable feeling you’ve felt from all your times visiting Hu Tao. No longer did you feel the same. You knew what you had to do at this moment, and you hoped everything would go to plan. 

Reaching up to grab at the cord of the hatch, you gasped when it suddenly flung open and almost lost your balance. However, something cold and comforting caught you before you could fall, and hoisted you up the steps before closing the hatch on your way in. 

“WAH–!”

“Y/N!” came Hu Tao’s excited voice, “Almost had a nasty fall there. Wouldn’t want anything happening to my favorite flesh person!”

She set you down with the grace of a gentle wind and moved to be in your line of sight. Wow. Did she get prettier or is the lighting from the sun making her glow?

“Hu Tao…” you smiled at her giddiness and dropped your satchel to the ground. “Thanks for catching me. I probably would’ve fallen on my ass if you hadn’t.”

“No problem! After all, how could my favorite flesh person do the ritual correctly if her buns are bruised!”

Ah. Right. The ritual.

“So that’s what’s got you so excited.” You chuckled. “I thought you’d be happier to see me.”

“I am happy to see you! I’m just even happier because I get to be with you now!”

Oh. That plucked a heart string.

“Hah, understandable…” you avoided her gaze and picked up the satchel you dropped to go to the middle. “I brought all the things needed for the ritual. All you have to do is stand here in the middle and relax.” 

“Aye aye captain!” Hu Tao saluted as she hovered over to stand where you set your foot. “I can’t wait to be free with you…” 

“Me too.”

Taking out a huge canister of salt, you started pouring it into a large circle surrounding Hu Tao whilst she whistled nonchalantly. Eagerly waiting for you to finish the ritual so she could be free from this wretched attic once more. “Is your attic clean, Y/N?”

“Not really, but you won’t be staying there at all. I can’t imagine moving into another attic after spending your whole life here.” You completed the circle and tossed the canister away behind you, dusting off the excess particles stuck to your skin so your hands wouldn’t feel grainy. 

“You mean I get to roam around in your house?!“ Hu Tao exclaimed excitedly.

“Mhm!” You smiled and started pulling out a few candles you bought from the town store and setting them around within an even distance around Hu Tao. “My house will be your house.” 

Hu Tao’s cheeks glowed at those words as she watched you light each and every candle with a matchstick pulled from the hole of your sleeve. With each candle ignited, Hu Tao felt as if her own soul was being cast aflame due to her overbearing adoration to be with you. Her savior. Her angel.

She wanted to be with you forever.

“Just try to relax and stay calm,” you voiced as you took your spot at the front of the circle. 

“I promise this won’t hurt. That is the last thing I want.”

“You could never hurt me, Y/N.” Hu Tao assured. 

But you just might.

“Whatever happens, Hu Tao,” you spoke as you flipped through the pages of your ritual book, “Promise me you won’t be scared?”

“I promise.”

You smiled somberly at her words before looking up to stare at her eyes one more time. Trailing over the flower-like pupils you had grown to adore and forever sinking them into your memory. “Your eyes are beautiful, by the way,” you whispered. “I hope they haunt my dreams every time I sleep…”

Turning to the tattered pages of your book, you lifted it up to read and began chanting in old latin. A small wind picking up in the otherwise silent attic and blowing at the candles surrounding Hu Tao. 

‘Just relax…’ you told Hu Tao, but it was mostly towards yourself. ‘Please relax…’

From the corner of your eye you caught Hu Tao smiling. The wind picking up more violently as she stared at you in astonishment. “It’s working!” Hu Tao squealed, lifting her arms up as if she were a kite about to be carried away. “It’s working, it's working!” You felt your body tremble as you kept chanting the words. “I feel so light…”

You smiled sadly at her joy, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes when she laughed. ‘I’m glad…’

“Thank you Y/N! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” you watched as Hu Tao’s ghostly figure started tearing up out of happiness, her body fading away into particles that mimicked lightning bugs flying into the night sky. “I love you so much.”

And as quick as she came into your life, she was gone. 

The wind had stopped blowing, the candles had all melted, and you were left alone in a cold and dusty attic, quivering with the book in your hand as you stared at the now empty circle right in front of you. “...Rest in peace, Hu Tao.” You whispered, clasping your hands together in prayer before bowing. “I loved being with you too…”

Kneeling down to reach into your satchel once more, you took out a small pot and filled it to the brim with salt. Placing three incense sticks into it and lighting them all up with a match. As smoke filled the now lifeless attic room, you prayed one more time before biting your lip in order to stop yourself from crying. 

“I’m sorry I lied to you.”

Standing up and wiping your watery eyes away, you quickly put on your hunter facade again and left the dusty attic. The sunlight finally breaching in through the window and giving warmth to the room after so many years.

You hated the warmth. 

[obeythebutler]

those mate hcs made me go feral i swear please tell me someone requested for simeon too please please- i wanna see this man go absolutely apeshit if thats eveb possible for simeon but i mean- he was snappy with the brothers during the rehersals of TSL and has wrath glowsticks 👀👀👀

SIMEON REACTS TO MC BEING KILLED BY BELPHEGOR

Solomon's Part

Brothers Part

Diavolo and Barbatos's Part

SIMEON

He knew something was wrong when they weren't picking up his calls or answering his texts. Simeon's not a worrywart, but this time he had a feeling that something was very, very wrong.

So he rushed towards the House of Lamentation, but when he reached he saw...

Something that would haunt his dreams. MC, dead on the floor, with bruises on their neck and a laughing Belphegor.

The brothers were all in disarray, and Simeon rushed towards their body, and tried to frantically heal their bruises and wounds. But no matter how many spells he put, they won't move.

All Simeon could do was weep shiny tears as he grieved, but Belphegor's remarks made something inside snap.

" A human for a partner? Simeon, you of all should know better."

Wiping away his tears, he stood up and glared at Belphegor, a glare that made the seventh-born flinch.

" Do you even realize the consequences of your action?" Simeon asked him in a bitter tone, as Belphegor chuckled and mocked their human nature again.

Angels forgive only when one truly expresses regret. In this case, Belphegor only laughed harder. So Simeon did what he thought was appropriate, in his eyes, he was punishing Belphegor for his sin, for killing MC.

He shifted into his angelic form as he charged, the brightness making Belphegor close his eyes shut.

Simeon was ready to kill if not for Lucifer and Beelzebub holding him back. He snarled and growled as he tried to escape their grip, and Satan could tell that the angel was consumed by wrath.

When MC came out of the shadows, Simeon shifted back in shock and relief as he cried in their embrace, glad and happy.

He leads them to Purgatory Hall without glancing back at the brothers. Even demons knew that angels forgive, but not forget.

[forthegothicheroine]

Okay, I have to ask. Who is Gef the Talking Mongoose? I mean, I gather from his name that he is a mongoose who talks, but like, what's his story?

My friends, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts about Gef the Talking Mongoose?

Our story begins in the Isle of Man in 1931. A small farm family began complaining of hauntings by some sort of small animal, making crying, scratching, and eventually talking sounds. They seem to have taken this in stride. Though they set traps for the creature, it evaded each and every one. Not only that, but gibbering sounds soon became actual speech, which then became grandiose monologues! The being revealed itself as a small furry creature resembling a mongoose, save for its humanoid hands with long fingers. (Mongooses had previously been brought to the Isle of Man- make of that what you will. It's also worth noting that, while nobody in this story ever refers to the creature as a fairy, there certainly was local folklore he would have been reminiscent of.)

Gef, as he called himself (mongooses can't spell) seemed just as confused about what he was as everyone else. He claimed to be a ghost in the form of a mongoose. He claimed to be an earthbound spirit. He also claimed to be "just an extra clever little mongoose." He claimed to be able to split the atom, sometimes invoked powers of hell, and even referred to himself as the Eight Wonder of the World (apparently after seeing a poster advertising the movie King Kong.) He also claimed to speak Hindi, which he did not.

Unable to get him to leave, the family eventually made peace with Gef, and in return for free reign of the house he performed little favors such as turning off the stove when they forgot to, warning them of any strange dogs approaching the farm, and stealing chickens from other people and delivering them, having been strangled with his creepy people hands.

Other people in the village reported seeing and hearing Gef, and in the vein of most cryptids there are a few blurry photographs that look eerie but could be anything. Eventually the family moved away, and the next man to own the farm shot a polecat which he claimed to have been Gef. The village hounded him with hatred, but the original family said that polecat didn't look like Gef. All involved maintained to their dying day that Gef was real.

There was significant press attention about Gef, even causing a fight in parliament about what the appropriate plural of "mongoose" was. ("Mongooses.") Scholars keep trying to connect Gef to the Lovecraft familiar spirit Brown Jenkin, but there's no known account of him knowing about Gef.

So, to the point- what the hell was Gef? The most obvious answer is that he was a hoax, possibly caused by the daughter figuring out ventriloquism, but if so it was a pretty pointless hoax since they never made a dime off it. It could have been a hoax perpetuated by the whole village on credulous big-city reporters, as rural locals have been known to play on horror filmmakers. It also could have been some kind of mass hallucination event; such things are complex phenomena, but they do happen. Think of the dancing plague, where a legend that saints would make sinners dance to atone for their sins spread across a country with fatal results. Might something more harmless have happened with sightings of an odd, feylike creature?

I have answers for a lot of cryptids. I think Bigfoot is a bear. I think Mothman is an owl. I think the Black Eyed Kids were invented as an early copypasta based on an X-Files Episode. But Gef? I have no idea what the hell Gef was.

I like to think Gef was real and continues to exist eternally. Why not?