#those two guys on the staircase are SO dead lmao

[forged-in-kaoss]

misc gifs from misc op movies

[maccreadysbaby]

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: mentions of death, anxiety attacks!

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

you GUYS this CHAPTER is a DOOZY. I’m so excited and also kind of jittery lmao. you wanted the secret keeper’s story? you got it fam

part twenty-eight

❝ THE TRUTH ❞

MONDAY — AUGUST 17 — 7:52PM

ON MINUTE ELEVEN, WHEN THE WHOLE CABIN WAS QUIET APART FROM THE STORM OUTSIDE, BENTLEY STEPPED TOWARD THE TRAPDOOR.

“No! Please don’t leave me up here by myself,” Nico begged, lurching forward and latching onto Bentley like some kind of leech. His fists were balled up in the left sleeve of the redhead’s jacket so hard his hands were shaking. (Or maybe they’d already been shaking, which was probable.)

Bentley met his big blue eyes, half hidden by his blonde hair, which were properly watering now. “It’ll be okay. We’ll be fast. You can come if you want.”

Nico sniffled even though his tears hadn’t fallen yet. “I want to go home.”

Bentley said nothing, but attempted a reassuring smile like Bruce always did. He, too, had nerves buzzing beneath his skin, threatening to vibrate him across the floor, but Asten was right; they couldn’t give up now. They’d come so far (literally.) and this might’ve been exactly what they were looking for. The key to taking down the Secret Keeper, to becoming a Wayne, to saving his family. So no matter how (not) scared, (not) anxious, and (not) desperate to go back to the Manor Bentley was, he was going to do it. He had to win.

“Guys…” Asten’s voice floated up from the dark abyss. Bentley could see the light from his flashlight go brighter and darker, like he was moving it around the room. 

Bentley went for the stairwell, and, because Nico’s grip wasn’t letting up, he shuffled along behind him.

They took the dark stairs one step at a time. Bentley heard Nico gasp every time a piece of wood groaned under their weight. There was no telling what was down there — what Asten was seeing. There could’ve been people tied up. The newly missing citizens whose bodies hadn’t been found yet, or people that were… dead. There could’ve been dead bodies down there.

Bentley swallowed thickly, his heart whamming in his ribcage as they neared the bottom of the dimly illuminated staircase. All he could really see were plywood walls and a concrete floor.

And then Asten came into view.

He was standing with his back toward them, completely still, his flashlight aimed right ahead. The basement was big — the parts Bentley could see, anyways — and he was pointing the light at the farthest wall; a concrete wall. 

It was long, and seemed to be full of… square doors? At least two dozen, lined in two rows. It reminded Bentley of something Alfred had in the butler’s kitchen — tall metal fridges with a bunch of square doors. But these weren’t those, these were made into the wall. Each door had a sticker on the front, some green, some yellow, and some red, but Bentley couldn’t read them from where they stood.

“Ah merda,” Asten muttered under his breath. Nico made a strange little squeak, and while Bentley couldn’t quite see him in the dark, he thought he felt what may have been his forehead land against the back of his shoulder.

He was obviously missing something wrong. What was it?

“What is that?” Bentley whispered, hardly audible. Asten opened and closed his mouth a few times, eyes not leaving the doors. 

“It’s a morgue,”

Bentley said nothing. What was a morgue?

Asten cleared his throat, not looking back at them. “You… know what that is, ginger?”

“No…” Bentley muttered. Nico was crying. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what a morgue was.

Asten ran a hand over his blue hair. “It’s where they put people. After they… die. Morgues are… only supposed to be in hospitals.”

Bentley took a deep breath, his brown eyes bouncing across all of the metal doors. There were dead people in there?

They were in the room with a bunch of dead people? 

Bentley fought away the slight vertigo that threatened to take over as he stared at the doors. Tons of them. Dozens of them. With dead people inside.

In an attempt to distract himself in absolutely any way possible, he kept looking around the room. He couldn’t see much from the flashlight’s beam, but he did catch a pile of boxes to the left, and a large desk with a computer monitor to the right.

He felt Nico’s grip leave his arm, and the telltale rattle-rattle-rattle-hiss-hiss of his inhaler came from over Bentley’s left shoulder.

They were in a basement full of dead people.

Bentley’s mind was only brought back to him when Asten dared to step closer to the doors, shining the flashlight on the closest door’s red sticker.

The words came into focus for Bentley in the light — OLIVIA WRIGHT, THE VOID.

Bentley blinked. He knew that name; both of them. Olivia Wright was a girl that went missing after seeing the Secret Keeper — presumed dead. The Void was a portal-shooting metahuman that the Wayne’s fought on patrol not too long ago.

Bentley heard Asten let out a puff of air, moving the beam of light to the door to the left, another red sticker. This one looked like someone had attempted to rip it off. Half of the words were missing, but the name THE SECRET KEEPER was still clearly visible.

The next sticker was green, with a yellow one haphazardly placed on top. Bentley stayed rooted to the concrete floor as Asten carefully peeled the yellow one up to read the green one.

DAVIS HENDERSON, THE REAPER.

Bentley breathed out. Davis Henderson. The waiter from the bar.

The yellow sticker on top only said one word: COMPROMISED.

Asten moved to the next one, a red sticker with a yellow one beside it.

TITUS LANCASTER, PATHFINDER, the red one said. COMPROMISED, replied the yellow.

Titus Lancaster — the twelve-year-old boy who went missing. Whose parents…

Bentley took a breath, blinking a few times to steel himself.

The next sticker was green. AMANDA TODRYK, THE RAVEN.

Asten froze there.

Bentley’s own thoughts seemed to startle him enough to make him flinch. It was her. It was Mandy Todryk — they’d found her. They’d actually, legitimately found her.

It didn’t feel near as good as he thought it would.

Asten grabbed the handle.

“What are you doing?! Don’t you dare!” Nico ordered in a violent whisper muffled by his crying, brushing past Bentley’s shoulder toward their friend. “Are you insane? Are you insane?! We have to go, we have to call the police!”

Asten’s hand just hovered there. He was staring intently at the door, and Bentley couldn’t see much of his face, but he could imagine his signature stormy eyes.

“Asten!” Nico pleaded. Like his near-shout was a pulse of adrenaline, Asten jerked on the handle, and the door popped open.

All three of them froze.

The square hole was deep, almost the size of a coffin, and vapor billowed out when the door was opened like it was refrigerated. Laying in that coffin-like-hole, the top of her head facing them, was Amanda Todryk. Amanda Todryk. She was staring at the ceiling of the box she was in, her light eyes unseeing, her skin whiter than a ghost and lips a ghastly blue. 

Bentley’s hand found his mouth before he told it to. It was really cold in there. Asten didn’t make a sound other than a slow exhale, his green eyes focused, frozen. 

Amanda Todryk was dead. They were staring at her body.

Bentley felt like he was going to pass out.

His mind — God, he couldn’t focus, he couldn’t focus on anything — drifted and wandered and only floated back when Nico turned on a dime, took maybe a half step toward him, and threw up all over the floor.

Bentley couldn’t move. Not when the quiet thunk of Asten closing the door came, not when Nico sat down in the concrete and started well-and-truly sobbing. Bentley felt like he’d swallowed a bee hive. Like he was vibrating into numbness, like he was in some dark, cold place and he couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t hear anything.

He wanted to go home.

A few more clicks and thunks came from the wall. Some distant part of Bentley’s mind told him that meant Asten was opening and closing the other doors. 

A blur of time passed. Asten was at the computer — when had he walked over there?

For a while, the only occasional sounds in the basement were Asten typing, and periodic rattling from Nico’s inhaler. 

They’d broken into a house and found a dead body. They’d broken into a house and found a dead body. They’d broken into a house and found a dead body.

“Ginger, come look at this,” Asten ordered. Bentley’s legs numbly carried him over to the desk without much thought — he wasn’t thinking very well anyhow. He wanted to go home.

There was a folder of videos pulled up on the screen. Each one had a different title, starting at SUBJECT ONE and ending at SUBJECT SEVENTY-NINE.

Asten clicked on subject one.

The video began to play, and a sterile white lab appeared on the screen. The only thing in the frame besides the floor, wall, and ceiling, was a large, white machine that stood probably two Bentleys tall. A conglomerate of machinery sat on top of it, as well as a button panel to the side covered with multicolored, glowing buttons.

“This is Dr. A. R. Keene. The date is March twenty-ninth, year two of the genome sequencing study. This is video number B101,” Their teacher’s voice came through the screen, though they couldn’t see him. “The Synchronizer, after it's year-long trial phase, is in complete working order. Now, the human testing will begin.”

The camera angle moved slightly as though the device had been bumped, and someone chuckled behind the camera.

“Charlie has ever-so-willingly offered herself up as test Subject One,” Said Dr. Keene, sounding a little exasperated. 

A gasp came from off camera, and then a female voice chimed: “C’mon, dad! I can’t let you rise to scientific fame without me! And why are you sounding so proper? You said these recordings are just for you.”

Bentley blinked when a girl came into the frame — young, probably around Jason’s age. She had shoulder-length dirty blonde hair and large, piercing blue eyes. She crouched down in front of the camera and crossed her eyes, sticking her tongue out with an audible blegh noise. She was wearing a royal purple dress that, oddly enough, Bentley thought Steph owned, too.

“They’re also for my boss. He wants complete reassurance that the process is safe for his son. That’s quite enough, Charlie,” Dr. Keene sighed, and she stopped making faces and rolled her eyes instead. “Recent blood and DNA work goes to show that Charlie does not have the genetic mutation which turns common people into, what the press call, metahumans.”

The screen of a tablet appeared on the monitor when someone (supposedly Dr. Keene) held it there, full of charts and notes Bentley couldn’t really read. It disappeared just as fast.

Charlie sighed, glancing down at her nails. “Blah, blah, blah, science, science, science. Can we do this thing now?”

Dr. Keene sighed, and a few sounds came from behind the camera. “The internal Neuron Amplification System has been implemented inside the Subject for seventy-two hours. She’s reported minimal pain, and responds immediately to orders. The Subject has no memory of actions taken when the NeuroAmp is active.” 

“I forgot to tell you, I woke up sore yesterday from all the hurdles you made me run. Maybe you can mind control me to go workout. Then I won’t remember hating it!” Charlie chuckled. She leaned forward and began to twist at her blonde curls like she could see herself in the camera.

“It’s Neuron Amplification, Charlie, not mind control,” He deadpanned. Charlie flicked a hand toward the camera.

“You make me do whatever you want and I don’t remember it. Pretty sure that’s mind control,” She said with a sarcastic smile. “It’s fine; I trust you, dad. Just don’t read my mind.”

“I can’t read your mind,” He replied with a sigh. “Shall we begin?”

Charlie jumped to her feet, only her legs visible in the frame. “Heck yeah!”

Dr. Keene moved onto the screen. He looked normal — maybe a little younger? — and he was wearing a stark white lab coat that fell to his knees. There was a symbol on the back of the coat, small and subtle.

“That’s the symbol that was branded on the Secret Keeper’s head,” Asten whispered. Bentley watched in silence as Dr. Keene tapped buttons on the keypad next to the big machine. A loud whirring and beeping came, and the whole front of the machine was lifted up and out of the frame, revealing a yellow, padded interior shaped like a person. There were metal clamps on the wrists, ankles, and torso.

“Please enclose subject,” Came a robotic female voice.

Charlie hopped inside like she was excited to get in the thing. She lined up with the person shaped padding, and the metal clamps closed around her.

“The full DNA exchange process takes anywhere from half an hour to three hours, depending on the genetic makeup of the subject,” Dr. Keene continued to speak. “My guess is that Charlie’s will take more around the forty-five minute mark. I’ll continue the recording then.”

He pushed a few final buttons, and the machine closed around his daughter.

The video cut, and Dr. Keene’s face was suddenly right in the camera, his light eyes boring into their souls. “Charlie’s exchange is nearly complete. We’ll see how she reacts when she comes out, if the NeuroAmp still activates under her altered DNA, as well as testing if her newfound abilities come forth as predicted. In the future subjects, the NeuroAmp will be administered inside the Synchronizer,” He gestured to the machine.

“Exchange complete. Releasing subject,” Came the robotic voice again. Dr. Keene stood up and turned toward the Synchronizer, getting out of the way of the camera as it opened. What looked to be smoke plumed out of the opening, making it impossible for them to see Charlie.

And then she stumbled out.

Bentley inhaled sharply at the sight of her ever-familiar, stringy, platinum blonde hair. Charlie was breathing so hard he could hear it through the camera, and her eyes were squeezed shut so tightly it probably hurt.

“Charlie?” Dr. Keene questioned.

She snapped her eyes open, and Bentley gasped: “Oh my God.”

Her eyes were amber, and glowing.

Dr. Keene… had he.. he had turned his daughter into the Secret Keeper.

“Dad?” She blinked, looking around the room. “Did it work?”

“I’m activating your NeuroAmp now,” He replied. Bentley watched as Dr. Keene merely stared at Charlie for a solid five seconds, before she stilled and stared back. Another person came into view — a man in what looked to be a white janitor jumpsuit on the other end of the room.

“I can use verbal commands to activate the NeuroAmp, or simply think of the actions I wish for her to undertake. For example; kill him,” Dr. Keene ordered.

Without any hesitation or awareness, with a hauntingly blank expression on her face, Charlie — the Secret Keeper — turned to the janitor-looking man. She cocked her head slightly, and his eyes turned amber. Blood began to run out of his nose, then his ears, then his eyes, and he collapsed without a sound.

“Internal NeuroAmp is functioning at full capacity. Subject has lost all free will,” Dr. Keene recorded. “Transition from human to metahuman is complete and whole — no visible genetic mutations or diseases recorded. Metahuman abilities confirmed to act just as predicted. I will take a full blood and DNA panel.” 

Charlie turned toward Dr. Keene and held out her arm without hesitation, like he was about to take her blood. “I will email you the panel results and new DNA makeup, Mister Whittaker. You were right — we’re having a breakthrough. As of our first full conversion, the metahuman DNA exchange seems safe for Bentley. More tests and subjects will be sent to you for further analysis. We will destroy Batman — I can assure you that.”

Bentley froze.

Mister Whittaker was the boss Dr. Keene was talking about?

Bentley’s father was the one who’d created the Secret Keeper? Who was turning normal people into metahumans?

He didn’t even realize he was falling over until Asten caught him firmly by the shoulders, ordering: “Nico! Get that chair!”

Nico must’ve been nearby, because Bentley was sitting in a chair he didn’t even know was down there what seemed to be a half-second later. 

His dad had been the man behind the Secret Keeper.

He was never going to get away from him, was he?

Bentley could feel arms on him — small ones that looped around his neck from behind.

He only snapped back to reality when Dr. Keene’s voice came again: “This is Dr. A. R. Keene, video B1701, coming to report urgent findings — Subject Eighteen is reacting rather negatively to the DNA exchange.”

When Bentley worked up the willpower to look at the screen, there was a hospital bed sitting in the center of a solid white room, with a very small person laying it. They had black hair on their head and ghastly pale skin, but Bentley couldn’t pinpoint their face.

“Subject Eighteen’s body seems to be rejecting the newly transformed DNA. Symptoms include: fever up to a-hundred-and-five degrees, severe vomiting and abdominal pain, delirium, fatigue, vertigo, periodic loss of consciousness, severe sweating, and bouts of severe and intense pain described as burning,” Dr. Keene explained. “Titus Lancaster is our youngest subject, therefore we are getting our hands on a few younger than him to see if they share the same reaction. As for right now, we are keeping close tabs on his condition and caring for him as best we can. Sickness ensued as soon as he emerged from the Synchronizer, and has remained constant over the past ninety-six hours. His abilities have yet to be tested. His NeuroAmp is unresponsive in his current delirious and/or unconscious state.”

The screen went black, then a white wall with a large window appeared.

“This is Dr. A.R. Keene, video log B2301, regarding Subject Eighteen’s recent health issues — the sickness, after five days, seemed to resolve itself. Titus’s NeuroAmp is still unresponsive, so he’s scheduled for surgery to implant a new one on August twenty-ninth. As of now, since I am unable to control him, we have him in an enclosed space suitable for someone with his abilities. Titus, if you would, make yourself visible to the camera,” 

After a few moments of silence, Titus Lancaster appeared out of thin air with a whoosh on the other side of the large window. A white hospital gown hung loosely on his small frame, starkly contrasting his deep, nearly black hair. He had large, gray eyes that were bloodshot, and his face was lined with tear-streaks. Where had he come from?

“Please — perform your abilities so Dr. Whittaker can witness them,” 

Titus looked straight into the camera through the glass that was keeping him enclosed. Directly into it, like he was staring into Bentley’s very soul. ‘Please help me.’ He mouthed.

“None of that, boy. Do as I say or you’ll be punished,”

On command, there was a whoosh and a blur of color, and Titus appeared a few feet away from his previous spot. Then again, a whoosh, and he was back where he’d started.

“As you can see, he has the ability to teleport anywhere in the world, so long as he’s seen it before. We have him enclosed in a box of electromagnetic pulses that he can’t travel through until we get his NeuroAmp implanted,” Dr. Keene explained from off-screen. “We’re keeping a close eye on his health and wellness. As of now, he is the fastest Metahuman to grasp their abilities. Besides Charlie. Other young children have undergone the exchange without health issues, so we aren’t quite sure what caused his sickness. Thank you, Titus,” Dr. Keene said, and the boy whooshed out of sight. “Bless him; he prefers to stay in the rafters of his enclosure like some kind of bird at the zoo.”

The video ended.

Asten moved the cursor around and clicked on one of the videos at the bottom. The screen came up, and the camera was pointing at the floor and shaking so badly Bentley couldn’t even tell what was happening — like someone was running with it.

“This is Dr. A.R. Keene, video log B5301. This is regarding Subject Seventy-One- no! Don’t go back until Charlie gets here!” There was a muffled shout in the background, but the camera kept shaking. “Subject Seventy-One suffered extreme emotional trauma by seeing another subject he once knew — his NeuroAmp is unresponsive to me, and his abilities have grown dangerous and deadly. He’s killed at least twenty-five…”

There was muffled running footsteps. “He is attempting to escape the facility. Charlie! I need you to knock Davis out, cold, and keep him down until I can fix his NeuroAmp.”

Davis. The waiter.

“Yes, father,”

“Abilities seem to grow more powerful, volatile in the presence of extreme emotional stress. This is common knowledge, as a natural metahuman’s powers typically surface under extreme circumstances. Davis holds the power of death — he can kill anything living just by touching it! But-but under such stress, death seems to radiate from him like a slow-moving shockwave. People who can’t even see him are dying rooms away as his radius of death gets bigger. I… I’ll send you more tests with severe emotional stimuli with other Subjects who aren’t quite so deadly!”

The video ended, and Asten navigated to another one.

“This is Dr. A.R. Keene, video log B8601,” Their teacher was actually in the camera this time, sitting ahead of a solid white wall, the camera trained on his face. “Regarding Subject Seventy-Nine, Amanda Todryk. My initial DNA scans revealed that she already had the genetic makeup of a metahuman whose powers hadn’t surfaced yet. I would typically dispose of her, because I avoid messing with the DNA of already established metahumans, but I put her in the Synchronizer just for research's sake.”

He looked down, like he had a clipboard or tablet in his hand. “And she responded very pleasantly to the DNA exchange. It didn’t destroy her former DNA like I thought, but actually fused itself into it. The synchronizer endowed her with the abilities I chose for her — the ability to fly — and after the fact, I had Charlie work her magic in Amanda’s mind; traumatize her enough to awaken her natural metahuman powers. Funny enough, they’re the most cliche superpowers of this age — the ability to commune with animals. Now, Amanda is in good health, her NeuroAmp is working, and she has two fully functional abilities. The ability to fly, and commune with animals. She lives in an enclosure with a flock of Ravens.”

Dr. Keene tapped a few times on the tablet they couldn’t see. “Since she’s so stable, I’m sending her to the cryogenic waiting facility on the outskirts of Somerset to await release. You know the address.”

Cryogenic? Cryogenic meant… freezing stuff, didn’t it? Was Mandy just frozen? Not dead?

“Give me the word when you want me to release her into Gotham and I’ll let her out. I use-“

The video was suddenly drowned out by a wham! that came from upstairs. Asten’s hand flew up and closed all the tabs on the computer, flicking the power button.

Someone was upstairs. Upstairs where the cabin was a wreck. Upstairs where the rug was moved and the trapdoor was standing wide open.

Asten hardly looked at Bentley and Nico before he had ahold of each of their wrists, pulling them across the room. “Don’t make a sound,” He whispered almost inaudibly, so quiet Bentley didn’t even know how he’d done it. 

Bentley obeyed. There wasn’t much he could do, anyways. His mind was nothing more than panic and sadness and fear and anger and rage and terror all mixed together in a loud static that made him feel… nothing. Empty. There were so many things floating around in his head — Charlie, Dr. Keene turning normal people into metahumans, Davis, Titus, Bruce. It was so much that he couldn’t focus.

Asten pulled one of the fridges with a red sticker open, and Nico flinched away harshly — but much to Bentley’s surprise, there was no body inside. “Get in. Now.”

Footsteps thudded around the cabin above them, dust falling from the hardwood and settling on the concrete floor.

Nico, terrified, climbed in, and Asten shut the door. Then he opened another one with a red sticker — empty. Maybe that’s what red meant.

Bentley climbed in without hesitation. It was cold — the concrete box. Really cold. It went pitch black when Asten closed the door with a thump.

And he sat. 

He couldn’t hear anything very good anymore, but he thought he might’ve heard footsteps. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. His hands — no, his whole body was trembling but he couldn’t make it stop. It wasn’t from the cold. Colors were swirling in his vision even though all he could see was black, and if felt like someone was tying something around his throat  — like he was going to choke and die.

He wanted to go home so bad. Why couldn’t they just live normally? Why was his father, Dr. Keene… why were they doing this? 

His heartbeat sounded like a gong in his ears. His lungs seemed to be spasming for air, but he forced them with every bit of willpower left in his whole body to stop so he wouldn’t wheeze, so he wouldn’t give himself away. Everything just needed to stop. It all needed to stop. How was he supposed to make it all stop when it was spinning so fast he couldn’t see?

He heard someone thump thump thump down the steps.

He could hardly make out the difference between their footsteps and his own heartbeat. It sounded like explosions in his ears, in his head, boom, boom, boom, deafening to everything else. He pulled his knees up close to his shaking body, wrapping his arms around himself, too. Something icy streaked across his face, and that’s when he realized he was crying.

God, he wanted Bruce. This was a terrible, terrible idea, and now they were going to die from it. They were literally going to die and Bruce would have no clue where or when or how or why until Bentley was nothing more than a memory.

There was a slam.

They were going to die.

Bentley didn’t dare let himself move, not an inch, until the door to the box was whipped open again.

“C’mon, Bentley. We’ve gotta go,” Asten’s voice was near his head, and suddenly he was being touched, tugged. He forced himself out of the box, and as soon as his feet hit the floor, he fell.

“Hey! Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey,” 

Bentley hardly noticed the strange maneuver Asten had to do to keep him from hitting the floor. He was on his knees, being held up by a pair of arms that were around him but were definitely not his own. 

“Hey, buddy,” Asten patted him on the back firmly, but he barely felt it. He barely felt anything besides his own trembling and the sobs tearing their way out of him. (It wasn’t helping that Nico was standing to their left, absolutely crying his eyeballs out, too.) “I know this sh- this stuff is scary, but you have to stay with me so we can get out. Please breathe.”

It was pitch black in the basement apart from the flashlight that was laying on the floor — where Asten had dropped it to catch him, he assumed. There was no light streaming from upstairs, which meant the trapdoor was closed.

Asten stood up, dragging Bentley with him. “Can you run?”

Running, right now, was the last thing Bentley felt like he could do. But it was also the only thing he could do to save his own life.

He nodded jerkily.

Asten grabbed their flashlight and turned to the staircase, creeping back up the stairs with his bag and light in hand.

Bentley glanced over at Nico, whose right hand seemed glued over his mouth. His face was flushed red and he sounded more like he was choking than actually crying. 

“C’mon, guys! He’s out back, I can see the beam of his flashlight!” Asten ordered. Both Nico and Bentley, both varying degrees of numb, pushed themselves forward.

Bentley couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe when Asten shoved them up the stairs, couldn’t breathe when they ran as fast as they could out the front door, couldn’t breathe when they bee-lined for the woods instead of the road they’d come down.

They were going to die.

“Bentley. Bentley, c’mon dude. Breathe. We gotta go,”

Bentley was trying to breathe, but he couldn’t. The air he managed to suck in was coming out as nothing more than painful wheezes, and his heart felt like it was going to rip his chest open. They were in the middle of a forest on the outskirts of Somerset, and not a single Wayne knew about it. The only sounds that came to his muffled ears were the crunching of leaves and the clinking of the crowbar against other tools in Asten’s toolbelt. Everything was a blur of black and dark and he could hardly see.

Nico was lagging behind, crying too hard to run properly. That was fine, because Bentley’s inability to breathe was making him pretty slow, too. 

“He’s freaking coming, you guys,” Asten whispered anxiously, whirling around and trying his best to keep the panic off of his face, for the sake of his younger friends. The crowbar hanging on his belt nearly hit Bentley in the stomach with the speed he pivoted. But Bentley was too focused on trying to get air into his lungs through his wheezy sobs and splutters to see Asten’s green eyes flick nervously between the two of them.

“Jesus…” He muttered, and Bentley felt Asten’s hand land on the side of his head. “Are you having a panic attack?”

Bentley was pretty sure he absolutely was. 

He wasn’t able to respond between the ragged breaths and cries that were forcing their way out of him, so he didn’t.

“Nico, can you-“

“I’m getting it!” The blonde exclaimed through sniffles and sobs of his own. He dug around in the pocket of his blue jacket, and Bentley heard the telltale shake of his inhaler right before the hiss of the medicine being released a couple times.

“Here,”

Bentley saw the quick exchange of the inhaler from hand to hand, and Asten started shaking it, leaning down farther so he could see Bentley’s face. His hand had moved from his head to his shoulder and stayed firmly there.

“You gotta breathe deep when I shove this thing in your mouth, Whittaker. It’ll help you breathe,”

Bentley nodded quickly, and Asten promptly put the inhaler in his mouth and pressed on it. He sucked in about as much air as he could force into his rebelling lungs.

“Perfect, just do it one more time,” Asten stated, moving his hand from Bentley’s shoulder to the back of his neck to keep his head in place. “Nico, you see anyone?”

“No,” He whimpered, his voice obstructed by his near endless crying. Asten pressed on the inhaler again, and Bentley made himself suck in what felt like a gallon of air. (It wasn’t actually that much air at all.) The medicine made him feel kind of woozy for a moment.

Asten kept his hand on Bentley, but stood up straighter and looked around the woods, behind them at the cabin they’d come out of. “We have to go. You think you can run? I will not hesitate to give you the most terrifying piggyback of your life.”

Bentley forced a few more breaths in and out, and while the inhaler wasn’t making his stomach stop cramping or his panic fade, he wasn’t gasping for air so much anymore. 

Nico squeaked, a high noise in the back of his throat, and jerked on the sleeve of Asten’s jacket and choked on a few more sobs. “I see him coming.” 

Bentley turned back, and the unmistakable ray of light coming from a flashlight not that far behind them made him want to curl up and die.

“Run, go,” Asten ordered, ushering Nico out in front of him. “You got it, Bentley?”

“I got it,” He murmured. Running from Somerset to Crime Alley probably wasn’t ideal for someone still in the midst of an anxiety attack, but he didn’t really have a choice at this point. Asten shoved Nico’s inhaler in Bentley’s jacket pocket, and they started running.

The cracking and crunching of leaves under their feet was nearly deafening in the pitch black, vacant forest, and the dim light from the moon and stars were their only source of vision, as Asten’s flashlight had been abandoned when Bentley wasn't paying attention. Asten stayed in the back, behind them like some kind of bodyguard. 

Bentley was so focused on not falling and not throwing up and not hyperventilating that he shouted in fear when there was a loud metal CHINK! and Asten screamed.

Like actually screamed. Bentley hadn’t heard a sound like that since he’d been poisoned, and definitely not from Asten. It sent both him and Nico pivoting backwards instantly.

Asten was on his hands and knees in the leaves and dirt, heaving for shaky breaths, and there was a bear trap on his right leg.

There was a bear trap on his right leg.

“Oh my God!” Nico shouted, dropping to his knees next to him. Bentley stood in a mixture of shock and terror before Asten forced out the words:

“Get it off,”

He wasn’t crying, but he was batting tears out of his eyes. How was he not crying? How was he so okay? Bentley dropped down into the dirt on the other side of him, fighting to keep himself present.

Even in the dim light, Bentley could see the blood soaking through the leg of his pants. A lot of blood. And Asten was trembling, so Bentley put a hand on his side to give some kind of support. He had no idea how to remove a bear trap.

“These are freaking illegal-“ Nico was muttering (and still crying, now harder than he had been.) as he examined the trap, trying to figure out any way to get it off. 

And there were footsteps coming. Bentley had only just heard them, glancing up, and he could see the beam of a flashlight panning through the forest.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Nico murmured, bringing one hand up to his mouth and sobbing into it. 

“Just…” Asten cursed under his breath, leaning into Bentley slightly. “Just take it out of the ground, and… and we’ll get it off later.”

“You’re going to drag a bear trap on your foot where? Onto a bus? A taxi maybe?!” Nico squeaked. Asten reached for his toolbelt and pulled out the crowbar, holding it out to Bentley. The footsteps and flashlight beam were getting closer, and they wouldn’t be able to get away in time.

“Bentley,” Asten said seriously, grabbing his shoulder with one hand and attempting to hide a grimace of pain. Bentley looked down at the long, cool piece of metal he put in his hands. Wasn’t getting beaten by a crowbar how Jason died all those years ago?

He didn’t have much time to think about it, because the footsteps were getting closer, and they weren’t going anywhere.

Asten was hit by a wave of trembling, and he squeezed Bentley’s shoulder. “When he gets here, beat the hell out of him.”

Bentley looked back at the flashlight in the woods. Nico was crying hysterically, hands hovering and gently touching the bear trap.

“Hey!” A voice came — Dr. Keene’s voice. A voice that would’ve been reassuring if Bentley’s life was normal. “Don’t move!”

He held tight to the crowbar, bringing it up in front of him, ready to swing. He’d never hit anybody like that before. What if he wasn’t strong enough?

Something thudded and bounced on the ground next to Asten. They all looked at it.

Was that a grenade?

The world went white.

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

—

tag list! (If you want me to remove or add you, ask in comments!)

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @cademygod @skylathescholar @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun

[mariinara]

TWENTY-TWO (Sam Drake x Reader) ANGST |PART 1|

A/N: Yeah, yeah, I'm STILL alive lmao. I've been so held back by finals that I didn't have time to actually think of writing or the premise of this request but a thought suddenly OCCURED to me and HERE WE ARE. Hope ya'll enjoy this 🥰.

Request for anon: '14, 18, and 19 for angst prompts with Sam? 👀👀 I also really really adore your work!!!'

Tags: @the-drakeboys , @the-winchesterboys , @missdictatorme , @hrgnm , @elledrake , @samdrakeftw , @ghost-of-the-oldwest​, @s4mdrake , @purplezebra68

Prompts: "Can you just kiss me? One last time? That's all I ask.." + "Don't make this harder than it already is.." + "It's better this way."

Warnings: OKAY. So this one has none of the prompts yet. This gets a little NSFW towards the end. HUGE age-gap between Sam and the reader. Mentions of Sam getting cheated on. So on, so forth.

Word count: 4,106

(Part 2 here!)

“I got it.” 

You reached out for the plates Sam held in his hands, giving him a polite smile as you did. He returned it and carefully handed them over to you, being cautious so as not to drop the multiple cups in his other hand.

“Thanks, kiddo.” He said, to which you smiled brighter before turning around and walking over to your best friend and Sam’s only daughter-- Avery. Sam was hot on your heels to the kitchen and you placed all the dishes in the sink for you and Ave to clean up. 

You smiled to yourself when you saw Sam giving his daughter a quick kiss on the cheek, which made her groan in embarrassment but giggle when her dad made fun of her. It's always been like that. You’d sleep over at their place for the weekends and help around the house after dinner. It was a tradition that you’d kept ever since kindergarten, back when Sam and your father were friends, before the asshole completely bailed out on you and your mother when you were quite young. Sam had your mom’s back throughout the years, with family court, some expenses she couldn’t handle, finding her a job, taking care of you when she was working late. They were like brother and sister and you grew to be Sam’s second daughter, but as soon as you hit sixteen, spending time around Sam became for the sole purpose of just..

Being around him. 

You didn’t know how or why it happened, but ever since that whole month he’d spent picking you up from highschool with his daughter to go over to their place, make dinner for you, and struggle with calculus, you felt those butterflies in your stomach whenever he’d call you “sweetheart” or kiss your forehead or give you the warmest of smiles. He did the same thing with his daughter, but you weren’t his daughter and, since that month, Sam became the epitome of the man you’ve always been dreaming of. 

He was funny, spontaneous, had a heart of gold, but jokes as dirty as the bottom of his worn out Timberlands that only added to his rugged charm. He was supportive, understanding, and showed unadulterated love and passion towards his daughter-- towards bringing her up. Granted, he was stubborn and had a bit of a temper and rarely ever listened to the voice of reason, but those traits all came with the ‘pure-hearted man’ package. 

And when you went to college with Avery and the two of you got a summer job outside of Boston, you found yourself missing the man during the entirety of the summer that you’d spent away from him and when he’d facetime you and Avery, you’d stay up talking to him about movies, books, your job, how your day went. He cared for you like a daughter and while that was frustrating for you for a couple of months, you found out that as long as you were around him, that was enough. As long as he loved and cared for you, that was enough. You were no longer interested in having a much older man wrapped around your finger. You didn’t know how he might react but you were sure he was going to lecture you about how you were too young. How him and your parents had been friends for over two decades. That you were like a daughter to him, nothing more. You could literally feel the red hot waves of embarrassment creeping up your neck with the mere thought of confessing to the man who constantly drove you crazy with the simplest of gestures.

But you swallowed your tongue and bottled up your more-than-likely teenage hormones and never told anyone about your feelings. Nobody knew. Not even Avery. Especially not Avery. You weren’t prepared to lose your childhood best friend over emotions that’d eventually fade. And you weren’t prepared to lose the only “father-figure” in your life, either. 

So, there you were: Cleaning the dishes while chatting about random subjects with Sam and Avery. Your mind and heart were heavy, but you weren’t willing to ruin the few days off you had in Boston with your family. Your mom was in New Jersey-- too busy with work to drop everything to come and see you. It was upsetting, but those two made everything better for you.

You looked over your shoulder when Sam called out to both of you from the living room and, coincidentally, you’d just finished drying the last dish. You and Avery exchanged looks before chuckling.

“He sounds excited..” You commented, to which Avery rolled her eyes with a smile she couldn’t conceal.

“His video game just got here..” She nonchalantly said, but that caused your eyes to widen slowly before you dropped the rag from your hand.

“What video game?” 

“Uhh..” She pulled on a thinking face, “Dead.. Red.. Somethin’ -- I dunno, dude.” 

In a flash, you were out of the kitchen and on the couch, right next to Sam, who looked at you with a grin which you returned with a bright smile, “You ready?” 

You sighed and shook your head, “Ready to watch you fail miserably at this.” 

“Oh, that is-- That’s not fair.” He laughed lightly while you waited for the game to install data. He’d turned to you when he said that, faking defeat. You smiled and shook your head, looking down at your hands.

God, he was so perfect. The way the corners of his eyes tugged up when he smiled. His wrinkles. His bright, warm, hazel eyes that held both strength and tenderness. 

Nope. You weren't getting over that man anytime soon. And when you snapped back from staring at him, you found him staring back at you silently, his eyes jumping from yours and to your lips and then you felt it.

That spark. 

His smile softened and some perverse area in your brain convinced you that he was leaning closer. Or maybe you were and he stayed still because he wanted this as much as you did.

"You guys again.." Avery sighed as she plopped on the lazy boy chair next to the couch, her eyes on the TV screen. 

Sam cleared his throat and looked down at his lap, rubbing his sweaty hands against his thighs and you looked down at your hands that were nestled between your thighs, biting down on your lip to contain a girly giggle. 

"What is it with you two and video games?" Avery asked, resting her head back on the back of the chair. 

You turned to her, immediately perking up at her words. You then sighed and sat back with an eye roll, "Your daughter is such a disappointment.." You muttered to Sam, who shook his head in fake dismay, clicking his tongue.

"She can take that attitude to the orphanage." He joked, which made you look at him with furrowed brows, a surprised laugh leaving you.

"Har‐Har. Very funny." She rolled her brown eyes at the both of you, crossing her arms when her dad sent her a wink and mouthed an 'I love you', "You two just have fun and I.." She stood up from her place, "Am gonna crash." She stretched her arms up with a groan and a yawn afterwards, reaching under her pyjama top to scratch her stomach.

"Alright, baby, g'night." Sam called out, receiving a wave-off from his daughter, "I love you!" He called out with an amused grin.

"You're not gettin' one back, old man." She called back from the top of the staircase that led to her room. Her response made Sam laugh lightly. 

You looked at him when he did, soaking in his infuriatingly good looks. You couldn't help but smile when he shook his head and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, the controller in his hands and his eyes glued to the TV.

"Ready?” He asked, sending you a grin and a small eyebrow raise, as if he was challenging you.

You raised a brow at him in the same fashion and nudged his shoulder with your fist, grinning back, “Ready to see your ass getting kicked, y'old geezer.”

Sam rolled his eyes and focused on the TV and you could see his little smile from the corner of your eyes, only to see it falter as he looked at the controller and back at the TV repeatedly, “Uhh..”

You looked down at the controller to see that the blue light wasn’t emitting from the front, which meant he was disconnected. You smirked as you watched him struggle and button-mash with a questioning look on his face.

“Either you’re really exhausted or you really don’t know how to work a PlayStation controller..” You quipped, trying to hold back an amused chuckle, “Which I doubt.”

Sam frowned in confusion at you and looked at his controller again, his shoulders slacking when he saw that it wasn’t lit. He breathed out a chuckle, his eyes closing. You could tell that he was beating himself up at his own lack of focus, “Yeah, okay..” He reached for the charging cable and plugged it into the controller, “Got it. Thanks for the help.” He sarcastically muttered.

“Don’t mention it.” You replied nonchalantly.

And there he went, completely immersed in playing, while you watched him take one too many bullets, get devoured by giant snakes, or gallop off a cliff. He’d curse and laugh in frustration, his head getting thrown back while you teased him about how he’d make the same mistakes over and over again. You made short trips to and from the kitchen to grab some beer for both of you to go about your long gaming hours.

An hour turned into two, which turned into five-- by some miracle. Two bottles of beer turned into six, and then it was the whole pack. You two handled alcohol well, but it didn’t mean that you weren’t a little tipsy. You found yourself laughing at your blunders when it was your turn to play, which elicited laughter from Samuel, despite not knowing what was so funny. 

You then sighed and paused the game to rub your eyes, calming down from whatever hilarity that was going on. You then sniffled and sat back, “I dunno how Ave doesn’t like video games..” You mumbled, watching Sam taking a swig from his beer. He then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and swallowed with a heavy breath afterwards. 

“Uhh..” He leaned forward to put the nearly empty bottle down, “She’s more like her mom than anything; She got everything from ‘er.” He paused for a second, “Uh-- Well not everything, but..” He sent you an unreadable look, his lips pressed together in a thin line, “She’s still here, y’know?”

You knew. 

Ave had told you about why her mother was no longer in the picture. Rather, she was never in the picture. Not for Avery, at least. She was too young when her mom “left” them. The lack of a father for you and the lack of a mother for her was why your relationship grew stronger. You were both missing certain aspects from your life and you could relate and understand each other better because of it. So while it was a curse, it served as a blessing. She was always open about that issue and about her past. 

But the reason you perked up when Sam started talking-- when his voice had the faintest tinge of sadness and his eyes glued to his hands as he fiddled with his thumb, seemingly deep in thought -- was because he’d never opened up to you about that particular bit. You knew everything, but only in Ave’s perspective and you never knew how Sam felt about all of it. 

“Whaddya mean?” You asked, adjusting yourself on the couch so one leg was bent under you and the other was on the floor, your arm resting on the back.

He glanced at you, unsure. He seemed like he wanted to take what he said back. His eyes darted nervously around the living room and he pursed his lips, clearing his throat, “I’m.. sure Avery told you." 

You shrugged, a small, warm smile playing on your lips, "But you're not Ave." 

Sam's left thumb rubbed against the palm of his right hand and he looked down and away from you, his leg bouncing up and down and his elbows braced on his knees again when he leaned forward. He seemed like he was thinking deeply about what you'd said and after a few seconds, he let out a sigh of surrender. 

"Do we have any more beer left..?" He quietly asked. You blinked and stopped fiddling with the fraying thread on the stitching of the back of the couch.

"Uhh.." You racked your brain, "Just the shitty kind.." You replied with a small shrug.

He nodded, still not looking at you, "Grab one." 

 "Alright.."

You made a quick trip to the open kitchen and opened the fridge, grabbing him a bottle and popping it open. When you were done, you went back to the living room, sitting back down next to him and handing him the cold beverage. 

He rested back and placed his arm on the back of the couch, bringing the bottle to his lips. You watched him intently, leaving him to collect his thoughts. You knew he was trying to filter them-- to decide what it was he was going to say and what it was he was going to leave out, but God, you wanted him to be as authentic and transparent as possible. 

“I tried..” 

He suddenly started. His voice had dropped an octave, as if he didn’t want you to hear that. You did, though, and his words -- as simple as they were -- made you frown deeply. You just wished he’d look back at you but he only looked down at his lap, his fingers tapping on the bottle that rested on his knee. 

“I really.. really did..” He shook his head slightly, “I tried for Avery.. She was so young and I thought she needed her mother, but..” He let out a dry chuckle, reaching up to rub his forehead, “One day, I come back home after a long day out with Avery.. We–" He laughed softly– wistfully even, "We spent the whole day at the zoo and.. I'd almost forgotten about why it hurt to be at home, but.." He shrugged, frowning again as his gaze lowered. You saw him swallow thickly, as if he was holding himself back from an outburst, "I walk in there and I see another man in my bed with my wife.." 

Your heart stung at what he said. What made it worse was how he said it. His voice had cracked and it was barely above a whisper. You never knew what Avery's mother did exactly and upon hearing that, you wondered how a person could be so selfish. So willing to give people like Sam up for her own personal pleasure. So willing to leave her little girl with that permanent scar in her life. 

"I knew she was doing that.." He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, his brows twitching to a furrow as he swallowed again, only a bit harder. He pursed his lips and exhaled shakily, "I never thought that she'd bring him home. To our room. Our bed.." He wiped the palm of his free hand against his lap, inhaling a shaky breath, "The.. same goddamn bed where our baby girl slept between us while we sang her to sleep.."

You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding and felt your eyes well up with tears at what he said. He'd been keeping those thoughts to himself all that time and it seemed as if finally voicing those thoughts– the nightmares that clawed at his brain every single night – brought tears of comfort and relief to his eyes. 

Your eyes flickered up to see him frowning, his eyes still closed and his lips pressed tightly together. But there was no way you could miss it: That single, glistening tear that ran down his cheek. You felt the anxiety bubbling within you. 

That was not what you had in mind.

You didn't want to see him like that.

You thought he'd stopped hurting from that a long, long time ago but you were wrong. It never left him. He carried that weight around while simultaneously trying to raise a happy daughter all by himself. 

He covered his eyes with one, trembling hand, rubbing them while trying to take deep breaths to calm himself. You reached for his back and started to rub big, slow circles silently, letting him know that it was okay to let it all out. That was something that you've never experienced before. In all of your years knowing him, that was the first time you've seen him like that. And you absolutely hated it.

How he trembled with every cry he held back from you. How he furiously rubbed away the tears from his eyes with his fingers. He reached to set the half empty bottle on the table and plopped back again, his posture surrendered and weak.

“Oh, baby girl..” He breathed out, shaking his head slowly, “If I’d known she was gonna grow up, knowing that her mother betrayed her, hurting because of it for so long.. I wouldn’t’ve married her..” He finally removed his hand from his eyes and sniffled, “I wish she’d know how sorry I am sometimes.. Because I look at her, and..” He sighed, trying to find the right words, “I just-- I see a beautiful, smart, creative girl who deserves the world and I always feel like there’s somethin’ missing in her life and it’s like whatever I do, it’d never compensate for the lack of a mother figure and--”

You cut off his rambling by squeezing his shoulder lightly, “Sam..” You shook your head, a deep frown on your face. For the first time during the past fifteen minutes, he looked at you. He looked so lost. His cheeks were stained with tears and his eyes were red and glassy with the layer of tears that begged for one more reason to drop from his hazel eyes. You pursed your lips and shook your head at him and the longer you looked at him, the more you felt his pain. And before you knew it, you lurched forward, right into his arms, hugging him close. As close as possible. Your fingers curled to grip at the back of his t-shirt as you closed your eyes tightly and let your own tears run down your cheeks. He seemed to be in a state of shock for a couple of seconds but, slowly, his arms snaked around your waist to hug you back. His fingers sunk in the skin of your back through the thin pyjama top the tighter he held onto you. His nose was buried into the crook of your neck and, despite your furiously beating heart, you mustered up enough courage to let your fingers slip into the back of his hair for your nails to softly and soothingly scratch his scalp.

“You could’ve never known, Sam..” You spoke, your voice a hushed whisper as you continued calming him with your fingers, “Avery is the best friend I’ve ever had and it’s all thanks to you and you alone..” 

You felt him inhale deeply, his chest pressing against yours more as his lungs expanded and the breath he let out against your neck almost made you dizzy but you continued without fail, “I hope you know that I think you’re the most amazing human being on this planet and, when in doubt, remember how much you’ve helped me and mom through the hardest times..” 

Sam slowly relaxed in your arms and his hand started rubbing circles on your back until it was just about the both of you, comforting each other in the comfortable silence. His steady breaths let you know that there was an enormous weight on his chest and it’d been lifted only then. During that conversation. It was all he needed: Someone to listen to him and hold him and..

He slowly pulled away from the embrace but his hands were loosely on your hips. He looked at you with a warm gaze. Stared into your soul, unraveling you then and there. The look in your eyes-- that pure adoration you had towards him. The way you gave him those big, beautiful eyes and bit down on your lip while you stared at his. It made his breath hitch in his throat. 

No one had ever looked at him that way and as much as that scared him. As much as it was wrong and unethical. He felt himself gravitating towards you. It was absolutely ridiculous how both of you had no control and almost seemed surprised by your own actions. While one hand remained on your hip, his other raised to brush your hair out of your eyes to tuck it behind your ear and grab the side of your neck, his thumb brushing on your jawline once, twice, three times as he leaned closer and closer. His breath fanned your lips and suddenly, his lips were against yours. 

The warmth inside you burst. It overflowed. Your brows arched and you took in a deep breath, in disbelief of what was going on but it felt so good. So wrong but so right all at once. As bad as it was, your eyes fluttered shut and your resolve melted away completely, but Sam suddenly realized..

You are his friend’s daughter. 

He practically raised you.

He pulled away with a disapproving groan and pressed the back of his hand to his lips, blinking repeatedly. You studied his reaction carefully, your own fingers ghosting your lips as you took in a shaky breath. 

“Fuck..” He breathed out, his eyes closing and his brows knitting together, “I’m sorry, sweetheart-- I dunno what came over m--” 

You silenced him by grabbing his shirt and pulling him to crash your lips against his again. 

‘Fuck it.’, you thought, ‘He needs this and so do I.’ 

Your hands went to his shoulders, your grip firm on his muscles. He was still tense and he wasn't kissing back but, God, when your tongue brushed his bottom lip softly, he felt his willpower dwindling away. 

He wasn't thinking anymore and neither were you.

It was a right-here-right-now moment and you were going to cease the chance and hold onto it with your nails and teeth.

When he relaxed and kissed you back deeply, you pushed him down on the couch, never breaking the kiss as you straddled his hips. His hands were all over you. Under your top, his nails scratched at your tender skin gently and the moan he let out when you pressed yourself against his crotch snapped something within you.

And Sam?

He was too far gone.

'Fuck..' He thought, 'This is so wrong.. So fuckin' wrong..'

He watched you hastily unbutton his pants and he told himself to stop this. That there was still time for him to push you off of him and tell you what a mistake that was. But he couldn't help it. The innocence in your eyes as they flickered to look up at him. The sweet yet devious grin you sent him. 

The fact that you could get any man you wanted but needed him right there was enough to make his resolve crumble. 

He let out a grunt and closed his eyes, throwing his head back and trying to steady his breathing. You were so needy. Your hands were on his hips as your mouth fully enveloped him. He couldn't help himself. His hips bucked and low, gruff curses tumbled from his parted lips. 

And you couldn’t stop yourself. 

You wanted to relieve him and he felt so good. His hands brushing your hair back and holding it in a tight fist. And you watched his head rolling back again after he’d mustered up enough strength to look at what you were doing. 

You didn’t know it yet but you had much to regret soon.

And so did he. 

Nothing would ever be the same again after that night. 

[patchdotexe]

explorers of arvus: now what? / 2.2.21

LAST TIME ON EXPLORERS OF ARVUS: we kicked the shit out of a witch, a murdercow, and a tree, and nearly got murdered by a broom! also i exploded the tree, which was pretty fucking poggers. we also did have to hold taure down to feed her some healing elixirs but yknow

silje, meanwhile, was spaced the fuck out the entire time (bc of being a dmpc last time) and has no idea what just happened or that he commited gratiutous amounts of tree violence.

And Then We Slept For 24 Hours (we didnt)

thorne rolled a nat20 on drawing the tree blight on fire! which is EXTREMELY COOL. im glad we have a memorial of the coolest thing ive done on arvus so far (and also hopefully the fire wont spread bc it would suck if we set all of arvus on fire) oh nvm we're in a swamp so we good. hard to set things on fire in a swamp.

i swear im paying attention but green is talking about dreamout in 772 rn and has some very interesting theories about how the eggpire plot would go down so i am just. side-eyeing it. i am Looking. i swear im paying attention.

oh man i havent collected my notes from last session bc i was liveblogging in discord for nyx's benefit. that's gonna be interesting to compile.* i wonder if i should put these in gdocs instead of wordpad lmao (wait no i use wordpad bc its easier to just pop open and have layered over discord / roll20) * [ AND THEN I DIDNT DO THAT FOR LIKE 2 MONTHS ]

michael: ...burn the house down charlie: ~ we're gonna burn the whole house down! ~ thorne: [confused] how do you know that song? we dont have any bards charlie: [buffering] ...BITCH I MIGHT BE

what if i took a level in bard, would that be fucked up or what

tiny hut tiny hut tiny hut tiny hut. TINY HURT (sieron casted Leomund's Tiny Hut bc we burnt down the only nearby shelter)

lots of discussion about the hut. hut talk

thorne: sieron, why havent we been doing this? charlie: great question! hey sieron, what the fuck? sieron: i guess i just havent thought about it? charlie: you're lucky you're cute >:/ sieron: AA??

discussion of sieron's alter appearance and how its probably somewhat awkward bc thorne is just. openly a horc. unfortunately, sieron's hometown is super racist

HELLO I HAVE BEEN DISTRACTED BC RUBY DID A PANEL REDRAW FROM ASP AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA aa a a a a a

time for taure and thorne to chat on watch! frenship taure hasnt noticed her hair colour bc shes been busy doin stuff, like killin people taure misunderstands thorne asking abt her hair and thinks he has a tragic backstory of being a hairdresser before becoming a warlock DOES TAURE KNOW WHAT THE FEYWILD IS yes she does! war of the veils was a thing, where the feywild invaded the material plane and honestly i should read all the worldbuilding again bc its been forever but i thought all that was neat

oh shit thorne called taure a uhhhh eladrin? OH BOY TAURE ROLLED A 1 we're on the same page here TIME FOR THORNE INFODUMP eladrin are feywild elves! as in closely related to the fey, as well as living in the feywild. their hair changes with the seasons, like taure's does :O !! taure and thorne have not had a fucking one on one conversation before

thorne: taure. taure: yes, hello that is me i am taure [..] taure: now, counterpoint, the sun makes hair change colour-- thorne: Taure.

thorne is trying so hard i love they everyone else is sleeping through this convo so theyre spared the awkwardness but ooc we are having a great time :o eladrin hair colour changing stuff related to mood / seasons / powers?? thorne is admittedly confused bc Weird Documentation but this is really neat to hear about taure, meanwhile, has no idea why this is important.

thorne: if i had told you this, and you had-- transcended-- into your next phase-- id be very concerned taure: hold on [loud grunting] okay no

why havent we been doing tiny hut this whole time. sieron.

oh right taure has a tragic backstory and her mom ditched her as a babby. MEANWHILE, THORNE DOESNT EVEN HAVE PARENTS michael: there are two types of people in the world: those who're kidnapped as infants, and those that kidnap infants WAIT IS THIS LIKE, THE FIRST TIME ANYONES HEARD ABT THORNE'S BACKSTORY BESIDES "LIVED IN THE FEYWILD" thorne is very chill about it though. god i love thorne. i love the entire party

thorne: ...after the third or fourth prophetic vision, they all sorta blur together.

god i wish id written down more about the magical mystical adventure OH. THE ORACLE FORESHADOWED THE ELADRIN THING. NEAT thorne: oh, the oracle! is that the guy with the, uh... [snaps fingers] the gryphon fart orb?

IREL IS HERE YAY IREL i have forgotten how to spell their name. how about i split the difference and spell it Yirel. michael is rolling to see if thorne and taure woke yirel up-- OH OKAY yirel just. sleeps for fun. god i wish that were me

charlie's hair can hold many small pets of dubious sapience.

I LOVE YIREL,,, thorne is just pleasantly confused. WAIT IS YIREL PURRING yirel: you are confused by that action! :D taure: ...yes. what were you doing? yirel: i was performing magic! i can now detect your minds! i can hear your thoughts. :D OKAY SO YIREL WAS. NOT PURRING. yirel has cast Detect Thoughts on thorne. thorne's train of thought is now "???"

we need to teach the snake consent. we have now taught the snake consent.

YIREL IS GOING TO VERY POLITELY ASK THE BIG BAD IF HE CAN READ THEIR MIND its okay i love them. thorne is SO CONFUSED yirel is attempting to be helpful YIREL LITERALLY DISCOVERED THEY COULD CAST DETECT THOUGHTS SO THEY CASTED DETECT THOUGHTS. thorne is hoping yirel wont learn to cast fireball on themself. yirel: there's two timelines where that could happen. i will do my best to avoid them! :D

okay its really hard to get across in text but yirel is basically just. permanently happy/excited sounding. like a puppy! or like the ":D" face in winged snake form.

ooh, a celestial serpent location! off in the mistwall mountains. they are Extremely Dead but yirel told thorne+taure where it is on the map and said we can learn stuff abt time! and then went to sleep. goodnight yirel. i will kill for you

S. S. BIG BOAT (it is 60 miles across. big boat. thank you jorb)

WHAT IS WRONG WITH JORB'S CAMERA, WHY DOES IT KEEP ZOOMING IIIIIIIIIIN

it rained overnight so all the water that collected on the tiny hut got dumped on everyone, and THEN silje shook off like a dog and charlie is MISERABLE

SILJE GOT A NAT20 FORAGING the survival squad are gonna get the fuckin best breakfast ever

oh yea the poison / disease was stored in the tree blight! so now that we've incinerated it it's all good. still gonna take time for the whole river to clear, but with the source of it gone we should be golden. fuck yea

oh man today was hourly comics day, wasnt it. or was it feb 1? fuck shit damn uhhhhh i have done. nothing. besides work on the PMV, talk about dreamout, and now play d&d. this is unrelated to everything im just Thonkin

TIME FOR SWAMP FACTS solar knows So Much about swamps. time to discuss cattails (please no) these are cattails............. ME WANT BITE. ME WANT PLANT CORN DOG DELIGHT. ME WANT DEEP FRIED. ME THINK WATER TWINKIE NICE

oh shit thorne has spotted a ufo. yuufo time OMINOUS YUUFO silje, with an armful of frogs and a lizard in his mouth: [looks up] mrrp? poor silje cant see for shit. NEITHER CAN THORNE its either very small and close, or very big and far away

HRM. actually this MIGHT be related to the vision bc the ominous yuufo was heart-shaped, and the vision was of a necromancer on a floating bloody platform raising all kinds of undead

its been forever and i didnt take a lot of notes on the mini-session but the last time we saw the oracle was a cave on theral! so, unrelated to the place yirel marked on the map. which michael marked down as "seat of the oracle"!

TAURE THINK OF THE CHILDREN THAT WE DONT HAVE (we have yirel!) TAURE THINK OF THE CHILD THAT WE HAVE

ahoyhoyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy i wanna go to ahoyhoy. we are not currently going to ahoyhoy but maybe some day

i had to stop paying attention because buttons wanted to see my Horrible Streaming Setup and apparently something terrible has happened. also honse

we are potentially dealing with a salad katamari.

thorne: could that be what the object in the sky is? silje: ...a lettuce?

we have voted to ignore the salad katamari for now. this action will have consequences.

charlie and silje take watch! charlie wants to know what silje's deal is! silje is a monster hunter. charlie misses bein a thief ): SILJE WAS A MONSTER HUNTER SINCE HE WAS 12?? charlie realizes that perhaps becoming an adventurer and doing a huge amount of murder on a regular basis, especially as a child, is Maybe Not Great silje likes books! charlie offers to lend him her books :D charlie, quietly: i am totally doing the friendship thing so good. RATS RATS RATS RATS hehe rats.

uh oh, nyx has died. NVM NYX IS OKAY nyx's power has not gone out again

we've been on arvus for 13 days! neat.

OH SHIT FLOATING ISLAND its also shaped weirdly like a heart. YEP IT LOOKS LIKE ITS BLEEDING probably bc of clay or iron oxide in the dirt but still that looks ominous as hell SIERON'S A SMART BOY he rolled 20+ on the 3 rolls he had to do, fuck yeah. this fucked up island is an Earth Mote! which are lil sky islands. or like, just general dirt chunks thatre in the sky. theyre either natural events or wizards showing off! also they usually move, but this one is just kinda... tethered. not like Literally but its locked in place. this is apparently the "Heart of Arvus"! which is . at the heart of arvus. or at least the centre of the continent.

solar: leo, we've found the ruins of mumbo jumbo's base. leo: [leans over and thwaps solar on the leg w nerf sword]

penn: i swear to god, if i look out my window and i dont see jorb in the sky, im going to be disappointed that hes not doing his job. jorb: slowly rotating.

we are now thinking about how to get up on the rock. TINY HUT STAIRCASE solar: could i featherfall the wrong way? wand of wonder / wild magic surge! NOPE mage hand! charlie is 41 pounds. mage hand is 5 pounds limit. korred rope! we have enough rope to tie together and tie to the korred rope, BUT the korred rope cannot fly. OH THE ROCK IS INHABITED there's an elf!

sieron & taure: [worried about the necromancy] charlie: HOWDY~!

[party arguing about who's gonna go up bc not all of us can fit up there] [leo and solar start swordfighting in the background]

sent kaepora through the portal to the heart of arvus aaaaaand end of session! CLIFFHANGEERRRRRRR

michael: DID YOU FUCK MY MOM, DUNGEONMASTER?

[cravingmarvel]

American Money: Chapter One - Summertime

Bucky Barnes AU

Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Word count: 2610

Warnings: death. criminal acts, graphic scenes including blood and injuries

Summary: Going on a road trip with your best friend Bucky to Lake Erie  ended quicker than you thought it would. The car crash turned yours and Bucky’s life around from living in Manhattan, to staying at different motels every night and running from the police.

“How did this happen?” A question only two people can answer. And one of them is dead.

A/N: This has been long awaited... I came up with this idea while going back home from my holiday in Bavaria. A lot of research has been going into this series and I’m scared to upload this tbh. This is obviously part one of my entry of @flannelplanet 3k follower spooky writing challenge! The prompt I chose is not in this chapter lmao but it will be in chapter two! I’m always nervous to upload something. This time is no different. I hope you guys like this as much as I looked writing this. Chapter Two is already finished so.. yeah.. enjoy :)

Prompt: “Orange isn’t just for Weasely’s.”

The tears in my eyes blurred my vision terribly, rolling down my cheeks like they’ve done for the past three hours. My eyes fixed on the dark road in front of me, the trees disappearing beside me. Only the moon and the bag of money accompanying me on my journey. I didn’t want to look, but my eyes flickered up to the review mirror of the Cadillac.

There he is, lying on the floor. Blood and dirt coating his messy brown hair. The ringing in my ears tuned out the sirens, but I could clearly see the blurry red and blue lights through my tears.

And I screamed, I yelled out to no one. Hitting the steering wheel, adverting my gaze back on the road. How did this happen?

Just how?

Five Days Earlier - Friday

“God, I love this song.” Bucky turned the volume up way too loud and waved his arms around in a poor attempt of dancing in the passenger seat.

I took my left hand off the steering wheel and lazily draped it out of the window. We drove through some very nature lenient road on our way to Lake Erie, the place we’ve been going to every year since we became friends, which was a very long time ago. I remember going there with Bucky’s parents when we were young, before we started to drive there on our own.

It’s a day worth of driving, but we’ve always had a lot of fun on the way there. So much so that the road trip there seemed to be the main event. We were passing through Allegheny National Forest, leaving Sheffield a few miles behind us. The heavy trees on either side preventing the morning sun to pass through, leaving a cold trace in the air from the night.

“Do you think we’ll be there by eleven am?” Bucky turned the volume down a little, glancing down to the watch on his right wrist.

“I hope so. Kind of tired of driving through the forest.” I took my arm away and rolled up the window, gripping the steering wheel with both hands now.

“Do you want me to take over?” He asked me, but it’s only been about three hours since I took over, so I declined his offer.

“Can you hand me one of those granola bars?” I held my hand out to Bucky, still looking at the road in front of me. Bucky placed the opened granola bar in my hand, and I started eating.

“You can eat a thousand of those if you wanted to, doll.”

“Absolutely! One of my favourite foods.”

“I know, I’m the one providing you with those things.” He looked at me

“I don’t know what you have against granola bars.” I said, taking a bite while looking over to Bucky.

He looked away again and chuckled slightly. “There is nothing worse that granola bars. Honestly the only thing worse than that is Pineapple on pizza.”

“I agree with you on the pineapple on pizza part.”

Within a split second and without realising it, my body was thrown forward, my head hitting the steering wheel so hard that I thought I would pass out. My car came to a sudden halt, stopping right in front of the car that crashed into mine. A black Mercedes, the driver’s head on his steering wheel. Blood appeared to be coating the black leather, running down his forehead. The hairs on my body rising with every second that passed. The sweat on my face dripping onto my hands. A shiver ran down my spine.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw Bucky getting out and walk towards the victim’s vehicle. He stood in front of it for a few seconds before turning around to face me, his complexion worryingly pale. Bucky got back into my car, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him if the man was ok. I couldn’t believe what had just happened.

“Drive.” Bucky spoke in a cold tone, his body stiff. The air in my car seemed non-existent, thickened by the atmosphere.

“What?” I asked him in disbelieve. Looking over to him, I saw the sweat that had started to roll down his face.

“Drive, y/n, drive.” He said once again without giving me a proper reason. I couldn’t understand why.

Despite all efforts to disobey him, I started the engine and slowly drove past the Mercedes. I didn’t pay attention to where I’m going nor did I look at the man once again. All I could do is drive.

“Bucky what do we do now? Do we call the police?”

“No, this wasn’t our fault.”

“But he needs help, if we just leave him then- “

“That’s none of our concern, y/n. Let’s look for a motel and drive back to Manhattan tomorrow using a different route.” His voice cracking every few words.

Still confused and shocked, I drove for what seemed like hours. The signs telling us that we were going in the direction of Chicago, a place we weren’t planning on going to.

After a while the world gave me a sign that it was in fact still turning and the sun started to lower on the horizon, speeding towards its’s hideout.

“Over there.” I followed Bucky’s finger pointing to a Motel. “Let’s stay there for the night.”

I followed my best friends’ instructions and left the not so busy highway, pulling into the Motel. Bucky got out, handling everything while I sat in my car leaning back. This felt like a bizarre nightmare.

He came back and gestured for me to get out with a wave of his hand. “We got room number twelve. They didn’t have a room with separate beds though.”

“That’s alright.”

“Ok, let’s go check it out.”

I followed him to our noble estate for the night, walking up the metal staircase and into the corridor looking over the parking lot. The room wasn’t too bad and cleaner than I expected.

“This is quite alright for one night.” I looked over to Bucky to see what he was thinking and from his facial expression, he also wasn’t too appalled of the room.

We placed our suitcases on the floor and got into our pyjamas, laying on the bed next to each other. With nothing to do I stared up to the ceiling, my mind wandering off to the black Mercedes. I questioned everything I did. From hitting that man with my car, to driving away without calling the cops or an ambulance. And I realised what I have done.

“I’m a criminal.” I spoke softly, quiet. Like I didn’t even believe in the words I spoke. As if someone forced me to say it. Quiet, as if saying it a little too loudly would make it even more real.

“No, you’re not.” Bucky rolled over to his side, facing me. “He drove way too fast to see he was even coming.” He put his left hand on mine, his lips curling up to a sad smile.

I closed my eyes, focusing on his warm hand. Tomorrow we’ll drive back to Manhattan and everything we’ll be alright. The police will find that man and report that he was at fault. There is no way someone would find out we were even there.

Saturday – Day One

I woke up to noises in the room and opened my eyes. Bucky stood at the foot of the bed closing our suitcases, already fully dressed. He noticed that I was awake and turned the TV of.

“Are we leaving already?”

“Do you want to stay?” Bucky smiled at me, knowing my answer.

“No, absolutely not. It’s just really early, can we at least have breakfast first?” I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

“Y/n, look.” Bucky sat next to me on the edge of the bed. “This morning I saw on the news that they’ve found that man and they think someone had something to do with it.”

“What? But they could never find out it’s us, could they?”

“I’m not sure. That’s why we must be careful. I think It’s best we don’t go back to Manhattan.”

I threw the blanket away from my legs and stared at Bucky in disbelieve. “What do you mean ‘not go back’ where should we go according to you?”

“Los Angeles.”

I got out of bed, walking up and down the room. “Are you insane, why LA?”

He stood up from the bed as well and started walking towards me. “Y/n, it’s really far away- “

“yeah no shit.”

“Look, it’s really far away and not that long of a drive. Like six days.”

“Oh yeah that’s not long at all. Totally not expensive either. Bucky we can’t just leave everything behind. It’s not like people aren’t going to be wondering where we are.”

“Then we’ll just tell them that we’ve decided to stay at Lake Erie. Everyone knows how much we love it there.”

“That’s just ridiculous! Bucky, we must go back. Do you really want to leave everything we’ve built behind?”

“If not going to jail is the option? Yes!”

“We spend the last three years working on our own Café, bringing our dream to life and now you want to leave all that behind?”

“I know this is upsetting and not going back to our dream is the last thing I want to do, but we’ve killed someone. We committed a crime.”

“Then let’s turn our self in.”

“No.”

“Oh my god. This is now the second most frustrating conversation I’ve had with you in years.”

“Oh, you mean the number one most frustrating conversation we’ve had was about what espresso beans we should use.” Bucky started chuckling, making me even more frustrated that he didn’t take this as seriously right now.

“Stop, this is a serious matter. Let’s just say we go to Los Angeles, what then?”

“I have a friend there, Sam, he can help us out.”

“Help us out with what?”

“Built a new life or get out of America.”

My mind was going a hundred miles per hour at this point. All of this just didn’t seem real. Getting out of Manhattan, my hometown, the Café I’ve worked on so hard just left to collect dust, for someone to take it and turn it into a bar? No way. All the friends- well, I don’t have a lot of those, but still.

Bucky walked over to me, gently grabbing my shoulders. “Look, this isn’t easy, for both of us. But we must do this. If we stick together, we can get to Los Angeles in six days.” Bucky wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly.

We packed our suitcases back in the truck of my Honda and drove back on the highway. Chicago was our next destination for now and we had about two hours to get there. The music from the radio occupied my brain with something other than the man I killed.

“We definitely have to stock up on supplies in Chicago. We need some food to survive this journey.”

I looked over to Bucky, who was making a list of things we need for our trip on his phone.

“What are we going to do about electricity?”

“We just have to be really sparingly about using our phones. When and if we sleep at a motel, we can just charge it there.” Bucky said, still looking down at his phone.

“Use sparingly, huh? How about you use the pen and notebook that I have in my bag to make that list of yours.” I turned my head to look at Bucky, a smug smile on my face.

“Fuck off.” Bucky laughed, rummaging through my bag for something to write with, along with my notebook.

‘A man about thirty-two, has been found dead a few miles from Sheffield in Allegheny National Forest on Friday. His black Mercedes appeared to have crushed with a car driving the opposite direction. The driver of the other car has left the crime scene without contacting the authorities and is now being searched for.’

A cold sweat collected on my back, running down my spine. A sharp pain in my chest made it almost impossible to breathe. Immediately without warning, my body temperature rose rapidly.

“Pull over, y/n.” Bucky’s voice ringing in my ears, I pulled over. His face just as pale as mine, he held my hands. “It’s going to be alright.”

I couldn’t get a word out, telling him to just stop saying that. The police are looking for me. Bucky turned the radio off and I was grateful for that, but the damage has been done. I couldn’t stop repeating the words in my head. This was the first time I heard about this with my own ears.

“I’m driving now, get into the passenger seat.” Bucky got out of the car and opened my door. I struggled to get out, my legs almost giving in. He wrapped his arms around my body and all I could do is let go. His shirt collecting my tears.

I sat down in the passenger seat while Bucky drove my car. The rest of the way to Chicago was horrible. I’ve never done anything remotely close to committing a crime. This didn’t feel real. I’m just glad to have Bucky with me. He’s always been the one to keep the situation calm. No matter what came up in my life, he was always the one to calm me down. Even when all our plans seemed to fail to open the Café, he was the one handling everything.

“We’re almost there.” Bucky looked over to me and I could see that he was tired. I knew he wouldn’t admit it, but I knew this was just as difficult for him as it is for me. He finally had his life together after the death of his parents, getting back onto his feet.

The city of Chicago was right in front of us, skyscrapers welcoming us. I’ve never been to Chicago and to be honest, I don’t want to stay here. All I want is to go home.

We drove through the city for a little while, looking for a supermarket. We pulled over and decided to go into one that wasn’t too busy. After all, we (or more like me) are still criminals.

Upon walking in, I already felt like someone was about to call the police on us, even if not even the police know what the person who killed that man looks like.

We stocked up on a few supplies like water, food and cigarettes. I usually don’t smoke, but in situations like this, I just can’t help myself.

We stayed at a hotel more on the outside of the city. The place seemed to be a little run down, but we didn’t mind. The room though, oh god. The awful floral print on the bedding just screamed for us to get out and the view on a dumpster didn’t make up for it either.

“We need to plan where to go next.” Bucky pulled out a map that we bought at the store and we started to plan our trip.

We knew that we had to pull over for brakes and stay at Motels time after time, so the best solution was to drive for about five days. Our next stop being Omaha, Nebraska.

We got into our beds and I fell asleep instantly. The past two days felt like a nightmare that I am going to wake up from tomorrow and instead of sleeping in a shabby hotel in Chicago, I’m staying at our usual resort at Lake Erie.  

[latestageyouth]

When you walk away (Nothing more to say)

chapter 2 -  #Pattonisleftoutonceagain

trigger warnings: sympathetic Remus and Deceit, mention of human taxidermy (just one sentence), grave-robbing (no active grave robbing), swearing, dogs, mentions of death but no one actually dies

summary: Just the boyos bonding in an old haunted church (I am sorry Patton stans Patton just would not allow of This Behavior™)

author’s note: uploaded another one! yay! the trigger warnings on this one are wild, I didn’t even realize that haha. Anyways, enjoy!

There was something wet on his face. Virgil scrunched up his eyebrows. The wet seemed to move, it felt kind of harsh on his skin. It was shaped...like a tongue. Virgil shot up, eyes wide. He looked at the spot next to him on the couch, staring at the golden retriever who was still trying to lick him. He moved away from the couch.

He heard someone chuckle behind him, "Good morning, Sunshine," he turned around to be faced with Roman, who was eating eggs at the table.

Virgil opened his mouth to say something, but found himself stuck, as if there was a hand around his throat, but inside.

"Rise and shine," Roman took another bite of his eggs.

Virgil scrambled for his phone. Uncle Emile is gonna kill him. Sure enough, there were 23 messages and missed calls in total. He was soon typing out a response: 'Hey, Em, I'm okay, sorry I scared you, I fell asleep.'

He looked at the smudged number on his forearm and decided to save it. He also texted this number 'Remus? Where did u go? u still in the house?'

He got the response almost immediately. 'no we went to starbucks lmao'

'so u finally woke up lolololololol'

He also sent a picture of Virgil sleeping on the couch.

'so,,,bootiful,,,,,,,so,,puree'

'lmao'

Virgil huffed and began typing: 'ok, I get it, stop spamming me. Also, bring me a caramel latte would u??'

'k'

Virgil looked at the time, 7:23 shining on the screen. He opened Notes, typing out a question for Roman: 'is that ur dog?'

He turned the screen to face Roman, who looked at it and then at the dog eating from his bowl, "Yeah, her name's Princess Stain The Sixth" before Virgil could ask him what the fuck, Roman continued, "Remus named her, we just call her Princess."

Oh, that explains it. Virgil nodded. There was a long silence between the two of them, Virgil looking at Princess while Roman ate his eggs.

"So...you're mute?" at last Roman looked up at the other. Virgil contemplated the answer. He didn't want to explain his condition and answer Roman's questions, and there was not much of a chance that he will ever speak around him. He nodded.

"Ah, sorry about yesterday, there aren't any mute or deaf students in our school. I know that's not an excuse, but still," he took the plate and put it in the sink, "Though I do have one question..." Virgil raised his eyebrows, "Why do you hang out with Remus?"

Virgil began typing, well, actually deleting more than typing: 'I mean, yeah he can be a bit extra, but he's not that bad when you tune out most of the things he says.'

Roman quirked an eyebrow, "'A little bit extra'? I'm sorry, are we talking about the same person? He listed off more gory and effective ways to kill the main characters while we watched the movie. One of which included a detailed process of human taxidermy."

'Okay, he can be really fucking disgusting when he wants, but at least he's not a boring prude.'

Roman shook his head, "Try living with him, after a week you would be crying tears of happiness if he stopped talking."

Virgil stared at him.

"R-right, sorry."

Both looked at the front door as it practically flew open, "Hi bitches! Dee already went to school, but I just couldn't leave you here," Remus walked over to Virgil and handed him a Starbucks cup. He took a sip and scrunched up his face. Pure black coffee, "Oops, sorry, must've gotten them mixed up."

How can you even drink that? Virgil questioned. He wanted an answer to that, but the Latte was more important.

"Okay, so we have a few minutes before the school bell rings, do you need anything?" Roman looked at the clock hanging above the fridge, then at the other two. Virgil shrugged, there wasn't anything he could take. Remus went to his room for his backpack. Virgil got out his phone again, seeing there was 1 unread message from his uncle: 'Alrighty, just make sure that it will not happen again :) love you too, meet me at school <3' Virgil smiled a little at that.

"Okay, that's everything, let's go!" Remus was already out the door, and Virgil ran to catch up to him, Roman just stayed behind them.

They were walking too fast, so Virgil couldn't type without it looking like a bunch of gibberish. Instead, Virgil settled into listening to Remus ramble on and on about that one cute boy in Starbucks with a broken nose, how Damon got almost bit by Princess again, about what time he wants to spray the graffiti in the boy's bathroom...wait what? Virgil tried to forget about the last part. He didn't want to get in trouble on his second day, this school will be different. He's gonna be a good student...well, at least a mediocre one. Yeah, mediocre is good, none of this graffiti business. He hopes Remus won't be offended. It was nice having a friend. Were they even friends? Virgil felt a nudge on his shoulder.

"Dude, you gucci?" Virgil nodded, "So yeah, as I was saying, deodorant doesn't taste that bad."

They departed while going to their lockers. None of their lockers were close to one another, which Virgil thought was a shame, but at least Remus isn't sure which is his. He wouldn't want to open it one day only to find it filled with dead possums or whatever Remus would think of. He caught the sight of Damon talking with one of the girls in his English class. When Damon finally noticed Virgil looking at him, he wasted no time approaching him, ignoring the girl, who eventually scoffed and walked away.

"So, the sleeping beauty finally woke up, huh?" Virgil gave him an unamused look, nudging his head against the direction of the girl. Damon looked back at her, "Oh, Bailey? Don't worry about her, just gossiping," he waved his hand dismissively.

"What are we talking about?" Remus said as he leaned against Virgil's locker.

"Okay, you didn't hear it from me, but Remy was caught fucking with Nate under the social studies hallway's staircase. Again. But, like, I dunno, it's just a rumour after all..." Deceit exaggerated his hand movements for a more dramatic effect.

"Okay, we all know the last part is bullshit. Of course he would get caught, he's such an amateur," they both looked between the three, their eyes landing on Virgil, "...You don't know who Remy is, do you?" Virgil shook his head.

"Remy is the school's professional slacker. He spends all of his nights at concerts and parties, then drinks coffee to try to stay awake, which doesn't work most of the time anyway, so he sleeps a lot in class. If you offer to buy him Starbucks he will do anything for you. He's also a major slut, a cheater. He's utterly disgusting. Don't ever talk to him," the longer Damon talked the more intense his death glare got, but although it was aimed at Virgil, it wasn't aimed at Virgil.

"You're only saying that because he broke up with you," Remus smirked.

At that moment, the glare was averted to Remus and Damon looked more offended than angry, "He absolutely did not! I broke up with him. It was his fault that he was drunk and still thought we were together. I didn't even know he was drunk. It's those godforsaken glasses, he never takes them off. Why the hell does he even wear them?" Damon crossed his arms.

"Maybe he doesn't have eyes..."

Virgil squinted his eyes and let out an exaggerated cough. The couple looked up at him.

"Oooh yeah, sorry, we forgot about you," there wasn't anything malicious behind Remus' words, as far as Virgil could tell.

"Anyways," the two diverted their eyes at Damon, who pointed his finger at Virgil, "You have economics, right?" Virgil nodded, "Great, we too," Damon smirked. At the word 'economics' Remus let out a loud and exaggerated groan. Damon just rolled his eyes, "C'mon, economics isn't that bad when you actually put in effort."

Remus put his face in his hands, "I don't wanna put in effort..." he drew out the last word.

"Nevertheless, we should probably get to class," and so, the three began walking down the halls. When they did get to the classroom, Remus and Damon already sat together and shrugged at Virgil. There were two empty seats. One was next to a sleeping guy with a leather jacket whose coffee was tipped over and slowly trickled on his desk. He assumed that was Remy, no thanks, he'd rather sit next to that cafeteria kid from the other day. As soon as he sat down the stranger beamed at him and began talking. Virgil learned his name was Patton, and that Roman had already told him he was mute, so he was sorry. Virgil accepted the apology. There was just something off about him that Virgil couldn't place a finger on. It wasn't the fact that Patton was too cheery and chatty for his own good or the way he always moved his finger, wiggling them around or playing with a pencil, no, Virgil got his fair share of hyperactive friendly kids who make friends with everyone they see. Patton got quiet when the teacher walked in. Almost...too quiet, if that's a thing. Virgil assumes it is. The kid isn't even paying that much attention, much more focused on doodling flowers and cats in his notebook. Virgil decided to ignore it, he wasn't about to stick his nose up some stranger's business. The only interesting moments in the lesson were when Remy woke up and realized he doesn't even have this class, or when one of the other teenagers disrupted the lesson and Mr. Porter got all red in the face. He let out a sigh when the bell rang. As he was getting up a hand wrapped around his shoulders.

"We're thinking about skipping the rest of the day, you comin'?"

Virgil furrowed his eyebrows and glanced at Damon, "Don't act like you actually enjoy school. And before you...type anything, yes, it is only your second day, which means they will most likely let you off with a warning, so even if we get caught, you don't have to worry."

"So, you goin'?" Virgil shook his head. Remus raised his eyebrows, "You sure, emo?" Virgil shook his head again, this time slower.

"Well, skipping it is then," Damon walked out of the class as the other two followed. Virgil didn't complain, but it's not like he could anyways, "Around this time, most of the school hall monitors are at the cafeteria or the classrooms, so we can just walk out. If it's not a bad day that is, but even then it's typically just Oliver, who will let you go if you bribe him. Eight dollars usually does it," they were in the door when they heard a voice behind them and froze.

"Did you think you could just skip without me?"

They turned around to be faced with Roman with crossed arms.

"I mean, yeah, kinda," Remus said.

Roman chuckled, "Just because you are the 'Bad Twin' doesn't mean I am not getting sick of this school. So, how about you let me go with you and I won't tell anyone," he held out his hand. Remus stared at it for a while before spitting on his and shaking Roman's. Really, Roman should know better.

"Deal."

"Great, the twins together. Just what I needed," Damon grumbled, and Virgil couldn't help but nod his head in agreement.

"What do you think you're doing? Also, Roman, how could you?"

"Ah shit, not another one," Damon made an actual physically pained face that that.

"Logan, where's Patton?" Roman looked around.

"In the class, like you all should be," Logan pushed up his glasses.

Remus leaned over to the three, "Let's just keeps walking and pretend we didn't hear him," so, they turned around and walked to the school entrance, ignoring Logan's remarks and shouts as he followed them while the others tried to suppress their giggles, Remus especially. It was about 3 minutes after exiting the school and Logan realized there was no chance he could go back now, gave up, and tagged along. They all talked over where they should go, but Virgil's suggestion of going to the old abandoned church won by a majority vote, which meant that Damon, Remus and Virgil were all for it and Logan and Roman tried to protest but failed. The church was about eight minutes from the school. Neither of them knew why the church was abandoned, or how long it was, but nevertheless, it was pretty cool. Virgil didn't have a lot of time to explore the town, so walking around was refreshing. Well, it would be if it wasn't so damn hot.

"God fucking damn it, how can you walk in a leather jacket in this weather and not sweat?" Damon squinted his eyes at Remus.

"I don't sweat, it's disgusting."

Roman laughed, "So that's disgusting to you? Sweating? Nevermind that, how does that even work? You just don't sweat 'cause you don't want to?" he said with a mocking tone.

Remus gave him a deadpan look, "Yeah. Sweating is disgusting, so I don't do it."

Roman didn't know how to respond to that. Neither did any of them, except for Logan, "Well, there is a condition called anhidrosis, which is a reduced ability or inability to produce sweat. Is it possible that you have that?"

"No, I think I just don't like sweating," Remus shook his head.

"Can we stop talking about sweating and instead focus on the fact that the church is surrounded by a fence?" Damon gestured his hand towards the old church which came into view, "I mean, of course, we can just climb over it, but it has spikes, so..."

"Is there a hole under the fence? Or maybe in it?" Logan pushed his glasses up. Damon looked at him.

"It's iron, try again, sherlock," the group walked closer to the church. Remus was already touching the fence, trying to climb over it while Roman tried to stop him and get him back down. They all looked around when they heard a phone ringing. Logan reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He sighed and put the phone to his ear.

"Yes, Patton?" the other four tried to be as quiet as possible, "Ah, no, I am afraid I'm not at school, I..." Logan looked between all of them, settling at Damon who was mouthing 'You're sick', if Virgil guessed correctly, "I got nauseous, so the teachers made me go home," there is a bit of silence, only a muffled quiet voice coming from the phone that neither of them could decipher, "Yes, I would appreciate. I apologize for making you anxious...Yes, of course. See you after school," he ended the call and put the phone back in his back pocket.

"You didn't mute your phone, are you fucking mental?"

"Remus, shut the fuck up, anyways, do any of you see a gate?" after Damon stopped talking Virgil pointed at Logan. The other four looked at him confused. He gestured for Logan to move, then pointed again. The four looked in the said direction, "Oh, there it is. Does anyone know how to pick locks?"

"I do," said two voices at once. Remus and Logan looked at each other, "To be honest, I am not surprised," Logan said.

"To be honest, I am pleasantly surprised. What else can you do with those hands, nerd?"

"Right, well, Remus, I am sure you have a bobby pin in that monstrosity you call hair," Damon scrunched up his nose.

Remus pulled out two bobby pins out of his bun, "You're just jelly of my long shiny locks."

"That greasy thing hasn't been washed in three years, I am not jealous. Trust me."

Remus and Logan walked over to the lock, "Padlocks are easy to picklock, this should only take a couple seconds," Logan takes on of the bobby pins out of Remus' hand and puts it in the lock. They can't really see what the two are doing, but as promised, they hear the padlock open. Remus throws the padlock away and Loga opens the gate. Remus is the first one to run in, walking to the front door. The rest followed and quickly caught up with him.

The church itself had two large towers on either side. It had a stone structure and the left tower was missing a roof on one side. It had long stained glass windows with a pointed arch, some of the lower ones were broken. The right tower and what had remained of the left had a sharply pointed spire with a cross on top.

"I am assuming this is gothic revival church since an original gothic church would be more broken than this."

"Who cares, let's go inside!" Roman was already opening the door. Surprisingly, the door was open. They stepped inside. The inside was massive. It was long with columns on either side. Instead of the ceiling was a ribbed vault, "Holy shit..." Roman's voice echoed through the church. The crunching of the leaves on the floor echoed as well. Everything echoed.

"Remus, if you scream I swear to god..." Damon glared at the said man. Remus just smiled and shrugged. Then he screamed. After everyone was done covering their ears and the echo slowly fainted, the four began yelling at him and Damon pushed him away, to which Remus just laughed.

They explored the church for a while, which involved Remus mostly hanging off the statues and drawing on the walls with pens, Logan taking pictures and analyzing the interior, Roman standing behind the podium and preaching about Beyonce and Damon and Virgil messing with the organ. After that, they went out in the back where the graveyard was.

"I bet the church was closed down because it was haunted. Do you think someone was killed here?"

Damon looked at Remus, "It's an old abandoned church, of course someone was killed here."

"Do you think there are ghosts?" Roman looked back at the angel statue covered in moss that they passed a while ago.

"Ghosts don't exist."

"Of course they do, specs," Roman spat back.

"Is that so? Do you have any physical proof to back up your statement?"

"No, that's kinda the point of ghosts."

"My dudes, I think I just found a grave robbed grave," they turned to look in Remus' direction. The said man was looming over a seemingly empty grave. When they took a closer look at it they noticed that the casket was opened and almost invisible under the dirt that fell back in the hole. The decomposed remains of the women in it looked terrifying, "That's, like, so cool. I wish that were me."

Virgil didn't think it was cool. Actually, he thought it was revolting and unnerving. The thought of him dying and someone just digging up his corpse to look for something to make money with is disturbing. He stepped away from the grave. He didn't feel safe anymore, instead, it was replaced with an eerie feeling that someone was watching them. He needed to get out of here. He pulled out his phone and began typing. He tapped on Roman's shoulder and the shorter man eventually turned around and read the message, 'u wanna go to dennys? i havent eaten anything all day and im starving'

Roman turned to the others, "Hey, wanna go to Dennys? I am starting to feel kinda hungry."

"Glad you mentioned it, my stomach acids are literally starting to eat me up from the inside," Remus turned around to face the other two.

"Yeah, sure."

"That is satisfactory."

[thebestplltheories]

PLL The Perfectionists - 1x01 Pilot LIVE REACTION

WE ARE BACK!!!!

Ok I’m gonna do what I was doing for PLL where I react as I watch. But before I copy and paste the live reaction, I want to give my quick overview. That was by far a 10/10. That achieved everything a pilot should achieve. It introduced us to the characters, each of their stories, and the relationships each character has with one another. It set the overall tone, that this is a murder mystery with twists and turns to come. It established what the show is about. And it had occasional small shocks (I say small because there’s only so much that can be shocking in a pilot when everything is brand new). This was exponentially darker than the PLL pilot and for that I’m so grateful. We are cutting the high school airy-fairy (is that word used outside of Australia?) drama and going straight to scandals and a murder. I’m scared to see the ratings tomorrow because I want it to do well but hey it was trending worldwide on Twitter so that’s a good sign!? The show looks SO promising. I think I’m already in love with the cast. I just want to know more about everything and everyone and omg we are back!

LIVE THOUGHTS:

Love this intro! It sets the scene very well about the whole theme of perfectionism.

WAIT IS DYLAN PLAYING POKERFACE BY LADY GAGA HAHAHAHAHA

Okay sorry but that song ain’t it (“two can keep a secret if one of them is dead”). Why does it sound like an auto tuned choir? I’m happy for change. I actually don’t want the exact same version as the original series. But this one ain’t it. Is it too late to change it???

Wait, why is Alison walking around her new apartment like she’s walking around Jenna’s school for the blind in 710? If she lived 2 years of happiness and freedom of A, there’s no need to be so sceptical of danger every time you walk into a room. Anyway, doesn’t really matter.

Just the backing music throughout the scene is very PLL-esque! Yes, there is such thing as PLL backing music. And this is it.

Mona making a grand entrance!

I feel like Ali’s reaction to seeing Mona was a bit... underwhelming? If they haven’t seen each other in 2 years I expected a bit more of an “OMG”, and a “how did you get in my apartment”, etc. But they go straight to the point and cut the fluff so I don’t mind overall.

Mona recruited Ali. I knew it. And she works at BHU, we already knew that.

Emison is having trust issues. But she wants to do this for the kids. Ok I expected more detail there to satisfy the Emison shippers but whatever, I won’t cry at night.

Ok so Mary and Alex escaped Mona’s “dungeon”. That’s fine by me. Maybe that’ll be the storyline for a PLL movie later, who knows. It’s quite a vague answer but what did we expect... Mona to ADMIT to Ali that she captured her aunt? No. Mona could never explicitly say to Ali what she did. Hence the subtle pause before “... escaped me”. Only us the audience know the true meaning of that and I love how subtle yet meaningful it is.

Why do I feel like this security system is gonna play a massive toll throughout the entire series?

Loved the little Easter egg of seeing Mona, and Mona in the mirror (2 Mona’s). A subtle symbol/reference to her split personality in PLL.

I LOVED the scene of Ali teaching in the classroom! I got How To Get Away With Murder vibes...

Remember when we all thought Taylor’s death would be the main death of the show because of that memorial with her name on it... lol. Okay I’m calling it now... come back to this in the apparently mind blowing season 1 finale... Taylor isn’t really dead WE HAVENT TECHNICALLY SEEN A BODY

Love the complicated friendships going on between Dylan, Nolan, Ava, Caitlin! There’s a lot going on about faking being friends and faking tasks to uphold the image of being perfect. I love this theme and I feel like it’s super relevant to today’s world. Like especially social media. Everyone’s instagrams are always filled of their highs. And they’re mostly edited. No one ever posts/shares their low moments.

So no one knows of Ali’s past. Hmmm. We’ve had this discussion before, I don’t think it’s realistic that no one knows the name Alison DiLaurentis - surely that was on national news when “dead girl isn’t dead anymore” made headlines. But anyway. If they wanna pretend no one watches the news, it wouldn’t be the most unrealistic thing PLL has done.

Is Dylan the gay male character Marlene said she was going to introduce in PLL season 5B? Lmao about time.

WOW that flashback of Caitlin and Nolan just gave me PLL season 1 Alison flashback vibes! Nolan plays the bad manipulative guy so well just like Ali played the bully so well in flashbacks!

Two moms don’t make a right hahahaha who wrote that

Sofia looks FLAWLESS in the pool scene OH MY GODDD. AND her voice is so soothing what the hell

Love how the first scene of Nolan’s mother shows her standing on top of the staircase and the camera panning up. Great directing there. Showing she’ll be like a supreme leader. And then the camera being over her shoulders looking down on Nolan. Again great camera work which conveys the message that she is the boss of this town. I think she’ll be our new Jessica DiLaurentis lol

“I’d like some time for myself” ... “to do what?” OUCH why is that so iconic

Eli is... doing great. He comes across very confident. A star in the making?

Love the cinematography period. And Portland is beautiful!! Better than the Warner Bros lot.

Omg Nolan’s mother gathering “attractive” people for her photo op. Lol, they really are big on presenting a perfect image.

“You saw somebody else” NO CAITLIN, ALISON SAW YOU wow these kids will adamantly lie to uphold perfectionism. I keep saying that but I just love this theme!!!

“I know a little bit about manipulation” hahahahaha Ali

Omg Ali is so good at learning their lies. Of course she is, she’s had years of practice

The woods, Nolan? Nothing good ever happens in the woods.

Lol when Nolan tells Dylan to “kiss me” and Dylan actually contemplates it (and does it). That’s the type of power Nolan has over people.

I love how Ali is trying to help them! I can see a bond eventually forming here.

This scene where Nolan cheats on Ava isn’t shocking since they unfortunately shared it in the promos but hey a douche is a douche.

WHAT THE FUCKITY FUCKING FUCK IT’S TAYLOR WHAT DID I JUST SAY ABOVE

OK I KNOW I GUESSED ALEX DRAKE BUT THIS IS A NEW RECORD FOR FASTEST THEORY TO COME TRUE

Well it wasn’t really a theory I was just joking that she’s not really dead because we didn’t see a body but still do I get a point? Lmao

Nonetheless that shocked me! I love that they’re trying to take down their own family, that’s so dark and it’s only episode 1!

Yes Alison is already getting suspicious. Solve this one please Ali

Sorry I put my phone down during that scene in the woods. I just knew it would be juicy and I wanted to immerse in it properly. I frickin adore this scene. It’s creepy in tone, set in the woods like classic PLL, they’re referring to Ali like a friend and my PLL heart is content, and this is the first time they’re all bonding over one thing: wanting Nolan dead. This is probably my favourite scene in the whole episode.

So I’m guessing the vibes are that they were being recorded in the woods about how they want Nolan to be killed? But didn’t Nolan turn off the security?

Mona gets in her car and chucks a big bag in the back seat. Where was she and what was in the baggggg

Ok that was a bit dramatic Ali (“why am I really here”)

Lol I had to rewatch that for a sec. I thought Ali said “and his dead sister who I just saw pick him up” and I was like wait what Ali knows Taylor’s alive??? No, “dead sister who I just saw a picture of”.

OH MY GOD WHAT A MISSED OPPORTUNITY!!!! THAT SCENE WHERE THE 3 OF THEM ARE WALKING AWAY FROM EACH OTHER... NOLAN’S BODY SHOULD’VE FALLEN TO THE GROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF THEM RIGHT THERE! That would’ve been iconic. Like “oh well we were just kidding about all that, good night xx” then nope bam dead body. But I guess he had to die with poles through his chest as Caitlin said.

Oh Marlene. That’s a LOT of dialogue for a death scene. I hope you can back up and explain what Nolan is talking about before he died. Don’t you dare tell me that was an interpretative dream. Again that’s a lot of dialogue for a death scene. You better know who that killer is Marlene! Don’t make it up the day you write the finale!

I don’t like how we didn’t see Nolan ACTUALLY be killed. They play it safe because they don’t want to show us the killer in action. they basically copied the format of Mona’s “death”. Just change the scene to a flashing ambulance with a lame transition lol.

Another missed opportunity. Mona should’ve said to Ali “they found a body”! That would’ve been iconic in every way possible. First it was Ali’s body now Ali is finding a body and hearing the news and ugh oh well

My god that’s a violent death. And pretty early in the series for a Noel-Khan-level death. Too bad the photos leaked online and we knew that Nolan would not only die, but die like THAT. Those extras/fillers on set really should get charged for having their phones on them and leaking shit. Isn’t there copyright laws or something???? idk

Ummmmmm what? What kind of sci-fi, dollhouse level bullshit is that? That’s kinda over the top. Ehhhh. We’ll see where that goes.

My brain right now instantly got to thinking if Nolan’s murderer will be the “A” of the series or if the killer will just be the main mystery for season 1? Is “who killed Nolan” going to be the overarching story of the entire show or will they answer that sooner rather than later and then start a new mystery? I wonder what the format of this show will be. That’s where my mind is right now as the credits play.

[btshogwartsauheadcanons]

BTS Meet-Cutes

I thought this would be a cute post to make UwU. 

For those who don't know, meet-cutes are basically those moments in romance movies when the two love-interests meet each other and then somehow hit it off. I kind of wanted thought it would be cute to make these headcanons of BTS meeting their love interest or s/o or something for the first time. I know some of them are weird or outrageous but that's how it usually is in movies lmao.

Seokjin  

You were busy doing your facial routine late at night and you had just finished putting on this ridiculous-looking face mask that despite appearances actually worked wonders for your skin

But then you remembered that you left your Astronomy notebook on the couch in the common room and decided to go downstairs to get it

And then you find seokjin passed out on the couch, still in his quidditch robes, since he was tired from training so much

You tiptoed to the couch as quietly as possible and tried to grab your notebook on the edge of the couch

When seokjin suddenly woke up to find this FACE MASK MONSTROSITY looming over him and because it's seokjin, you know...

His screams could be heard all the way to the slytherin dungeons

You had to calm him down and explain the whole face mask situation to his pureblood ass

You didn't even consider taking your face mask off to show seokjin you were an actual person because putting it back on would be A Pain

“Why does it look so ugly though?" "I don't care, my face feels hella smooth after"

Seokjin actually gets really interested in face masks after seeing how smooth your skin looked after

He decides to invest in it as much as you do and does his nightly face mask routine with you

He also uses it to scare his other friends by looming over them while they're in bed during sleepovers

Yoongi

You two were alone in the slytherin common room but in separate areas working on different stuff, you haven't even talked to each other previously

You were working on this really long essay assignment for potions class while he was working on some music compositions

JUST when you finished your essay though you accidentally spilled a bottle of ink over it, erasing all your work

It was 2 am in the morning and you started crying because there goes your Potions grade

But then yoongi overhears you and sees what happened and decides to help out (he knows what it feels like working on something all night)

So he whips out this wicked potion that works like an energy drink but like on extra steroids and hands it to you

"Drink up, but accept the consequences"

You take one look at the green liquid and know that this is going to be a mistake

But you look yoongi dead in the eyes and drink it bottoms-up anyway

As soon as he sees the crazed expression on your face, he leaves you to be as you quickly work on your assignment

Long story short: you wrote and finished your Potions paper for submission, the caffeine/energy high lasted for the whole day until you passed out cold on a couch in the common room

Yoongi found you later in the day and decided to lay a blanket over you

You actually woke up when you felt him lay the blanket on you but you just looked yoongi dead in the eye and said "why is half of your face all swirly?" before passing out again

Yoongi laughs and then decides to wait for you to wake up (he knows the potion increases appetite as soon as the effects wear off) so he also has a bunch of sandwiches with him

Hoseok

You were on your period and had an intense craving for fruit snacks

The kind of craving that will make you think "if I don't fucking get these fucking fruit snacks in the next fucking dive minutes i will fucking murder someone"

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do so you leave your common room and head straight for the kitchens, hoping that there's fruit snacks

When you get there you see Hobi laughing and talking to the house elves, and he kindly asks if you want anything to eat

Dead-ass you just say "fruit snacks?" and hoseok passes you an apple

If it wasn't for hoseok's gorgeous, beautiful face, you would have thrown the apple at him because THAT IS NOT A FUCKING FRUIT SNACK

But hoseok says that's the only fruit snack there is and you burst out in tears because you need those fruit snacks

Now hoseok kind of understands why you're so desperate about the fruit snacks so he takes you with him to the room of requirement

The ROR really seems to understand period cravings because the fruit snacks bag fall out of the ceiling as soon as you walk in

Now the inner demon has been appeased as you shove fistfuls of fruit snacks into your mouth

Since there are way too many fruit snacks in the bag you decide to share some with your savior, jung hoseok

Both of you finish the entire humongous bag

Namjoon

Both of you had a thing for sneaking out at night to steal books from the forbidden section

And it just so happened that you decided to do so on the same night

He was just quietly trying to pull a book out of the shelf when you passed by

Namjoon almost lost his shit when he saw you sneaking around the shelf with the tip of your wand glowing

He drops his book and you quickly try to get him to calm down but then both of you hear Filch coming in so you both end up hiding behind a shelf until he leaves

What follows is a whole night of sneaking around the castle and trying to return to your dorms safely

At one point you two actually had to hide in this tiny closet while Filch walked past

You end up having to sleep in the Ravenclaw common room since it was nearest and when you both wake up you just laugh about it

It was quite the experience and when you saw each other again in class, you both couldn't help but talk and laugh about it

Since then, the two of you would sneak out to the library at night together

Jimin

The first time he meets you is when he walks into the greenhouse to give the plants their daily watering when he sees you lying on the ground unconscious

Turns out you accidentally knocked over a mandrake plant which started screaming, causing you to pass out for a while

The mandrake was still screaming when jimin walked in so he quickly used a charm to mute its noise before he could be knocked out

When that's done he has no idea to do next, should he try to shake you awake or get some help or bring you to madame pomfrey

Jimin goes for shaking you gently first but then you still don't wake up 

He finally decides to carry you all the way to the clinic (since he's hella strong anyway) but he's too worried to leave you alone so he just stays with you

You're hella confused when you wake up because last thing you remember was hearing a mandrake screaming and now there's this beautiful angelic boy sitting on a chair beside your bed

Taehyung

It was post-exam time and everyone was either in a celebratory or an "i'm so fucking done" mood

Taehyung and namjoon decided to chill by the lake and talk about their exam stuff

Meanwhile, you were in a celebratory mood once you burst out of your classroom after exams

In a spur of the moment, you kind of just decided to take a dip in the lake

While taehyung and namjoon are talking, they suddenly see you running towards the lake with a giddy smile on your face

You pulled out your wand and yelled "ASCENDO" as you jumped and dove straight into the lake

Taehyung will always remember that sight of you opening your arms in mid-air before cannon-balling into the water

"I think that's my wife"

Namjoon can already tell what taehyung is planning to do next but before he can stop him, taehyung has already yelled "ASCENDO" and jumped into the lake with you

The two of you just laugh and play in the water until namjoon uses the levitating charm to get you out

Jungkook:

Both of you were running late to class since you both kind of slept in (not a surprise in jungkook's case)

Because of that you were also kind of panicked and hurrying since it was potions class next

You two hurried up the staircase to the upper floor at the same time but just before you could get to the landing the stairway suddenly shifts

It doesn't shift to a different floor or anything, it just legit stops at empty air

Jungkook is just really done at this point, he had to scramble out of bed and toss on the clothes he wore yesterday before running to class

Both of you turn to each other, knowing that you're both fucked, and jungkook just goes "So, how's your day going?"

Then you guys end up talking the entire time the staircase doesn't move and you find that he's a pretty cool person to talk to

Eventually Snape finds you two and gives you both detention but he finds a way to sneak the both of you out

But not before doing the whole "come with me if you want to live”

[seizethecringeofproduction]

Flashpoint 2: Advent Solaris - Chapter 3

Author’s Note: Before you point out inaccuracies regarding the suit, wait until the Angel Island chapter okay. Also this chapter contains my hand at writing severe PTSD hallucinations. So yeah, content warnings.

I feel bad for people who liked AW reading this fic, y’all gonna feel so guilty lmao.

Also obligatory “LOLOLOL THIS CHAPTER’S NAMED CRISIS CITY IN A DC FIC” comment

For most people, making a superhero suit instead of immediately going after the supposed destroyer of the would be seen as rather strange. However, with his speed restored to its former glory the Flash was capable of putting together a new suit for himself in a matter of seconds. Though he did not gain his powers through the use of lightning as he originally did, he still kept his classic lightning bolt symbol just because frankly it wouldn't feel like him without it. Similarly, he also kept the golden lightning bolt 'ears' and the overall red coloration. There were some minor changes to his previous suit due to the limitation of suitable materials he could find, but he found just enough to create something suitable. He found the nearest shattered pieces of glass and tried to look at what little reflection he could find.

His skin, body and hair had by this point healed to near perfect condition - and he was feeling stronger and more pumped than ever. It was almost unnatural how much energy he felt, honestly. He couldn't tell any difference in his speed though, but the sparks that came from him did appear to be purple in coloration rather than the typical white color of lightning. Thankfully the blur he created whenever he zipped around the place remained red.

As did his body. Everything from his muscles to his firm behind was in perfect, working order. Whatever he couldn't see in his 'reflection', he could feel or see with his own two eyes. Even though his face now was finally properly hidden beneath his crimson red mask.

Alright, lookin' good.

Feelin' good.

Now, time to go see about that Shadow character...

"Alright Mephiles, I'm ready to go find that Shadow dude now! Where's he at?"

There was no answer.

In fact, Mephiles wasn't even in the room. Nor was he seemingly in the facility anymore. All that accompanied the Flash was an empty, darkened building. And occasionally, the sound of rats scurrying and screeching, though all purely hidden by the cold darkness that was the poorly lit building.

"Yeah, just so you know this is why I'm still only trusting you cuz you can time travel!"

I'm still not sure if I trust this guy, or believe him one hundred percent, but I'll do anything to prevent another timeline from ending.

This isn't happening again on my watch.

With that having been said, the Flash hurried out. Now fast if not possibly faster than Sonic himself, it was practically milliseconds before he was out of the facility in a burst of red wind and back out into the harsh breezes and heavily heated air of the once great city outside.

Not having any real clue as to where Shadow was besides him being in this same very city at this same very moment in time, the Flash mostly just wandered rapidly throughout the torched streets and shattered highways, dashing up to the rooftops to briefly stop and get better views - though it proved difficult to make anything out in such a vast and expensive landscape of destruction. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to find anything, if he was being honest.

It was all the same.

Death, Destruction, Fire and Lava.

That was truly all that there was.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I can feel him laughing right now..I can hear him in the wind…

He got them killed…

My friends…

My family…

He won, even though we got him in the end, he still won…

And he knows it…

He's laughing at me…

Taunting me…

Get out of my head!

The memories of what longer existed yet again overwhelmed the Flash as he overlooked what remained of the future. Holding his head as he fell to his knees with a scream, all he could hear was the cold, maniacal laughter of the sadistic madman known to him as 'Darkseid'. He could not see the monster, but the sound of his laughter was as clear to him as if the demonic 'god' was not more than a foot away.

He began to sweat profusely. The purple sparks were ignited left and right from his body, and even his vision was flashing from normal to purple as the laughter of that monster intensified. Visions of those lost wouldn't go away either. It was as though they were standing directly in front of him, even though he knew they were long gone.

Conner…

Hal...

Barbara…

Billy…

Zatanna…

J'honn…

Arthur…

Mera…

Dick...

Wallace...

Iris...

Thinking of whatever fate Iris had met in his previous timeline finally set the man over the edge. His vision firmly turned purple as his eyes were surrounded by electrified purple energy. He let out a loud scream into the heavens, his sweat still coming profusely from his body, heart racing to it's limit, and lungs being just as equally stressed.

"LEAVE ME ALONE YOU SADISTIC BASTARD!" he screamed as he stood up and turned around, having expected Darkseid to be there. At first, he was, and the Flash charged at him with more anger than he honestly knew he had. He didn't want Darkseid defeated. He wanted Darkseid dead. Except the moment he would have made contact with the warlord, the tall red-eyed conqueror vanished. Flash had to stop himself from rushing over the ledge of the rooftop he was standing upon, as it was a one way drop into a massive lake of burning hot lava.

The Flash's eyes widened as they returned to reality. His heart and lungs still raced, but his vision returned to normal. He fell to his knees again, holding his forehead as he comprehended just what was going on.

I should be forgetting this happened…

I want to forget that any of this ever happened...

Why can't I? Why can't that sadistic monster and everything he did just leave my memories forever?

Barry closed his eyes, letting out from them a long stream of tears. For most of those he remembered, he did not get subjected to their horrific fates - though he was informed of those he missed. Now their memories echoed throughout his fragile mind. With every second he spent here in this hellish place, it felt as though his mental state was increasingly close to shattering. Yet somehow, the actual destruction of whatever weak piece of string held it all together did not come. Whether through sheer willpower or some other force, he did not know. All he knew was that while he certainly wasn't as there as he wanted to be, he wasn't all gone either.

The worst part for him was for those fates that couldn't be confirmed.

He never found out what happened to Iris or to the first Kid Flash, 'Wally', in the previous timeline. They were only presumed deceased.

He knew better than to think too hard about the previous incarnation of Iris. Even beginning to imagine it filled his mind with feelings of both intense grief and equally intense rage. He wanted nothing more than to give Darkseid true justice for the lives his army ended and ruined. The only solace he had here was that Darkseid no longer existed.

But it still feels like he does….

Standing up and looking back on the skyline of the lifeless cityscape, the Flash took a deep breath. His quest to locate the 'ultimate lifeform' in this mess was not going to be easy, but if Mephiles was telling the truth then it had to be done in order to prevent this horrible future from being a reality.

His motivation restored, Barry resumed the quest.

The best way for him to not let that beast continue to rule over his mind, was for him to focus on running. To never let his mind stay on the subject for too long. He hoped that as soon as he was no longer in this nightmare of a future, perhaps he would be able to be his completely old self again.

Wishful thinking always was a hallmark of humanity.

Deep down, he knew that Barry was slowly dying. Decaying away, soon to be gone forever. He most likely would never again feel like 'his old self', and to be honest he didn't really know what that meant anymore.

He was convinced he never truly would ever again.

For the most part, there wasn't much to this city. All he had to do was maintain his fast speed and resulting momentum and the massive canyons of molten magma were easily avoided. There were moments when the remnant highways he landed on would begin crumbling not long after his weight was added to them, sending large concrete balls and other debris his way, though with his speed restored they were nothing to dodge - and he likewise was capable of jumping from the dilapidated highway roads to the destroyed remains of buildings easily.

It was ever impossible to tell what purpose any of these buildings served in 'life', however. He was sure most of them were residential or office buildings, based on their shape. He thought he had seen one or two malls while scaling along some of the rooftops, but nothing of use appeared to be inside.

All in all, so far there wasn't much to traversing the city as long as he had his powers. Finding Shadow on the other hand…

"I know what he looks like" Barry said to himself while scoping out one of the abandoned city blocks he managed to come across, taking a break from collapsing highways and rooftops, "Black with red stripes. Red eyes. About three or maybe four feet tall. Once I saw him, I could never miss him. But how do I see him?"

Barry saw a series of road and sidewalk fragments led upwards, almost like a staircase made up of the destroyed city itself. Figuring he could get a better look he quickly dashed over to it and climbed it until he reached the top 'stair' and with one hand over his eyes scoped out the horizon around him.

Still nothing but ruins. And….that..

'That' referred to a usually rare tornado of fire. Despite common belief, they did exist even in the previous timeline, though as to be expected in this world they were likely more common. This one however, was far more massive than any tornado the Flash had ever seen before - it's size and diameter both were akin to a kaiju in sheer scale, the superhero appearing as little more than a blip to it as it stood in place within a lake of red magma - the heat could still be felt by Barry even though he was far beneath it, let alone the fact he could see the waves of it in the air the closer he was to it.

The more he looked at this tornado though, at how it remained in place, at how it was made purely of fire. At how it did not seem to have a natural origin from the sky. The realization soon hit him:

This is not a normal tornado...

I should probably not spend too much time near it…

Barry was about to speed away from the tornado, when suddenly he heard a loud, bellowing roar from the direction of the tornado. In a flash he turned around to face the fiery 'tower' once again, not wanting to believe that a tornado had roared. He even mentally remarked:

If that thing just roared at me, then it's definitely not a normal tornado…

As if to prove him correct, from the tornado suddenly spawned a small army of creatures. Creatures seemingly made of molten rock, fire and magma. Barry couldn't believe his eyes. These were the same moderately large, screeching bat-like beings that he had witnessed while walking these streets with Mephiles - only now they were outright hostile towards him.

Illuminated by the fires they were made of, these creatures screeched just like the earth creatures they reminded Barry of. However, even though these creatures were small and nimble in appearance, that wasn't how his mind soon began to portray them as.

Within seconds, these creatures became paradooms - horrifying abominations. Some of the ugliest creatures he'd ever laid his eyes upon. Dark, soulless eyes. Large, hulking bodies caked with scarlet red armor, and two metallic bat-like wings protruding from their backs. Their snow white hair that dropped from their heads was unmistakable and gave off their relation to Doomsday - from whom half of their DNA was taken from.

Seeing them again, Barry shook. He was frozen in terror.

These things had no right to exist. These things were abominations, a spit on the face to existence itself. These horrible monstrosities had killed so many people, ruined so many lives. These mindless, heartless creatures. These beasts. Yet here they were, charging at Barry as though they didn't care at all - like true creatures from the deepest pits of Hell itself.

No...

Not these things…

NOT AGAIN!

Barry ran from them. He ran from them as fast as speed could, though they did not give up the chase.

No!

Not again!

He could still hear their nightmarish roars and hisses. Those horrifying sounds. Forever etched in his mind. The last things so many good, innocent people heard before they died. Besides the sound of their own screams as they were slaughtered as though they were nothing but trash.

He was willing to run for as long a distance as he could to get away from these hideous creatures, these insults to creation itself. These things did not deserve existence. These things did not deserve life - not after taking so much of it away from others.

Conner...that poor kid...they took him out like he was just nothing to him, threw him away like he was garbage…

Hal...Zatanna...Billy….they ate a fucking kid. They. Ate. A. Fucking. Kid.

All those people...all those innocent people...slaughtered. By these fucking monsters. These fucking abominations from Hell…

These things don't deserve to fucking live…

It was just as that last sentence crossed his mind that he was stopped in his tracks by a piercing headache. He fell directly to the heated asphalt beneath his feet as he ached and writhed in pain. His eyes yet again flashing purple as he groaned and gritted his teeth, the pain truly unbearable. It was as though something were scratching and gnawing on his brain itself, making him scream out in absolute agony.

Purple sparks and bolts flew from his body as he dealt with this pain. All while the paradooms began to surround him in the air above. Just as he looked up to see them, he was just as quickly distracted by two more bursting from the ground itself - large craters now situated beneath them. That's not to mention the ones walking in towards him from the shadows - resulting in the Flash being absolutely surrounded. In the midst of his piercing, agonizing migraine.

Nnngh, ugh, my brain feels like it is on fire right now.

And now these things are surrounding me...again��

I guess you win again, Darkseid...I can only hope that eventually someone gives you everything you fucking deserve...

Barry closed his eyes at that point, between this headache and witnessing these beasts again, he was ready for the cold embrace of death. He could only hope that once in death, he would finally be rid of these horrible memories, never again to be plagued by them.

That was, until he began to imagine the pain and suffering these things caused.

Conner...they snapped your neck….like it was nothing. They threw you away like you were garbage...when you weren't...you were a bright kid. You had so much potential...you deserved to experience more of the world, more of the actual world. You deserved so much more than to just be treated like that…

Billy….you were just a fucking kid. You were just a fucking kid. One of the best members of the League too...I'll never forget you. We should've never gone there. We should have thought of a better way….if only...if only we had.

J'honn...Mera...Arthur….bringing you guys to a fucking fire world….you guys deserved better than that. Should've left you guys behind to help protect the Titans. They could've used the help….

Wally, Wallace….you kids...you guys were awesome. Sometimes you were pains, but I couldn't ask for better nephews. If I had known what was going to happen to you guys, I would've done something….I'm sorry your new future's going to end up sucking again, because of me...

Then, one final person crossed his mind once more.

Iris...I'm so sorry...I don't even know if they….if they….what they…..what they…

"What they..."

Suddenly, his acceptance of impending death had transformed into rage. Remaining on the ground, he looked up at one of the paradooms looming over him. An intense, rage filled glare. The purple filling both his eyes as well as his vision now served almost like fire quite literally in his eyes - and his migraine as flames burning within his head. Seeing Iris impaled upon his monster's garish claws, blood seeping from her stomach as well as dripping from her mouth while her lifeless pupils locked themselves directly down on Barry himself proved all the motivation that he needed.

With an enraged leap he lunged onto the creature and managed to tackle it to the ground with the sheer amount of speed and kinetic force that his anger had managed to generate.

The beast screamed in agony, but Barry was not done yet. He grabbed a rock from the crumbling street and began to relentlessly bash in the monster's face. With absolutely nothing being held back. He bashed at this beast's eyes. He based at it's cheeks. He based at it's jaw. It's teeth. He even could see some of them flying out, the creature's blue goop 'blood' flying alongside them.

He heard this thing crying. Perhaps for mercy, but it would receive none. He wanted to see this thing die. He bashed that stone into it hard and fast enough that the stone itself was chipping away. Enough times so that the creature's entire head was virtually non-existent. Reduced to a puddle of it's tar-like blood and what few remnants of it's head remained.

Then came it's 'partner'.

Seeing Wally and Wallace impaled by that thing's two claws as though they were food on the end of a fork as it roared out in anger - before it began spitting fire directly at him. It was all he needed to know where he stood with this thing. Circling around it with his speed for a few rounds, he first grabbed hold of a large shard of broken glass from one of the dilapidated shops this specific street corner had lined up along either side. He decided to give this thing the feeling it had given his nephews, and using the massive broken window pane as a shield from the fire he jammed it directly into the monster's torso. It gave but one final shriek of pain before it fell over, still writhing and bubbling up it's own blood, before he sped over to another rock and tossed it as head - just to make sure it was deceased.

Hearing these things cry out in pain was music to the Flash's ears.

The fight wasn't over yet though. Still glaring and in battle stance, he was greeted by one who had done something particularly horrific. One of the ones which walked out from the shadows held in his hands the young, once energetic Superboy. His black fade haircut and all, though his eyes closed. His neck snapped out of it's place as he lay lifeless in the arms of this devilish beast that killed him.

It didn't deserve to live.

None of them did.

Snarling at his foe, the Flash first tried to attack with his speed and a direct body slam - though had to detour due to being attacked by this thing's fire breath - as well as dodge the fire breath of the other three on the field. He headed over to the corpse that he had impaled with glass. Moving quickly, he jabbed out a small piece from the glass - a piece thick enough to do the work he had planned for it.

Without even cracking a smile, he dashed back at the abomination that held Conner in its arms. The moment it tried to fire it's breath at him once more he jumped for it. He flipped in the air and actually easily kicked one of the flying paradooms into the wall of a nearby building - impaling it on a rusted flagpole, before landing behind the creature he was actually targeting.

Before it could even turn around, he leaped onto his neck and within less than a second jammed the shard of glass into its neck. Though it cut into his own flesh as well, he made sure it sank far deeper into its own with its jagged ends. The abomination screeched, but soon gurgled as the makeshift knife was drilled deeper into its throat - soon rendering it incapable of crying for mercy, let alone anything for that matter. Flash was not done however. He wanted this thing to know what it feels like to have it's neck so brutally broken. As hard as it was with such thick skin and flesh, he slit the beasts throat wide open. As it continued to gurgle and choke, clawing at its punctured throat - he repeatedly stabbed it. As hard and as fast as he could. Whatever arteries it had in there, they were soon reduced to mush. Barry stood on top of it's back once it finally fell to the ground, a puddle of it's tar 'blood' forming beneath it within seconds afterwards.

Even still, Barry felt it deserved worse.

As for the others, they did not last much longer either. With his powers restored Barry was easily able to make short work of them.

The ones in the air attempted to send spiked fireballs down at him like exploding bombs - with enough force Barry was able to kick each and every single one of these balls immediately back at them as they came down towards the ground, all virtually in mere milliseconds. Once they made contact with their own producers, the 'paradoom's were set ablaze, screaming in agony as they were roasted and fried alive, falling to the ground and dying as their bodies burned like pathetic sheets of paper.

The ones on the ground were tougher. One attempted to lunge at Barry, though he was swiftly taken out when he managed to pick up a parking meter that had long since fallen from its original position. Before the beast could even land he tossed it like a javelin into its mouth. It burst out the other end by the end of the second, making it drop to the ground before Barry's feet. Dead.

The remaining two on the ground attempted fire breath one more time. A sewer manhole cover easily whacked them both in the head with a well timed strike - and Barry crushing some glass to fire at them like shurikens tore their faces and throats to shreds in an instant, ensuring their demise as they too soon collapsed to the ground.

With all of the visible paradooms dead, Barry's migraine finally faded and his eyes returned to their normal state. However, the bodies of the paradooms did not go away. In fact, to his shock there appeared to be more of them. Far more of them. Legions of them. Crawling from the buildings. Descending from the air. Ascending from the ground.

They were everywhere.

Their horde even extended for miles beyond. They were only form of life for virtually the entire span of the city, it seemed.

A few minutes ago, Barry would have cowered in fear.

Now, however, he showed no fear at all.

He was going to give these beasts exactly what they deserved.

"Let's Dance."

The following few seconds can best be described as a massacre. A massacre of 'paradooms'. Barry spared not a single one of them as he blazed through time. At times the mere act of ramming into them at full throttle was enough to shatter their entire bodies to pieces. Others caught fire from the trail left behind him. When he did make direct moves on them such as punches, slides, or kicks, the majority of them died from just the one strike. Barry didn't know if it was the new strength and energy he was feeling earlier, or if they were just genuinely this pathetic as of now.

Either way, he was not complaining.

With each of these hideous beasts that fell, another of their victims was finally avenged. Given the justice they deserved.

It was a long time coming.

He felt little to no sympathy for any of these demons. Not after what they did to Iris. To Wally. To Wallace. To Conner. To Zatanna. To Hal. To Billy. To Mera. To Arthur. To J'Honn. To Diana. To Dick. To Jaime. To Garfield. To Donna. To Roy. To Karen. To Everyone.

Normally, heroes were not supposed to murder, or kill. He took no pleasure in the act of killing these things.

He took pleasure in avenging the lives they ended, and the timeline they ruined.

Blazing through the destroyed city taking out Paradooms all the way through, Barry left a trail of their remains in his wake. For some of his 'victims', there was hardly anything left to even consider remains. Those were usually the ones destroyed by how fast he was charging into them.

He had no idea where his legs were taking him anymore, or if he was anywhere close to finding Shadow. As long as he was decreasing the population of paradooms however, he did not seem to care.

By the end of the horde he was standing on a rooftop, panting and huffing. The flashing purple vision had returned as he recovered his breath - though thankfully not the piercing headache. At least, not for now.

Looking behind him, he could still see the trail of deceased paradooms extending for miles behind him as he recovered his breath and gave a moment for his racing heart to calm itself down. He was not proud of the act of killing, in fact he was ashamed of it. However, these were not civilians. These were not ordinary villains. These were monsters. More lives are saved by their deaths, than by their continued living. They needed to die. Perhaps if they had let their victims have burials, he would have been more merciful to them.

He overlooked the skyline one final time - no remaining paradooms. All of the flying ones had either been impaled with broken parking meters or otherwise set aflame with their own fireballs - screaming while they burned to death.

It was only when he looked down at the abandoned streets below that he saw something that made his eyes widen once more - as though he was seeing ghosts far below him.

"It...can't be."

There they were. Victor Stone - Cyborg, and Zatanna. Victor's silver-and-red cybernetic upgrades were unmistakable, as was him being the only dark skinned man for miles in this hellscape. Zatanna's long dark hair and black-white outfit was the same one she wore during the assault on Apokolips - though she seemed completely fine, as though she too perfectly regenerated from all of her wounds. What concerned Barry however, was two things. One was that Victor seemed to be unconscious or dead, as he was in a sitting position with his head lowered - completely unresponsive. The second, was that Zatanna was talking to a man he dreaded as though she was doing business with him it seemed.

Darkseid.

It was undeniably Darkseid.

He was huge, charcoal black, with horrifying red eyes. His armor was just as black as his soul, if he even had one. He dwarfed Zatanna in size, and his face alone could be considered a weapon of mass destruction. Let alone the rest of his hulking, imposing body. Worst yet, he seemed to be pulling something out of Cyborg's body. Something green, and glowing. With a gasp, once it was in the light of the fiery sky, Barry saw precisely what it was.

"It's a chaos emerald! Oh crap, Darkseid's got a chaos emerald! I don't know what those things are even fully capable of but if they can restore my powers then that is no good! No good at all! What the heck am I gonna do now?!"

Slapping himself before he fast-talked himself into further levels of insanity, Barry refocused himself on Darkseid and Zatanna. He didn't know why Zatanna seemed to be standing beside and talking to Darkseid so casually, though two reasonings arrived in his head before long:

Either she's betraying us and joining his side, or she's under his mind control.

Either way, I've got to get that chaos emerald away from his ass a.s.a.p! Gotta act fast!

Without wasting any further time, Barry immediately rushed for Darkseid. At the speed of light he slammed within Darkseid within the second, managing to slam him into a building on the other side of the street by using only one arm - with Barry himself taking a sharp turn with intent of striking again after turning back - not even letting Darkseid recover before slamming into him again. And then again. Then about two more times, before Darkseid finally had just enough seconds to hold the chaos emerald into the air, and let out but two words:

"Chaos Control!"

Within an instant a green flash came from the emerald, and Barry was stunned. Just before he slammed his fist into Darkseid, he was practically frozen in place. As though time itself around him had just suddenly stopped. What's worse, was that it did not stop for Darkseid. He was able to move around completely unaffected by whatever it was that the emerald had just done. Barry was fully at his mercy.

Then Darkseid jumped in the air, and roundhouse kicked Barry directly in the back of the head.

In an instant, Barry was snapped out of whatever stopping of time he was a part of - though he felt every bit of the hard slam to the back of his head. It immediately brought back both the flash of purple vision for a few more seconds as well as the splitting migraine - making Barry hold his head in pain for a few moments before standing back up and looking at where Darkseid was standing. Except once he did so, there was no Darkseid at all. Instead, there was only a certain black furred Hedgehog, holding the green chaos emerald and holding a strong battle stance while not removing his eyes from Barry for a single second.

He had located Shadow.

Zatanna and Victor were 'gone' as well. In their place was a deactivated, bulky robot that sported colors of red, gold and black though was covered in exuberant amounts of dust. Not a single ounce of flesh present on the machine. Zatanna was 'replaced' by a 3-4 foot tall literal bat woman, that is to say a woman with the ears of a bat, wings sprouting from her back, and a black latex outfit with pink 'hearts' on her boots and chest. As well as lipstick. She seemed just as battle ready as Shadow himself.

Nope, this timeline is still crazy weird to me.

But no time to think about that, I'm in the middle of a fight, focus Barry! Focus!

Barry gazed at his opponent with a glare in his eye, trying to get a good read of him. Judging by the look in Shadow's eyes and on his face, he was doing much the same. The look in Shadow's eyes especially was familiar to Barry. It was almost as though Shadow knew one hundred percent what was doing, or was planning on what to do for his next move. Or perhaps even both. Yet again did a chill run down Barry's spine.

I'm getting a lot of Batman vibes from his voice already, I hope he's more like Bruce and not like Thomas...

It didn't take very long for both to figure out that the two of them were both waiting for the other to attempt the next strike. Remembering what Mephiles had said of Shadow in his briefing, Barry did not want to underestimate him any more than he already had. Shadow, for his part, seemed not the type to underestimate an opponent either - especially one that's already gotten a few surprise hits on him.

Rather than a direct strike, Barry decided to instead at least get some confirmation to what he technically already knew:

"Shadow? Shadow the Hedgehog?"

Shadow grunted in response, not saying a single word. His only response was a nod, confirming that Barry's assumption was correct. Without removing his eye contact, Barry responded:

"Well alright then."

Barry wasted no further time in engaging in battle with the so-called 'ultimate lifeform' - though he dared not get too close. Instead he used his arms and rapidly twirled them around, using his sheer speed to create two large vortexes of wind - like tornadoes being generated from his very own body. The aim was to get Shadow to 'come' directly to him, though naturally quite a fair bit more than just Shadow was hurled around.

The bat girl herself had to extend her wings and visibly struggled not to get sucked into Barry's swirling spirals of fast moving wind, though the moment she had almost slipped and surrendered Shadow had swiftly managed to resist the wind enough to get her out of it's direct path, before letting himself fly towards Barry.

Barry had honestly thought he was ready to pull in the Hedgehog and and was prepared to strike him, though he didn't expect one thing:

"Chaos Spear!'

Suddenly, a bolt of yellow energy struck Barry directly in the chest - interrupting his whirlwinds and sending him onto the ground upon his back. For anyone without a fast acting healing factor, those burns would certainly sting. The 'spear' felt not too unlike Clark's heat rays or Victor's own energy weapons, though thankfully he was not incinerated.

Either way, soon Shadow had his foot on Barry's chest, standing atop him. Having Shadow's shoes step on a fresh and just healing burn made the Flash let out a bit of a hiss as he looked up at this enemy - the look of the light behind Shadow made the Hedgehog almost look like an eclipse before Barry's eyes, mostly darkened out with an aura of light behind him. Coupled with the look in his eyes, that glaring, unamused look that demanded answers as well as respect - it was a very familiar glare.

Hi Bruce…you've really shrunk, ya know that?

Shadow however, was not Bruce by any means:

"Identify yourself and state your business."

Still glaring at his opponent, Barry did at least give him enough respect to be technically correct:

"Me? Oh I'm nobody special, just the Flash."

Suddenly smirking, Barry used another one of his recently restored powers. Vibrating and ultra fast speeds he was able to soon enough make himself intangible. Caught off guard, Shadow's feet went from standing atop Barry's body to touching the ground, while Barry himself rolled to be directly beside Shadow - standing up before letting himself become entirely physical again. Before Shadow could strike him with a second chaos spear Barry made sure to take off at his fast speed again, intending to do another hit-and-run move on the Hedgehog.

However, Shadow was now onto him and used his own speed - revealing his shoes to indeed be 'rocket shoes' that allowed him to hover over the ground as though he was skating on it. He was actually able to skate practically just as fast as Barry could run - making himself into a formidable adversary for the human speedster as he had just performed his turn at the end of a ledge at the street and was on his way to make contact with Shadow once more.

Seeing his enemy barreling towards him at seemingly matching speed was not an expected sight, but the Flash was never one to back down from a challenge. He prepared for impact.

And then it was made.

Shadow and the Flash clashed. First they punched each other directly in the face - both grunting as contact with each other's skin was made. With the Flash using his sheer momentum and Shadow having natural super strength, both were sent flying back to either end of the street they were on - both of them just barely evading falling off into the pits of lava beneath them. For Barry, it felt as though Clark had just decked him square in the jaw. He was beginning to understand the meaning behind 'Ultimate Lifeform', and pondered…

I wonder if this guy has any equivalent of Kryptonite...if not, then Meph basically just sent me on a suicide mission…

Both Shadow and Barry wiped blood that had managed to come from their mouths from their punches, and immediately charged at each other again, all while the female bat watched. A black blur charging at a red blur was all she could really make out due to how fast the two were. She could see them constantly crashing repeatedly, slamming each other with their speed over and over - sending each other into the buildings around them as she watched, unable to match their speeds.

However, while Barry's strength was an illusion caused by his use of inertia and momentum, Shadow had both speed and strength, meaning every time it was his punches or kicks that strucke Barry - the latter took more damage than when it was the former getting struck. However, Barry's healing factor as well as ability to evade getting into a string of repeated strikes and properly strike back proved invaluable in avoiding defeat.

However, there was one major weakness that Barry had which he overlooked. At only three or perhaps four feet tall, Barry could hardly tell, Shadow was an easy target to miss and easily dodged the larger human man's punches and kicks more than he was struck by them. Adversely, Barry's larger size made him an easier target for Shadow to strike. Still, the Flash's endurance at the very least allowed him to compensate for this.

Barry could tell one thing, however:

Either the chaos emerald made me stronger and-or more durable, or this guy is holding back. Or both.

If it's both, then I really wish he was on my side.

The battle raged on for a few more moments. Shadow would stop in the air only to deliver chaos spears towards Barry, though the red blur would successfully dodged them, only be struck into the window of one of the street corner stores by Shadow curling into a ball and ramming directly into him, and then proceeding to ram into the Flash again by spinning in ball form along the ground like a homing bowling ball. It hurt just about as much, too.

Barry got up and managed to take things back out to the street outside however, and managed to successfully evade a surprise karate chop from Shadow, only to get kicked in the gut by the rodent's foot - yet again sent to the ground.

"I don't have time for this" Shadow remarked as he looked at Barry getting up again, with his bat companion descending from the air to be at his side. Keeping his eyes locked on Barry, Shadow continued to be ever demanding, "I suggest you give up and tell me who you are now, because I'm not going to entertain you much longer than I already have."

"Heh" Barry smirked as he readied his battle stance once more, "You really think it's gonna be that easy?"

"Very well."

One last time, Barry charged at Shadow with intent on a direct hit. However, pulling out the chaos emerald one more time Shadow was yet again able to freeze Barry in place with a swift use of chaos control.

The Flash could only watch as Shadow jumped into the air and kneed him directly in the jaw - breaking him out of the freezing as well as sending him into the air with strength akin to Barry's old timeline friend 'Clark'. Barry had little time to react before in a flash of green chaos energy, Shadow seemingly teleported directly above him, slamming his fists down on Barry's head and sending him barreling back down for the ground below - before Shadow appeared repeatedly in mid-air, teleporting in order to smack Barry around in the air with punches and kicks as though he were a ball on a pinball table. He fought with the strength of an irritated kryptonian, despite his size managing to effortlessly toss around the full grown human as though he were nothing.

The final hits came when Barry was again smacked upwards, and in quick succession back down to the ground - creating a sizable impact crater upon landing due to the sheer strength of Shadow's hit mixed with the momentum picked up by Barry as he fell.

Wanting to end this battle as quickly as possible, Shadow generated two flashing purple-blue spheres of chaos energy from his hands, and with perfect precision fired them as beams at Barry with only seconds needed to charge them. Barry braced himself for their impact - though that didn't stop the burning heat. It was though he had just been struck with Koriand'rs own energy attacks, though perhaps it was still more like Clark and Conner's eye beams. Either way, it was a searing heat of an energy blast - whatever chaos energy was, one fact remained true in that it burned.

Barry was grateful for his healing factor, though it could not heal that the wind had been successfully knocked out of him and there was no way that he was able to continue the fight. He had to concede defeat to Shadow, at least for now.

Shadow and his bat companion soon stood on the edge of the crater that was created by Barry's impact with the ground, watching as Barry struggled to stand up once more - though it was clear by his panting and huffing that he was not in any condition to continue the fight any longer. As much as he continued glaring at Shadow, who silently stared at him before asking him once more:

"I'll ask again, who are you and why are you here?"

After catching his breathe enough to speak, Barry replied:

"I said who I was, I'm the Flash. As for why I'm here, I'm here to stop you."

"Stop me from what?"

"Mephiles sent me, to stop you from destroying the world."

Hearing the dark one's name made both Shadow and his companion widen their eyes, looking to each other silently for a moment before turning back to Barry - Shadow with more angry look as all he said to Barry was a very blunt line of truth:

"Mephiles?"

Barry nodded.

"Considering it was him who sent me into this future, I can only assume he wanted you to kill me, sending you to do his dirty work. That, or he sent you on a suicide mission to serve as a distraction for me."

"Wha-what are you talking about?" Barry responded, approaching Shadow with minor bouts of stumbling, "The files, the articles, they talked about..."

"Whatever they said, I'm sure it was a lie!" the bat companion exclaimed, interrupting Barry could continue speaking. Her voice was young, though not that young. She was at least 18, or perhaps in her 20's -30's. "If you're putting your trust in Mephiles, then you must be seriously naive!"

"Hmph" Shadow huffed, crossing his arms. He agreed with his companion, though seemed to still be curious about what precisely the 'articles' said. Still, he did not question it further.

Barry was still reeling from his prior hallucinations and the battle itself, though seeing as how Shadow did not kill him in cold blood and while brutal did not seem to be truly bloodthirsty - at least not yet, he had good reason to believe Shadow to be more trustworthy than Mephiles. While Mephiles did see his powers restored, it did seem as though Shadow's side of things perfectly complemented Mephiles' own.

Still, there was a massive share of unanswered questions:

"Still, if you're not the destroyer of this timeline, of this world...what are you?"

Shadow closed his eyes for a few seconds, before opening them as he bluntly informed Barry of just who he was:

"I am Shadow the Hedgehog, the ultimate lifeform created to protect the planet earth as well as G.U.N.'s top elite agent operative."

"And I'm Rouge the Bat" the bat companion beside Shadow said in an almost flirtatious voice, "World renowned treasure hunter, and also a G.U.N. agent on the side."

Government Agents…great…

"And, well, as I said before, I'm the Flash" Barry said, to Shadow's continued silent suspicion, by now fully having put himself back together following the battle. "I'm really glad we're all acquainted with each other!" he then dashed to join Shadow and Rouge on the outside of the crater, "Now I do apologize for that attacking you thing, but if you don't mind, can you explain to me what the heck is going on?"

"From what me and Shadow found on a computer not that long ago" Rouge explained, "We've been sent 200 years into the future. As to how we encountered Mephiles in the first place, all you need to know is that it was on a mission and most of the details are classified, Honey".

"Yeah, I get it, your government agents."

"Hmph" Shadow almost rolled his eyes, though he kept distrustful eye contact with Barry.

"So basically" Barry responded as he was finally mentally placing all of the pieces together, "Mephiles sent all of us to this future, and then convinced me to go after you in order to kill you."

"It would seem so", Shadow nodded.

"And, where'd you get that emerald from?"

"From this future's version of my team member, E-123 'Omega'" Shadow explained, gesturing to the dust-covered robot, "And that's enough questions for now, we have work to do."

Shadow began to storm off at that point, with Rouge following him. While Shadow clearly could care less, Rouge at least turned back to Barry to say in a much more pleasant tone of voice:

"Don't mind him, it's just always business with that one."

"Oh, I can get used to that kind of attitude no problem."

Rouge chuckled, Shadow grumbled, though let the two continue speaking - he wasn't that much of a jerk.

"You might want to tag along with us too" Rouge continued to say, "Considering you probably wouldn't want to stay here longer than you have to."

Barry was quick to catch up to Shadow and Rouge as they traversed the hellish landscape of the destroyed city, this time together. Having companions managed to minimize the risk of Barry having further hallucinations - at least for the time being. Something about how familiar yet different Shadow and Rouge were managed to make him feel as though he were still in a timeline that he would consider recognizable.

He wasn't quite sure who precisely they reminded him of entirely, though he had some mental comparisons being made in his head.

Still, traversing the lifeless landscape of death, destruction and ruins even with two impromptu teammates still was quite a lonely endeavor. Jumping - or in Rouge's cases flying - from cliff of street to slowly sinking building onto another cliff of street or slowly melting segment of highway with only the ambience of fire as background noise persisted to make Barry long for a return to the present, even the war against Apokolips had a more hopeful outcome for earth than this. As Barry realized that the two were leading him to the outskirts of the city where things looked less like the ruins of a civilization and more like a genuine hellish dimension, he decided to ask at least a few more questions:

"So, quick question, but you guys do know where you're headed to, right?"

"Yes" Shadow replied as the three were dashing along a long enough stretch of highway to warrant actually running along it - Rouge's flight miraculously managed to keep up with the other two as Shadow explained, "Sonic, Tails and Knuckles were sent here by Eggman. They're waiting for us in the outskirts of the city."

"Wow, wonder how that happened…"

"Hmph"

"And one more question?" Barry asked, with Shadow silently looking back at him again curiously, "Were you holding back against me back there? Or what? I never thought a Hedgehog would be able to hit that hard."

"You're lucky that I was."

Barry did not know what to say in response to that, and so just continued following Shadow and Rouge silently, heading for the outskirts of the city. Watching the skyline of destroyed buildings become replaced by a skyline of black volcanoes - and what light there was in this nightmarish world continued to grow dimmer the further the three were from the city.

Hopefully we'll get out of here soon…

And I definitely have some words for Mephiles next time I see him…

[inexchangeforyoursoul]

I’ve had some dreams since the new year started so I better write ‘em up before I forget :P

In the first one (that was also on the first I think) I had some kind of small computer on me... kinda shaped like that Rotom pokédex. Anyway, it detected errors of some kind? Or plot holes in a script maybe? It was black and the also dark display had green text appear on it. That’s all I can remember tho.... #debugging2018

Then there was a scene in our yard; dunno about the details anymore, but the cherry tree in it died and you could pull the bark and inner parts apart like.... hmmm... like bone marrow and bone, is the best comparison I have. I also caught two lizards in our garden, it might have been part of this dream. The second one glittered all golden, and once I held it and looked at it, it had about 6-8 small fins instead of legs on its sides! Was really pretty. I released it afterwards.

Then there was some dream where the only detail I remember was that mom already died, like, probably way back. I think that’s about all there is to it by now... actually, no, I also remember travelling around my old dormitory in Budapest in that one. It’s late fall or winter, I’m at a bus stop at one point.

Then I was late for my, uh... degree awarding ceremony once. (Is that what you call it? I’m a few months early to worry about that lmao, anyway, that dream is from the 4th, before I traveled up to take 2 exams.) I’m positive I was in the dream iteration of the hill with the many vinyards around my father’s place. Which means it looked much more pleasant than it is. I’m p sure my subconscious is molding it together with my short time on my grandpa’s plot, where you could actually see a lot of various flowers planted around. It was oddly close to where I was supposed to go in town, and there were trams. Obviously, I took the wrong one. The settlement looked more like my home town, however, the street was a lot like Sycamore Row with the plants it was named after. I eventually did reach the building, it kinda was a mix of the place we went to for St. Nicholas’ day and my elementary school, there even were those low benches that had seen a lot of wear. Before I could actually catch up to the others after changing(?), I woke.

Then, two days ago on the 7th, I was dreaming of some Egyptian tomb, at least that’s where my memories start... someone killed a dude, and another vaguely pyramid head looking guy got gutted with a longish knife. After the killer hid the stuff happening bahind a blanket, for some reason. The staircase behind them however was already school building-y, and the scene turned into the university building I’m in a lot nowadays. Turning back and removing the blanket, the guy himself is gome and the guts are all shriveled up; there’s a small machine attached to one of the organs, like... a way too oversized pacemaker. That looks like a transformator tbh. Anyway, next thing I know some of me fellow students are there, the first one of them is Adam, and for whatever fucking reason the things on the floor are “his”, and he’s slowly dying on me because his heart stopped and his organs don1t het oxygen anymore. He starts turning purple and all that; spots on his hands and around his mouth, then there’s a cartoony deadness-level also appearing on his head, slowly crawlying up his face. As is customary in dreams, you turn around once and he’s another person, this time Matthew, another student. It was fine watching him/them die and just talk about shit until the friends of his arrived who were all emotional and shit and dream-me caught up tobeing like that soon enough, too. It’s all as if he would have died soon anyway, because he has two sweaters, one for greeting 2018 alive, and one for 2019. (wow I jsut realized how close 2020 is... geez). Anyway, then the next and last thing is that me and the girls are miffed about the staff removing the fuckign coffee machine. (Let’s be honest, the whiplash here is hilarious.)

And today on the 9th... it was a brief one... I remember walking around in the dark, talking to some kids about ghosts and such... then I walk into a house. I’m a maid or something? Maybe? Either way, apart from the one room I start in, everything is fucking dark and creepy, only the lights from outside show the way... you can basically feel the amnesia dude on your back all the time. And all the walls are covered in switches that don’t work. Like, fuck me, right? Needle in the haystack... then the owner dude arrives, and I look for a toilet. Guess I had to go already irl, anyway, there are none and I walk out of the building to some park that also has none. The place has small-ish buildings themed from all around the world, I remember a castle and a Japanese pagoda + shop. It was Japanese because there were geishas painted on it, okay? Okay. Anyway, I make my way back through the street and my system doesn’t really keep any other info, I wake up shortly.

(The street view itself reminds me of another dream I had, from around summer... it was Christmas at a university that I positively never attended before. There was some kind of gifting among the students near the enthrance inside, and a big-ass tree next to the staircase. I go outside; it’s already dark in a big, dirty city and there's snow. I walk along the street, looking for someone. There’s a bridge I cannot cross. The sun rises with some orange-ish hues beyond the bridge and the city centre, it’s relatively cloudy.)

(The previous one also made me remember another recent dream, from last year. I was with, like, a class, but the teachers were the uni professors. We walk deeper and deeper inside in a wannabe-tournament, kind of like the running race from Boku no Hero. I get a regular old gun for hunting with who knows what kind of bullets to shoot at anyone when I come in among the first people in one stage of the race. The gun doesn’t work and I give it back to the dude who handed it to me; I go after them and enter a very Bloodborne-y part of the building. It looks like underground stables, I think thre’s also cows. Since I see noone, I decide to go back and I run into Jeb, our American teach. He leads me to an elevator to lead me out, but does not join me and just sends it down instead of up. As the thing opens a lot of people try to get in; they press some floor up, but the thing goes down again. The mild panic of the people gets contagious at this point ngl- everyone is obviously trying to get up. The next stop is some elementary school place- I follow a teacher to show us the way, but it’s just a dumb joke she draws on the chalkboard. I laugh and get back to the elevator, but take the stairs next to it instead, because fuck this, and I’m gonna get so fucking fit anyways. Except it only takes one floor to get back... I’m at the main entrance with the receptionist. Turns out the entire fucking building is, like, cursed or haunted or whatever. Jeb was just some ghost or something taking up his appearance, and the panicking people around the elevator are more lost students who have been erring around since god knows when. I see the worried professors sitting around near an office and ask them for how long we’ve been gone. Idk what they answer tbh... after a bit more erring around trying to fix things I wake up.)

[nztdream]

On Sunday 13 August 2017 I had a dream.

So exactly what was the dream about?

I’ve got no clue to be honest. At one point it became my point of view and I’m me? But at the start I was actually some other person, and then at another scene I was a man? If I remember my dreams, it always turns out weird.

The whole dream was actually a zombie, undead, virus apocalypse kinda dream. It is probably the first time I’ve dreamt about a zombie apocalypse even though back in my teen days, I’ve watched countless zombie and survival themed shows and games thanks to pewdiepie.

Anyway, I didn’t really remember the start of my dream but I guess I was someone in a group, trying to escape from a building. I remember vaguely being separated from a bigger group because there was some sort of flood or rain or something and my smaller group were thinking about whether or not to just cross the huge flood but were scared that maybe the zombies or whatever creatures might just emerge and we’d die. We also had thoughts on whether or not we should turn back and go through whatever we’ve avoided back there (which I don’t remember but I assumed it’s bad). Apparently, somebody was carrying a huge light just like those studio lights we have in pose@moberly. It looks exactly like one and ‘feels’ like one because I remember the hook thing at the top but it ‘felt’ lighter than ours because I could carry it for a long time. And yeah it seemed like I knew what I was doing and I asked whichever dude to bring out the light (from his bag, looks like the one from moberly too) and I pointed the light to the water and switched it on and off consecutively. Just like a blinking light at the zebra crossing lmao. I don’t even know how it got powered in the first place. I mean the place is flooded and it’s a zombie apocalypse so how in the world did we even find the power socket?

I don’t even know why I did it but in my dream I have a fuzzy memory of someone saying something like “to draw out the creature” or “attract it” but then nothing came? And the water just drained away after who knows how long? And at one point I was thinking to myself “it was all for nothing” hahhahha well, the water reached knee height but we still decided to wait on until it was like puddle height and the journey to escape the building continued. I also remember somebody said something like “see there’s nothing after all” LOL.

What happened after was very indistinct but at one point everyone was rushing down a set of old wooden staircase like as if they were used for construction and every step was very rickety so we (at this point I still don’t know the people I’m with or even the number of people I’m with) went down the steps slowly. There were people who didn’t care much and just rushed down the stairs so you could actually feel the whole structure shaking and going up and down and I could feel my stomach churning. The reason as to why everyone was rushing, I assume, is because there was an army troop who came to save(?) the people in the building.

“To the west wing” or was it “west side” or was it “west area” I can’t really remember but it was somewhere between those lines. And I also recall looking out the window to see tanks and army lorries. However, by the time we reached the 2nd storey, we heard loud screams and gunshots (this probably did not take place in Singapore and I am probably not me) and people getting attacked by zombies and turning into zombies that instance. Scary. We ran back up as fast as we can and heck the whole structure of the staircase truly felt like it was barely hanging on and I could actually see and feel the debris falling so by the time we reached the 3rd floor, me and two other people didn’t give a damn and just jumped and grabbed onto some wooden plank that was covering the access to the third floor and the whole flight of stairs collapsed behind us. We were saying something like we were so close to the next floor which is probably the floor we were supposed to go to I guess.

From here on it became fuzzy again, I do remember the coast of the 3rd floor being fairly clear and we just had to carefully make our way to the floor above us. At some point we met a lady soldier, almost like the one in World War Z and I was led to someplace where other people were held up at. It looked like a dormitory because I remember the beds and I assume this was all still happening in the same building. I never described the building before but it did have a hospital feel to it but I’m not too sure if it was really one. Remember the two other people I was with? Yeah I don’t even know what happened to them or how we got separated. I was told to, or more like forced to, stay in one room with two other people who seemed more relaxed or like they’ve given up? Immediately after I was placed in the room, I decided to eavesdrop on the conversation among the army women (for some reason all the soldiers were female). And yeap as cliche and typical as it is, the troop is actually planning on abandoning the building including everyone there and leaving first thing tomorrow morning. But the character in my dream was pretty disbelieved even after the other two people in the room said they already knew it and couldn’t care less where the army troop will go. And I was all like wtf they can’t do that to you, what about all the people here blah blah blah like as if we can’t live without their help. But I was still persistent and I knocked on the door so the World War Z lady opened it and I asked her if it was all true and yea it was and we were whispering and all and she was like “I’ll do what I can to ???” it’s really vague but I assume she was gunna leave us more food rations to keep ourselves alive?

I was like damn depressed and at a lost and stuff? And the three of us—me, some other girl and a dude—started conversing and it seemed like the both of them had been held up in the dorms for a long time and actually knew the place better than I did, including those around the building and how to get to some place I mentioned. Apparently, the character I am in my dream had somewhere to go, but for what reason I’m not too sure. And like I didn’t know how to get there and that the only way I know was blocked and the dude was like “but she knows” referring to the other girl and I was like ????? and they were like surprised and questioned “how long have you been in here” and I was more ????? and was like “how much has it changed outside” and the girl went ahead to explain some route to me and I was “ohhhhhh!” like as if I knew but I guess I really knew. It seemed as if I was in the building long enough for buildings to be constructed and roads to be built. How is that even possible? Did I wake up from a coma in the middle of the apocalypse? It might actually be a possibility hmm 🤔Everything was really vague but they did mention that the route was overrun by zombies and that the only way to get through was to cover myself with zombie guts. Just like in walking dead! And next thing I knew, I was walking among the dead.

I think at this point I may have woken up? I did wake up like twice and went back to the same/similar dream. Oh boy, lately it has been raining in the morning so the weather has been pretty cold. I'm loving the weather but it can get kinda creepy and chilly especially when I'm getting these kinda dreams and then writing about them.

So the next part of my dream that I can recall wasn’t exactly from my point of view? It seems as if I was watching television but I was actually at the scene itself, so I guess you can say my soul was at the scene? The scene took place in a mall that seemed a bit run-down and was already overrun by zombies. But for some reason, a clinic was still in operation and there were a lot of people held-up in there. The clinic was definitely not on the ground level, I’d say the 2nd or 3rd? There were glass doors protecting the people from the outside but the level seemed clear of zombies. There was still electricity running and the patients still needed to take a queue number in order to meet the doctor LOL. However, the main character, a man in a black suit, was unable to get a queue number. Assuming that since he didn’t have money or didn’t have a reason to be there, the lady at the desk couldn’t give him one. At that moment my soul was questioning things like “is he gunna tell the doctor how to camouflage from zombies”. So i just assumed he wanted to meet the doctor to talk to him.

Days or even weeks passed and the next scene was of the doctor, the nurses and the front desk lady looking through the security cameras and discussing that the guy in the black suit has been there for days. Things got very vague from here on but I do remember the doctor checking all the patients till he’s the very last one and that they had to escape from the place for some reason but they wouldn’t know how. And I’m wondering how the patients who got checked up, left in the first place lmao. I remember the mall becoming dark so I assume the electricity wasn’t running anymore which was why the staff had to escape the building? This was when I was in the man’s point of view and I was saying something like “bring out the lab coats” to use as zombie gut covered coat for us. So that we can camouflage from the zombies and walk pass them. The staff sure had doubts but the doctor ordered them to bring out the lab coats anyway and I volunteered to take down a zombie body. I remember passing the lab coats around and putting it on but I don’t remember what happened after that LOL. How anti-climatic. Oh I do in-distinctively remember climbing out a window? What did I do that for?

Perhaps this was when I woke up yet again? And when I went back to sleep I was truly me but unfortunately, still in a zombie apocalypse. The scene took place at home where our family has decided to stay at. My brothers and I are the ones who collect loots and do the grocery shopping LOL. It seemed like I used the knowledge I gained about camouflaging through zombies from my past dreams? and made use of the technique in this dream. And guess what mall we go to, it is none other than the mall with the clinic lmao. There’s really nothing that looks like that mall anywhere near my house and the route that I used to get there was the one that I learnt from my first dream? So somehow everything linked? Apparently my go to camouflage coat is the Team SP jacket, the black one with neon green zipper and yellow wordings. It had a hood so I could smear zombie gut on it without getting any on my hair I guess. We needed clothes as well? And my brother was saying something like if we don’t get the right one we can always make a trip back to the mall and I was all glum and salty and saying “that is if we ever got back home alive”. Wow Zaf. My mom and I were discussing something about her wanting some Uniqlo pants? When in real life she doesn’t even use any Uniqlo stuff, so how in the world would she know about Uniqlo pants. But right before we left... I might have woken up hahhaha.