#threading // maggie | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nightmaretist · 3 months ago

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TIMING: Current LOCATION: Maggie's mind and bedroom PARTIES: Maggie @woveninstardust and Inge @nightmaretist SUMMARY: An enthralled Inge feeds off Maggie. CONTENT: Mentions of child death (past)

Since the Wisp Incident, as she had taken to calling it, Maggie had not slept. Well… maybe that was a bit of a hyperbole. She’d slept. At the kitchen table, or behind the counter at Periwinkle’s Paint, or on the couch when the sun was up… But sleeping at night? When the world was just as dark as the Allgood Death Pit? She might doze for a moment or two only to feel herself jerk awake to kick some phantom hand away.

It was all in her head. She knew that much. But that knowledge didn’t stop her from dreading the nighttime hours, when the world was quiet, when she was alone… Maggie was leaving her light on like she was five again. Her parents wouldn’t worry. It was easy to pretend that she was simply ‘up late’. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for her to work into the small hours when things were good. And they didn’t know about the Death Pit, they didn’t know about that night when Isa had pulled her from an untimely demise…

She wasn’t sure how late it was when her eyelids finally started to droop. Late was a time. It was the time opposite of Morning, the opposite of Daylight. Sprawled across her bed with her notebooks and pens, the girl promised herself that she would only close her eyes for two seconds. But two seconds was enough to send her sinking into the deep dark of sleep, too tired to wrench her eyes back open.

—

It was rare for her to be this hungry. Inge was an indulgent mare, feeding at least every other night if not every, ensuring that she was always at her strongest and that there was a slim chance that she’d be caught in a weak position. But something else had taken priority, now. Every night she stood watch over her Debbie, gliding in the astral above it or resting next to it to make sure no harm would come to it.

But she was starving now. Starving and in need of a new sleeper in her roster. The lamia was proving to be at the end of his rope, if not a risk, and Inge had no intention of creating another one like her. If she was to feed herself now, starved as she was, she’d have to find someone else. A human, this time, she hoped. A human without hunter strength or necromancy abilities. She picked as carefully as she could as she traversed the astral, finally descending in the room of a young woman who had finally fallen asleep.

She took an indulgent moment to scan her notebooks, eyes taking in the drawings and forming opinions she’d never voice. They were good, these sketches of monsters and cryptids. Done by a skillful hand combined with a bright mind. Inge felt emboldened by the sight, as her nightmares were a source of inspiration she did not mind sharing. Maybe in a few weeks time the notebooks would be filled with the things she had put into the young woman’s head, her hands fervently moving to put down onto paper the things she had dreamed of.

Yes, she was perfect.

She got into a comfortable position near the other’s nightstand and made contact, ensuring the other stayed asleep. And so the scene opened — her sleeper would wake in a maze, the moon shining down with a soft, reddish glow. Something skittered in the bushes, and if she were to look over her shoulder, she’d see something pulse on the ground and no exit at all.

—

It was strange to dream of something that was not the pit.

The image of that gaping hole in the ground where light seemed to die had been so imprinted in her mind that Maggie did not think it was possible that she could dream of anything else. And yet, the scene that unfolded was not of the Allgood Death Pit, but rather, a maze. What should have been green bushes cast almost silvery in the soft moonlight was red. The moon, the clouds, red, like some great piercing eye of an ancient beast beholding the world below.

And yet, somehow, she was grateful that the foreboding image that filled her mind was not the Pit. It was a relief to find any sort of reprieve from that.

Something moved behind her, the telltale hush of leaves and branches giving its presence away. Maggie didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to know. It would be so much easier if she could simply force herself awake and avoid the unpleasantness of her own dreams. But her gaze shifted back, back, back towards the origin of the sound. There was no exit behind her. A dead end, with bushes higher than she could hope to climb, thicker than she could try to escape. And something. It moved rhythmically, thrumming there amidst the shadows of the maze and the hazy red glow of the moon.

She really needed to start drinking more energy drinks…

—

She was not yet present in the maze herself — Inge was hesitant to put her face in the dream at this point, wanted to see how the sleeper would and could feed her before delving in too deep. So she was the maze, the sky above, the person behind the scenes making leaves rustle with the sound of skittering insect feet. These were all cheap tricks, to make a place filled with things that could be heard, not seen. At least she was not pulling out her birds tonight.

A gush of cold wind pushed her dreamer forward and so forward she moved, Inge’s control over the dream sometimes even extending to those that were asleep as she burrowed into their subconscious. Though the maze was closed at the end, the other still had to get out — and so after the gust of wind something burst from the bushes.

It was a monster, because of course it was — and Inge allowed the subconscious to fill some of the blanks as she pulled inspiration from the sketchbooks she’d looked over earlier. The monster looked worm-like, but clawed hands still protruded from its fleshy body, teeth bared as it slithered forward.

—

Though her feet stumbled forward, Maggie kept looking back. There was something behind her. She could feel those eyes watching her with dagger-sharp intent. There was a moment where the world felt frozen and her breath felt trapped in her chest. And then, bursting through the foliage, the creature emerged.

Maggie shouldn’t have wanted to draw it, but she did. It wasn’t smart to look at something with fangs and claws slithering at you like you were about to be its breakfast and wish for a pencil and paper. The correct first thought should have been run. Not what colors could I use to shade the strange mottled flesh of the worm-like monstrosity that had been spun up in a dreamscape. But it snarled. Beady eyes were wholly focused on her as it made its strangely serpentine approach.

Run. Wisdom spoken in her sister’s voice filled her thoughts. Don’t be stupid, run. But dreams were not things one needed to run away from… She tried to will herself to stay still. However, the closer the creature drew to her, the more she wanted to flee deeper into the dark of the maze. One step. Two stumbling steps. And then she was running. As far and as fast as her legs could take her. As far away from whatever it was her mind had conjured to haunt her.

—

She was brave, this dreamer. Inge liked that. It was so easy when those she fed on were scared without much push, when it took barely anything for them to become afraid. It left no challenge. It required little inspiration or artistry. But this young woman, she stood and took in the horrors displayed to her. Eventually she ran, because everyone did — but still. She was appreciative.

For a moment she wondered if Debbie would ever be so brave. The thought of her, all grown and brave enough to face the things that scared her while knowing how to run sneaked in and it took over. The sleeper ran but the monster that was chasing her transformed into the Bristlecat pup, crawling over the ground the way a baby might.

Inge watched her darling child move after the girl, making to scare her just as the large monster had done. Maybe she’d grow up to become a thing people feared — that was even better than being fearless. She watched her version of Debbie chase the sleeper, and was completely blinded to the fact that she was not that scary, not really.

—

Wake up wake up wake up- the words were a chant, repeating over and over in the poor girl’s mind with no effect. Sleep and the unfortunate dream had a fast hold on her. It was a dream! Just a dream, but the sting of fear still pierced through her all the same. Maggie’s legs propelled her forward into the crimson-cast maze. It was only when she cast a quick glance backwards that she noticed the beastly thing that had burst forth from the bushes was now… significantly less scary.

Smaller. It was smaller. More of a large, hairy caterpillar than a fleshy sandworm monster. It was almost cute, the way it crawled after her. Almost. But it made Maggie stop in her tracks all the same, utterly distracted by the new form of the creature. She could draw this, she thought to herself. If she woke up, she could make this creature anew on the pages of her journal.

But that required waking up. Something she could not do. And despite the transformation of the creature chasing her, the well of fear in the pit of her stomach was still there, threatening to pull her back in.

—

The nutritious value of the dream ebbed as her sleeper realized that the monster chasing her had been turned into the perfect little baby. Inge didn’t mind, though — all her attention was on this world, in the astral plane, where Debbie also existed. Her own need for nutrition was not as important as cooing over her darling child. So why the other just stood there, not stepping in to look after the caterpillar like creature was beyond her.

So she, too, appeared in the dream. Not in any scary form, but just as herself — dressed in the exact same clothes her earthly body wore on the other plane. Inge walked up to Deborah and ran a hand through her bristles. “If you’re hungry you can eat her,” she said, loud enough for the other to hear.

She was a hungry baby, much more than Vera had been. Inge was thrilled by it: it was easy to be a mother when all you had to do was supply food. Even if that food was human bodies. She looked up at the dreamer. “She’s short but she’ll be very nutritious!”

There was a lady now. A lady with red eyes and a vaguely menacing presence… cooing over the caterpillar thing like it was the sweetest baby in all the land. The creature seemed contented with the woman’s presence, inching along down the darkened path, in her general direction. What the fuck even was this dream? Weren’t you only supposed to see the faces of people you’d met in dreams?? Maggie blinked, utterly perplexed by the scene.

Lady, that thing is not big enough to eat me… The girl eyed the creature worming along. What the hell was she even on about? It didn’t stop Maggie from backing away. It was entirely possible that the crazy dream lady would try to murder her to feed to her weird worm child, and dying in her dreams was not high on her dream priority list. Besides, she’d died enough in her dreams recently. The last thing she needed was for Isa to be woken up by her screaming bloody murder about ‘don’t kill me please’.

“I’M NOT SHORT!” The words were tossed over her shoulder as she continued through the maze, turning around every corner she could find. Really, it probably wasn’t the thing to be focusing on at that moment. But Maggie wasn’t short! She wasn’t! “I’M A COMPLETELY AVERAGE HEIGHT! AND I TASTE TERRIBLE!” The last part had been thrown in as a last ditch effort to persuade the creature that attempting to eat her would be a terrible experience.

The sleeper was running from her and Debbie and that simply would not do. Her child needed sustenance, that was all Inge knew to be true, and so she barely paid any mind to the short sleeper’s protests about her height and in stead turned the ground into a landslide so she’d be forced back to them. Maybe Deborah did not need to eat on this plane of existence, but Inge would not risk starving her darling child.

She tumbled towards her along with rock and dirt and Inge pulled Debbie along with her, kneeling at the dreamer. “You are below average height,” she cooed to her, “But it’s okay, Debbie is still growing.” It was an honor to be made into her child’s food. Inge would offer her own limbs if she had to and if she could, but her flesh offered no sustenance at all. Luckily there were plenty of humans left in town.

The worm-like child moved towards the dreamer, curious as a babe and as hungry as she could get. “And I am sure you’re delicious.”

Maggie REALLY didn’t like this dream. The earth beneath her feet gave way and sent her careening down a path of rock and dirt. Wake up, stupid, wake UP! She wanted to scream herself awake. The red-eyed woman in her imagination that controlled her dream like a puppet master knelt down beside her, like she believed that Maggie would simply give up. Those eyes that pierced through the dark like embers looked on at the inching creature known as Debbie with adoration.

Nope. Hell no. She was not going to lay there in the dream dirt and let the dream crazy lady feed her to her weird dream worm monster baby. Yes, it’d be a great thing for her to draw in the morning, but she certainly did not want to dream herself being eaten. Scrambling against dirt and gravel, Maggie tried to get to her feet, moving away from the evil pair. Even in her dream, she didn’t want to hurt the creature. It wasn’t Debbie’s fault her brain had conjured her. And while kicking the creature as hard and far as she could and running until she woke up would probably be the easiest solution, it still felt wrong.

“Nope! I taste terrible! I’m poisonous to creatures like Debbie, and you wouldn’t want to kill her, would you? You seem like a good… mom…”

It would have been so easy to raise Vera if she had lived only on this plane. It would just be easier, if Inge had this amount of control in her life: if she could halt people by making the earth turn under their feet or fling them away like a speck of dust. She watched the young sleeper struggle and she would make her incapable of moving altogether if she had to. Debbie had a complex diet, but parenthood required sacrifice.

And of course, this Debbie was not real, but the way the creature had enthralled the mare seemed to persist even if someone else's dreams. So when the dreamer seemed to insinuate that Inge was a bad mother she seemed to blaze with what she considered righteous fury, eyes lighting up even more bright red, teeth growing in furious size.

“I'm a great mother,” she snarled, arms wrapping around her caterpillar-like, bristled child. “And you are exactly what she likes. Young, fresh, human meat.” Much too mouthy, though. Worry swirled in her stomach, but she knew humans said whatever they had to to survive. She did, too. “C'mon, Deb,” she cooed, pushing her daughter forward, eyes still blazing at the stranger. “Open wide.” The caterpillar opened her round, toothy mouth, never complaining about the food she was served.

No no no no

It was a dream! It was all a dream. Because going into a spooky maze at night when the moon was red was a terrible and stupid idea that she wouldn’t do… at least, not alone. When Maggie tried to stand, the dirt slid under her feet and she kept falling back down. She didn’t want to die. Maggie had died in every dream she’d had for months. Usually by falling to her death while staring up, Isa reaching out to try and reach her while she disappeared further and further down the Allgood Death Pit. Death in a dream by murderous caterpillar somehow was worse. Specifically from the teeth…

“Nononononono…” She just wanted to wake up, wake up, WAKEUPWAKEUPWAKEUP-

In the real world, she was screaming. In the real world, she was crying out in her sleep, pleading to a stranger in the shadows not to kill her, not to eat her, to leave her alone. But Maggie didn’t know that. In fact, she was starting to worry that the dream was real. That this was it. That the caterpillar that sank its teeth into her while the woman with the ember eyes watched, delighted in her suffering. The moment the creature bit into her, a blood-curdling shriek pierced the air- and the girl no longer knew if she was dreaming. __

It hardly mattered to Inge that the dreamer's fear was feeding her. She'd forgotten about her own needs in the face of Debbie's urges, even if this version of her was part of her own subconscious (and, by extent, that of the sleeping girl). Still, it was a good thing that the nightmare was successful in achieving its goals: scaring the person who was experiencing it. It was perfect, that Debbie had such horrifying urges.

And Debbie was such a wonderfully easy eater! Inge did not have to trick her by pretending the other was an airplane and making it fly to her mouth. She simply ate all by herself, not needing any coddling. She was a good mother. “Goed zo meisje,” she said, hands getting lost in the bristles as she stroked her daughter's back. Soon, she'd have to make her burp to make sure everything was alright in her tummy, though Debbie seemed to have no aches there. She really was the perfect child. So much easier than Vera ever had been.

The source of food for both mother and daughter was screaming and it was only because she knew Debbie didn't mind that she didn't make her stop. Inge let her eat, though she was kind enough to let the dream fade into dark obscurity when she reached the other's face.

She swore she could feel the teeth digging into her skin, ripping flesh and tendon and bone into a meal for a monster. Maggie tried to convince herself of a scientific reason- that she was probably laying on some part of her body in some strange manner that sent pins-and-needles into the limb, and when she woke it would all vanish. But that didn’t change the fact that it felt real. It felt so disgustingly, awfully real, trapped in the dream playing out in her mind.

There was no fighting the creature. Every attempt at escape was thwarted by the world around her. She writhed in pain as she listened to the creature devour and the red-eyed woman that called the thing her child cooed her words of encouragement. And slowly, slowly, the dream faded away into nothingness. Into void.

When her eyes finally opened and Maggie lurched into the waking world once more, she could hardly breathe. Her throat was hoarse, aching from screams that had pleaded for escape from her own mind. The apartment was silent. Crickets chirped in the cool of the summer evening, her window cracked ever so slightly to let the breeze in. In the distance, thunder rolled like a distant omen. Isa was evidently not home, from the apparent lack of a confused and terrified sunglasses-wearing girl wielding whatever was nearest her bedside as a weapon in her room. Good… At least Isa could not worry about what she did not know. Without so much as another thought, she gathered herself and her blanket up, trudging down the hall to Isa’s empty room, to sit in waking safety until she was alone no longer.

The dream ended and Inge returned to the earthly plane, feeling a hollowness now that Debbie was no longer with her. She was aware that the Deborah in the dream had not been a true version of her, but she had been as lovable, as deserving of her care and nurture. She didn’t spend much time in the still-sleeping dreamer, though, giving one more glance to her notebooks before going back into the astral.

There was only one place she wanted to be now, and that was with Debbie. As Inge traversed to her darling child at Anita and Metzli’s home, she wondered if she should have taken at least a hand or foot from the dreamer for Deborah, but now that she was on her way, she found it hard to turn around. She just wanted to see her, to check in on her needs.

The fact that she’d successfully satiated her own needs or that she had given an innocent sleeper a nasty nightmare mattered little. Inge did not care about either of those: all that mattered was seeing Debbie again, and once she did, landing in the room designated to the caterpillar-esque creature, she felt at peace. This Deborah was real. This Deborah was loved. Whatever else happened, mattered not.

#threads.#maggie.#everyone's gotta eat.

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poisonousdelights · 8 months ago

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PARTIES: @poisonousdelights and @woveninstardust TIME: Second week of March WHERE: Gatilin Fields and the surrounding area SUMMARY: It's the perfect night for a cryptid hunt with the fog rolling in and Maggie and Isa decide to take advantage. What happens when Maggie finally gets to see a creature from her mother's stories? As it turns out, nothing good.

Foggy nights were always prime cryptid-hunting nights.

For some reason, there was so much lore in the town about fog and mist revealing the creatures that remained unseen, as if the watery weather washed away the veil that kept cryptids and monsters away from the average eye. Maggie had all but sprinted out the door the moment her shift at Periwinkle’s Paints ended, texting Isa as she went. Which brought her to now, trudging through muddy paths obscured in fog, peering through the dying light of the bleak winter day.

“I don’t know if we’re even gonna see anything…” Guilt tinged the tone of the girl’s voice as she turned to glance over at Isa. She’d already thrown an extra sweatshirt on her and wrapped her scarf around the other girl so she stayed warm. It wasn’t particularly chilly, but Isa seemed to get colder easier… and Maggie’d be damned if she let her freeze while following her into the middle of nowhere. But Isa seemed to be willing to follow Maggie on all her hair-brained adventures, no matter what the weather was. She was positive she didn’t deserve a friend as good as her. Positive that Isa deserved some nice, peaceful afternoon off, where she wasn’t doing stupid things in the middle of the woods. But Maggie loved her all the more for agreeing to spend a little time looking for things that the world said didn’t exist with her. “Half the stories Mom tells specify days like today, so…” Rocks skittered down the path as she scuffed her foot, making the mist swirl about.

“We can go watch a movie or something later- whatever you wanna do.” Oh, yeah… Isa deserved worlds better than her nonsense.

Some people probably wondered why Isa always went along with Maggie’s hunts for cryptids when she didn’t always believe in them herself. She would get those questions from almost everyone before she’d lost most people out of her life and she’d always said the same thing: “because I believe in Maggie”.

It was the simplest answer, the truest one as well. Even if she thought they would never find what they were looking for back then she wanted to be there for her friend, and wanted to support her in whatever she wanted out of life. It was still the same now but with the added bonus of wanting to keep Maggie safe from whatever else was out there. Plus, now that she knew the supernatural did exist she was certain that her friend’s belief in these creatures were warranted. Isabela wanted her to have that moment where she found one of the things that she adored so much.

Plus, she wasn’t that cold. She’d thought to bring a knit hat this time and her warmest jacket to go over the extra sweater that Maggie had given her when she got there. She’d just forgotten those damn gloves. “So, we’re not looking for anything in particular then?” Isa could recall a few of the cryptids that Maggie and her mother had talked about before enjoying these conditions but she wasn’t sure if there were other factors to be aware of. She almost wanted to let her eyes transform to see what heat she could find, maybe point out something and give her best friend exactly what she wanted.

She couldn’t do that though. It was too risky, especially at night. By the sound of Maggie’s voice, Isa could tell that she felt bad for bringing her out on another cryptid adventure. She didn’t want that, there was no need to feel bad. “You know, Maggie, this is fun on its own. It’s like we’re living in a movie.” And it certainly was. A snake beast best friends with a cryptid lover desperately trying to prove that they existed. It would do well in Hollywood. “Just tell me what to keep an eye out for.”

“Yeah, nothing in particular…” Her voice trailed off as she peered down through the swirling fog, trying to follow the path as best she could. It was strange how most of the stories Maggie knew had the detail of it being ‘foggy’ out. Wormy, for example, was almost exclusively seen on foggy days. And while it was strange weather for February, the girl would take advantage of every second of it. She didn’t get how Isa never tired of following her into the middle of nowhere, helping her look for things that the rest of town said didn’t exist. But when she looked at Isa, she didn’t see someone who was bored or frustrated. In the dying light of the day, obscured by the mist, Isa looked content, almost… Like she didn’t mind her current situation.

A piece of her knew her friend’s words were meant for comfort. But it didn’t make them any less accurate. Life in Wicked’s Rest was already like a movie or a tv show most days. With so many strange and spooky happenings, sometimes even Maggie felt like she was a character being written into the background of some TV show.

A tiny grin crept across her face, dark eyes twinkling in the twilight. “What’s the name of our movie, then? And who’s playing us, because-” Her voice dropped off suddenly. There had been something dancing there, just out of sight, glowing through the fog. A car… or one of those lamps people put on their bikes. But it didn’t move like one of those. And the color of that glowing light hadn't been right. She turned to face it, to seek it out once more, but it had vanished. Just like that. Maybe she was just imagining things…

“I… nevermind, I thought I saw something…”

The prospect of a little game to help pass the time, talking about who would play them, had Isa grinning with excitement. She was already scanning through names of actors until her friend stopped in the middle of her sentence. She tried to look where Maggie was looking but it was a little difficult to see exactly where she was looking with the stupid sunglasses over her eyes. “Wait, what did you see? Wormy?” Would Wormy be out here? It was the first cryptid that had popped into her head so she rolled with it. “Should I get the gummy worms?”

Excitement coursed through Isa at the very idea. Was this the night that Maggie proved the existence of a cryptid? Were the nights spent in the cold forests of Maine going to pay off? They were already worth it just for the time spent with her best friend but seeing the joy on Maggie’s face when whatever she saw turned out to be a creature she was looking for was going to make her life, that she was sure of.

Suddenly, she saw it too. After scanning the area for a few moments Isa saw the flash of bright lights ahead of them swirling through the mist as if they were putting on a show. They would dip below the fog to the ground and then surface again, twinkling like it was trying to catch her attention. It would have been seductive had it not been lights floating through the air. “Maggie…what is that?” Maybe it was seduction. Maybe something knew exactly what they were doing. Because at that moment, Isa knew that she wanted to follow whatever it was. They were calling to her, tugging at her still frame, enticing her to move toward them. “We should follow them…”

She was about to brush off having seen anything. An illusion of the dying light and the misty air and her own incessant need to find the seemingly unfindable. Isa’s words seemed a million miles away as Maggie stared into the mist, into the unknown. But then it was back. Like a star hovering above the ground, floating in a space just out of reach and growing smaller. She’d never seen anything like it. Her breath caught in her throat in a shallow gasp. “You see it too… You see it too, right, Is?” The words were so quiet that they were hardly audible, just a wisp of smoke rolling off her lips. But every soft syllable was threaded with excitement and hope she’d never felt before.

Her mother had told her stories of stars that fell out of the sky and hovered waiting for people to wish upon them. She’d told her stories of spirits that wanted to be followed. There were so many stories that coursed through her mind, that wove themselves into her memory, that were as much a part of her as she had wished to be a part of them. And now, for the first time, there was something there promising her that all the stories her mother had told her were true.

Maggie was moving without a second thought, feet trodding off the path and towards the mote of unknown light beckoning her onward. If Isa thought they should follow it, then who was Maggie to question it?

She wasn’t even sure what Maggie had asked her, the words too low to hear even if Isa wasn’t concentrating on the little orbs of light beckoning them over. Her eyes were glued to them but as soon as Maggie shot forward and she noticed the movement out of the corner of her eye she was moving just as swiftly, careful to be just a tad slower so that her friend had the opportunity to get there first. This was her moment, it was everything that Maggie had worked for. It’s what she deserved, right?

But didn’t Isa deserve it too? She’d been out in the forests with Maggie for years, trekking along after the girl to help her find whatever they could. Now that there was something there and the two of them were getting closer the lamia felt like she deserved the win just as much as Maggie did. The desire for these wisps, it was taking over the desire for her friend to have that moment and her feet started to move a little faster as her vision filled with nothing but the dancing light show that somehow kept getting further away no matter how far she ventured into the trees.

They were teasing her now, twinkling with amusement with every step that Isa took towards them only making her want them more. Why, she didn’t quite know. She almost wanted to take the sunglasses off to get a better look, to see if there was something about them that could tell her why she was so enamored. She was tempted, especially with them floating away, but mostly Isa just wanted to keep going, to get there quicker.

It was such a strange sensation. All at once, unbridled joy and curiosity flooded her senses, leaving Maggie lightheaded and utterly, ridiculously giddy. Real. The wisps were real. They were floating in the mist, beckoning her onward, glowing brighter in the dying light of day. A giggle erupted from her chest, unable to hold back her excitement any longer. “They’re real!!! Isa they’re really real!!!”

As she rushed about after the wisps, following their ever-glowing path, she hardly noticed herself being turned around. If the girl had stopped to think for even a moment, she might have realized her path had twisted. She might have realized that Isa was no longer just a hand's reach away, but was being pulled in her own direction by the will-o-wisps. She might have remembered the parts of her mother’s stories, the ones where the glowing creatures often led people to places where they ought not go…

They twinkled merrily, lighting her path through the mist. Nevermind that Maggie could hardly see where her next step would land. Nevermind that at all! Follow!, they seemed to whisper with each little blink. Come with us, come see!

The only thing she registered about Maggie’s words was how far away the girl sounded and when she did, Isa glanced over to her best friend to see she was being pulled in another direction. It didn’t strike her as odd even if it should have. Maybe they were meant to go in different directions. Maybe the lights wanted them to see different things and that was okay. She didn’t get to think about it any deeper than that as a wisp flew in front of her eyes and drew her attention back to the direction they were leading her, obviously wanting her to keep going further away from her friend.

And she followed without any protest.

It was an odd sensation. Not caring about being by Maggie’s side anymore, she kept her feet moving towards the woods that the wisps were leading her to, whispering nonsensical things low in her ear. After a moment the lamia realized they weren’t actually words being whispered but rather a dreamy little noise to keep her attention, to keep her mind on them and not on Maggie. She continued to go where they led but something was tugging at the back of her mind. Something wasn’t right about this, was it? Why wouldn’t these wisps want to show them the same things? Why would they want to separate them?

As the questions grew, so did the noise the balls of light were making to keep her attention on them. Her feet were still moving her forward but she could feel the desire for them pulling away from her mind the more she thought of Maggie like an anchor keeping her grounded. Where was she going? What were they trying to show her?

And why couldn’t she bring herself to turn around and go after her friend?

The orbs of light moved further back towards more fog as Isa continued to follow, but something was different about this mist. It stretched further off the ground than the white fog she and Maggie had noticed earlier and there was the hint of a red hue to it that made her a little nervous to keep going towards it. But she didn’t stop, the little sparkles inside combined with the wisps from before pulling her towards it all.

The wisps twinkled in the mist. Just as Maggie drew close enough to reach out and touch one, it would vanish and reappear further down the line. They were her only guide for which way to go. Had the soft whispers beckoning her forward not been there, perhaps a rational thought would have entered her mind. It didn’t do well to stray from the path, and when the world was obscured by mist and the growing dark of night, it was so very easy to end up headed in the wrong direction.

She could have sworn Isa was right behind her. Swore she could hear her footsteps a few feet away. Something in the girl’s gut knew that if she looked away from the motes of light for even a moment, they might disappear for good. Then the two of them might be lost in the dark, doomed to meander until the fog cleared or day found them. Those are footsteps you hear, her footsteps, trust she’s with you, keep going. For a moment, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was feeling how Orpheus must have felt when walking with Eurydice up from the Underworld. Just keep moving forward, don’t look back, trust she’s there.

Instead, Maggie turned her focus to trying to figure out where the wisps were guiding them. They’d started in the woods, closer to Mossthorn Forest. But time had lost her, the mist had turned her around, and the distance no longer made much sense. There weren’t so many trees here. The path had smoothed out, with only the occasional rock, well-trodden grass, and dirt underfoot. Were they in the Fields? What was out in the Fields? All she could do was keep walking, keep following, and find out.

How far away had these wisps taken her? Where was Maggie? The thoughts kept infiltrating the hold that the light had on Isa’s mind but then they would whisper again and bring her right back to it. She was deeper in the woods, coming right up to the red fog, reaching out to touch it when her foot caught on a tree root sticking out of the ground.

Her body landed with a thud in the saturated dirt, sunglasses flying and her arm halfway into the red mist. As she laid there she knew something wasn’t right, something bad was happening. All the energy she possessed was slowly draining from her body. She looked up at the strong smell of iron that her sensitive nose had caught a whiff of only to see that red mist glowing brighter. Her arm was pale, losing color slightly faster than the rest of her body, and she could have sworn there were small droplets of blood leaving out of her fingertips.

She yanked it back out of the beautiful mist as soon as she understood what was happening. Those dancing swirls of light added a little chime to their whispers as if they were giggling at Isa’s current misfortune. “Ohhh…” A realization hit her. “You did this on purpose, you little shits.” They chimed again before they quickly floated away from her and back in the direction they had come and she could only thank the heavens for the root that kept her from completely walking into that mist. She would definitely have to feed soon though to help replenish was it was able to take.

As her mind started to clear a little, she started to search the forest floor for the sunglasses that had been tossed from her face with the impact, hoping they hadn’t slid into the mist. She lazily patted her hands on the ground and only lost hope for a moment until her fingers grazed the plastic of them and she was able to place back on her nose where they belonged. “Maggie, don’t walk into the mist.” The words were barely above a whisper, her lack of energy very clear as she spoke, but something hit her then.

Maggie wasn’t with her.

It all came rushing back to her at once. The way the orbs had separated and sent them both in different directions, the way Maggie kept coming to mind until the wisps would wipe her from it again, and panic tore through Isa like a freight train. If the wisps were leading her here, where the hell were they taking her best friend? “Maggie!”

The scream tore out of her lungs as the rush of adrenaline took over, giving her the energy she so desperately needed. She was on her feet again, running back towards the edge of the forest as fast as she could to hopefully catch sight of her friend again. Luckily, as more of her mind started to clear she could remember seeing which way Maggie was being led she just had to make sure she didn’t make a wrong turn somewhere. Her legs carried her through the trees, down the path that she’d seen her friend take, rushing into a field where she could see Maggie in the far distance. The lights were still leading her somewhere, they still had their hold on her, and she screamed out once more even though Isa was well aware the other girl couldn’t hear her.

The further along she followed the wisps, the more her heart began to race in her chest. Wisps led people to… what was it? Her mother had told her again and again. Wisps… what was it about wisps? She swore she heard Isa’s voice whisper something, a secret lost to the fog. The sound was a welcome reminder to Maggie- she’s right behind you…

The world had grown so strangely still in the growing night. Had there been bird song? The sound of wind? The only thing she seemed to hear were the whispers of the wisps and their footsteps plodding along after them. It was almost eerie. It made her want to turn to Isa and make up some excuse to turn back. But stopping meant losing the proof floating just in front of her. Just out of reach, always a breath away… No, no, turning back was not an option.

Instead, she tried to focus on what the wisps might be leading them to. Was it a lost Tendrilla shrine? A secret tunnel? A spirit of the woods? A creature that town had forgotten and that could be brought back into the stories they told? The answer lied ahead, where motes of light had begun to gather.

They sat clustered together in a perfect circle in the distance, as if they were exchanging secrets amongst themselves. Every step took her a little bit closer to the answer. She kept her hand held out towards them in a gesture of peace. She wasn’t any harm, neither of them were. The wisps stayed put, sentinels in their circle… which was where she was going to go. Right to the center, if they’d let her.

Not too far, now. A few steps more…

“Maggie!”

She was closer now. She could see the color of her scarf through the night instead of it blending into the shadows of the night, see the individual braids of her hair as they swayed along with her movements, see the beautiful girl through the night fog going towards something that seemed much darker then the ground she was walking on. Isa pushed her legs to go faster. Whatever that was, she knew it wasn’t going to turn into anything good. After the wisps had led her to the bloodsucking mists, how could it be anything other than something that was meant to harm the most wonderful person to walk this earth?

Maggie was getting closer but thankfully not moving as fast as Isa was. She was closing the gap as quickly as she could, that large mass of black growing bigger and bigger the closer she got to the both of them. “Maggie, stop! It’s tricking you! Please stop!” Her lungs burned as she screamed even louder, her side hitching with the extra loss of air, but she wouldn’t stop. She’d never stop.

The moment her friend’s feet reached the edge of the large pit she was able to slip her arms around Maggie’s waist and yank her back. Both girls fell to the ground, Isa on her back with Maggie in her arms, mud surely covering both of them and her sunglasses skewed enough to be considered dangerous in that moment. She was out of breath, afraid that exhaustion was going to make her pass out right then and there as her heart pumped what was left of her blood volume erratically.

But she was safe. She wasn’t falling into the pit of darkness in front of them, and the wisps seemed to huff as their second attempt to do harm got thwarted. Isa held on tight, never wanting to let go of the girl in her arms after losing her to darkness. “Maggie, are you okay?”

The wisps were so bright. Maggie swore that the closer she got to them, the brighter they became. It was as if they, too, felt the anticipation of an arrival. She could hardly hear a thing outside her own heartbeat and the strange chime-like whispers that seemed to ring out in her mind. After years of believing, this, the moment she was in, changed everything.

Reality came screaming in the moment her foot should have found purchase on the ground and slipped through air instead.

If good moments happened quickly, then bad ones existed in slow motion. Her heart plummeted to her feet as she realized exactly where the wisps had led her. Death Pit. She was going to fall into the Allgood Death Pit. She was going to fall, probably to her death (ironically enough) into the Allgood Death Pit. She didn’t know if she was screaming. She knew her mouth was open, she knew she was scared, but she couldn’t hear a thing other than a ringing in her ears. It was only then that she remembered her mother's words, echoing in her mind like a death knoll: Wisps are tricky, Magnolia… keep your eyes up if you see one. Or you might live to regret it.

And then, just as the thought threatened to swallow her whole, the world sped up again. Too fast, as if someone had hit fast forward. Maggie got yanked back so hard she felt the air leave her lungs, and suddenly she was crashing backwards into Isa.

The first thing she really registered was that it was cold. The mud that slopped along the path around the pit was slowly soaking into the girls’ clothing, their hair, their skin… The next was that she was crying. There were tears on her face, yes, but when had she started crying, and why couldn’t she stop… The third, and perhaps most important, was that Isa was there again. Maggie was clinging to her best friend like she was a life raft. Isa hadn’t been behind her. Rather, Isa sounded as if she’d ran a marathon trying to catch up to her. When had they been separated? She’d been so sure- so sure- that Isa had been a few steps behind her the whole time.

“I’m sorry- I’m sorry- I-“ the words were stammered between little sobs. “You were behind me, I thought you were behind…”

“No, Maggie…” She could hear the girl starting to sob and the first thing Isa did was secure the glasses that were threatening to fall from her face just to make sure this night didn’t get any worse. The second thing she did was maneuver the two of them so that she could face her best friend, the two of them laying in the mud on their sides. She didn’t care about the mess or the chill that was creeping into her body because of it, all she cared about was Maggie being okay. Clearly, she wasn’t. Who would be after almost being lured to their death?

Her forehead pressed against the other girls, Isa using her thumbs to brush away the tears that kept coming even as her own started to roll down her dirty cheeks. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, we’re safe. That’s all that matters.” But she still couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d almost lost the single most important person to her.

If she had gotten there even two seconds later it would have been Ruth all over again except in a more catastrophic way. The Ruth situation had ruined her life, had taken away so many things from her, but losing Maggie? It would have ended her right then and there. There was no Isa without Maggie, the one person in her life who had fully stood by her through everything that she had been through, the one person who loved her no matter what happened. She kept whispering the same thing over and over, trying to calm Maggie down while she continued to wipe away at her streaked face.“I’m here now. I’m here, I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere, never again.” And repeat. She knew eventually they would have to get up, there was no telling if that mist was being moved their way or what other crazy things they could encounter out in that field, but Isa just wanted to let her girl cry for as long as she needed. With no indication of how much time was passing them by, the two of them stayed right at the edge of that pit. At least they were safe in each other’s arms.

#Threads #Thread: Maggie #Be Wary the Wisps #//Bee you're incredible

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