#there was a hole here

[hiddenstashart]

[emperorofthedark]

A brief tour of Mr. Blue's playhouse.

[cursedbanalities]

"There Was a Hole Here..." (A Horror Story)

Index

Kate looked at him half surprised, “Wait, what do you mean?”

“I mean there was a hole here,” he knocked on the wall causing a dull, hollow sound to echo on the other side. “It’s gone now. Yep, someone must’ve patched it right up.”

“Well, that’s impossible!” Kate exclaimed, half chuckling and half trying to tell if he’s pulling her leg, “I mean, ugh I wish you were pranking me or something ‘cause that’s awful. I feel like I keep hearing freaky shit coming out of this wall. Like, I don’t know, faint voices, or something.”

“Well, sorry ta’ say Kate, but I ain’t able ta’ do a whole lot,” he scratched the back of his head. “The buildin’ next door’s prolly got some animals making noises, er’ druggies er’ some shit,” he lets out a raspy belly laugh, before coughing hard into his fist and clearing his throat. He saw Kate’s scowl and put on a guilty look. “Sorry, I know it ain’t funny,” he said, clearing his throat. “That buildin’ over there’s abandoned, though. Has been fer a while, and I personally check it fer squatters. I’ve been through there… prolly a dozen times and I ain’t never seen a hole. Chances are the other side is all bricked up, and this here little tunnel is all that’s left o’ it.”

Kate rubbed her temples. Of course. Not only did half of the stuff in this godforsaken “luxury” apartment barely work– this is the fifth time she’s had to call her landlord in the past month for plumbing, heat and electrical problems– but now there’s a mysterious un-filled hole in her wall. Great.

 “Okay, okay. Can you fill it in now? I don’t want any raccoons or anything tearing into my wall,” she sounded more exasperated than she meant, but this has really thrown a wrench in her mood.

“Erm, suuure,” he sighed and scratched his head. “I mean, we need ta’ get a permit from the city which’ll take a few days. This is an area ‘tween two buildings, so it might be considered a 'major renovation' under city code. I know a few people in the city ‘cause of my drywall business, so they should be able ta’ give us ‘special permission,’” he says with air quotes. “I also own the building next door. Been meanin’ ta’ make it into a rental like this one. I’ll swing by with some tools and start fillin’ it in maybe… in a week er’ so?”

Kate started to complain, groaning and throwing her hands up, but decided to take a deep breath before throwing a fit. It’s not like she had any choice in the matter, anyways. “Well, thanks Ed,” she sighed. “I wish it could be done sooner, but the fact you’re doing this for free is really better than the alternatives, so… yeah.”

Ed shrugged, “Hey, what’re landlords for, eh? See ya next week, and try not to have that ‘hole’ thing stress ya out too much, okay? It’s the middle o’ the summer, so it’s not like any of those pests over there are tryin’ ta’ find someplace warm. Hell, I’ll fix it up before you dwell on it too long!” 

Kate nodded, but wished she could believe him.

***

Waiting for the week to go by was agonizing, especially since Kate still had work to worry about. Thoughts about the hole in her wall thrashed around in her mind; she had to be careful about it, otherwise those thoughts would eventually wrap around her mind, constricting and crushing her sanity like a metaphysical anaconda. Her biggest fear was coming home to a pack of rabid raccoons ripping her whole life to shreds— or worse, a person who’d do the same thing. 

She spent most of her days at work alleviating her anxieties rather than doing anything productive. Security cameras were an idea Kate had, but the earliest she could get them installed was after the hole would’ve been filled. She thought she could fill it herself, but figured Ed would make her pay if she somehow made the problem worse. By the time the weekend rolled around, Kate was beginning to feel anxious about even the slightest things. Open sewer grates, the bagels she ate, even the pores on her face reminded her of that closed tunnel. Even now, as she sits at her desk on a Friday, tapping her pencil and trying to avoid staring at the perforated ceiling tiles, her anxiety was through the roof. Five o’ clock couldn’t come soon enough.

Kate really needed a vacation.

Unfortunately, the closest she could get to Margaritaville was at the bottom of a glass. Her friends took her out to the bar and laughed at her when she talked about the hole in her life, which seemed to be a back-handed way at making her feel better. Though, it could’ve been the drinks they shared and the jokes they made about each other’s lives that lifted Kate’s spirits.

For once this week, Kate forgot about raccoons or people inside of her walls. She even forgot about Ed and his stupid inability to do a complete job the first time. The only thing she remembered at this point was how to get home and get into bed, and that’s all she needed.

***

Kate woke with a groan. Her head pounded and stomach flipped as she stood up.

Ugh. She definitely had a few too many.

Hungover and exhausted, she stumbled into her bathroom and washed her face with cold water to shake the night away. She took a couple of long drinks from the faucet as well. The gulps were desperate. She was taking in the water like a wrung out sponge. It actually helped a bit— at least her stomach wasn’t doing backflips anymore. It was just cartwheels, instead.

Kate decided to brush her teeth as a way to sober herself up more, and was halfway through brushing her teeth when she noticed it. Her eyes widened as she focused on it: somehow, there was a large hole in her bathroom wall. Large enough for a person to easily crawl through. 

Kate peered into the hole with her brow furrowed and toothbrush hanging in her mouth. Toothpaste starts to drip from her mouth and onto her outdated bathroom tiles, but she’s so taken aback by the sudden appearance that doesn’t even notice. The hole in the wall seemed to go on for a while, and it was dark. Too dark for Kate to see the end of it, even when she shined her phone flashlight into it. The inside of the hole was strange, too. It was made of a brownish cement with ridges every inch of it. She has never seen anything like it. 

She spat her toothpaste out and called her landlord as she cleaned herself up. He didn’t pick up the first couple of calls, but on the third try Kate finally got through to him. He sounded groggy, and angry that she’s calling him.

“Geez o’ petes Kate! Y’know it’s my day off, right? What the hell’s going on?” 

Kate’s voice wavered, still shaken from the hole that seemingly appeared in her wall, “L-listen, do you remember that hole in my wall that was ‘gone?’ I-it’s back.” 

The landlord sighed, “Shit, uh, whaddya mean it’s back? Like, sum animal tore its way in ta’ your bathroom?”

Kate shook her head and looked at the hole, “No, it’s like… I don’t know. It’s grafted into the wall, I guess... Like it’s always been there, or maybe like the wall itself just opened up.” The landlord chuckles, causing Kate’s nostrils to flare and her brows to furrow. 

“Listen hun, I know yer stressed about this whole thing-“

“Don’t fucking call me ‘hun,’ Ed. I know what I’m looking at.” She ran her finger along the edge of the hole as she said this, trying to see if there were any gaps indicating it had somehow been added to the wall recently. Instead, it seamlessly blended from white drywall to a strange brownish-gray cement. “Just get your ass over here, please. I cannot go the rest of the weekend thinking I’ll get jumped by raccoons.”

Ed started to say something just as a sound emanated from the hole, causing Kate to jump. It was a strange, strained noise coming from deep in the hole. It started out low, and Kate told Ed to stop talking so she could hear it better. After a second, she realized it was a voice. It was strained and weak, though. Like someone was standing on their chest.

“Kkkkh— khhhaaaaayyyy….aaaatttttttteeeee,” said the voice. “Khhh-Kaaaaattttteeee, hhhhh….hhhheelp me… help me, please!” The voice sounded feminine—slightly deep and distorted as well. Maybe she’s saying it through the hole on the other side of the wall, or maybe she’s stuck in there somehow. Either way, Kate went through a paroxysm of shock. Even though she spent most of her week stressing over someone/something tearing through her wall, the idea of a woman in need was the last thing she expected.

She was silent for a while, ears ringing as she stared at the hole in a horrified silence. After a second, she realized that she still had her phone in her hand. Ed was still yapping, asking Kate where she went. She put the phone to her ear.

“Ed… Ed!” She said, interrupting him. “I think there’s someone inside the fucking hole.” Ed was silent for a second, which seems like an eternity for Kate. The continuous pleading from the woman in the hole grew louder, and more frantic. Finally, Ed just laughed.

“Kate, what- what’re ya talkin’ about?” There was a sense of nervousness in his voice. 

“Listen!” Kate placed her phone up to the hole, allowing Ed to hear the pained wails. After a second, she put her phone back to her ear. “Do you believe me now?” She said, half panicked and half impatient. “Please, you gotta swing by and help. I’m gonna call 911 and crawl in there, or something.”

Kate heard a quiet “Fuck,” come from Ed. Then, he said in a surprisingly stern voice, “Kate listen ta’ me. Do not go into that hole and do not call the cops. I’ll be there in an hour. If anythin’, lock yer bathroom door. Better yet, leave yer apartment. See ya soon.”

Before she had a chance to protest, Ed hung up. It was her turn to cuss, since the idea of just hanging back while this woman was in pain wasn’t one she was entertaining, especially as her cries grew in intensity. Kate wondered if anyone else in the building could hear it.

Screw Ed, she thought. This hole is probably big enough for me to crawl through. If Ed’s going to take that long to lug his ass over here, I might as well just crawl in myself. Besides, these buildings aren’t that far apart. I’ll be back before Ed’s even left his place!

Kate rummaged through her kitchen drawers until she found her flashlight, not wanting to take her phone in case she somehow broke it. She shined the flashlight down the hole, and it hit the darkness as though it hit a wall of black just fifteen feet away. She sighed.

Maybe it’s a bit further out than I anticipated, Kate thought, but still shook her hands to amp herself up. She’s going to go in there regardless. After the time she’s spent in this apartment, she couldn’t trust Ed to find his own ass. Putting her flashlight into her mouth, she grabbed each side of the hole. It was warm to the touch, almost matching her body temperature. It was a weird sensation, but Kate still dove headfirst into the mysterious hole that appeared in her bathroom wall.

She crawled into the darkness. The ridges every inch give good finger holds as she crawls on her hands and knees into the darkness. She realized that she’s been crawling for a while— much longer than what it should’ve been. She tried to turn around to see how far from her bathroom she had crawled so far, but she couldn’t see her bathroom anymore. In fact, it was hard to even turn around and look, the hole itself seemed to have shrunk since she went in, now closing around her shoulders and hips. Panic flared inside of her, and she tries to back up, but something was blocking her. Somehow, a wall came up behind her. After a couple of deep breaths, Kate figured the only way out was to go through, and went onwards. After what felt like a half an hour of crawling she ends up on her stomach. Her arms were like jello. She didn’t know if she’s even the one dragging herself along anymore. For all she knew, the hole is the one pushing her along, bringing her deeper and deeper into its bowels. The warm concrete ridges of the hole scrape against the exposed skin on her arms, legs and stomach. They feel raw, but it doesn’t matter. The hole Kate found herself in was getting tighter, crushing her and making it harder to breathe. The air was stale, and her lungs were being squeezed, causing her to only take short breaths. It hurt. Everything vibrated around her, but she didn’t know when that started. It’s hot. She’s sweating. She can’t breathe.  Even if Kate wanted to turn around, or push herself backwards, she couldn’t. Her arms were pinned to her side, and her head barely had enough space to look forward. She could feel her shoulders begin to pop out of socket. Her ribs cracked. Eventually, her flashlight went out, and she’s left in the all-consuming darkness.

***

Ed unlocked Kate’s door with his skeleton key for the building. He’s pissed at her, and rightfully so, he felt. The bitch who’s been ringing his phone nonstop since she moved in can’t seem to answer hers the one time Ed needed her to. Of course she just had to keep him locked out, too! Ungrateful fucking tennants, he thought.

“Kate! I’m here ta’ fix that damned hole ya keep yammerin’ about!” He stood in the doorway of her apartment. The lights were all still off except for the bathroom. The light seeps out of the doorway, slightly brighter than the glow of the afternoon sun. The silence was deafening, and Ed shifted uneasily. “Aight, well… I’m comin’ in! Don’t call the cops on me, er’ nothin’.” 

He muttered under his breath as he walked into the bathroom, complaining about how much of a bitch Kate was– so much of one that she wouldn’t even speak to him! He stopped in his tracks, though, when he saw the hole in the wall… and no sign of Kate. It’s not until he peered into the hole that he heard her. 

She’s sobbing, calling out to him.

“Eeeeehhhh…. Eeeeeeeeehhhhhddddd,” Her voice called between choked sobs. “Eeeeehhhhhddwaarrddd… hhhhhh….Heeellp me… Help me PLEASE! ” 

Ed swore under his breath. Then, he said to the hole, “Fuckin’…this is the fourth one this year, you piece o’ shit!” He kicked the wall underneath the hole out of frustration, putting another hole into the wall from his steel toe boot. He unleashed a steady stream of cusses, “Great. Just great. Now I need ta’ find another tennant and fill another fuckin’ hole!” He looks into the hole, puts his hands on either side of it, and yells in, “I hope yer happy, diggin’ around in holes ya didn’t belong in!”

Ed quickly plastered the hole from his foot. It was child’s play. He fixes holes in drywall like this three times a day. He looked into the hole that swallowed Kate one last time. The uneasy darkness seemed to reach out to him. Kate continued to scream his name between raspy sobs, but he shrugged it off. He knows that isn’t Kate. Not any more.

He plugged up the hole after an hour of work. Then, he went home and put up a new ad online for Kate’s old apartment:

“A wonderful one-bedroom apartment for rent in downtown Lansing. Rent is $2,500 a month. Fully furnished and recently retouched after the unexpected departure of the previous tenant. Aside from added luxuries, there was a hole in the bathroom wall…

 “...it’s gone now.”

[[I hope you all enjoyed this piece! I first wrote this when shopping for apartments in my state. It felt like, despite having a nice job at the time, nothing was good enough. Those of you who are nerds like me probably recognize the title of this piece. I was inspired by Silent Hill 2 and 4, but it doesn’t go much further than that, haha.]]

[[See you all next time!! 💜]]

Index

[frankensteinmutual]

Signalis (2022) [H.P. Lovecraft, The Festival] /Sagittarius A* / Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates / Outer Wilds (2020) / Is There a God-Shaped Hole at the Heart of Mathematics? / Drain for overflowing water at Sambuco Dam, Lavizzara Valley / ? / Thomasin Frances, Hole Theory (15/10/2022) / Bryan’s Ground, a public garden in Herefordshire on the Welsh border. / odd, weird, strange and unusual / Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves / Evil (2019-2014) / Judas H., Overflowing With Empty / Illustration of the Annular Eclipse of 1836 from “A fourteen weeks course in descriptive astronomy”, Joel Dorman Steele (1836-1886) / @imdad_barbhuyan on Instagram / The moon’s Copernicus crater. Through magic glasses. 1890. / Kaveh Akbar / Dune (2021) / x / Dmitry Kochanovich, Epiphany (Russian,b. 1972) / The Silt Verses, Chapter 41: But As My Last Breath Splits My Throat / Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, The Camp is a Bait for Time / Darina Muravjeva, Hole / Hilde Heynen in Heterotopia and the City / x / Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers / x /  Louise Glück, from Descending Figure / Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay. / Caitlyn Siehl, What We Buried; from “A Letter To Love” / Lara de Moor, Orb (2014) / Sam Sax, Pig / The National - Wake Up Your Saints / Aleksander Rostov / Sanna Wani, from “Princess Mononoke (1997)”, My Grief, the Sun / Gregory Orr, [i want to go back] / Thomas Ott / ? / Judas H., Overflowing With Empty / James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room / Massive sinkhole swallows house in Florida / Edna St Vincent Millay, in Letters (1952) /Silent Hill 4 (2004) / @/vren-diagram / Anne Boyer, What Resembles the Grave But Isn’t / Law of Holes / Scarlet Hollow (2021) / China Miéville, from Railsea

(part one)

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

[forgettable-au]

I think about this call so much

[everchased]

can someone please get these hoes under control i'm BUSY

[anotherpapercut]

yesterday I went to a little meeting at my local queer community center and I was admiring their bookshelves and mentioned that I work at the public library and someone said "well I bet they don't have any [LGBTQ+ books] at our library" and I was like um. yes we do. we have tons of them. half of our employees are queer leftists so they said "oh well I bet they don't in [nearby rural county]" and I was like uh once again yes they absolutely do. gay people live and work there as well

so here's a quick reminder that if you don't think your local library has enough queer centered materials you should actually check before assuming, and if you're not satisfied with their collection you should submit a request for more such books. I don't know what the political landscape of libraries looks like outside the us rn, but within the us no matter where you are, I promise you there are employees at your library fighting for inclusion and intellectual freedom and they can't win without vocal public support

[carcosa-commune]

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James Sunderland when he sees a wide dark hole of unknowable depth with jagged rebar and metal grating sticking out.

[stick-or-treat]

I just transferred out all the junk I reblogged between 2010-2015 so this feels like a fitting way metaphorically smash the champaign bottle against the ship before it takes off or whatever

This game needs to stop scaring the shit out of me. Just got the HD edition.

[flexscene]

OliverSport on Cam

[cashmere-caveman]

they need to invent an emoji of a guy in a hole that resembles the grave but isnt

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Part 2/2

By the time Stanley had realized he wasn't as alone as he believed himself to be entrapped in this ravenous abyss; he had honestly begun to suspect that he was finally starting to properly lose his mind.

In all the ceaseless miles that Stanley had journeyed during his apparent permanent residence within the dark devouring void, not once had he encountered another conscious, walking, talking being similar to himself. Every other formerly living creature that he had crossed paths with had been so... silent. Empty. Dead, in every sense of the word. It was as though the very essence of life itself had been sucked out of their bodies with a straw, their forms slowly falling apart piece by piece under the vicious gluttony of the darkness that surrounded them. They looked like they actually were supposed to be there, unmoving and comatose, unlike him.

So, when Stanley first began to encounter the twins, all of a sudden, he wasn't the only one in the dark.

When meeting the first pair of them, he found himself standing in a lake.

He hadn't even noticed the changes at first. It felt as though he had been walking for weeks on end, his body moving purely on autopilot and his aching legs leading him towards a destination only it knew. A thick fog of forgetfulness and flickering memories had descended upon his brain like a heavy blanket of numbing static as he had traveled. In this absentminded state, he hadn't even realized that the ever-present undulating, buzzing darkness surrounding him had begun to gradually shift and morph to form a horizon line; stretching into tall looming cliffsides that almost seemed to close in on him. Once the nonexistent floor beneath his soles abruptly began to ripple and warp, like the disturbed surface of a shallow puddle; only then did he finally notice his transformed environment.

The transition was seamless, almost dream-like. One moment, he was still surrounded by that filthy, overwhelming abyss; and the next, his boots were suddenly plunged deep into the cold, dark lake water.

The silence didn't leave, however. It still choked and stuffed its way into Stanley's ears to clog up his mind with thick cotton; the eerie quiet not quite matching the calm, almost serene scenery the void seemed to have abruptly transformed itself into. Like a movie with its sound cut off; leaving only the unsettling hum of the projector to fill the empty air.

It was odd. The lake was surely incredibly deep. He could obviously tell from how thin and pathetically small the shores appeared all the way from where he now unceremoniously stood in the middle of the lake. Stan could look down and see the darkness below his feet swallow what meager light that managed to break through the murky waters. The overwhelming black almost seemed to beckon him, gaping and haunting; a bottomless underwater pit of pitch black that never seemed to end.

And yet, he didn't sink. Stanley remained perfectly level, the almost ink like waters stopping just at ankle level, as though he were held up just above the surface by some invisible force. Even the writhing waves seemed small and low, as though the waters were shy to climb up his legs further than that. It was odd, so very odd.

However, it wasn't nowhere near as odd as the sight that greeted him when he finally lifted his eyes from the waters.

Stanley had crossed paths with truly unbelievable sights in this strange somewhere; from bursting, collapsing stars; to the imploding heat death of entire universes, but none of them seemed to hold the candle to what he saw then when he lifted his eyes:

Children.

Two, to be exact. Two, nearly identical looking children stood motionless before him; completely soaked through to the bone as though they had taken a plunge into the frigid water that pooled around their ankles. It was a girl and a boy, both adorned with twin expressions utterly devoid of emotion, their wide eyed stare seeming to burn holes into his thin jacket. Their drenched clothes sagged off of their scrawny frames; thin rivulets of water dirpping off of them and disturbing the glassy surface of the water at their feet. The little girl's hair had messily stuck to her face in thin sodden strands, her cheeks still full and round with youth just like the boy's. They looked young. Too young to be in a place such as this.

Oh, but their eyes; their eyes.

They burned with such anger; such injustice, brighter than any dying star or galaxies he had ever seen. Anger towards the world, to fate, to whatever cruel deity that had deemed them fit to be sent to this wretched place so prematurely. They were too young to be here; to be entrapped like he was amongst this hungry darkness. And yet, here they were, sheer denial against their own untimely deaths being the only thing keeping them awake and conscious amongst the dead and rotting. A show of juvenile defiance to nature itself so vehement even the all-consumign darkness seemed hesitant to devour them whole just yet.

It saddened him. It saddened him to know that they belonged there, that they were supposed to be there. He could see it, he could feel it; they were dead. No amount of determination could deny that universal fact.

When they spoke, Stanley could hear anger:

Stan chuckled in a futile attempt to lighten the suddenly heavy atmosphere that threatened to crush him whole. "A lake monster? You kids and your imagination," he teased, hoping to somehow rid the poor kids of the haunted look that seemed to whirl in their glares. No child should have been burdened with such a knowing look; such eyes that looked like they had seen everything there was to see about the world, the horrid and the good.

Clearly, it had been the wrong thing to say, and Stanley's faux pas was rewarded with a scowl from the little boy. A world's worth of sour contempt etched into every contorted groove that his grimace seemed to dig into his much too young face. Stan suddenly felt guilt squeeze at his weary bones for having caused that.

"That's what they all said," the boy spat out, eyes shining with a sheen of wetness Stan wasn't sure he was prepared to deal with.

Stan left that first interaction with the twins with the feeling of guilt and sorrow still clining to him.

He couldn't have known, at the time. He couldn't have known that this wouldn't be anywhere near the last time that he would meet the pair. He hadn't realised just how many of them there were. After that first pair, his endless journeying within the Abyss was hardly be spent alone anymore. Countless more times, he came face to face with the exact same two young and impossibly worn faces; forced to meet one pair of beaten and bruised kids after another.

Not one pair had died the same death as another. Some had gotten lost, prey to whatever threat that had snatched them up out in the open; some had fallen from high up; some had been crushed under an incredible weight; some had burned; some eaten alive; some zombified. Some didn't even seem physically harmed at all, body perfectly intact, and yet that same faraway, distrubed look in their eyes remained.

He thought the worst ones were the ones he found alone. A little girl or a little boy, left all lonesome without their other half there. Twins, he remembered a pair of them telling him once.

Once, he had come across a town full of silent, stone statues. It was a rustic, shabby, almost nostalgic looking town- odd and strangely familiar. The sight of it had tugged at an aged memory that had long since wasted away in the back of his mind. It was serene, almost deceptively so. The sun shone; the air smelled crisp and fresh; numerous waterfalls continued to crash down from the tall cliffsides; and a soft nonexistent breeze whistled through the thicket of pine trees that blanketed the outskirts of the town. None of it seemed to match the gruesome scene of the hundred wailing statues that littered every inch of the town.

He had found the boy's statue on the other side of town, deep within the green forest and toppled over the gnarled roots of a towering tree. Like the rest of the townsfolk, he too, was frozen mid-shriek; his stone face twisted and contorted into a mock impression of a silent scream as his body lay paused in a writhing struggle. He made sure to be gentle when he carried the boy's statue over to place it beside the girl's, whose statue stood far deeper into the forest, sporting the same rictus grimace of terror as her brother's. It somehow felt wrong for them to have been so far apart from one another, even in death.

He had come to dread meeting of the twins. He hated every second he had to confront yet another pair of dead children that did not belong here, but fate had decided they did. He despised having to listen to their tales of woe as they wept about the injustice of the world, of having died young; he despised himself for being unable to do more than weep with them.

"We don't belong here, Grunkle Stan," he would listen to the little girl weep, calling him a title he didn't recognize. He never remembered if they had ever told him their name, but they all seem to know his, without a fail. "If we're dead, then what about you? What about Grunkle Ford? Mom? Dad? What about them? We can't be dead, we can't be," they would say, confusion and frustration written all over their faces. They didn't understand. They didn't understand why they had come to the darkness so early, so unfairly.

He never knew what to say, he'd never been good with words.

All he could do was kneel down to their levels and engulf them in his arms, hoping he could somehow squeeze the pain straight out of their bodies in his embrace. He hugged them, because what else could he do?

[glassisland]

There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.

Silent Hill 2 (2001)

[i-like-to-look-at-your-back]

Sleeping off

[soosoosoup]

treasure planet au, last of the batch (Poppy & Floyd)