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rapturously · 22 days ago

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𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐥𝐟, 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐞.

┊ count orlok x fem!reader.

✠⠀༷ ゜ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒: after uncovering an heirloom thought to be long-buried and forgotten to time, your flesh is joined as one with the enigmatic count.

read part one here.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 8.0K.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: heavy smut, willing consent, vampire antics (bloodplay, blood drinking, scent kink), extreme possessive & obsessive behavior, biting, scratching, making out, tearing clothing, unprotected p in v sex, loss of virginity, sex with a rotting vampire, cunnilingus, cockwarming, multiple orgasms, title kink (use of my lord), dracula references, a relationship based on lust/obsession/possession and not love.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: writing this has given me joy about writing again & it’s a fantastic feeling! loved working on this fic! thank you to everyone who has shown such love and support for my work, this is why I write and it means a lot to me! I hope you guys enjoy!

𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐭𝐨𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐚𝐰𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭. 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞.

Each night since he had first fed from you followed a similar pattern, lulled into a sensual subservience by his shadow, soothed by the allure of his voice. There was an innate lack of physicality that perplexed you, as if he were waiting for something else.

This enforced isolation by daylight allowed you to traverse the castle grounds, to explore the hallowed halls of this macabre mausoleum — you never felt truly alone. His presence stayed with you, a shadow haunting your steps.

Beneath the crunch of frozen undergrowth, you wandered. Within the shroud of the Carpathian Mountains, the fortress had seemed monumental, but in the flesh, it was smaller, a labyrinth of stone. It gave you ample time to admire the architecture and study his home.

The village became a mere afterthought, abandoned to the recesses of your mind, buried away, never to be uncovered. Your Lord was not physically present, more often than not, and you began to burn for his touch.

Phantom caresses and arduous visions could only sustain your craving for him for so long. He was not unkind, simply aloof and enigmatic, a being that seemed to give you everything you wanted, and nothing at all.

He had swathed you in clothing finer than you could ever imagine, fit for a noblewoman, lavished you in fine trappings and allowed you your own chambers. Even then, you wanted more — you wanted to be with him, beseech him to stay.

Wisps of warmth emerged from your lips as you stepped beneath an archway, the stone older than your predecessors. The grounds, still and eerie, retained a wealth of history, his ancestors still buried somewhere within the catacombs.

Orlok, you’d learned, was his ancestral surname, passed down through a noble lineage of a royal bloodline that far exceeded that of your own. He spoke nothing of his own beginnings, preferring to keep it all concealed within the dark.

For most of your life, you’d been taught to fear strigoi, tales of bloodsucking predators looming in the night, coming to snatch the innocent from their beds. You still felt some unusual uneasiness with your Lord, but it was humans you feared more than anything, those that tried to kill you.

Timeworn rags of your old life were left behind, scattered to the wind like a shattered memory. Whatever void was left within you, he filled — like a goblet overflowing with wine, leaving you satiated.

Within dust-laden corridors, you managed to find your way from the castle’s exterior grounds to a spacious hall, one that you had not yet seen. A singular door, tall and scaling, sat before you, the doorknob possessing the head of a gargoyle.

It was untoward for you to go prowling around within the Conta’s private dwellings, and yet, curiosity seemed to get the better of you.

Left unlatched, you gently pushed against the wrought-iron surface, chest lurching with a flurry of anxiousness as it groaned in protest. Sluggingly, it began to fall open, revealing a private study, wreathed in still-burning candlelight.

It was dark, lacking any windows or inklings of natural light. Scaling stone walls were lined in archaic paintings, several massive portraits gilded in frames of tarnished gold. Shadows danced along the bannister, uncertainty swelling within your stomach.

Each painting must’ve been familial, finely-crafted imagery of his ancestors. There was only one that seemed torn to shreds, almost nonexistent as you approached. The name was worn by time, difficult to read, Dacian muddied with the rotten gold of the frame.

The study seemed to have little use, chaotic and visually disorganized, with books and parchment strewn about, the fixtures dilapidated and old. An oaken desk remained scattered with various documents, but it was one item that had ensnared your attention.

A locket, the silver having faded to an ugly, distorted brown, all color and liveliness stripped away. It was inappropriate of you to pry like this, but some unforeseen force compelled you to take it, to open it and peer inside.

Trembling digits slipped around the ornate chain, finding the hinge of the trinket as you opened it. To your surprise, there was a small, painted portrait of a young woman — beautiful, in your eyes. Her attire was ripped from that of royalty, with delicate features and a regal, dignified posture.

Upon closer inspection, she resembled you to an uncanny degree, eyes beset by kindness.

A soft exhale of surprise tore past your lips, thumb tracing over the curve of the locket, brows furrowing together. This stranger’s likeness seemed to replicate yours, almost supernatural, and yet, you couldn’t be farther apart, separated by class and the insurmountable reach of time.

It hadn’t been disturbed for many ages, but the peculiarity of it did not seem to leave you, even as you placed it back down. Perhaps, he’d known of your presence all along, but it did not seem to fit the mystique of it all.

Departing from his study, you closed the door, greeted by the vibrant rays of sunset.

It became a tedious game of awaiting dusk’s arrival, watching as the sun began to slip beneath the mountains, orange rays turning to violet. With twilight encroaching, you knew he would soon awake, emerging from the shadows.

A sliver of your being felt compelled to ask about the locket, but you did not want to invoke his ire, if he were anguished over it. He had left it behind for a reason, buried beneath mountains of parchment, and there must’ve been a reason for it.

The forlorn dinner hall remained empty, save for the roaring hearth, brought to life by your Lord. As you entered through the massive set of wrought-iron doors, you caught a glimpse of his form, sitting closer to the fire.

Even from afar, your gaze was ensnared by the bundle of white, gossamer cloth he carried, the fabric reminiscent of your nightgown. Claws pinched at the material, twisting it between his fingertips as he brought it closer to his visage.

A strange spark stirred within your stomach, a familiar heat that seemed to ignite some crackling tension, allowing it to permeate the air. A hitch formed within your throat as you closed the door, the thump of it reverberating throughout the stone ceilings.

A hoarse rasp emerged from Orlok, an unsteady inhale as he absorbed the scent of your garments. In the time between, when he slumbered within his tomb, it was your smell he longed for, akin to that of some mortal addiction.

As you entered the hall, he withdrew your gown from his countenance, able to sense your beating heart, growing erratic in his presence. Black hues craned to peer over his shoulder, masked by the thick fur of his overcoat.

The bane of his being, his obsession, his lifeblood — during his days of arduous slumber, his thoughts crawled with you, of your amorous cries and keening body. There was a newfound ecstasy in the coming of dusk, when he could see you again — no vision placed within his mind’s eye.

He was not an oblivious creature, not impervious to your misadventures within his castle. Your scent lingered, permeating each corridor with a peculiar bouquet of warmth, one that only you possessed.

Your living presence breathed a certain exuberance into the veil of his shadow, where life was little more than a meaningless sentiment. His decay only seemed stilled by your heart, a precious thing, something that he deeply coveted.

It was in his nature to possess, to consume — he welcomed you into his tangled shroud, a dark haze that often invoked such fright. Your terror had subsided into carnality, a frenzied passion that he shared in, but had not yet acted upon.

Peering into your heart, the Count saw your wandering about within his study, mesmerized by paintings of his predecessors — and then, cradling a tarnished locket. A growl of agitation rippled through him, coupled with a rousing anger.

“Thou has traversed to places of grave importance,” The gravelly, thunderous lull of his cadence sent shivers of dread down your spine, born out of a gnawing anxiousness. He knew that you’d gone into his study, a place he considered to be private. “Why?”

A stab of lurching dread lunged for your stomach, sending a shiver throughout your body. It was foolish of you to believe that he wouldn’t suspect your prying, hands idly clutching at the fringe of your dress, an attempt at relieving tension.

Slick perspiration licked along the back of your neck as you faced his sharp accusation with a shrewd countenance. “I am sorry, my Lord, I did not intend to disturb your study.” It was a feeble attempt at mending the friction between the both of you.

“But you did,” A living reminder of terror — of his true nature, that of undeath and obliteration. Despite his innate obsession with you, he was still capable of wielding an icy wrath that made you tremble with trepidation. “I command thee to speak.”

A guttural growl erupts from his rotten diaphragm, a snarl that causes you to straighten, gooseflesh raking along your spine. He beseeches you to tell the truth of what you saw, something that your eyes were never intended to see.

“The locket,” A wisp of a murmur slips between your lips, tone softening in a valiant attempt to uncover the mystery of your ancient doppelgänger. “Who was she?” It was an innocuous inquiry, born from a naive heart.

Centuries without a thought of the past, only centered around you — you had brought an onslaught of lamenting with you. The Count did not answer, neglecting to shed any clarity on the woman who bore your own visage.

It was his own hubris that brought about his use of necromancy, thinking he could resurrect one that had long been dormant to the world. For such an action, his flesh was cursed in undeath, roaming the nocturnal world as a harbinger of pestilence, of one’s darkest desires.

“Of little importance.”

There was a fracture within you, a war that waged as you stood with bated breath, pondering his statement with perplexity. You did not believe him when he said this, digits curling into the rough embroidery of your gown.

“I do not believe you.” Lacking an ounce of defiance, your tone screamed of someone who yearned to know more of this shadow that haunted your every step. The Count’s displeasure was visible, countenance twisted into something of sheer anguish.

Within the space of a singular breath, he manifested before you, firelight draining from your surroundings until all that was left was pitch and silver. He was intimidating like this, leering over you like a dark statue, black hues swirling with an unbridled fury.

He was often indiscernible, a presence without any sentiment, and only you could taste them upon your tongue. Now, he seemed to bristle with an unsteady rage, cold breath fanning across your face, his scent one of the yawning grave and frostbitten flesh.

“You do not know what you speak,” His voice was like a poisonous thorn, a clap of thunder that rattled the castle’s foundations. The Count still cradled your nightgown in one hand, twisted in a fist between his claws. “It is a lament, nothing more.”

Clinging to a misbegotten past — within your marrow, you knew that it was a shadow of someone he once coveted, just as he possessed you now. Swallowing the growing lump within your throat, your gaze flickered to the bundle of pale fabric bunched within his grasp.

A flutter stirred within your heart, a skipped beat that elicited a soft gasp from your lips. His shadow blanketed you in his carnality, his obsession, his veneration — it sparked a fire within your belly, one that nearly seared your bones into ash.

Words died upon your tongue, stuck within the depths of your throat as you searched for a proper retort, and nothing emerged. A void of silence seemed to stop you in your tracks, allowing for a tumultuous tension to brew instead.

The Count lingered, hovering in above you, the tip of his nose brushing across your scalp. A gust of your scent invaded his senses, euphoric and overwhelming, a most wicked affliction.

“This lament shares my face,” Threads of a darker temptation began to pull at you, his allure unmistakable, like that of the great unknown. Your utterance gave him pause, body sharing in your space. “Why?”

He would have you in every lifetime, in every century — he would devour time if it meant that he could possess you. It was an ugly obsession, a vexation that you did not fully understand, this hunger that only you could satisfy.

A singular claw languidly danced across the exposed flesh of your neck, pulse pounding away beneath your jaw. It was a sensual touch, one reserved for lovers, a caress that seemed to make your knees tremble.

“𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐦𝐲 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.”

There was a weight to his confession that stole every shred of air from your lungs until you were left with nothing but a burning. An audible hitch formed within your chest, nerves set ablaze. A fire smoldered within your belly, one that demanded to be extinguished.

Crimson strings of fate, tethering you to him — perhaps, you were intended to be here all along.

Through black forests and silver blades, through snow-laden woodlands and the maddening cries of your once-kin, you had found him. His salvation was not in the form of some fantasy or fairytale, but through him alone, this carnivorous darkness — you were made for him.

With an unsteady exhale, you happened to feel your back lean against that of the hall’s grand door, the steely bite of icy iron sinking through your dress. It wasn’t the uncertain gait of fear, but of bewilderment — exhilaration.

To be coveted in a way that transcended the bonds of humanity, to anchor yourself to this being of carnage and lust — it was a sensation unlike any other. Your tongue felt like lead, heavy within your mouth as you attempted to conjure the right words, anything to convey your devotion.

It was unspoken, your need for him — he could smell it, oozing from your pores like sap from a tree, wafting from your being, the sweetest of scents. He cornered you, his impenetrable darkness corralling you against the door, and yet, you felt not an ounce of dread.

“This flesh is bound to thee, the object of all that I desire,” He rumbled, the lull of his cadence nearly bringing you to your knees, and the flame only grew tenfold. You had not known such reverence in your lifetime — and you knew that you never would again. “You are mine.”

Through bated breath, your heart heaved with ardor, body crawling with the lap of a lascivious heat that refused to cease. “I am yours.” It was a promise, made in the throes of your Lord’s possession, vocalized.

Without coherence, your hand blindly clamored forth, reaching for him in a way that you hadn’t before. Warm, silky digits found his chest, which expanded with each hoarse rasp, a low growl escaping him.

Your embrace evoked a dark, ravenous famine within him, one that threatened to devour you whole. He watched with a thinly-veiled rapture as you sank forth, hands finding his haggard form, clinging to him like a drowning woman.

Rough-hewn furs drifted beneath your fingertips, and at last, you felt him — as real as the dust-laden stone beneath your feet, no longer feeling like some ghostly omnipresence. Claws languidly dragged themselves against your crown, perusing through your tresses in one drawn-out caress.

The soft, pliant curve of your mouth enticed him so, the very essence of temptation, like the lull of a siren’s song from oceanic depths. He wanted you to invite him in, as one would invite a godly presence, let you crawl to him.

Black hues bored into you, indiscernible with an amalgamation of emotions, some hidden to you. A sharp exhale split through your ribs, one that shook with an encroaching exhilaration. Your gaze did not tear away out of fear, transfixed upon him.

“Kiss me,” It emerged as a whimper, a plea of such intense desperation. He had only ever appeared to you as a veiled shadow, never to feel the lively flush of your skin, or the pulsating of your heart within your throat. “Please.”

It was as if his breathing became unnaturally laborious, more than it had before, threaded with a desirous exhale. This act of physicality would inevitably lead to a point of no return, flesh bound as one in some grim eternity.

Your mind had never wavered — not once did you show an ounce of spite or a will to depart from his side, digits beginning to curl into his tunic. You hoped that your touch would beseech him to act, and yet, he remained eerily still.

“You know not what you desire.”

He wanted to hear your devotion firsthand, spilled from your throat, laid bare like a sinner’s shameful confession. A twinge of pathetic frustration began to burn your features, body pressing closer until your chest had brushed against him.

“I do, my Lord, I do — I beg of you,” Breathy, wanton pleas left you in myriads, gaze glistening with an unrestrained ardor. Whatever he wanted from you, he would have it — you belonged to him. At last, his rotting lips ghosted above yours. “Take me — all of me.”

Control seemed fleeting, and you danced along the knife’s edge of desire, hoping to let it plunge into you like a mortal wound. Those elongated claws brushed across your cheek, coming to cradle your jaw in a way that only a lover could.

A throaty sound erupted from your chest, wisps of air ripped from your diaphragm when his lips collided with yours. You had not tasted anything like him before — a decay sweeter than demise. Passion took root, followed by lust.

The prickled coarseness of his mustache scratched against your mouth, and yet it hadn’t felt so heavenly before. Elation rushed through you like the swell of a tempestuous tide, prompting you to mold yourself to his own frame.

A growl stirred within him, one that evoked his possession over you, his domineering will. He tasted life within your lips, the warmth of fire, burning away the forlorn chill of the grave.

It was as if your surroundings had melted away, reduced to an endless sea of darkness, with only him as your guide. A ravenous pull laced itself into his kiss as he pressed you further, a sharp nail tracing across your jugular.

“To your chambers.”

The sharp, gravelly rumble of his cadence tore at your thoughts, ensnaring your attention as you straightened. Pitch-colored hues glowered upon you as you peeled yourself from him, obeying his command as you returned to your quarters.

He had not followed, manifesting beside the window as you shut the door, wrought-iron groaning in protest, echoing throughout the halls. The penumbra of his oppressive shadow fell across you, tangling you within the visceral gnarl of his obsessive desire.

Moonlight pooled through the singular window of your room, liquid silver casting a ghostly light upon his towering physique. No longer aghast by his haggard features, a man reanimated, you inched closer, seeking him once more.

You yearned for his mouth, for his all-consuming kiss, stepping forward until you were merely breaths away, lacking any shred of nervousness. Had you not been fantasizing of this for some time, you might’ve been terrified — instead, you felt excitement.

“Reveal thine flesh, for it belongs to me.” He rasped, desiring to see you closely this time, unable to flee from his gaze. With each visit of his shadow upon you, left him unable to truly revel in your eternal beauty.

Gooseflesh raked across your spine, accompanied by an arousing flame that ignited within your belly, burning so intensely that it threatened to scorch you, too.

You had not experienced an exhilaration quite like this — as longed-for like dusk that yearned for the moon’s enchanting silver.

Trembling digits found the front ties of your dress, untangling them with insistent tugs before you turned, back facing him. A gathering of silken ties and string pieced it all together, and your hands attempted to make swift work of their hindrance.

The feather-light embrace of claws raked across your bare shoulder, roughened pads of his spindly digits absorbing the heat of your skin. A wisp of icy breath rasped from him, hoarse and labored along the nape of your neck.

A shiver of elation rolled across your spine, lips parted with bated breath as he loomed ever closer, towering over you. God, did you want him, needed him — needed him like air, a strangled gasp of desperation.

Gnarled talons bunched themselves within loosened threads, and with an inhuman display of strength, he ripped your dress. Dark hues seemed to flicker, swirling with such lust — he wanted to bite into your passion, let it consume him.

“My Lord.” A wanton mewl slipped past your lips, listening to the shred and rending of fabric as the Count tore it from your body. Tugging your arms from the puffy sleeves, your breasts were exposed to the chill of your chambers.

His dismembering of your garments continued, elongated fingers and talons prying it all away, unraveling you, revealing you to him. Those large, gnarled hands smoothed over the curve of your hips, pushing the dress down, down.

A guttural growl unfurled from within his chest, a sharp noise that rattled your bones with a needy thrill. His initial tenderness was entirely unexpected, silently admiring the unblemished plane of your flesh.

The sharp bridge of his nose slipped against your throat, lips pressing a vigorous kiss there, roughened tongue lapping over your saccharine skin. With a keening moan, you sank into his hold, bristling at the sensation of a hand encircling your breast.

Teeth grazed across the hollow between your throat and shoulder, temptation oozing from your pores before he bit. A ripple of pain spread from his bite, enough to taste the coppery pool of your blood.

It was not a harsh bite, not intended to feed — that would come last. His penchant for your cruor called to him like a hymnal, rough tongue dragging over the wound he’d made. Talons caressed your breast, kneading at the pliant mound.

One palm closed around your neck, caging you in against his frame as he greedily lapped at oozing droplets of crimson. You felt euphoric, eyes pleasantly half-lidded as you stepped from your dress, bare-skinned and willing.

His touch evoked an enraptured ardor from you, a need so overwhelming that it seemed to wash over your core. Arousal hung heavy within the pit of your stomach, molten heat that oozed like honey between your thighs, scent ambrosial to Orlok.

The cool metal of his signet pressed against your jugular, nails cupping your chin. As he withdrew his lips from the hollow, stained in a sheen of crimson, he continued his trail of kisses along the nape of your neck, rumbling with a low rasp.

Each ragged, raucous breath he drew was accompanied by an invasive gust of your musk, vetch and bellflower, native wildflowers found within the Carpathian Alps. It was intoxicating, and he inhaled once more, lips sealed to your shoulder.

At last, he permitted you to look upon him once more, noticing the doe-like sheen to your gaze, the unusual fondness you held for him. Your desire mirrored his own, softer in-nature, but just as vivacious.

Without hesitation, your hands silently clamored toward his gaunt visage, a mask of ghastly appeal, features sharp and haggard. You wondered what he might’ve looked like in life — comely and regal, handsome; a true pylon of nobility.

Warm palms cradled his face, pads of your fingertips wandering across his cheekbones, over patches of decay and rot, over tangles of scars that would never fade. He seemed enamored — obsessed in an unholy sense, drawing to you like a shadow to a pious moon.

“Without thee, this hunger remains eternal — without thee, I cannot be sated.” The thunderous purr of his raspy cadence sent shivers down your spine, body calling out to him. This lust he filled you with was one of sheer ecstasy.

A simpering gasp ripped through your diaphragm, bringing with it a wave of want. It was as if your entire being was tethered to him in some supernatural manner — two souls, once adrift — now, two bodies joined as one.

Words turned to ash upon your tongue, and yet you conveyed your sentiments through your lips, coaxing him in for another kiss. This entanglement was of a primal sort — impassioned mouths, teeth, a moan emerging from your throat.

His hand held your throat, claws sweeping beneath your chin, along your jaw as he reciprocated with his own famine. He was ravenous, kissing you with a yearning fervor that made your flesh scream with a pleasurable fire.

“I burn for you,” It was a mewl, a wanton utterance that made his bones sing. Orlok snarled, a possessive sound, one that seemed to savor your vocalized lust. “Please, do not stop.” You pleaded, seeking his rotten lips once more.

There was a crawl to your kisses, but a necessary one. He withdrew, enough to shed his overcoat, a mountain of fur and fine fabric, now discarded alongside your dress. A hitch formed within your throat, longing to see his flesh.

A nail traced across your lower lip, holding your face with a smoldering possessiveness. Your gaze did not falter from the Count’s, whose pitch-dark hues burned with lust. Tenderly, you kissed the pad of his thumb, able to hear the hitched rasp of his breath.

With a longing embrace, your digits fluttered to the front of his fur-lined tunic, weathered and worn by time, finding the column of embroidered buttons. He did not recoil or foil your movements, pressing slow, hungry kisses to your jaw.

As you sluggishly began the process of disrobing him, you caught glimpses of rotting flesh, grey and ashen, preserved in his current state. To lay with a strigoi often meant that you would be forever tainted by darkness — tainted, you would be.

In life, ages ago, the Count was imposing and well-muscled, much of it still preserved, beginning to succumb to the slow gnarl of decay. Each warm stroke of your fingertips brought him to heel, craving you in a most abhorrent manner.

The silken-and-cord wrap that held the elongated tunic together came next, working in gentle silence as you untethered it from his person. Talons continued to grope at your body, leaving behind faint scratches, some deeper than others.

No longer burdened by the weight of sin, you felt weightless — able to drown yourself within his veneration, his obsession. It was a dark and twisted thing, an ungodly sentiment, and you remained unfettered.

It was your mouth that beseeched him for another kiss, mouths entangling, rough and hungry. The stiff, coarse bristles of his mustache scratched against your silky skin with each kiss, a low moan stirring within your throat.

He tastes dreadful — of ash and brimstone, like damp earth pulled from a tomb, and yet, your lips urge him to continue. Crimson stains sharp indents of teeth in the hollow of your shoulder from where he bit, now bruised.

Pushing his tunic aside, you were exposed to taut, haggard arms, his complexion grave-like, rotting — his perfection was unparalleled, in your eyes. Your palms spread wide against his bare chest, as cold as ice-laden snow, able to feel each heave of his hoarse breath.

The warmth he draws from you is akin to bloodletting, sucking the rot from a festering wound. He savors it, a kiss of light that he shall never taste, your passion blanketing him like sun warmed rays.

Wordlessly, you pull away, bare feet dancing across the deteriorating rug covering cold, stone floors. You move onto the bed, gossamer sheets ruffled from use, the curtains seeming to flutter of their own accord.

Sinking into the feathered duvet, you await his presence with bated breath, and he moves like a liquid shadow. You do not recall seeing him shift onto the bed to join you, clothing entirely absent. His physicality is pointed, spindly, gaunt — your breath hitches with excitement.

Patches of sinewy rot blanket his flesh like blotches of colour upon a canvas — time was not a generous creature. A lonesome beast, awakened by the grace of the maiden, you. He crawled over you like a shadow, a growl reverberating within his throat.

Drawing your legs apart, his tall, taut frame slithers between your thighs, each ragged breath one of obsession. His putrid musculature covers you, hand coming to cup your chin, elongated digits extending toward your crown.

Talons brush through your tresses, downy and soft, a stark juxtaposition to his wretched state. His gaze meets yours, evoking a subtle gasp from your mouth as you reach for him, palms finding their purchase at the nape of his neck.

The protrusions of bone are felt beneath your fingertips, the icy temperature of his flesh. Exhilaration stings your lungs, liquid heat becoming a swirling tempest within the pit of your stomach. One palm cradles the back of his skull, inviting him in for a kiss.

A moan sears your throat, bubbling forth before his mouth devours yours — frighteningly hungry, hips beginning to still against yours. You feel the swell of his member press into your core, setting your nerves ablaze.

Teeth scrape across your lower lip, dangerously sharp, like the serrated edge of a blade. His kiss is like that of a tempestuous storm — dark, foreboding, consuming — you wade into his waters with a girlish giddiness.

Reciprocating his kiss, you feel his claws begin to dig, raking against your scalp as his obsessive nature rages like a gust of furious wind. Whatever fleeting prick of pain you feel, it pales in comparison to twined mouths and the lap of his tongue.

A leathery palm encircles your breast, covetously kneading at the pliant flesh, nail flicking over the sensitive peak of your nipple. A gasp tore from your chest, lips colliding with his with such desperation, reveling in his caress.

Before him, before pledging yourself to him, you had never been touched — any kisses you received were fleeting and lifeless, momentarily bliss that lacked want. It was obsession you craved, the repressed desire to be coveted.

Lips moved in an ecstatic dance, a fervent union of flesh and lust, a twisted reverence. Carnality bled into your ministrations, your mouth paling in comparison to the domineering force of his kiss.

In one swift breath, his lips peeled themselves from yours, only to greedily smooth over the column of your throat. He worshiped your flesh, listening to the erratic pounding of your heart, hastily galloping with encroaching excitement, a sensual thrill.

Down, down — in a sluggish descent, Orlok continued his wet string of kisses, a low rumble coagulating within his chest. Like coarse bristles of a comb, his mustache tickled your flesh, mouth finding the pliant curve of your breast.

A myriad of whimpers escaped you, hands continuing to cradle his head, thumbs caressing along the nape of his neck. His noises were sounds of satisfaction, savoring the lively smolder of your skin as you stroked him.

Vigorous kisses planted themselves across your breasts, your sternum, above your heart — he did not bite, not yet. He was agonizingly slow, drawing out your pleasurable torment, causing you to writhe beneath him.

“My Lord,” You mewled, palms drifting towards your sides, fisting at the sheets as he slithered downward. A violent warmth stirred between your thighs, now slick with arousal. “Please, please …” Delicate pleas tapered off into whispers.

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝, 𝐦𝐲 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

It was his voice, so crystalline within the recesses of your mind — your body trembled, awaiting the inevitable wave of bliss. He offered his lust freely, like that of a shadowed plague that swept across you, gnawing away at your bones.

He inhaled — a hoarse, horrible sound that expanded throughout his diaphragm. The feminine scent that had mounted between your legs was nearly as tempting as that of blood, saliva beginning to pool within his maw.

With a lingering kiss pressed to the angular curves of your hipbone, the Count growled, mouth dipping further, until he reached the heat of your core. Claws raked across your thigh, pressing down into your supple flesh, leaving behind the marks of his possessiveness.

His tongue raked hot embers over your cunt, wet and ravenous as he began to lap at your core. Your noises emerged, unrestrained moans that tapered off into wanton whimpers. It was unexpected, his actions, yet not unwelcome.

Talons searched for your hand, dainty and delicate within his massive palm, fingers intertwining with your own. You used this as an anchor, heels digging into the bed beneath you as he greedily lapped at your aching slit.

Legs twitched and quivered from exhilaration, gooseflesh taking up residence along your spine. A wash of icy air fluttered across your stomach, over your breasts, nipples beginning to pebble with the sudden draft.

Sloppy, damp sounds resonate from below, the noises of a greedy, covetous creature whose hunger knows no bounds. His tongue possesses a mind of its own, dragging over your cunt in desirous strokes that leave you wanting more.

Fire unfurls from within you, a lustful burn that seeks to sear the both of you. It only grows in intensity with each flick of his tongue, snaking across your cunt as he savors your taste.

Joined hands rest atop your hip, his digits splayed over your lower stomach, claws occasionally piercing your flesh. No longer a stranger to the blissful pain he brings you, a moan leaves you, one that vocalizes the depths of your enjoyment.

“More,” You croak, back arching from the feathery surface beneath you, as if pulled into his darkness by some invisible force. He can taste your want upon your flesh, yearning oozing from your pores like sap from ancient bark. “More.”

The soft, desperate crooning lulls the Count into sating you, mouth greedily exploring your cunt, dipping into each crevice. It is then that his tongue laps over the pearl of your slit, causing a spasmodic tremor to pulse through your body.

A raspy, guttural growl shakes his throat, seeking the pearl of your cunt once more, dragging his tongue over it. You squirm, prompting him to continue, delivering long, wet strokes of his tongue to that sensitive clutch of nerves.

A crescendo of moans escape you in droves, your ecstasy vocalized to the black nothingness of your chambers. The curtains flutter, with bluish moonlight pooling in, its silvery glow tarnished by wisps of dark cloud, dancing across your body.

The Count continues to devour your cunt with his greedy laps and light graze of his teeth, hand snaking down to hold your thigh aloft. A tendril of drool drips from his lower lip, slavering as a wild animal would over their prey.

His tongue leaves you, shaking and forlornly, head angled towards the supple, velvety flesh of your inner thigh. With a sickening, wet sound, he bites into the skin, breaking it with ease as his mouth is filled with your tantalizing cruor.

A hapless mewl leaves you then, and from his wound, you feel a startling wave of ecstasy. Pain becomes pleasure, bliss — your hands are left to claw at the sheets, bringing the fabric into the confines of your tightly-wound fists.

Dexterous fingers seek to stimulate you even still, circling around your clit with a peculiar expertise. The muscle in your forearm flexes from use, tugging at the sheets with desperation. As he laps at your blood, your hips jolt into his palm.

He sups of your blood, tonguing over the freshly-made indent, still oozing with crimson. With a lap of his mouth, he moves to the pearl of your cunt once more, thin maw wrapping around it, stimulating you with his suckling.

Slurred cries of ecstasy slip past your lips, back arched, keening into any sliver of friction he offers. The air is stale, the scent of copper and decay fresh upon the wind, invading your senses like some noxious plague.

There is a primal messiness to his devourance, chin steeped in your blood, mouth latched to your cunt as he evokes bliss from you. A rush of white-hot delight sears your bones, blanketing you in a wave of pleasure, stomach swirling with a violent heat.

He brings you to your peak, claws digging into your hips, caging you in against his mouth. It is his unorthodox appetite that entices you so, an amalgamation of crimson ichor and your arousal, tongue sluggishly raking over your core once more.

Pitch-dark hues rove across your body, drinking you in, bewitched by your devotion. With a sluggish crawl, he begins to make his way along your form, mouth scraping across your flesh as he ascends, seeking to join you together.

The aftermath of your release lingers heavily between your legs, matted with your nectar and remnants of blood. A low snarl erupts from his throat, welcomed by the sensation of your silken digits cradling him once more.

It is he who kisses you — rough, unyielding, the piquancy of darkness. He ensures that you savor it all, the concoction of blood, your nectar, his unwavering veneration stinging your mouth.

Instead of repulsion, you were elated, clamoring to reciprocate his devouring kiss with one of your own. Your hand cups the back of his rotting skull, the other caressing around the nape of his neck. A wheezing inhale leaves him, as if he is attempting to swallow down your beguiling scent.

The incessant swell of his member nudges against your core, causing a shiver to roll down your spine. Talons rake along your flesh, scratching you like a hot-iron brand, his mark emblazoned upon your soul. He gropes at your breast, nails beneath your chin.

Each heated, consuming kiss leaves you struggling for air, each gasp one of desperation as you draw him closer. The closeness between you is one of a strange intimacy, his garish form bared to only you, a creature of gaunt bone and grey flesh.

Take me, take me, take me — your voice screams within your mind, like some incantation that you become transfixed by. Your Lord hears your cries, teeth drawing forth a drop of blood from your lower lip, skin breaking apart to reveal a pearl of crimson.

Without hesitation, his tongue drags across your mouth, taking with it your blood, setting fire to his lust. His spindly frame is enough to keep your legs apart, hips urging themselves against your own as his cock pushes into you.

The sudden intrusion makes you moan, foreign and unfamiliar, yet terrifyingly wonderful. His ragged breathing seems to hitch, his member taking root within your cunt as he sluggishly rolls against you. The pace he sets is somewhat erratic and rough, made to rut.

It had been many torturous centuries since he had last lain with a woman, the one who bore your countenance. The Count did not think of her now, focused upon you, this enchantress.

Some omnipresent force bids you to search for his gaze, black hues ensnaring you, visceral pits of carnality as his hips cascade into yours. Your body is flush against him, breasts heaving with delighted cries as you cling onto him like a drowning woman.

Friction dances between conjoined bodies, igniting your flesh with a feverish pitch as you feel his mouth clamor for yours once more. Unabashedly, you kiss him, tongue reaching into the cavern of his mouth, able to hear the soft wheeze from his throat.

Each prolonged snap of his hips send you reeling, cunt clenching around his cock, as if you are coaxing him deeper inside of you. He is sheathed like a blade within a scabbard, claws groping, scratching, reaching within you.

A brief ripple of pain wafts from your kiss-swollen lips, puffy from the bite he delivered. As tongues perform a desperate ballet, you hear him growl, a half-groan that coagulates within his maw, expressing his satisfaction.

Miraculously, your body bears the oppressive weight of his obsession with ease, blood slowly oozing from bites pressed into your hollow and thigh, marked by garish talons. Some have broken the skin, and yet your ardor for him remains entirely unvanquished.

The needy rut of his hips brush against your pelvis, cunt stretched around the swell of his cock. With another drag of thrusts, his possessive kisses come to a crawl, filling you with a twinge of disappointment. You miss the gravely chill of his mouth as he makes his descent.

He seeks your chest, a surge of sanguine ichor pumping throughout your veins, beside your breast. The Count does not intend to drain you, merely keeping himself satiated until the next dusk.

The rough pad of his tongue smooths over your jaw, planting a string of covetous kisses along your neck. Spindly, narrow digits press beneath your chin, holding your throat with a light pressure, claws extending toward your splayed tresses.

The notched bridge of his nose brushes along your jugular, teeth lingering beside your delicate flesh. You remind him of fine velvet, perfection beneath his hold, a plane of softness, all belonging to him. Invidious is he, seething with a yearning that only you can satisfy.

Still, he continues, his path of darkness one that leaves you wrought with exhilaration, continuing to rut your hips into his. The vigorous ministrations of his thrusts seem to momentarily pause, cock still inside of you, filling you in a way that only he can.

A pleading moan flutters from your lips, palms rooted to his ashen flesh, pillowing his rotting skull as he kisses along your body. Your back begins to arch, an incessant release mounting within you, arousal warm and slick between your thighs.

Honed, wet fangs seek the warm cavern between your breasts, sternum rising and falling with excitable sighs. A low, wanting snarl reaches your ears as Orlok bites into your chest, beside your left breast.

The damp crunch of teeth rending through flesh echoes throughout your chambers, accompanied by greedy, putrid gulps as he sups your blood. Pain blossoms throughout your breast, unfurling like the petals of a wilting flower.

There is an understanding of his appetite — you know that he would not bring about your demise, even if he willed it to be. The sudden swirling of your cruor within his maw seems to invigorate him, hips urging to life as his cock drives deep within you.

A whimpered gasp rips through your diaphragm, body reacting viscerally to the sudden drive of his being. Again, his pace is erratic, driven by lust and primal instinct above all else.

Wandering digits caress the nape of his neck, fingertips nearing the base of his skull, your other palm splayed out between his shoulders. You cradle him against you, feeling the arch of his physique as he ruts into you, pounding away at your cunt.

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞, 𝐦𝐲 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐆𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 — 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐛 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞.

The hoarse baritone of his thunderous cadence invades your mind, making your thighs twitch, legs involuntarily squeezing near his pointed waist. Your cunt clenches once more, evoking a growl from within his chest as he drinks.

His head lifts, chin stained with crimson, teeth hidden behind his mustache. Pitch-dark hues rove across your pleasured countenance, finding you to be enchanting, beauteous.

Warm palms dance along his frame, causing him to hiss, a low, delighted sound that instills him with desire. The bite embedded within your chest oozes with crimson, crescent teeth indents likely to scar. He laps at your blood, feeling you shiver beneath him.

Nearing your peak, you writhe, clutching onto him, begging for more through strained whimpers. The Count does not cease, sluggish thrusts of his hips forcing his cock deeper, deeper — until there is nowhere else to go.

Reaching for one of your hands, he pins it out to your side, claws dragging across the feeble flesh of your wrist, coming to interlock your fingers together. It is a gesture that makes your bones burn, flesh searing with such fervent desire.

His hands dwarf yours in size, locking your arm into place, your other palm left to cradle his head. Warm, vermillion ichor oozes onto your chest, rivulets of blood trickling over your breasts.

Without hesitation, he openly rakes his tongue over the trails of crimson, seeking your sanguine cruor, cock urging into you with a sense of finality. It is then that his attention is drawn to your lips, swollen and agape, deliciously tantalizing.

Mouths join together through the ecstasy of your shared release, hips beginning to stutter as you rocked against him. His cock drove deeper still, driving into your cunt as you reached your climax. It was relief he felt, the sensation of fullness.

Upon his lips, you taste the coppery sting of your own blood, accompanied with his own stale breath, the coarse prickling of his mustache. You cry out into him, feeling him swallow your moans, eating your pleasured sounds.

Squeezing at his hand, he seems unfettered by your grasp, nails digging into his ashen flesh, body rolling into him once more before you begin to settle. The aftermath of your release is a dizzying one, white-hot haze blurring your senses.

A low purr reverberates from his diaphragm — a drawn-out sound that blankets you in a strange sense of comfort. He stills, mouth receding from your own, ogling the remnants of cruor left behind from your heated kiss.

“You are mine.”

Dacian is known to you, a captivating language that only sounds mysterious and dark from his tongue. You sink into the mattress, able to feel his cock inside of you, ministrations having ceased, and yet he remains.

You welcome it, digits stroking from the base of his skull to his sharp, defined features, like warm kisses peppering his icy flesh. Exhaustion floods through you like the crash of an ocean wave upon the rock, and you recline completely.

He does not move from you, blanketed across your body in a possessive way, head coming to rest entirely against your collarbone. It is your saccharine breath he feels wafting across his visage, like the first inkling of springtime.

Joined hands rest beside your head, and you feel elated — a joy not felt before in your melancholy lifetime. His monstrous frame does not detract, and in the silvery pools of moonlight, he seems more picturesque than ghastly.

“I am yours,” Through a tender whisper, your eyelids grow heavy with encroaching sleep, tired from what proved to be a lengthy entanglement. He had supped enough of your blood this night. “Forever yours, I will remain.”

As you drift away into a blissful slumber, your paramour remains, claws perusing through your tresses, allowing such twisted obsession to eat him alive. You sate him in a way that no other has done before — whole, fulfilled.

By the time the first light of dawn creeps over the line of the Carpathian Mountains, he is gone — but the stains of his teeth are not.

With contentment, you know that dusk shall come again, and you will be sated once more.

#slasher x reader #count orlok x reader #count orlok x you #nosferatu #nosferatu 2024 #nosferatu x reader #vampire x reader #vampire x human #human x monster #monster fucker #vampire #count orlok

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obsessivevoidkitten · 2 months ago

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The Monster Under Your Bed

Yandere Sleep Demon x Gender Neutral Reader CW: Noncon, kidnapping, somnophilia, sleep magic, delusional yandere, implied future stockholm syndrome, general yandere behavior

Word Count: 779

Lately you had been struggling with some of the weirdest dreams. Some were nightmares, some were even erotic, but most of them were just odd. As time went on you had gotten pretty good at just ignoring them.

The reason for all of your strange dreaming was the monster who dwelled under your bed, Rix. Rix was not an incubus, but he did get energy from the sleeping when he made physical contact with them. His kind was a somewhat common occurrence in older homes that had built up a lot of ambient emotional energy within their walls.

He used his magic to cause you to sleep deeply when he put his hands on you so that you would never find out what was happening. But one night things didn’t work out as well as they normally did.

You had been away for well over a week for work and Rix was extremely hungry. The ambient emotions radiating from the old walls sustained him, but just barely. He could have gone to seek out another source of nourishment, but he was rather attached to you.

It would have felt… improper… for him to feed off of someone who wasn’t you. He had a bit of a crush on you. It was rare but not unheard of for sleep demons to fall in love with someone who they were feeding from. It made sense, they were ingesting emotional energy, thoughts, and dreams. It was a very thorough way to get to know someone.

Rix was convinced, justifiably so, that the feeling would not be mutual. You were a human, he was a demon. He had a tall hulking form, scary tusks, shaggy black hair, and yellow eyes that glowed in the night. The only time you had any notion of him was from fleeting visions of him in some of the dreams you had while under his spell. A consequence of the magic and nothing intentional.

When you returned from your work trip Rix was too hungry and did not have the normal presence of mind to use his magic to its normal strength. As a consequence you ended up waking up while he leaned over you with his hand on your cheek. He went wide-eyed and silent, but you just looked up and gave him a sleepy smile and briefly placed your hand on his cheek in a mirror of what he was doing to you.

You just thought you were dreaming again so you mumbled something in a sweet and gentle tone that he couldn’t make out but it made his heart melt. Then you just grabbed his arm and snuggled up to it as you fell back asleep. Maybe you loved him too? Or at least liked him a lot from what you saw of him in your sleep? Either way it was clear there was something he could work with.

The more he thought about how you had brushed his cheek and then snuggled up to his arm the more delusional he became. He began inserting himself consciously into your dreams. You were never mean to him and always regarded him politely. It fueled his passion for you.

Rix decided to gently pick you up and pull you into the realm that existed beneath your bed, a place normally only accessible to him. He began to use stronger sleep spells on you so he could get away with exploring your entire body, even going so far as sliding his dick into you after carefully stretching your delicate human entrance.

The few times you had awoken while he was fucking into you, you didn’t have a bad reaction. Sometimes initially a bit startled, but once the pleasure won you over you got settled in and just enjoyed it. Of course you assumed that everything you experienced was just part of your erratic dreams. The two of you had sex in every position imaginable and on practically every surface of his otherworldly home.

But as Rix slowly started to wean you off of his sleeping spells and you spent more and more time awake, something began to seem off. This wasn’t a dream. Rix wasn’t a figment of your imagination. When you confronted him he quickly came clean, he just couldn’t lie to you directly.

You begged to go free but he refused to give in. He could keep you here for eternity and eventually you would turn to him out of loneliness. Besides, you had to fall asleep sometime, and he could do whatever he wanted to you once you did.

Your life may have become a nightmare but for Rix it was a dream come true.

#yandere terato #yandere x reader #monster boyfriend #gender neutral reader #yandere monster #yandere boyfriend #male yandere x gn reader #yandere demon x reader #yandere demon #yandere #my ocs #My OC Rix

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qqueenofhades · 7 months ago

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I just feel like even if we all vote and Biden wins, Trump won't accept the loss, and eventually they'll just put him in anyway. And then there won't be another real election. Even if Biden wins and somehow is actually confirmed (which again, I think is unlikely) we're going to have to do this for 30 more years because of the SC, and that isn't at all sustainable.

All this isn't to say I won't vote but I just think people are being way too optimistic about what happens if Biden wins. I don't think him winning will keep Trump out or the horrible fascist future at bay.

Look, I get the fear. I do, I do... but this is also one of the times when you have to ask if it's actually telling you something true, or if it's just preying on that generalized feeling of doom to make everything seem hopeless even if we win again. And that is... there is absolutely no actual mechanism for Trump to be installed as president if Biden wins the Electoral College (since as we have repeatedly seen, the popular vote is immaterial). SCOTUS is horrible and evil and are trying to interfere as much ahead of time for Trump as they can, but part of that is because they can't simply issue an order for Biden to be removed and Trump to become God King By Fiat. That is not how it works. If Biden wins in November, he will be president until his term ends, he steps down, Kamala takes over, or anything else.

Trump tried a coup with all the entire overwhelming might of the US government as the sitting president last time; fortunately, it failed. Reforms to the Electoral Count Act have been made to prevent another January 6. The Department of Defense and the military are still under (and would be on another January 6) Biden's command, not Trump's. That's not to say that Trump won't try some shit with his insane cult followers, but he is just a late 70s conman from Queens out on bail and under sentence for a criminal trial, who is already the biggest and most disgraced loser and asshole in American political history. He is so desperate to cheat his way back into power because in a real sense, this IS the last-chance saloon for him. He can't put off the legal proceedings, however long they take, for another four years. He's losing his marbles at a rapid rate. I'm just saying: we don't know what or when, but there will be (and already have been) real consequences for him. That is why he is scrabbling so hard.

"Even if we vote, nothing matters and Trump will win anyway" is another of those insidious lies that works to make you feel as if the battle is endless and pointless and none of its victories matter. Of course it will not all be magically fixed forever if Biden wins. We will still have to figure some godforsaken fucking way to expand SCOTUS or kick Alito and Thomas off it. But we will have bought ourselves, our democracy, our country, and the world time to do that, and put another nail in Trump's coffin. That matters. It matters a lot.

Fascism wants to present itself as overwhelming, irresistible, inevitable, and ready to happen no matter what you do, and that's what your brain wants you to buy in now. But that's not the case, Trump is not inevitable or some all-powerful monolith (in fact, another of the debate takeaways seemed to be that Biden looked bad but people still hate Trump too much for it to really shift anything). He is a loser, a fraud, a conman, a liar, and a crook, and he WANTS you to fear him like an almighty god. Don't give him or the MAGAGOP the satisfaction.

Frankly, having to endure another four months of this might kill us all, and I know that we are tired and scared (me too). But IT IS NOT INEVITABLE THAT WE ARE DOOMED. Not at all. Let's hang onto that and tell that anxiety doom voice to shove it.

Hugs.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts #the giant orange monster

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scribeofmorpheus · 3 months ago

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Dragon Age Veilguard: Love, Wisdom and Pride

A very long Dragon Age post!

Warnings for: Veilguard Spoilers, Solavellan spoilers.

Okay, so I will preface this by saying that this ‘analysis’ primarily focuses on Solas’ arc; both romanced and unromanced. It isn’t intended to be a romanticised analysis, though it is very much enamoured with how a romanced Solas and his relationship with Lavellan foils (and informs my reading/reception of) that of Solas and Mythal’s relationship in Veilguard. There is a relationship I will address that I feel does parallel Solas and Mythal! Scroll down to “Reading Between the Lines” if you wanna skip my little intro below. Spoilers follow.

Truth be told, I wasn’t ever expecting much in terms of actually getting a sequel to Inquisition. The game dev market went through a tumultuous reshuffle before the remake madness breathed life back into many studios. Bioware game sequels (Mass Effect Andromeda) were underwhelming and not as fleshed out since the EA acquisition. I absolutely believe Bioware would have been shunted had Mass Effect Legendary Edition not been so successful. EA’s reputation was always lacklustre and underhanded, but laying off or losing several head writers attached to Bioware with almost two decades of work under their belts was the biggest red flag. Trevor Morris not being asked to return in exchange for a ‘bigger name’ was also a grave warning that returning to the atmosphere, ambience and world of Thedas that we knew was getting further and further away from a plausible reality. And on top of that, there’s the fact Solas was never intended as a romance interest during early development of Inquisition.

Solavellan seemed doomed!

Despite this, I still held out hope for a sequel, but I feared we’d always be in permanent Solavellan/developmental hell. Heck, I’m still waiting for a Beyond Good and Evil sequel—the game released in 2003! So, actually witnessing people play Veilguard, seeing reactions to it, seeing memes and gifs and essay pieces (like this one), it’s like my community has awoken again, and I never thought I’d see the day. Yet I am not blind to the fact we were robbed of so much potential. I knew thing’s wouldn’t live up to re-emerging expectations when Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was rebranded to Veilguard—the shift seemed to imply less of a primary focus on Solas (and apparently, according to the artbook, the early concept art proves this implication correct).

Things seemed even more dire when the devs revealed there was no tapestry mechanic. I had only one hope: that with the Inquisitor’s confirmed return, we’d get at least some form of catharsis for our Inquisitors (Lavellans and otherwise), if we couldn’t get the conclusions to so many storylines present in each of our worldstates. My main fear was that they’d go the clichéd Ultimate Sacrifice route (which happens anyway, but in a way that makes thematic sense given the stakes and heavily blighted worldstate).

Suffice it to say, there was a lot of evidence that Veilguard would disappoint me in the end. But it hasn’t. It hasn’t lived up to the many expectations and marks of excellence that the Dragon Age world built itself into with the first three entries, that’s for sure, but I am also just so deprived of conclusions, of endings (whether it be because TV doesn’t exist in a sustainable format anymore or that comicbook movies are made with a sequel in mind, never letting anything just “Exit Stage Left” gracefully; or the fact we live in a regurgitating content cycle with late-stage-capitalism where anything remotely profitable gets turned into a caricature of itself: Squid Game, Star Wars, etc.). The cycle is so exhaustive that I am actually at a point where I can say I am content with the ending we were given (on a Solas/Solavellan front), Veilguard gave me relief, and beautiful, achy pain to boot. Though I would absolutely be disappointed by both the "non-romanced Solas" endings, given that Solas winds up either "dying alone, forever" or turns to Tyranny.

Now onto the actual review of that Solavellan ending, Mythal and themes of Love!

Note: I have only gotten the ‘best’ ending in my first playthrough, but I also thought the consequences of not maxing factions would be more… dire? Another note, pls, if your romanced Inky swore to stop Solas, how does that ending differ, if at all? Let me know, I’m dying here!

Sidenote: I’m working on writing another review about my views on the ‘sanitised’ worldstate, the new companions (and why I think Varric was the wrong choice to have as an advisor in the game, given that the Inquisitor or Morrigan would have been more impactful; and not to mention that Cole or Briala should have been companions), removal of the tapestry and what it means for the future of stories in Thedas (The Story We Lost is such a poignant compilation of the sheer volumes of lost lore and depth that I honestly think I won’t go as in-depth on that review as this one), and why I think Veilguard is my final entry into Dragon Age.

Reading Between the Lines: What Pride Hath Wrought

One thing is for sure, Trick Weekes flourishes when writing within the ambiguities and complexities of meaning. This makes every word uttered by Solas so great to dissect, he's a god of lies not because he 'lies' but because he's so careful with how he phrases things, what he holds back, and what he reveals.

For instance, the famous Trespasser exchange where Solas mocks his own follies with sarcasm by saying:

“What is the old Dalish curse? May the Dread Wolf Take you.”

Then a softer, more saddened and beaten-down Lavellan replies:

“And so he did.”

This irks him. Because he then realises in that moment that he absolutely did take advantage, but for some reason he frames it around sex rather than power because that’s easier to address than the latter. And he rejects the notion, even though he brought up the expression he knows to mean nothing close to a sexual inuendo for being ‘taken’, and yet he has the gall to try and derail the conversation by pivoting and saying:

“I would not lay with you under false pretences.”

When I first had this dialogue exchange, I was baffled, because did this mean that there was another meaning to ‘Dread Wolf take you’ that Dalish clans lost through the years, or was it more of a self-deprecating joke Solas had with himself because he, the Dread Wolf, romanced (took) a Dalish Inquisitor (away from her people’s beliefs, histories, past), and he found irony in the saying?

On the surface, “wouldn’t lay with you under false pretences” could simply mean “we didn’t sleep together” or “we did sleep together, but I wasn’t taking advantage as the Dread Wolf, I was simply Solas in your presence”. But I have recently thought of a more… ambiguous reading. Lay could have been used in a milder, more vulnerable way; to mean to be at peace, to be completely vulnerable, as if to sleep. In that sense, the phrasing becomes: “I could not be at peace with you because I was living a half-truth”.

I absolutely think the moment he feels he is truly beyond hope is when we see his expression of abject horror as Lavellan shouts: “I would have had you trust me!”. He realises then that he did fuck up, he did take the choice away from her because he thought he knew better, him and his pride led to a decision that hurt someone close to him, and he could finally see how wrong he was, how alike the entire situation became to Mythal’s treatment of him. Especially if Lavellan asks to go with him. Because he can see that despite the hurt, the lies and the betrayal on his part, Lavellan still wishing to join him draws too close to his first regret: following Mythal.

Whether he likes it or not, Solas’ love which could burn like a bonfire was directed at a powerful woman—a Herald, an Inquisitor—and inspite of her greatness of character, it still shaped her into someone willing to follow him on his dinanshiral out of love, much like he left the Fade and took physical form for Mythal. So now whenever I hear Lavellan shout “Var lath vir suledin”, Solas replying with “I wish it could, Vhenan,” changes drastically with the Mythal reveal, knowing he always walks away from the Inquisitor in Trespasser.

“I wish it could, Vhenan” sounds heavily like: “You would regret me, as I regret Mythal, and I cannot bear for that to happen us.” More poetically, it could read as: “I wish our love could overcome a duty that has lasted an incomprehensible amount of time, I wish I could change my nature, but then I’d be twisted into a demon, like the spirit of Wisdom in the Dales; and yet again, I would become your regret.” These two readings are very, very romantic. Realistically, given what we know of his kinship with Felassan, and how they were comrades and friends for centuries (“A story unfinished. His back turned!”), and given what we know of the complexity of Mythal’s will that presides over the creation of his very being, and yet he was still able to muster the strength to kill a fragment of her to fulfil his mission, “I wish it could” was most probably a lament: “Do not ask me to hurt one of the two women I’ve loved on this journey, because if it ever came to it…” he would.

Knowing what I know of Solas, of how he was able to convince himself that Varric’s death (avoidable as it was) was just another necessary step, that it was just another sacrifice, another loss that would be worth something only if he completed his ritual, I have no doubt that Solas would also be able to rationalise hurting Lavellan (which is why in his mind, turning away from her, breaking her heart, leaving with no explanation and aiding her in Trespasser so she could live whatever few years remained in “relative peace” is actually an act of preserving that love). I partially think the reason he reveals the truth in Trespasser (especially for a romanced Lavellan) is in the hopes his ‘truths’ will push her away. But on a deeper note, I think he also thinks of it as some twisted form of repaying her for loving him to the point that he could have almost forgotten what it was to be the Dread Wolf, to just be with her as Solas, that night at Crestwood. Maybe his harsh truths would push her to the point where she’d give up her love for Solas, now that she knew he was the Dread Wolf, freeing her from the shackles of their love. He’s very self-flagellating, all about self-sacrifice for the ultimate goal, the ends always justify the means, he will endure any pain and punishment as long as Arlathan returns in the end.

What is his love of a mortal compared to the despair and loss of an entire empire? Solas views himself as selfish for falling for her, and that nearly broke him, if he was selfish enough to leave the dream of Arlathan behind for her, what would that do to his spirit then?

In his way of thinking, perhaps telling the Inquisitor the truth is a way out, a rationale they can use to justify stopping him or to make it easier to hate him as the Dread Wolf rather than love him as Solas (someone he hasn’t been in so long).

‘Masking’ as the Dread Wolf

During Trespasser, the Inquisitor has every right to despise Solas after all they’ve learned, and I think he half reveals the truth as a tactic so the Inquisitor can have an excuse to hate him, to be driven to anger and have less pull over his choices, once they learn the truth. Solas is particularly skilled at making other’s play the role that makes his own choices seem inevitable, he orchestrates a lot of events to play out in a manner where it's easier for him to talk himself into bringing down the veil.

He goads Elgar’nan to anger easily. He inspires the spirits to fight for him to the death as a necessary distraction during the war. He absolutely allows the Inquisitor to speak to him one last time so he can offer insight, yes, but also so he can easily frame his actions as just and inevitable. But, Oh boy does he get in for a shock if the Inquisitor shows empathy towards him, it scares him because he’s become accustomed to being seen only as the Dread Wolf. To be understood? That gives way to remorse. And remorse gives way to doubt. And he cannot doubt his purpose, twisted as it is, it is all he has left of his former self. Without it he would most likely change into something different. Someone he doesn’t recognise.

This fear intensifies more so if a romanced Lavellan asks to go with him, and in that case, he takes command and distances himself away (rejecting the help of someone close to him; the chance for a possible betrayal; the chance at another Felassan or Mythal [x]; the chance to twist Lavellan outside of her purpose, in this case, the purpose would be love/empathy) but not without showing remorse at having sacrificed yet another relationship for his crusade.

“Ir abelas.”

Sorrow for what cannot be is at the heart of why the Solavellan romance is so powerful, especially because even though both Solas and Lavellan love each other passionately, love alone cannot be enough when faced with regrets. Love would ultimately be stifled. Corrupted into something else over time. And so, for Solas, having loved and lost tragically is better than having loved and corrupted.

He will not do to Lavellan what was done to him, even if it is her choice, because she knows so little, her naivete cannot close the distance of a millenia’s old sea, and it would hurt him immensely to take advantage of her kind heart [x].

By leaving, he keeps her heart pure. And the yearning! Knowing the love is there, but on its own it cannot be invulnerable to corruption, so it is better to lose it than twist it. Ugh! Him leaving Lavellan is the ultimate show of love! IT IS A WISE DECISION. A rare glimpse into pure wisdom. Which is why he kneels beside Lavellan in Trespasser, he does not “Stand Tall” in the face of Wisdom’s heart. He kneels beside her. And when he stands tall again, he is Solas once more, filled with regret, and once through the eluvian, he returns to masking as the Dread Wolf.

Sidenote: It’s especially confounding that Veilguard allows Rook to push the Inquisitor to save or stop him after you’ve reached act 2 despite your world state choice (I think this was done in case they feared the Inquisitor wouldn’t stand by Solas after everything he was revealed to be responsible for in Veilguard, however it doesn’t work because the Inquisitor wasn’t an advisor, Rook never told them what they learned from the wolf statues, so having a stranger hold the ability to make Lavellan keep her promise or not rings hollow). Personally, I wish the Inquisitor’s presence had more weight in the non-Solavellan endings, too. I wish the Inquisitor could end up being the last friend/former love that Solas destroys (if you don’t collect the wolf statues) which then prompts Rook to fight him because Solas’ last tie to empathy failed to redeem him, that the Inquisitor falling is the last straw and Solas snaps, choosing to be a villain in the hopes of being stopped because he can’t stop himself, and not the ‘I am a God’ ending they gave us. Same for if your Inquisitor vows to stop him. I also wish the Inquisitor was the one to do the wolf statue missions. Would have been a nice secondary protagonist mission like the switching perspectives between Kratos and Atreus in GOW: Ragnarök (the old guard and the new; Inquisitor and Rook). I would have loved if they dedicated more dialogue to Inquisition days too, which is why I think Cole should have been a companion (if he wasn’t recruited, he could simply be a compassion spirit that ‘follows’ the greatest pain in the Fade that yearns to be healed, giving a compassionate viewpoint to Solas’ folly; recruited Spirit Cole could have a greater connection to Solas than even Varric, seeing as Cole was most likely a literal representation of Solas rewriting his own history by preventing a spirit from becoming too ‘real’; Human Cole would have a deeper connection to the world of Thedas, and could have been a great tool to prove how change was inevitable, not always a bad thing, and inevitably out of even Solas’ control. But alas, we live with what we are given! Even Imshael could have served in this role! Spirit/Demon of choice and it wasn’t incorporated into the game that supposedly asks you to make the greatest world-changing choice ever; redeem the Dread Wolf or end the age of the Evanuris entirely?!

Now onto the next segment: I want to talk about Solas’ regrets and how I read the ‘love story’ between Solas and Mythal, and why Lavellan (and what she represented) wasn’t enough to get through to him (and that’s a very believable thing, that’s what makes their love both tragic and epic!).

The High Price of Redemption

A romanced Lavellan has the most agency to see through his guises, if she resolves to save him, but even she cannot undo the shackles that still bind him to Mythal—the binds that twisted Wisdom so far from its purpose it became Pride, even when he burned (Mythal) from his face. (Likewise, A close friend Inquisitor who promises to save him is most likely a parallel to Felassan, again, they cannot undo the shackles of regret either.) I fully believe the vallaslin had a deeper magic than simply marking one as being committed/devoted to an Evanuris, I think it linked them magically, and since Solas was the first to burn the vallaslin away, he probably wasn’t as good at severing the link on himself as he was for other elvhen, so maybe a part of Mythal’s will still lingers in him, twisting him to Pride still.

In Veilguard’s final confrontation, I love the intention of showing how Lavellan approaches Solas slowly, as she doesn’t know who she’ll be faced with up those steps, Dread Wolf or Solas. But when she speaks to him, trying to get him to change his mind yet again, forgiving him for his wrongs, we are reassured that Wisdom hasn’t been completely consumed by Pride despite everything we’ve witnessed in the game because he bows his head at her in reverence as he apologises.

He shows humility towards her. He elevates her and her enduring love as worthy of his respect, but he does not consider himself worthy of hers. Thus, Lavellan pries open the door to acceptance but his heart is still not enough. Which is why love alone cannot turn the tide. He’s too broken to accept it. He doesn’t think he deserves it, so the only way out is through; to continue the ritual, to prove he was right. The shackles persist. Varric’s death weighs on his conscience now more than ever. Possibly members of Rook’s team too if they died on his crusade. But he is vulnerable enough for Morrigan to approach, and now Rook can use Mythal’s essence to make the final push. The only way he could be with Lavellan, the only way he could atone for the past and shed the weight of his armour (his crushing duty to the Elvhenan) is as Wisdom, fully restored, unbound by mistakes.

“Ar lasa mala revas.” He could only find absolution once Mythal (the angered and more brash essence of Mythal, the one unchanged by Flemeth and all the human women’s lives she’s been shaped by, but the closest iteration to that of Mythal in Arlathan, the version that he perceives as having every right to be angry at him for turning his back on her, for not going that last final stretch with her and subsequently, not being by her side when she died) severed the final connection: facing his regrets, showing humility and apologizing, while not taking away the blame but sharing it.

What is Benevolence without Wisdom if not Hubris?

We know Elgar’nan was twisted to Tyranny during the war, and I saw a post somewhere where someone wondered what led to his corruption, and what he was before (leadership/command). Likewise, Mythal was not above corruption.

So far, I’ve seen a lot of takes on Solas’ ties to Mythal, the power dynamic of being a student/disciple enamoured (could be romantic) with the benevolence of Mythal, but not how Mythal’s purpose was possibly also twisted towards hubris the moment she asked Wisdom to turn physical and build weapons from its knowledge, twisting it to Pride. Without Elgar’nan’s tyranny to rally against after the war with the Titans, Mythal would most likely turn a similar route, seeing her ruling as “necessary” for the people: “If not me then who?”. And that is a very short stop and quick drop to “I am your all-powerful ruler, I liberated you, and only I can guide the way”. Benevolence twisted by hubris can easily turn to Tyranny too, only one more subtle, a kind of cultish indoctrination compared to violent subjugation. If Solas had not turned his back on Mythal when she chose to be Evanuris (a god over her people) then they most likely would have made the worst (best) pair in the Evanuris. Pride is the Seventh Deadliest Sin. But imagine Pride next to Godhood?! That is frightening. So, when Solas burns the vallaslin, walks away and works against the Evanuris, I believe that he also inadvertently stops Mythal from becoming a corrupted version of herself. The sorrow at having lost her closest confidant and “love” grounds her, keeps her saintly in Solas’ mind, and in some ways, perhaps saves the Elvhen empire from a worse fate than him erecting the veil to begin with. But neither of them ever consider this. And I think that sort of self-blindness perfectly encapsulates how flawed both Mythal and Solas are. Now onto love.

Solas and Mythal – a Love too complex to simply classify as mortal ‘Love’.

There’s no doubt Mythal and Solas shared a deep bond, one that definitely had love in it, when we hear Mythal calling him ‘love’, without the possessive ‘my’ in front of it, it’s easy to misconstrue what type of love they share. A small nitpick, but like a thorn, it applies sometimes just enough pressure to change a perspective. Not calling Solas “My love” but instead choosing to simply use “love” works within those wonderful ambiguities/complexities that Weekes thrives in.

If one started out as a spirit, it’s safe to say concepts like familial bonds, romantic bonds, and blood ties mean little to nothing. There is no one type of love and there is every kind of love all at once. It is only once physical bodies are introduced, that physical touch, the ability to stab someone in the back, to kiss out of affection, to hug out of empathy, to strike out of anger, that love now becomes this twisted thing too. There are no spirits of love because spirits always possessed love, but there are demons of Desire (Gluttony) and of Rage (love denied).

I believe, from GDL’s acting skills, his soft whisper, his almost submissive smallness in the breadth of Mythal’s already soft voice, that Solas was in love with Mythal, devoted as a student, beguiled by her benevolence, content even in her shadow, and possibly star-struck. He was in love with someone who doesn’t have the possibility to love him back the same, it is not in her nature to love those beneath her in the same intensity that those who look up to her do. It’s like a priest being in love with God. The priest can devote themselves, sacrifice everything, but a God will always love their flock equally, but they can still play favourites.

Benevolence cannot be enamoured with Wisdom because to be truly benevolent they must possess Wisdom but there is also Pride to be had in walking beside benevolence, but they can never be on equal footing. Likewise, Solas’ love is not reciprocated entirely by Mythal, but she does love him back in her own way. While Mythal is definetly Solas’ first love, layered and complex, it is also strangled by regrets and twisted by uneven scales of power. It would never be a nurturing love, only a consuming kind.

When he speaks of Mythal during the Solavellan ending, he calls her his “oldest friend”, much like what Mythal says, (paraphrasing) “would you have me be angry at my oldest companion whose experienced so much with me”. Because friendship is perhaps the easiest way to describe their companionship. They went through many iterations, one certainly holding romantic tensions (specifically from younger Solas), but ultimately, with that much time shared, kinship/friendship becomes the easiest to surmise. You can love your friends, fall in love with them, fall out of love with them, only to love them again, be disappointed in them, etc.

Media today is flushed with romance as a linchpin for driving a hero to make dire choices, and that has warped our perception of how a platonic/non-romance-based relationship can be all-consuming, and sometimes more impassioned than strict romance. But, to make it easier for people to understand Solas’ motivations, it's easier to see their love in the light Taash sees it (an unreliable, somewhat “still juvenile” narrator, in that they are still growing into themselves and their culture and the world): “They were doing it”.

However, Bellara, a companion whose entire companion story is linked to her strong, deeply character-driving relationship with her brother (platonic love) refutes that reading by saying (paraphrasing here): “We don’t know if their ‘love’ is the same type of love we tend to think of in a masculine and feminine relationship.”

Felassan’s letter after the Mythal Dragon fight alludes to Solas having been in love with Mythal, but nothing about how she felt. This is why I consider the Solas/Mythal relationship to be more of a one-sided romantic love, but a requited ‘love’ relationship for them both.

A parallel I find so compelling: Solas and Mythal vs Briala and Celene. Solas and Briala both hold deep emotions for people in great power with the ability to end a tyrannical cycle of subjugation, enslavement and classism, yet for both of these ruler’s charisma and well-meaning intent, they often are swayed to side with tyranny. For Mythal, that was Elgarnan, the Evanuris who made all the other’s worse tyrants; as well as her own hubris for believing her presence alone could dampen the ravenous hunger for power that the rest of the Evanuris held at the small prospect of leading the Elvhen in a time of confusion (being a North Star is hard when all the other lights around you aim to blind the flock into submission). For Celene, this is more about the nuances of retaining favour, pull and power over other noble families, their backing (be it financial, political or simply cut-throat), and their support so she can be the ‘lesser of two evils’ compared to Gaspard’s warmongering personality and Florianne simply being a puppet with no backbone. Both Briala and Solas are turned to pawns despite their immense strength and compassion for their respective elven plights; Briala is rendered a fangless lion (for lack of a better metaphor) if she is reunited with Celene, whereas if she is chosen to puppet Gaspard, there’s every likelihood her story could parallel a ‘power-mad’ Solas if he’d been tethered to Rage (at betrayal) and not Regret (at having not rejected Mythal when she asked him to take a physical body) throughout his tenure as the Dread Wolf.

Solas and Lavellan – a Heart that was never intended to be Given/Taken

Now I will compare the lack of possessives in front of Mythal’s “love” to Solas declaring Lavellan as ‘Vhenan’ and then ‘Ar lath, ma Vhenan’ vs ‘Ar lath ma vhenan'; again, the coma is the thorn, the pause that shapes the quiet unsaid things we can deduce. In the Trespasser cutscene DGL puts the pause after “Ar lath”, even though the subtitles construct the sentence with Vhenan as a proper noun since it’s a nickname often used by Solas: “Ar lath ma, Vhenan”. But I believe Solas actually says “Ar lath, ma Vhenan”.

With “Ar lath, ma Vhenan” the stressor is after the pause, so the line reads: “I love [you], my heart.” And with “Ar lath ma, Vhenan” it makes even less structural sense but can be inferred to mean: “I love you, Heart”.

The possessiveness of “My” is what definitively differentiates the love Solas feels for Lavellan as one more of the romantic side, it is a love of yearning and desire and a wish to have one last good thing that is pure and incorruptible. The one thing he had left to give. His heart. But that does not mean his heart is enough! The rest of him is still bound to the love of Mythal that was twisted through the ages. That changed him. And given how Pride often comes before a fall, I absolutely understand why Solas is actually very brash and ill-considering when he’s romancing Lavellan (“The kiss was ill-considered”/”It would be kinder in the long run”/”I wanted to show you what you mean to me”). He's on a precarious cliff during Inquisition. His first plan failed. He's allowed ancient elvhen magic to fall into a blighted Tevinter magister's hands. Literally everything the Inquisition did could have been for nought if the Mark had fallen to the wrong person. Things could have easily fallen apart for Solas too, so why not indulge in something trifling and fleeting? Execpt it wasn't trifling. Nor was it fleeting. And when he saw that the fall could potentially not happen, that the Inquisitor could do it, save Thedas and retrieve the orb, he was struck by the gravity of his brashness, of letting impulses control him instead of acting according to a plan. But it was too late. They'd both fallen for each other.

Solas didn’t expect to form entanglements within the Inquisition. He was committed. He was angry at the world, “walking through a sea of tranquil”, called flat-ear by the Dalish that later chased him from their village when he proved he was the Dread Wolf. He was despised by people who looked like him. Spirits were constantly being abused and turned into demons. People erected monuments to heroes who slew demons. Mages were caged. Elves were subjugated. The empire fell. Humans razed the lands with their wars and petty squabbles of succession. The darkspawn tainted the land. The dwarves would never dream. Solas awoke to the worst possible fate; in his eyes, it was all his fault.

So when he kisses Lavellan in the Fade, impulsively, he isn’t kissing her there because it is less ‘real’ than if they kissed while she was awake, it makes it so much more real. He’s kissing her in the space where he is most himself. Where he can shed the body he was forced to build and trap himself within, the body of Pride. He is acting on the impulses of an enlivened Wisdom spirit that does not consider tomorrow, for the first time in a long time. It isn’t a long game with Lavellan, like so much of his life has been about always thinking to the future, always considering the outcome, machinating, scheming, the wiles and woes of every trickster god in mythology. It’s being in the moment with her that is all-consuming. It lowers his guard, leaves him vulnerable, and when she enquires about the Fade or spirits or histories, he gets to be useful as pure Wisdom again.

Lavellan challenging him when he first shows animosity or irritation towards the Dalish (a prideful act), and then him being taken aback when she explains that maybe the Dalish could be shown another way (making him consider her words, being given a morsel of wisdom back, reminding him of his old self), these are all small moments where Solas can begin to see springs of hope in the broken world. And that’s terrifying. It means he’s destroying not just himself, but the memory of Mythal and Arlathan too, all for the love of a woman who fell for an apostate.

The best, most genuine unmasking of Solas for me is during Wicked Hearts, when he’s tipsy on wine, has no inhibitions, and revels in the intrigue, the gossip, the dancing, the music (something we now know is important enough to have an entire music room in the Lighthouse), the sex! He is at his most relaxed, and then he asks Lavellan to dance, not caring about how it would look for the “Inquisitor’s serving man, Solas” to be intimate in a fucking Orlesian palace with the Herald of Andraste, right after stopping an assassination attempt! He finds comfort in the world of Thedas at that moment. Something he rarely shows so outright.

When he takes Lavellan to Crestwood to confess, I believe removing her vallaslin wasn’t entirely just for her, it wasn’t just to free her from slave markings or to simply reveal a form of a truth he wanted to tell her, it was to resolve himself of what his first purpose was supposed to be, what she distracted him from. Removing the vallaslin had been something he’d done for the slaves of Arlathan, it was what earned him the mantle of Dread Wolf. When he removes Lavellan’s vallaslin, he resets.

Thedas cannot allow Wisdom to truly exist without fear of corruption to Pride, Thedas the world he was responsible for shaping, literally the Maker of the Veil, and he falls for a woman Heralded as Andraste’s Chosen One, Mythal’s incarnation in the South. The irony. The cruel, cruel irony. The Inquisition is tied to his past, every Andrastian he meets, every Dalish person with vallaslin on their face, every slave or city elf. Tevinter worshiping the dragons that still have the essences of the Old Gods. His heart alone cannot withstand all of the punishing, gruelling, oppressive weight that is Thedas. Even for Lavellan. So he frames their romance as this tragic, short-lived tale that was beautiful but ultimately destined to end. He expects it to pass for her, she’s mortal after all. But he also leaves his heart with her, literally giving her power over the last uncorrupted part of himself. Think Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann at the end of World’s End, but metaphorically. He gives her his heart to safe keep as he goes on a journey that could corrupt a heart, turn it cold and bitter, destroy it.

Ar lasa mala revas. You are free.

He frees his heart.

Lets it go.

Twice!

So only once he is relinquished of his regrets, once Mythal does the same for him, only then is there “Nothing left except their love”. Because Lavellan still held his heart there was still something left after. Something beyond despair and regret and loss. He had given his heart to her to safekeep. And she did. Lavellan returns his heart to him when he is freed. What Mythal had to break so Solas could heal right again (like a bone), Lavellan casts a splint around so it can be set and heal properly. This is the difference between Mythal’s love and Lavellan’s. Both Mythal’s love and forgiveness broke him, but Lavellan’s love gives him the strength to Stand Tall one last time.

Solas, before Pride alone, as Wisdom (perhaps Solas always meant both Standing Tall and Wisdom, for Wisdom can grant one pride to stand tall for what they believe in), finds contentment with the rare and marvellous spirit that endured (his Vhenan). Wisdom endured because of humanity, something benevolence is beyond.

Bellanaris

When Lavellan offers to go with him, to continue on the dinanshiral that she already considers herself a part of, Solas is legitimately taken aback. His expression is soft yet full of disbelief and awe. He actually stops walking a few frames before Lavellan says this, as if hoping Lavellan would say something to him!

And then she basically proposes to him! “Bellanaris!” I absolutely adore the fact that Lavellan promises them eternity. A vow as sacred as a death right, as protected as an ancient, elvhen, undisturbed burial ground in the face of Orlesian colonialisation. They endured and now they will have an eternity. For once, we have an elvish tale that is not a curse, it is a love story with reunion at its core, where both elves reclaim something precious that was denied them.

Lastly, i am absolutely frothing at the mouth that Solas and Lavellan primarily speak in elvish! And even more feral at the fact Solas does not try to talk her out of joining him (because this sweet talker very well could!). He simply tells her where he is going is terrible. And she shuts that shit down immediately. No repeat of Trespasser. She's standing beside him, the South has all but fallen, whatever ties yet survive are strained, and she has fought the good fight for 8 years. I think the Inquisitor was about ready to leave Thedas behind.

The last decisions Solas makes are of his own volition. Entering the Fade for atonement. Stepping into the Fade with Lavellan (It was confirmed by Weekes that Lavellan’s presence in the Fade prison would fundamentally change it in a way we haven’t seen!). Thanking Rook for giving him one last shot at getting happiness. All his own!

This is the look of a man finally reunited with his wife! So much emotion in ONE frame. God! There’s never been a character like him. A love story like theirs! I’m so happy I got to see this ending. Full circle!

P.S. If you read this far, woah nelly! That’s crayyzeee, so here are some more great pieces: Why it was important for Lavellan to kneel for Solas as he knelt for her in Trespasser in the Solavellan ending [x], and here’s a great deep-dive on Solas as a spirit of Wisdom [x].

#dav #dav spoilers #solas #solas x lavellan #solavellan #mythal #datv spoilers #dragon age veilguard #veilguard spoilers #dragon age #dragon age veilguard spoilers #the dread wolf finally took her #his war has ended #their love may endure for eternity

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sunboki · 3 months ago

Text

— HELLION INN. a Stray Kids fiction

🌖 : Lee Minho x implied! fem. reader

TROPE. dystopian! au, enemies to lovers, monster! au, apocalypse! au, “we have to get along to survive” au, angst, high stakes

WORD COUNT. 10k ⭑ 50min read

WARNINGS. gory descriptions, cursing, descriptive violence, implied intercourse, death, a dubcon kiss, talk of vomit/vomiting, lots of mentions of death, one mention of k*lling oneself, parasites, murder, inclusion of fire, injury, usage of guns, injury, knives, reader and minho are “hunted”, mature themes

AUG'S NOTES. it’s finished! i wanted to cry (out of happiness!!) closing the last part :) i truly love this piece, and, though it certainly isn’t all too lovey dovey compared to alternative fics of mine, i was so incredibly fortunate to be able to write for themes i adore! i hope my enthusiasm was able to be conveyed in the subject of monsters/apocalyptic au’s!! please enjoy<3

PLAYLIST.

SYNOPSIS. Receiving an ominous letter in the mail, a monster invades Seoul minutes later, carrying an uncanny sense of smell despite its blindness. Countless people have been slaughtered already, and with your letter as the only meager explanation to this madness, you find your feet leading towards the one place it said was safe: Hellion Inn.

or alternatively :

Minho won’t let you die. Not if it means letting this Monster get him or hell’s dawning itself. You’re going to survive. Together.

Run, something is coming. Go to Hellion Inn, you’ll be safe there.

Something? What is something? A terrorist attack? War?

Never had such a letter arrived at your doorstep other than this Tuesday, with the morning sunlight peeking through half-opened blinds casting your pajama-clad frame in its cascades.

And again, you reread and reread, questions raging in a distorted frenzy amidst your once just-wakening mind.

Little were you aware what would come. What already roamed Seoul’s streets, approaching closer, closer.

One objective resides in too many possibilities.

Find Hellion Inn.

Stuffing the letter in your pocket serves as the most sensible solution while you go over your options. If you didn’t have a clue about what dishes would be cooked, you’d check the ingredients first.

And yet, upon turning on the TV, you find your meal already served.

On a platter, dripping with blood.

“This just in, an unidentifiable entity is making its way through Seoul in a rampage. The creature is highly dangerous. It appears to lack vision, and speculation has deemed it relies upon its smell to discern other beings. The creature has not been detained at this time. Under no circumstances should citizens leave their residences, and in the case you’re on the street, please evacuate to the nearest shelter immediately. Further information will be released.”

Your blood runs frigidly cold, enough you swear you could’ve turned to ice.

All of a sudden, war or a terrorist attack doesn’t sound nearly as daunting as before.

A monster. Ruthless, bloodthirsty.

Monster.

Instantaneously are news sites everywhere exploding, posting footage, pictures, and accounts of the creature each second.

More and more and more until-

It all goes dark, your home plunged into a black abyss meagerly sustained by the sun’s rays, phone in hand ultimately powering off.

Electricity down. Fully.

This isn’t like a usual predicament of a public threat, not something you’re prepared for, nor something anyone was prepared for. There’s no drill for a monster, no tsunami shelter or high rise building to reside upon.

Was it obliviousness? Or were you all simply sheep to a ravaging wolf?

The latter seemed most convincing.

An exhale. No, a growl is what breaks your train of thought. Like the chuff of a tiger, curdling in its throat.

Above.

You can’t even bring yourself to move, can’t bear to breathe in fear you’d give yourself away as a shadow covers that once hopeful sunlight.

No shadow, but a thing. A monster.

How did it get here so fast? How.. how the hell is this happening?

The sound of tiles shifting on your roof makes your fingers twitch, eyes stuck wide.

The worlds apex predators turned into the prey.

Each pound of your heart lies evident in ringing ears, listening to those low, horrendous gurgles, repeating that same chuff before it shifts again.

Again and again, and you’re unmoving.

Leave. Run. Anything.

Yet, you can’t move a muscle, glued in place.

Until you do, and your legs act before you can process a thing. Grabbing for items, whatever it may be. Mind unable to process in its frantic state.

No. No.

A plea as your hand wraps around the doorknob, beginning down the apartment complex’s stairs in rapid descent, listening to the slow growls of the creature.

Don’t look behind, just go.

A mistake you find yourself making even when a life is on the line.

Your life is on the line.

And when you spare that single glimpse, murky lifeless eyes stare blindly back at you, bulging from its skull as if they never were intended to be there. Skin a hallowed, fleshy tone — ligaments hung awry.

Disorderly, distasteful. If you look close enough, you swear you could’ve seen a beating heart, watched the oxygen cells rush through a pumping bloodstream.

Gaping jaws hold copious teeth, ant-like incisors residing on either side of a ceaselessly smiling mouth, the corners of what appears to be lips ascending all the way up to nonexistent ears.��

Four legs, two antennae atop its head. At least two times the size of a human.

Horrific.

Never had such a thing appeared so terrifying.

With the letter clutched in one hand and your powerless phone in another do you run, praying that nonexistent vision truly is nonexistent.

Well, until a car alarm begins to ring, and you feel your stomach climb to your throat simultaneously.

Because it twitches. Not even a glance-sort of reaction. The entirety of whatever neck that monster hones twitches to look at you with a nausea-worthy crack! of its ligaments. Those jaws parted, a flattened nose breathing in.

And then it lurches, and you don’t think you’ve ever ran as fast as you did now.

Far, far. As far as you can go.

It’s futile listening to gargled cries for help amongst rubble, the reaching of hands for your feet you can’t even spare a moment for as those scraping claws continue their perilous dance after you, scavenging on people as they go.

So the second an intact person comes into view—a boy, looking about your age (and freakishly calm at that) with fluffy hair and rounded cheeks retaining such youth—you’re racing ahead before you can even think, ramming through those convenience store doors in a flurry of panic and fear.

“Monster— Monster- there’s a monster we have to go-“

“Do you like grilled cheese?” He mumbles, and you wonder if he’s talking to himself or you, no less asking such a question during this downright apocalypse.

“No, no there is—“ A shriek pierces the air in the distance, the clutter of debris alerting the monster’s proximity.

You, in a frantic attempt to redirect his attention, place either hand on his shoulders.

“A monster. There’s a monster out there and if we don’t hide, it’s going to kill us.”

The boy licks his lips, cocking a contemplative brow before looking toward the freezer section.

“Freezer?”

At this point the creature might as well be turning the corner, and you don’t need to respond for either of you to go running as fast as your legs will carry you, stuffing yourselves into the biting cold just as the bells above the entrance door ring.

Scariest part is this customer is intelligent enough to open doors.

This customer isn’t human.

Like slow-motion you hear it. The pounding of your heartbeat in your ears, the lack of air in such a tight space, the monster’s rumbling.

Your hidden counterpart lodged himself into a freezer opposite to you, eyes squeezed shut the nearer clicking footsteps on tile sounded.

Click.

You don’t realize your eyes are closed until you open them, met with the monster’s face, hundreds of razor-sharp teeth lining its mouth, stretched into that same, chilling smile while it stares at you through the glass.

It can’t see you. It can’t see you. It can’t see you, You internally plead like a mantra, suffocating on the scream rising in your throat.

The loud clanging of a soup can the boy throws has the creature’s disfigured face whipping around, and you wordlessly communicate through mere terrified-eye-contact what either of you are thinking:

Run.

Without conscious you go flying, ramming past discarded groceries and tormented bodies into Seoul’s open roadway, void of any vehicle whatsoever.

Except for one.

It’s a tow truck, key still lodged into the ignition, window broken with streaks of blood lining the door where a middle-aged man’s body had been dragged out. He rests lopsided below the front tire, abdomen severed in half.

Grotesque.

“Car- Car!” You cry out, wildly gesturing for him to follow suit while you pry the driver’s door open, the monster’s frustrated growl enough motivation for the stranger to throw himself in as well.

In the nick of time you press down on the pedal, winding the wheel in a quick motion just as the hell-sent smashes itself from the shop, evidently angered.

“I’m Han!” The man occupying the passenger seat shouts, the hole through the windshield causing enormous amounts of wind to soar through the car and synonymously blur your senses.

“What?!”

“My name is Han! Han Jisung!”

Squinting whilst looking through your mirror at the wickedly approaching Monster, you veer past as many obstacles as possible — most being corpses — as fast as the engine will let you.

“Oh! Uh, I’m Y/N!”

Han nods, grasp clutched onto his seat the more you speed increases, recklessly maneuvering left and right as if dodging a crocodile.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t a crocodile, but a blood-thirsty beast wanting nothing more than to behead you. How sweet.

“Do you… Do you know how to drive?” He yells, and you raise your eyebrows, narrowly shifting past a shopping cart.

“If you count Mario-Kart as driving, I’m a pro!”

Han audibly squeaks his fear in response, eyes squeezing shut as if to not stare at the monster’s face nearing the mirror.

The speedometer cries out, vehicle shuddering as you near train tracks just at the edge of the city.

Hopeful.

Fleeting hope when the roar of a train’s whistle soars through the air, the look Han gives you doing little to sustain your already thinned sanity.

Perhaps you’ll die getting hit by a train than this monster.

Perhaps it’s better that way.

“We’re not gonna make it we’re not gonna make it we’re not gonna make i—“

“SHUT THE FUCK UP—-“ You screech, foot slammed as far down on the gas pedal as possible, the rumbling of the train’s engine deafening.

“HOLY SHITTTT—“ The man screams, mouth ajar as you soar over the tracks, preparing for impact only for a hair of the train’s front barely brushing over the car’s bumper.

Currently realizing you’re still breathing and not dead, you floor the brake, either of you launching forward in your seats while the endless train keeps the monster at bay on the opposite side.

Both panting hysterically, you place a hand on your chest, hoping to slow down the terrifyingly fast pace of your heart — close to bursting out of your chest.

Your passenger, Han Jisung, turns to look at you, eyes wide as saucers, a gradual open-mouthed smile growing upon his flushed, sweat-stricken face.

“That was.. sick.”

The flashlight flickers here and there, found in the tow truck’s trunk along with a med kit currently carried along by Han.

By chance did you end up in what remained of the red-light district, rubble dotting roadways as evidence of the Monster’s previous siege.

Amidst the held supplies, your pocket seems to ache with the weight of the letter, sitting there in its futile warning of what was to come, now arrived.

You hadn’t brought it up to Han yet, a persistent fear of blame lingering in the back of your mind. Was it your fault you didn’t react in time? Disregarded the letter?

No. There’s no time to regret now. Whatever past existed has been annihilated.

Night is approaching, and with that comes rising unease and a desperate need to find shelter.

Seoul’s red-light district had always been a taboo for Korea’s upper class. A hushed word, quenched beneath harsh scolding and wrinkled noses at the mere mention.

As if their own well-off sons don’t get driven there on a daily basis, ignorant to their own affiliation as if it’s a genetically determined trait.

Quite funny how none of that matters now. Not when it’s the end of the world, that is.

Every (once) building looks the same. Rubble. Litter lines the roads, cars strewn awry, wrecked into buildings, run over people.

A pattern lies in everything.

This pattern consists of fear.

Struck on faces, painted carelessly along torn apart surfaces and walls, splattering the cities ruby red.

Incessantly, you can’t help but fear. A natural biological response when in the presence of actual or perceived danger, inflicting sharp wounds throughout your body, mind on an endless neurological high of adrenaline-fueled paranoia.

How could someone not be paranoid when they were being hunted?

“In here.”

Han’s voice pulls you out of your head, turning where he points to a brick building, multicolored beach towel draped over a window torn to shreds, soil from plants staining the cracks of tiles, floor a mixture of blood and bacteria.

“It’s abandoned,” He notes, prying the creaking door open.

Abandoned isn’t the word for it. The inhabitants left as most people did upon hearing the news of invasion, although they didn’t get far, you’re plenty aware of that.

What a shame. Thinking they could escape, in their wake, slaughtered ruthlessly.

Instead of abandoned, call it evacuated, barren.

Inside, a radio runs in a constant string of white noise, the addition of broken air conditioning the only source of apparent life. Haunting, flickering lights cast the few rooms in an eerie, ghoulish green like that of a basement.

“I’ve been here before. There should be a mart nearby.”

Allowing his remark to sink in, you pause, a slight grin drawing upon your lips.

“You’ve been here before, in the red-light district?”

Phrase lingering amusedly, he stops as well, shifting on his heel to grace you with a similar smile.

“What? Not everyone can stand high and mighty in this society. Plus, there’s no need to pretend anymore when death is so close by.”

Your smile drops, and you suck on the skin of your cheek, a loud breath through your nose enough to continue the descent.

Perhaps you should change the abandoned description.

Just then, from the corner of your eye do you see a figure emerge, the glinting edge of a kitchen knife barely brushing your shoulder blade before you dodge to your left, the attacker colliding with an ironing board.

Mere seconds later the figure rises to their feet, identified as female, adorning lanky limbs and skin as pale and zombified as the surrounding room. Her lips are cracked and purple, eyes nearly black, blanketed with equally raven hair reaching the floor in length.

The girl looks like a creature, barely alive with the lack of coordination in her loose stabs, alienated stare vividly murderous.

Only by narrowly pummeling into the wall do you manage to immobilize her, Jisung’s efforts stalled.

Liquid obsidian blinks back up at you from where you’ve caged her to the floor, her nostrils flaring in hasty breaths, your own panting ringing in your ears.

“Look kid- I’m not gonna hurt you, okay? Now if you calm down and let me—“

A third of the steak knife puncturing the side of your thigh veers your head back, choked scream jostling your nerves tenfold. Bubbling blood slips from the wound, trickling warmth dizzying you into a foggy spell.

It’s not until a low bang! sounds that her arm, raised for another strike, falls limp to the floor, looking behind you to find Jisung holding a pistol, silencer attached to the muzzle, aimed directly at the girl below you.

Immediately, before you can release the unheralded screech compressing your lungs, Han hoists you up by your elbows, the jarring movement beckoning a squealed sob you bite your tongue containing.

Snatching clothing from a closet behind the door, the man rips the fabric using his teeth, returning to your slumped frame.

Reminding you to hold your breath, he aligns the makeshift bandage prior to tying it, your reaction becoming quieted as your eyes roll back.

And the world falls into a dark abyss.

By the time your lashes flutter open again, searing light invades your vision, the urge to open your eyes aiding a roaring headache.

Although, it appears you’re still in the same room, alternatively relocated to a futon on the floor, leg propped up using folded pillowcases and books.

“You’re up.”

Han enters the room, two metal cans of mashed spam and rice held in either hand, one of which he gives to you.

“You were knocked out cold,” He laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners, uncharacteristic to the fact he just shot someone.

“The shirt should staunch the bleeding. Eat.”

Staring down at your meal, you glance up, stomach churning in an unsightly manner merely considering food.

But you eat anyway, gulping the bites down despite the nausea.

“And the girl?”

Han takes a bite, scraping every last grain from the noisy tin without so much as a shiver.

“I took care of it.”

It’s your turn to laugh, confusedly surveying the teenage-boy-looking friend of yours.

“What are you? A hitman?”

He clicks his tongue, eyes thoughtfully flickering to the ceiling.

“I’m.. somebody who really wants to survive.”

All you do is return his tight-lipped expression.

Yet, truly accounting for your introduction, there’s a whole lot you don’t know about him. His past, his goals. What his life was like before.

He comes off as cheery and good-natured, disposition claiming he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

You’ve come to realize that isn’t the reality whatsoever. Because Han Jisung is exactly what Han Jisung said he was.

Somebody who really wants to survive.

You can relate to that.

“So.. Random note, random warning, no location?”

“Pretty much.”

Seated beside you, Han surveys the letter, reading over the contents a few times before folding it back up and handing it to you. He’s redressed your wound, utilizing the medical kit’s antiseptic and gauze to wrap the skin.

“Hellion Inn,” Han repeats softly, brows knitted. “Never heard of it.”

You shrug once more from your place on the ground, leg still propped while he squats to your left.

“If anything, it’s likely it was destroyed if it’s an actual Inn,” He mumbles, tapping a puffy bottom lip with his index, earning your half nod before you pause.

“We can still try it though? We can find a stick or somethin’, I’ll use it as a crutch.”

This time, it’s his turn to nod — rising up with a somewhat-assuring: “I’ll be right back” before leaving the room, returning after a few moments with a table leg, nearly comical in the proud manner he lifts the wood, jagged edges evidence of his severing with a knife.

After copious laughter do you glance at him, brow cocked. “This is really all you’ve got?”

Asking from your place beside him, you brace more weight onto the makeshift crutch, granting Han a side-long glance.

“If I had more I’d use it,” He huffs, watching you hobble slightly but remaining upright with worried brows, hands poised to stabilize your steadying adjustment.

That’s most important, you deemed, no matter how puny. A drag to the team means death; you won’t be that drag.

Tomorrow morning you’ll head out. Find somewhere else to occupy whilst searching for Hellion Inn.

The one remaining routine amidst the apocalypse is time, and as the sun cracks above a horizon once able to be admired and not envied, you’re helped to your feet, gathering bags slung over each other's backs. Additional clothes, torn tablecloths. Anything of even insufficient use.

You don’t think these streets had been this quiet since your grandparent’s time, with bustling citizens and raging business overtaking wherever you look. Now, it might as well be a ghost-town. No more cries for help, no more groans and moans in agony.

And yet, it’s almost unsettling as it is reassuring. Suffering has ceased. Cries for help drawn to a close.

Peace within death.

Trekking for only about a mile feels tumultuous, the ache already coiling in your bones like snakes seen slithering through rubble, waiting for rats to swarm decomposing carcasses in search of easy victims.

Seoul has become a jungle, eat or be eaten. It’s only a matter of time, a split-second ignorance, that can have you eaten. Perhaps by the true Monster, perhaps by your own kind.

The sight of broken columns and french doors parted in what looks to be a hotel in front of you redirects your focus, granting Han a hum of acknowledgment. His hand reaching for the pistol in a fashioned holster, yours coming to the kitchen knife held in your bag.

Wary, but slow steps paired with your hobbled ones make for the small bout of stairs, buzzing of flies caught in flurries littering goosebumps along your arms.

Something about this place is abnormal. That much is known. And if this is the so-called “Hellion Inn” (or what remains of it), your hope for sanctuary plummets in tandem with the temperature upon stepping in.

Cold. That dead, stale kind of cold, warmth from the heart void, no longer beating.

Matchstick providing barely enough light, you carefully pry open the squeaking doors in the second doorway, blade wielded close to your being. The putrid odor of decay perplexes your gag reflexes, allowing Han to take the lead in his observing endeavor.

Abruptly, your foot smushes against something below, and when you look down only to be met with a lifeless hand there, bulging, horror-stricken eyes staring back up at you, you hurriedly bite your lip to conceal the bubbling scream clawing from your throat, frothing like a brewing cauldron.

Han can only grimace.

It was here. You’re not sure when, but these wounds — these corpses mercilessly ripped apart — aren’t the doing of humans.

A bone chilling thought surfaces in your mind.

What if the monster is still here?

Your traveling companion spins around on his heel, hands placed on his hips. Honeyed irises momentarily flit between your paled frame to the obvious terror staining your features, his eyebrows raised.

“Hey, I know it’s scary, but the monster’s likely gone by now, and if we can find someone or a sign that’ll redirect us then maybe…”

His words trail off, suddenly all too familiar with the sound of chortled breathing ragged in his ears. Exhales stenching of rotted flesh, the scraping of sharpened claws on the floor.

And how you’re not staring at him, but above him.

Your palms slowly reach up to cover your mouth, taking the tiniest step back manageable.

“..It’s right behind me, isn’t it?”

Yet, before the Monster can swipe a clawed hand and hack off a limb, deja vu strikes in the form of another gunshot, not silenced, booming,

It soars right past your shoulder with pinpoint precision to land within the Monster’s side, collecting a shriek in return. The beast flails wildly as Han races from its clutches towards the unknown savior of his.

Fluffy hair, a torn, mud-stained jean jacket over his shoulders, white undershirt equally unkempt. The four of you survey the monster’s descent deeper into the hotel, not appearing to execute anymore attack attempts.

For now.

No less, you’re helped outside in your wobbly state, the shot-gun boy leading, another seeming to take up the rear behind you and Han. His companion, maybe. Just as you and Han are.

Sharper features oppose the shotgun-carrying boy’s downturned eyes with inquisitive, apprehensive ones. Lighter hair, jeans bagging by his shoes, white tee’s once graphic design smudged, unrecognizable. His own weapon lies in spiked boxing gloves, nails seemingly ruptured through the cushioned layers.

And when his eyes meet yours, you feel fire in your veins. Blazing, warming you from your toes to your fingertips.

“You guys alright?”

Shot-gun boy, introduced as Kim Seungmin, speaks first, spinning on his heel to regard either of you. Though, it’s hard for your mind to stay attentive, the feeling of Seungmin’s companions’ eyes incessantly boring into your back causing a wary twitch of your fingers.

“Lee Minho.”

His voice breaks you from that apprehensive spell, that watchful gaze of his surveying both you and Han with an unimpressed exhale.

“Don’t slow us down,” He scowls, shouldering past Han, lips drawn into a tight line. He heads for their own vehicle, a worn down truck narrowly resting in better condition than your earlier tow truck by the tracks.

Real friendly.

Seungmin, a tad bit more benign, gestures with a curt nod to the vehicle, ushering your injury-wielding self to sit in the passenger seat with Minho as driver, Seungmin and Han taking the truck’s bed.

Just then does the Monster make its return, bursting from the hotel in a seemingly rejuvenated spirit from before, gaping jaws aching to be filled.

You could only hope your flesh wouldn’t be the filler.

“This is why I hate introductions,” Minho, already slamming his foot onto the pedal, grumbles, not granting a response upon tires burning rubber over dusty roads as you speed off – a replay of your ride with Han on loop each time you see the Monster in your mirror.

Approaching closer, closer again.

It seems food becoming involved is a common theme, jarred when the truck swerves in front of a supermarket. Seungmin shouts from the back as he and Han race ahead, beckoning you two to follow them, your steps lightly hobbled with feeble help of the makeshift crutch.

“The hell do I have to be on babysitting duty for?” Minho, lifting your arm over his shoulder, grovels, and you fight the urge to whack him with your crutch, making through the desolate supermarket.

Weapons in clutch, it grows taxing trying not to grimace hearing clattering glass, the mental picture of those bulging eyes doing little for your already queasy stomach.

“It’ll hear us!”

With your horrible luck intact, this already dislikable stranger ends up being the same soul you're lodged into a bathroom stall with.

Minho hisses, furrow of his brows causing his face to scrunch with distaste, the loud clatter of soup cans and chip bags alike resounding from outside in the thick of the Monster’s carnage.

“No, it’ll hear you. More people means more death, and lucky for you, I’ll be off your hands in no time.” Now it’s your turn to retort, the man lacking of his usual boxing gloves, strap of Seungmin’s shotgun over a shoulder instead.

Wriggling yourself from his grasp, you hesitantly slide the notch to the door, movement only stopped by Minho’s lingering hand grabbing your sleeve.

“And what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m repaying a favor.”

Weighing your ability to walk well, you snag the shotgun from his shoulder, granting the man a wink and a: “Thanks for the shotgun”, before slipping from the stall, leaving his starstruck figure in tow.

Ignoring the biting ache in your thigh thanks to a discarded crutch, you savor cool metal beneath your fingertips, watching the blur of the other two boys racing past the Monster’s attempts of attack.

“Hey! Ugly fucker, over here!” You shout, chilled seeing blind eyes rip your way.

Cocking the gun, your eyes narrow, focusing the sight on its head and–

Bang!

Echoing around the supermarket does a copper bullet gnash into thin skin, puncturing straight through, shell casing crinkling onto the floor below in tandem with a low groan of the creature.

Minho bursts from the bathroom moments later, still sporting a starstruck visage. Han and Seungmin go thundering right past back to the truck, the wild goose chase persisting.

What wasn't persistent was Minho’s arms wrapping around your back, hauling you over his shoulder like a sack of rice whilst chasing right after his counterparts.

As much as you’d like to thank him, your thigh still hurts like hell.

“Yah! That- hurts- asshole!” Shrieked between his hurried footsteps, you smack his shoulder blade defiantly.

Hopefully that serves as a thank you.

However, escaping is far from reach, and feeling presumably safe is equally residing far from grasp when, after finally being able to inhale without a stutter to your lung halfway down the road, the sharp snap of a tire blows.

And the truck flips over.

It was one thing maneuvering from the flipped car, shards of glass embedded in your skin beckoning pinpricks of blood, and another continuing on foot to wherever the two acquaintances planned to lead to.

The largest of things, however, was learning the name of this apparent destination.

Hellion Inn.

With Seungmin sustaining a minor head injury, Han luckily unharmed, and an also unharmed Minho reluctant to aid in being your temporary crutch, you’re given plenty of time for interrogation along the way — wondering just who the hell was responsible for the letter.

As far as their replies go, not a soul knows.

And at this rate, you can’t bring yourself to care about pestering for answers anymore, not with Minho’s aggravating complaining and equally as irritating, stupidly good-looking side profile.

So, the torturous walk to this supposed ‘Inn’ prevails, which, turns out not to be an Inn at all. Instead, it’s this metal, bus looking contraption, like a trailer.

Silver of the exterior tarnished, it hides within a surrounding forest entryway, vines curling around door fixtures as if with time, what remained would be swallowed by the greenery.

From the bus two more men exit, and you can’t help but wonder if this so-called Hellion Inn has just as many residents as an actual Inn.

Christopher Bahng and Seo Changbin introduce themselves hastily, quick to rush back into the bus and retrieve a medical kit. After enduring both the painful removal of glass, your reopened wound stitched, and Chris’s heart wrenching smile of assurance (followed by a pat to your kneecap after, ensuring an imminent heart attack on your part), you’re finally invited inside, introduced to the others.

Three more.

It’s a clown car. Definitely.

Yang Jeongin, Hwang Hyunjin, Lee Felix. Boys- no, men, with features you’d like to deem frustratingly attractive.

Maybe photoshoot, not a clown car.

No less, the seven interact with ease, Han intermingling as if he’d been by their side for eternity. A bonfire, expertly lit behind the bus hidden amongst foliage to conceal smoke, provides warmth in the night.

Cold, just as it’s always been. Even more so with autumn’s presence.

Yet, you find your eyes falling right back to him.

Minho.

Man of fire, whose gaze on yours feels like your ribs cracking apart, as if his fingers bend your windpipe every which way, rendering no air into your lungs. He is fire, licking at your skin in the most deplorable of ways.

And you crave it.

If he were Hades, you’d eat the pomegranate seeds like a fool just to feel his eyes on you again and again.

Selfish.

When he looks at you, you feel selfish. Perhaps it’s the stakes, perhaps your heart has grown too weak, beat too fast it falls for any and all. Adrenaline-induced love.

You aren’t naive like Persephone, aren’t blindsided by curiosity.

That latter is a lie. Especially when you shift on the log, purposefully scooting closer to catch bits and pieces of his conversation with Jeongin, listen to the perfect pitch of his voice, aided by the crackling of flames before you.

You wonder if touching him would rival those white-hot flames. Scalding your fingers till you grew numb.

You’d take that bet.

Fluffy fabric placed over your shoulders makes you flinch in place, sympathetic eyes of chocolate meeting yours.

Honeyed. Chris.

“It’s cold, stay warm,” He ushers, crouching to take a seat on your left.

Then do you register his actions. A blanket, the material a survivor of water’s toil and plenty of stains. But it’s warm, durable, and most importantly, sweet. Chris is sweet, you decide, a bit like this warm blanket.

Your nod of thanks doesn’t feel like it even slightly compensates for his kindness, though, for now, it’s enough.

Tomorrow, Chris, Changbin, Minho, and Jeongin will relocate the flipped truck. Haul it back, fix it up again. That’s what your sensible mind discerns, seemingly adopted into the group like any other as sleeping arrangements in the bus are modified for both you and Han.

Strays, huh.

A flickering gas lamp keeps your gaze glued to the ceiling where you lie, watching shadows twirl like a strange ballet along the walls. Near the front of the bus does Chris sleep, Changbin glued to his side, Felix tucked beneath his arm.

It brings a smile to your lips, watching them. Even Seungmin, with his more boundary-oriented persona, close to the others, his hand brushing against Hyunjin’s shoulder, Jeongin’s head.

Human beings, after all. Even when it all falls apart. And maybe, maybe in monsters as well, there is human. The need to be close, to feel skin on skin.

Counting heads, you find one missing.

“You should be sleeping.”

Minho flicks a lighter on and off, waiting to relight the gas lamp. He squats down in front of you, jeans stretched over muscular thighs.

Your brow furrows, wondering if he’d been here this whole time amidst your ignorance.

“Are you scared?”

His words dull your ability to reply, retort something smart. But, the tone keeps your mouth shut. Cool and calm, like when he spoke to Jeongin by the fire. Not taunting, nor instigating.

“No.”

The words are a lie, unveiled in the crease of a dirt-stricken face, chapped lips pulled taut.

His pinky finding yours verifies that fire theory. From the tips of your toes to the very top of your scalp you feel it.

Scorching. Hot.

Your skin seems to melt from your bones, but only you can see it.

There are lots of questions to ask. Wondering, hope. Why?

But he beats you to it. It seems you’ll have to get used to that characteristic.

“Go to sleep. Nothing can get you here.”

A lie, you know it well. Any second that monster can stumble here. Smell you, turn the perfect corner to find the bus, sheen shimmering beneath a full moon. Ravage each and every one of you beneath claws and blood.

But the letter, no, Minho says you’ll be safe here. That Hellion Inn will be your safe haven.

Tonight, you choose to believe that, falling asleep with his pinky twined with yours, his back to one of the side booths, focus trained on your features.

Safe.

“Hnn..”

Insistent poking to your cheek abducts you from your dream, bleary eyes straining to open. Jeongin sits up, bracing himself with his hands, youthful smile stretched over his face watching you. Meanwhile, the hellspawn guilty, Hyunjin, can’t help but laugh cheerily.

“Wah— I wish I had a camera!” Ebony strands peek from beneath a white ball cap, his voice carries from the bus for Felix’s head to peek in, echoing Hyunjin’s laugh with his deeper baritone.

Similar to Chris are you met with Felix’s kindness, his lithe form slipping past the bus doors to gently smooth back your bed hair, utilizing a hair tie on his wrist to bind the unruly strands before patting your head.

It’s easy to ache for anyone’s touch, you discover.

In the early morning, the car was retrieved by Minho, Chris, Jeongin, and Changbin, the low chatter of voices outside evidence of their progress restoring the once flipped vehicle.

When you step out, Changbin hands you a tin of steaming soup as meager breakfast you’re quick to thank him for, bringing the spoon to your lips whilst lingering near the car, watching them flit about, handing each other tools and screws alike like busied ants.

“You just gonna stand there or help out? Last time I checked you weren’t worried about appearances.”

Instantaneously, Minho becomes his normal, annoying self with each snidely sarcastic remark, cocked brows urging you to retaliate.

Unfortunately, your barely conscious mind can’t formulate something smart back, so you resort to serving as the tool-supplier, handing different ones here and there from a stool near where the Man of Fire works on the popped wheel.

His new title, apparently.

Man of Fire.

“Wrench.”

“Did you just call me a wench?” You scoff, eyes wide with shock at the murmured comment.

Perhaps you were blindsided after all by his nice face.

“Wrench.”

Or not.

Begrudgingly, you extend the wrench, scowl embedded in your expression he can’t help but crack a bemused grin at.

Attaching the wrench to a bolt to crank does his vein-littered forearms flex, and your throat feels unnaturally dry, forcing yourself to focus on something else in order to school an unaffected facade.

Nevertheless, by night, he’s.. different. Lacking cockiness, harshness.

Unspoken things, like when you’re stirred from sleep, dazed gaze settling on Minho across the bus, his fingers tenderly patting Changbin’s head when he stirs awake. They speak in hushed whispers alternative to Changbin’s boisterous presence.

And sometimes, amidst the other seven, you’re the one beneath his comforting hand. Those times nightmares plague your sleep, his careful hands tracing your knuckles, slow circles over your skin urging you back into the solace of sleep.

To you he doesn’t talk, just hums a low melody, wipes unshed tears from your waterline. Seeing his face makes you want to cry more, so you can be scooped into his hug.

Though, you doubt you’d ever let go, so you never allow yourself more tears. Maybe that’s for the better.

Because while you’re so selfishly enamored as night falls and he becomes that doting figurine bathed in moonlight, Minho is endlessly selfless. Wordless, but selfless.

The guardian of the night, sustaining a semblance of care and safety that silently engulfs the bus each time a star twinkles within the sky.

Then again, risks are always present. Missions out for food, stashing of possessions in case of invasion.

Windows of the bus covered, the group convenes that evening, leant over a book on the floor, huddled with knees held close to chests. Sharing things of value, adding more.

An old journal, spine tattered and moth-eaten. Inside looks to hold the secrets of the world, hidden within yellowed pages, hurried writing of smudged ink.

All of it, from the Monster’s mannerisms, exterior, presumed weaknesses. Written, documented. How such information was gathered is beyond you. Intricate, detailed.

Study after study, page after page.

In two days, you’re arranged to head out with Chris for a medical restock. The pharmacy isn’t too far from the Inn, and it’ll only be a few hours of collecting before returning back.

The morning of, Seungmin hands you his shotgun, and Chris takes Minho’s—the Man of Fires’—nail-wielding boxing gloves. Two backpacks, one goal.

Fortunately, the journey isn’t too grueling, filled with quiet conversation and query till barely divisible characters reading ‘PHARMACY’ come into view, slipping into the hollowed, whitened confines of a once thriving business.

Eerie, with medication strung awry, unknown blood splattered along a wall behind the register.

It’s almost funny how the money there goes untouched. What use is it now?

Captured within your peripheral does a door become of topic, shielded behind a hanging towel in the far corner of the pharmacy that you slowly pad over to inspect, fingers tentative in nudging to the side.

Though, it’s the sudden flick of lights, electricity, that makes you gasp, flashlight of little necessity as you part double doors.

The sight makes your heart stop.

Because beneath the disguise of a pharmacy rests a drug-den, a laboratory, first and foremost.

“Uh.. Does Seungmin have this in his journal..?”

Building long since redlined by the look of it, Chris is quick to join your side, muttering an awestruck: “Holy shit” you would’ve laughed at if it weren’t for your combined surprise.

Though, he places an arm in front of you as your foot moves to step inside, instead advising the muzzle of your shotgun to lead you, clearing the area before feasting on this monstrosity.

Countless test tubes litter every surface in sight, but it isn’t mixtures, isn’t a combo of products.

It’s insects, piled with them.

Many deformed in gruesome ways, trapped inside the tubes. Chris, hastily pulling an old camera from his bag, snaps photos, the shutter’s sound echoing around the room.

Yet, you can’t help but notice a near uncanny resemblance.

Incisors, bulging eyes, like the Monster.

No, it wouldn’t be. A mega ant? No, that thing is far from solely ant with its hulking size.

“Don’t you think this is just.. odd? I mean, they’re already up to their noses in cash from the drugs, I’m sure, so why the.. ants?”

Chris exhales slowly through his nose, shaking his head.

“My guess is as good as yours. And calling it a ‘guilty pleasure’ just makes me nauseous, I mean look at them, they’re.. infected.”

Fungal growth is clear as day, that’s agreed. The true question rests in reason.

Just what were they doing here?

The longer you linger, the more unsettling it becomes.

Because somehow, your gut can’t shake that resemblance to the Monster.

Your walk back to the bus is quiet, shrouded in nerves and a wanting for familiarity. Safe to say you both sigh in relief seeing that silvery, unmoving vehicle.

It’s almost comical how the uneasiness spreads, like whatever fungus altered the insects, contorting them in disfigured shapes, features. Overtaking the nine of you similarly.

Merely thinking about it gives you chills, Chris’s description, as you’re coddled into the bus with the others to explain, doing little for the vomit tempting your throat.

Effortlessly, your same silence washes over the others, paled as they acknowledge the identical resemblance you’d conjured before.

“You don’t think..” You’re feeble in attempting to disprove the suspicions, trembling of your fingers stilled only when Minho’s index traces your wrist.

Though, it isn’t night, and the look he grants you makes you wish for his touch even more.

Assurance, worn within the grooves of his face, repetitive stroke of his fingertip over a hammering pulse.

“I do think, show me the picture again.” Seungmin beckons, hurriedly flipping through his own notebook as he narrows his eyes on the photo Chris shows.

Seungmin, you learned, used to be an entomology major in Seoul’s most prestigious university. Studious, with a bright future nearing.

Interesting how easy those aspirations can crumble apart within a day, within seconds.

But there’s no purpose in reminiscing, is there?

Now resorting to gathered notes of the past, he finally stops at a page, finger glued to the scribbled notes. His other hand reaches to the photo, pointing to a tiny label taped to a test tube halfway outside the frame, writing messy and uneven, barely legible against the blur of the camera.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralism, or, in easier terms, zombie-ant fungus.

Thanks to Seungmin’s insight, his knowledge dictates the occurrence as “a fungus capable of infecting the mind of its host while simultaneously altering its body.”

So, in a horror-movie-esque, freakish way, a parasite.

Jeongin pipes up, and you swear at least four of you flinch at the sudden sound of a voice against leaden silence.

“But the Monster’s too big to be an ant, right? How could the—“

“What if it wasn’t an ant, but another animal? A bigger animal. Some scientific breakthrough where the host was able to be taken over, not by an ant, but by something bigger.”

The entirety remains consumed in a stillness, taking in the revelation they’ve just come to.

Fear is almost palpable. Nearly able to be tasted, smelt.

Han’s leg bounces anxiously, dirty fingernails reaching to claw at his hair, tearing at his scalp with visible shuddering Chris’s warm palm hopes to ease, placed on his shoulder.

“We’re being hunted by a parasite.” He croaks hoarsely in disbelief, tone pathetically cracking in terror.

A parasite, yes. This, however, is different.

The monster lurking through Seoul was planned, arranged accordingly under the guise of law and human greed for motive unknown.

A lone pharmacy, meant to cater to human health, now manufacturerers of human destruction.

This parasite is man-made.

Your spirit could’ve been staunched easily, dampened by the weight of discovery. Grown unwilling to fight anymore, unwilling to try surviving.

Who are we if not going for each other's throats? Why must someone’s greed become everyone else’s problem?

Something so selfish, so horrid it grew out of control, festering like a seed of hatred in one’s heart till spiky leaves and branches poured from their lungs and suffocated them.

For a moment do you entertain the doubts, the scornful attitude over the boiled egg in hand. An early breakfast the day after the realization, with the nine of you seated along the bus’s roof, legs swinging off the side while watching the sunrise.

You feel like the only people in the world.

And a bit longer seeing shades of orange and crisp blue bleed across the sky does it feel like it’s all worth living for once again.

So instead, you adapt.

Jotting down more details about the fungus, figuring out ways to combat it. Continual stocking of food, the usual.

Fixing things, keeping up with communication. Laughter and smiling, momentary glances to that Man-of-Fire making you clam up, just like before.

At least that was predictable.

A continual gas lamp, those same quiet visits of his within the night. And, more often than not, you’d find Minho’s pinkie linking with yours while he slept, without a nightmare or sleepless night as explanation.

In the mornings, you’d pretend like it never happened. Go back to cat and mouse, square one.

Hold my hand, but keep quiet.

I don’t want you to leave.

Plenty of things echo through your mind as dawn arises, when your lids twitch and disoriented eyes flutter open to find him beside you, peacefully asleep.

Most days, he’s gone by dawn, somewhere across the bus sleeping, leaving your groggy mind to configure his touch as a mere dream.

No matter the awe, your body betrays such an occasion, and you fall right back to sleep again hoping he could read your mind, keep that contact beneath the blanket.

Unbeknownst to you, the moment your eyes close, his eyes open.

But you’re already asleep when a gentle index traces your cheek, his lips parting with a slow breath.

“Pretty,” Is whispered, failing to echo around the bus in its hushed volume, a pinch of normality within the chirping of birds, the breach of an emerging day peering over sparse clouds.

“Hm?”

He wasn’t anticipating your response, breath catching in his throat.

“Hi Minho,” You murmur gently, greeting his surprised disposition as your lips wind into a tiny smile.

Involuntary. Lips quirking upwards the longer you hold eye-contact.

And surprisingly, Minho cracks a smile too.

It’s feeble, barely divisible apart from the twitch of his lips. Your thumb traces the crinkle, too sleepy to speak, too comfortable to act.

“Hi there.”

His hand returns your touch, finding your cheek to rest on, savoring the feeling of your skin on his, his on yours.

Stay here, don’t go.

I don’t want to be left alone again.

His brisk glance at your lips has your nerves buzzing beneath such a gaze.

Knowing, obliging.

Obliging as his head tips, as yours complies. Capable of fitting like the perfect puzzle as—

Seungmin mumbles something unintelligible in his sleep, and it’s all a dream once more how Minho slips from your hands as if he was never there in the first place.

Three and a half months at Hellion Inn passes in a flash. Research on combatants to the zombie-ant fungus prevalent, plenty of days spent crowded in the bus, throwing around possibilities and idyll conversation.

Monster sightings have become sparse, with the vast majority of reports informing of its scavenging of the city’s copious bodies.

A sense of relief until it runs out of flesh and craves more, which is where your apocalypse began all over.

Starting with that same, chillingly bellowed chuff at least half a mile out from Hellion Inn.

You don’t think you’d ever seen the eight of them move so quickly. Gas lamp extinguished, weapons cocked and loaded with ammunition ready to fire. Minho’s studded boxing gloves, Seungmin’s shotgun, Chris’s dual pistols. Plentiful traps arranged about the bus, ones you never anticipated having to utilize up till tonight.

How foolish you were.

However, the bus’s roof isn’t caved in by a claw, the nine of you intact for the remainder of the restless night, void of any more sound from the Monster.

Then again, the torment is far from yielding, with those same, restless nights becoming avidly frequent, Minho’s soothing capabilities tested as a nightmare per week triples in number.

In those times, you find comfort in each other, comfort in bodies snuggled together, in shared pain and happiness. In as much comfort support allows in the thick of a never-ending hailstorm.

As for you, you find that longing has folded itself into squares of eighteen from a once meager eight. Folded over and over that, the greater the paper grows with each parted fold, the greater that longing burns.

Burns, like the smoke billowing from a fire outside.

Location of the slow-to-set sun leads you to believe it’s around 3pm, your figure slumped to the floor of the bus.

Though, the missing factor rests in a lack of eight others who currently occupy the fire outside for dinner.

Yesterday, you and Jeongin took on a water restock, roaming about what seemed to be innumerable miles to repeat the walk with heavy packs of water all the way back, currently the cause of your exhaustion as you sleep into the evening the day after.

If only the sleep was peaceful, refreshing.

It’s not.

Well, it was. But not for long.

A shower, according to the flickering of your consciousness as you dream. Warm water droplets pattering on the tile floor underfoot, cleansing grime from your skin. Electricity.

And somehow, a peculiar name leaves your lips upon seeing a shadow behind the shower curtain.

“Minho.”

The sound of your voice is light in this dream. Awaiting, familiar.

Yet, the pit in your stomach grows, unnaturally.

You find the cause when pulling back the shower curtain, that same, leering smile of the Monster staring back at you as it lunges.

Not Minho.

Your vision goes black, only able to hear the ringing screech of your scream, the heat of the shower now putrid metallic. Blood, replacing the water.

It fills your senses, suffocating you slowly but surely. Overflowing from your nose, your eyes, till you cry crimson.

A sharp twitch of your hand jars you awake.

You’re not bleeding, not in a shower, no Monster in sight. Although, you’d be lying to yourself to say you can just forget it all, act like nothing’s the matter.

More so when you see Minho—recalling his name uttered so sweetly in your dream—standing at the bus’s doorway, seemingly a witness to your horrors as he closes the door behind himself.

Ah.

No, don’t look at me right now with that doting gaze, as if I’m something to be cared for, something delicate.

For once I wish you away, so I don’t begin to cry, so my love for you doesn’t become my ruin.

“And it was- it was right in front of me and—“

He sees through you each time, through the toughened exterior, the shake of your head when he asks if you need anything, want to talk about it.

He came in for an extra blanket, apparently. One long forgotten by now.

Spill your guts, but when it comes to him, you find your heart spilling with it. Words caught in a hyperventilating daze, your hands flail, eyes struck permanently bulging.

At some point, everyone starts to break. No time table to give you an estimate, forewarning.

It just bubbles until bursting.

“I don’t… I don’t want to do this anymore..” Voice a desperate plea, sobs wrack your body numb. “Why can’t…” You begin, eyes flitting to Minho.

“Why can’t we all just die together?”

Heaved between sharp inhales is your face taken between calloused hands, his brows knitted.

“Cause who’s going to take our place? Who else is alive?” He whispers, kneeled upon the floor, staring at you nonsensically.

“This once, let me be selfish. I won’t let you die. You can’t die because I want you alive. Do you understand?”

Slow to nod, bleary vision situates upon the man, cursing the dip to your usually strong tone — cracking, weakened.

“Can… Can I just.. forget?”

His eyes flit to your lips if only for an instant, like that time a month ago, stolen.

And for a moment, you think he may have just read your mind.

“Minho, please… I want to-“

Ah.

And he kisses you, and then, no, more. More and more, till you’re tangled up in sprawled blankets and sleeping bags. Smoke tainting the air from outside, calves dangling from his shoulders, toes curled.

Minho makes you forget, forget and forget, leaving you to helplessly utter his name past chapped lips — till another round turns into what feels to be a lifetime.

Your palms pressing to his jaw like a plea, head tossing back once more with a sound purely guttural.

It’s sloppy, it’s clumsy. Sweat-stuck kisses to sweat-stuck skin. Nails digging into already moth-eaten clothing, his lips permanently pressed to your pulse, hammering and hammering in a wordless incantation of bliss.

And yet, no amount of greedy, mindless sex, no amount of his doting kisses, his careful assurances, praises, can deter your mind from a reality unavoidable.

There’s no euphoria, no recovery your skin can even acknowledge as he flops to your side, both out of breath.

“.. Am I selfish for a pleasure I can’t even enjoy?”

Silence breached, your eyes flutter closed, an involuntary tear slipping down your cheek where you lay upon the bunched sleeping bag.

This had been a dream, to be burned by the Man of Fire. Allowing his kiss to brand you, his touch searing every ounce of skin raw.

Little did you know you’d already scorched it all yourself.

Cruel. Irrevocably cruel.

Not even clarity grants your senses, emotion muddled between undergarments feeling too tight and grimy and the lack of fresh air rendering sticky bodies into a cold sweat.

From beside you, his hand extends to your cheek, thumbing away the salty droplet with a weary smile.

“There is no selfishness, just… grasping onto what’s left. You’re not selfish for taking what you can get, not when everything is being taken from you.”

Hellion Inn was not your safety, it was the one gazing at you, the seven others outside.

This is only a house, Minho is your home.

Fifth month arising, a conclusion is met. Amongst not-so-helpful input, bickering, and plenty of runs to libraries to gather more books on Ophiocordyceps unilateralism for a very studious Seungmin, he presents a possibility, an option.

Of its known enemies, the zombie-ant fungus doesn’t have many. There was the initial hypothesis on ways ants protect from the parasite, but with the Monster already infected, those methods were out of the question.

Then came the breakthrough.

Torrubiellomyces zombiae, or T.Z. An additional, fanciful word for a more powerful parasite. A Hyperparasitic fungi, zombie-ant fungus’ predator.

Create an ultimate beast without known opponents? Simply double the size, the power.

That’s where T.Z arrived, the species a core option for the Monster’s destruction. Get the spores on the Monster’s skin, and stay alive until it takes over and stabilizes the fungus’ infection.

Much easier said than done, which left room for the organized members of the group separating steps into phases.

Phase one focuses on collection of the spores. Extra photos Chris took that first encounter in the pharmacy unveiled the likely presence of the desired spores, which Felix, Hyunjin, and Seungmin have been elected to collect as Team C.

Phase two regards locating the Monster, introducing the presence of a harpoon gun (an idea Han loved (for the sole reason of fooling around with the harpoon gun)).

The point of the harpoon will be coated in collected spores, teams of three with three members each (A, B, and C) dispersed throughout the surrounding area the monster before Team A shoots.

And of course, courtesy of Han’s mention on what phase three should be:

Run like hell.

Phase two enacting in exactly a week, Hellion Inn spends its days in preparation, plaguing each breathing moment with gathering necessities and ensuring utilities are present.

Between those lines comes the lividity.

Kisses in the night, his kisses. The shared cockiness, incessant teasing when the others are around as original as it comes despite such tenderness in private.

Your souls bared, secrets spoken into the air for only your ears to hear.

While the others sleep, you love till your heart hurts, watching him fall asleep against your palm where he’d kissed each of your fingertips minutes prior.

“I love you,” He whispers one night, his nose buried into your cheek with a heavy sigh.

There’s not a single doubt within your mind, a hesitation, a hint of surprise.

Plenty of times it’s been said without words, repeated in the peck he presses to your skin.

“I love you too.”

And you repeat the words in a kiss to his lips. Slow, careful.

Savor. As if it were your last.

Dark clouds wrinkle your vision, spitting rain nothing short of irritating as you, Han, and Minho slip through cluttered underbrush.

Gathering of the spores had been successful by Team C according to the flare gun’s signal, and Team A—consisting of Changbin, Jeongin and Chris—tracked the location of the monster.

Itaewon hasn't changed apart from the lack of bodies, assumed to be the Monster’s doing. Debris prominent, scavenging animals littering the streets without the usual congestion of people.

When the second flare blooms into shaded sky, that’ll be the indication the last stage: shooting the monster, is underway. For now, the three of you wait, listening in as hurried footsteps of Team C come thundering towards you.

Seungmin offers the vial, Minho lifting the harpoon gun to plunge into what appears to be an oddly shaped mushroom, your arm already lifted to the sky to fire Team B’s own flare gun.

Half way. Not done yet.

Now for Phase three, but, prior to the “run like hell” notion.

Jeongin is the retriever of the harpoon gun, angling through side streets past a lingering monster in the center to deliver the catalyst.

Almost there, almost–

His foot clashing against the metal of an alleyway trash-can disrupts that peace, and synonymously do you feel all breath held.

Chris was supposed to deliver the shot. Jeongin was supposed to make it to Team A unnoticed.

The world seems to grow mute, Han’s wrenching scream from beside you fallen upon deaf ears as the Monster’s gaping jaws beeline for Jeongin, claws extended, the boy kneeling to the ground.

Then, a ping! resounds, and your eyes are slow to open in fear his mutilated body would sit there, bright eyes lifeless.

It’s almost slow motion seeing it. Centimeters from Jeongin’s face does a palm outstretch, twice the size of his head, fingers twitching as if frozen in space.

Then you see it.

In the middle of that palm, the mere edge of the harpoon—only able to get halfway from its sheath—embeds.

Cavernous jaws of the creature part, incisors poised as if disbelieving of the matter itself. Disbelieving of the parasite taking over, altering its blood stream.

Wilt.

White, almost decaying in the manner the alternate fungi destroys the weaker one, its muscles failing, body freezing.

You half anticipated the creature to at least try fighting in the meantime, land one last swipe.

But the more time ticking past as you lean forward disproves any chance of movement, able to physically see the blood cells permeating the creature ashen, once curved claws diminishing simultaneously like that of crumbling embers.

Just then does Hyunjin’s voice breach your focus, curdled in urgency. It’s his cry that beckons Jeongin back to his feet, racing back after the others, tip of the harpoon still wedged within the Monster’s palm.

Oddly enough, as you watch the last of it dust into the wind as if melting, it doesn't feel real.

Too simple, uncanny. As if millions hadn’t extinguished in its horrid maw—a single parasite killing off the apocalypse bringer as easy as that.

Yet, it wasn’t easy at all.

Testing every last ounce of your wish for life, wish for a reality snatched from not just you, but eight others’ fingertips.

It was taxing. Surviving, experiencing the start of new love you didn’t think could sprout among a wintery wasteland included.

But it did sprout, and the way you’re the first person Minho’s eyes drift to speaks that loud and clear.

Twin blossoms of the most brilliant colors, growing brighter the nearer they are.

Closer than love, truly.

We made it.

The Monster is gone.

There isn’t a word spoken as you make back for Hellion Inn, make back for home. The crunch of footsteps along gravel rings in your eardrums, breath exhaled from parted lips, matted, grease-ridden hair the least of your concern. No joyous shouting, no celebratory behavior in the slightest.

What is there to celebrate anyway? So many lives lost, too many to mourn.

Progression of your footsteps carries each soul with it, allowing them a final sleep in their eternal resting place.

Sleep well, Seoul.

“It’s all over.”

Whispered amidst roaring flames, you can only stare at the pharmacy as fiery flickers—vials, chemicals, ants included–swallow whatever has been left, torching hell’s origin once and for all.

One last stop. One last goodbye to all that was, the last chapter.

Without a word, Minho’s pinky links with your own.

FIC TAGLIST. @linocvp1d

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