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lilacxquartz · 6 months ago

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life beyond midnight

oc male!demon × human female!reader

w.c: 2.8k

plot: slowly but surely, you got to the bottom of why you had a live-in incubus in your bedroom. but can you actually trust a word it says?

side notes: being clear right away that this isn’t a multi chapter thing, but a series of one shots to explore my oc with. however, you can consider this to be a direct follow up from the first story.

other works in this series:

under the bed, where midnight slept

***

The monster was still there when I woke up.

This threw me off because it was always gone by the morning. My eyes next scrolled over to the windows, finding that not only were the blinds now closed, but a thick blanket hung over the otherwise bare curtain rails, blocking out almost all of the natural light.

Had it tailored the room for its own comfort while I was asleep?

My alarm went off shortly after, jolting me back into reality. I didn’t have work today for once, which was partially the reason why I chose specifically last night to finally get to the bottom of things.

And just like always, I felt refreshed.

Still, the looming threat remained and my composure was slipping away again. It was as if the sedative from the monster’s kiss was no longer coursing through my bloodstream and I was coming back to terms with reality.

There was a monster right next to me.

The panic was sure taking its sweet time to kick in, though. I knew it would happen at any minute now—likely as soon as I would regain full control of my lucidity.

A part of me told myself not to fear it too much. That nagging, stubborn side of my brain kept arguing that if it truly intended to harm me, it would have done so earlier in the night. Yet when I woke up just moments ago, I seemed just fine.

However, as I thought about more and more of my strange situation. I could feel my mental state slowly continue to wither away.

Maybe it was something about the way the monster held onto me. It didn’t feel as though it was protecting me; rather that it was guarding me. The way it pressed against my flesh with its fingers wrapping around my body bordered almost territorial.

This little observation left me feeling as though I was the monster’s property, rather than its cause for affection.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment in an attempt to calm myself down.

However, it all started to come undone at last.

The dread was finally surfacing.

I turned around while still contained within its grasp, facing the monster head-on. I then slowly pushed myself to the side in an attempt to create some distance. Now that it was no longer nighttime, I could see the monster’s features with more clarity which only deepened the unease.

(And the rising panic.)

Smokey grey skin stretched around an impossible frame; freckled with ashen highlights. Its body continued to burn with shadowy wisps, resembling black fire. My eyes slowly widened in both awe and terror as I took in the sight of the creature before me.

Finally, the gig was up and my psyche started to cave in.

It all hit me at once again. A sharp stab that dug into my chest as my mental state struggled to adapt to reality. That this creature, this monster, was lying in my bed at my side as though it belonged there.

Maybe my reaction was too rash as I quickly tore out of bed in retaliation. A captivating surge of adrenaline pulsated through my veins, pushing me to lurch as far away from the bed as I could leap. My back kissed the cold brick wall right by the bedroom entrance; my hand threatening to press onto the door handle.

Every fibre of my being was screaming at me to escape.

But then monster came around, I watched with steady eyes as it opened up its own and slowly stretched. Its mannerisms seeming oddly human for the terror it appeared to be in my gaze.

I continued to inch towards the door as it stirred, intending to slip out of the bedroom and slip off somewhere, anywhere else that offered more security.

However, as my hands continued to push the handle down, an almost desperate voice halted me in my tracks, “Wait.”

In response, I froze. I could still talk however, so I attempted to ask a question it didn’t quite answer properly before.

It wasn’t as though I could do anything else anyway.

“What are you…?” I asked.

The monster faltered as it stammered. I could tell that its demeanour seemed rehearsed, somehow, not quite buying its behaviour as a result. Maybe this was how the monster truly acted, but something about it seemed uncanny, as though it was mimicking me.

“I’m what your kind would call an incubus,” he replied as he now sat at the edge of my bed, weighing it down, “sometimes known as a sleep paralysis demon.”

“The… s-sexual kind?” I asked, my voice tainted with discomfort.

“Not necessarily,” the demon calmly corrected me, slowly standing up and revealing its tall form, “it doesn’t always have to be like that, especially if you don’t want it to be.”

I started at him for a short while longer, my hand continuing to press at the handle and slowly pushing the door open. I knew already that I wouldn’t get very far, but it seemed to be nervous as I played around with the idea of leaving again and again.

It was odd. I had always thought that demons were supposed to be charismatic, yet this one mimicked a human personality more than anything else. I remained sceptical as a result, convinced that it was playing me somehow.

Maybe I just didn’t know enough about demonology, though.

The demon slowly drifted closer, continuing to speak as it did so, “Most demons, including incubi and succubi are neutral. I can assure you that much. We’re not too different from people.”

I tilted my head off to the side as it continued, his words seeming wrong to me.

The false comfort that it kept trying to feed me only unsettled me further. There was something about this creature that I couldn’t fully trust. It was as though there was some instinctual alarm going off in my gut; a deep primal response that begged me to not trust a single word that came out of his mouth.

It might not have been lying to me completely, but it did seem as though it was at the very least withholding the full truth.

“So, what do you… want from me then?” I asked, my voice croaking a little.

He slowly took another step forward and the closer he crept, the more urgently I pushed at the door. However, my body at the same time, slowly began to statue itself into place as the threat of looming danger worsened.

“When an incubus or a succubus seeks out a human to be with, it’s what is known as a bonded mate,” the demon explained with a gentle tone, although there was a certain intensity within its expression. Despite its lacking irises, the face he wore seemed frustrated for some reason.

My brows furrowed as I seethed out an exasperated whisper, “So, I have no say in the matter at all…?”

Also what? A… bonded mate?

“It’s a decision materialised from fate, which is why my kind often tries to adopt a neutral approach for things like these,” he said, his words deepening my unease.

I did finally get it, though.

“So, you’re trying to coerce me into accepting this… this fate?” I asked, trying to confirm my suspicions.

As far as I understood it, I had no choice or say in the demon being here with me right at this moment. But it also seemed equally trapped. I didn’t like the idea of this one bit, though. However, if this thing was going to continue to play nice for the time being and answer all of my questions, then I had to take advantage of that opportunity lest it slipped away.

The demon sensing my dread tried to offer me comfort, “Look, I don’t want to force you… nor hurt you.”

“Yet I still don’t have a choice?” I asked, feeling my expression sour.

“You do not,” he confirmed.

Such a blunt answer churned something that just wouldn’t settle in my mind. I didn’t like the idea that it seemed insistent on staying here, claiming that its presence was determined by something beyond its own control. If I was going to get anywhere with understanding this creature though, then I had to push aside my fear and seek answers while I still had the chance.

(It was easier said than done though.)

Perhaps though, if it was fate that truly controlled my destiny, then maybe there was a chance that it paired me up with something (somebody?) compatible and my judgement was too early. Maybe this monster was actually perfect for me, despite its unsettling form.

I looked at him once more, sighing as my brain struggled to accept that creatures from hell actually existed and that there was an actual demon standing right in the middle of my bedroom.

Looking at me.

Talking with me.

Reluctantly, I parked my disbelief away, hoping to get somewhere with it.

“So, you’re a demon huh?” I asked in a resigned tone.

It nodded.

I also bobbed my head in an attempt of forced understanding, “And… do you have… a name?”

The incubus paused for a moment as though to deeply consider my question. Its body language relaxed slightly, almost as if this particular question was a breakthrough point between the two of us.

The more I thought about it, the more I wondered exactly how first meetings go between other bonded mates. Was there usually more yelling involved? Or were people usually strangely acceptant with demons attempting to court them?

“The closest translation in your language would be Midnight,” he finally spoke up, “so feel free to call me that.”

I pondered that detail for a moment. Would it be silly to assume that its language was Latin? Or was it something completely different? I tried to envision how demons could possibly speak to one another and it didn’t sound too promising in my head, though.

I attempted to introduce myself next, awkwardly mustering up the courage as I continued to croak out my words, “And my name is-“

He quickly interrupted me though, relaying my name right back to me. It seemed that he already knew it, prompting me to hum in confusion.

“And you’re how old… exactly?”

“I’m a little over two hundred,” Midnight replied.

“A-and you haven’t had any other… bonded mates?”I asked, trying to understand how his kind worked exactly.

“No, fate can take a while to assign the right person. Some aren’t matched for centuries,” he explained further.

“So… why now for me? I mean, I have been in my twenties for a while now,” I enquired, struggling to understand the timing.

Midnight’s expression however faltered as if he didn’t quite understand my question either, “I’m not sure about that much, I apologise.”

“Then… c-can you… can you tell me more about you so I can understand what’s happening here exactly?” I asked, feeling my brain short circuit a little as my words scrambled.

“I can be as transparent as you’d like,” Midnight nodded in response, his voice sounding soothing despite carrying an uneasy undertone, “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“Ah,” I admitted with a unsure smile, “that part might take a while.”

He remained still as I studied him.

The only thing that was getting me through this entire encounter despite his scary appearance, was that he both acted and sounded human to me. Maybe this was an intentional play on his part, hoping to puppet something that resembled a human so that I wouldn’t be screaming bloody murder if it just acted normal. Maybe that much was an unfair assessment, but something about the way Midnight composed himself felt masked.

I warily eyed him up and down from head to toe as he drifted just a little closer, taking mental notes of his appearance. Greying skin glittered with charred specks and certain parts of his body that were deeper consumed by the shadows than others. My eyes trained on his hands where black claws extended from his fingertips, making me wonder if his teeth were similarly pointed.

“I can understand,” he said after a short moment, his words sounding tinged with slight conflict, “my kind can be… unsettling to humans, but I can assure you that I mean no harm. Especially not to you.”

I nodded in an attempt to comfort myself but something still knotted away in my mind. A certain detail about incubi and demons in general that I prayed to be wrong.

With a hesitant tone, I dared to ask what was on my mind, “Don’t incubi feed on something…?”

“Emotional energy, yes,” Midnight confirmed without skipping a beat, “it can be any type and it isn’t limited to just sexual energy if that’s your cause of concern. Every demon is different.”

“So… you’re trying to establish a relationship with me so that you can feed off of me?” I asked, beginning to understand why he was so keen on manipulating me into accepting this situation.

“You could say that, but it doesn’t have to be so one sided. I want to care about you too,” he assured me, his voice taking on a possessive edge.

I hesitated as I attempted to push him away, “I-I mean-“

“—I want to protect you… if you’d let me,” Midnight interrupted, his words coated in concern, continuing the claim that his intentions were good despite admitting that I was a source of food for him.

Such a proposition left me wondering about how exactly he survived for so long without feeding, but my mind held off on asking about such curiosities just yet.

For now, my mind was lost in a barrage of overwhelming thoughts that spread through my brain like wildfire. I didn’t even notice how he had already closed a considerable distance between us as my head ached. I audibly gulped when I did realise it though, feeling dread as he towered over me.

Looking directly down at me.

Despite his looming posture, something about the way he acted once again forced me to let me guard down. It was as if my fears were slowly becoming diluted outside of my own influence.

Was this his doing?

Midnight continued to lean down slowly, his index finger lifting my chin so that he could kiss me again. I felt that familiar rush that resembled a sedative settle within my body, both comforting me and lulling me into trust.

As he closed in, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some sort of magic at play here. If fate and demons were real, then maybe there was more to the world than I knew was possible.

Such a thought both scared and excited me.

In a way I was thrilled that the world wasn’t so mundane, but in contrast, I felt terrified that monsters were actually real.

As the effects of the kiss finally settled, I felt a wave of warmth sweep over me and looking back up at Midnight, he seemed to be looking at me in a different sort of way now.

“Do you still feel afraid?” he asked me, his voice now carrying the same coldness that it did right before I fell asleep with him last night.

Something sinister lurked in his tone as if the kiss was partially laced in some sort of poison in addition to the sedative effect. It felt as though my acceptance for him was fabricated.

“Not right now,” I admitted in a slur. I felt buzzed, elated, even. I knew that I should have been more afraid yet something controlled the way that I spoke, even how I reacted. Deep down, I knew that I didn’t like this but the softly simmering realisation didn’t come to a boil just yet.

Despite this, I still retained some hope through to all.

For one, he could have talked me into something much worse than just a kiss, into something much worse than just reluctant acceptance.

If this was only to make me lessen my fear of him, then it did make me wonder what exactly he was truly up to.

As such, I still held onto my initial scepticism deep down, that Midnight wasn’t being entirely truthful, that there must have been more to him than met the eye and what he was telling me.

After all, wouldn’t I be delusional if I just outright believed his claims? To entertain the idea that something so heavenly that was forged from the hells was offering me a neutral choice in how our relationship would go?

I just couldn’t buy it at all.

The idea of my existence serving as food a monster didn’t sit right with me and yet, I almost wanted to see where this whole thing would take me.

Even if I was terrified to see just how far we would both go.

(To hell? Or maybe even worse…?)

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creepyclothdoll · 17 days ago

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Condemned

Paul loved escape rooms.

He just loved them. The lovingly-crafted set designs and props, the electric buzz that came from finding hidden items and putting together puzzle pieces, the euphoria of cracking a code, the adrenaline of the ticking clock, and most importantly, the thrill of the escape.

His friends had long ago stopped accompanying him every week, sometimes more than once a week, to escape rooms in his area. Especially once he started driving hours out of town just to try new escape game centers for a fresh hit of that delicious escape puzzle challenge.

Paul now preferred to go alone anyway. People just bogged him down. He didn’t come to make friends, he came to win.

Months of hot anticipation finally bore fruit when the “Great American Escape” opened its doors to him, at long last. Great American, according to the billboards and posters strewn around town, was the primary attraction of an entertainment mega-complex which took the place of a long-disused waterpark hotel. It would be huge, he knew. Not just physically. His great fear was that it would blow up on social media– maybe even on his feed– and then the solutions would be spoiled for him. So he had to be first.

Great American Escape was so new the day he strode in there that there were still “CONDEMNED” notices stuffed into the recycling bins and old lists of health & safety violations stuck in the vents.

“One ticket for Mystery Escape,” Paul, slapped his money on the counter and smiled at the teen boy working behind it. He was a short, lithe, wide-eyed man in his thirties with dark greasy hair and one navy blue university sweater he’d kept in moderate repair for a decade and a half.

“No group?” The boy asked. When Paul confirmed this, the boy said, “You’ll have to wait until a group comes in. You need three people at least.”

“When is the next group coming?” Paul asked.

“We don’t have any groups booked today,” the boy replied.

“... So, you’re not gonna let me in?”

“... Um… yeah. I can’t. Sorry.”

Paul put down another handful of bills. This wasn’t his first rodeo.

“I’ll buy three tickets,” he said. He made sure to draw the boy’s attention to the extra $20, a little tip for a helpful front deskman.

The boy, who was thin and bored-looking with a patchy teen mustache and his elbow resting on top of a stack of I Escaped stickers, glanced at the security camera which flickered in the corner, its blinking red eye frosted over with a decade of dust. The boy took the $20 and shrugged.

“You won’t be able to escape,” the boy said. “It’s impossible by yourself. But if you want to try… I guess you can try.”

The boy led Paul towards a set of slightly rusty elevator doors, past posters and cardboard cut-outs of characters from “Rattlesnake Gulch Treasure Hunt,” “Escape From Venus,” and “King’s Dungeon Jailbreak.” Paul planned to return to these, but he’d start by going straight for the crown jewel– Mystery Escape, which had been advertised exclusively with nothing but an open doorframe leading to darkness.

The boy went over basic safety guidelines. The door wouldn’t really be locked, red things were real alarms, things that said “staff only” were really for staff only, etc., blah blah blah, boring stuff. Paul listened impatiently, but carefully, only because knowing what was “real” (and therefore inconsequential) would give him a leg up in the game.

“The game starts when the elevator door opens,” the boy finally said. “Floor 3. Good luck.”

The elevator bell dinged, and the doors slid open. The light flickered. Paul stepped inside.

He waved to the boy as the doors shut. He pressed 3.

The light above flickered. Paul could almost see his reflection in the red-rusted metal doors.

The elevator began its ascent, and right away, Paul could tell something was strange. There was a creaking noise, like a train braking. The light flickered. The light sputtered out.

The elevator stopped.

Paul was trapped. It was pitch black inside the tiny car, which made no sound or movement.

The first thing Paul did in any escape room was to check around for hidden props. Keys, ciphers, and puzzle pieces were often hidden around a room for players to find, which would then give them a clue as to what to do next. Paul checked around the elevator car for hidden tools. He pulled up the mildewy carpet by its frayed edge– nothing under there but more mildew. But wait! On the bottom of the carpet there were numbers and letters: EL1. What could that possibly mean?

The next thing Paul did in an escape room was to interact with anything interactable he could see. In front of him was a series of numbers, 1-5, a “door open” and “door close” button, and “emergency.” But “emergency” was red, and red things were inconsequential.

Paul pushed all the buttons but the last. To his surprise, the door began to open slightly– then jammed.

Paul mused about the possible meanings of “EL1.” E was the fifth letter, and there were five numbers… But L?

Maybe it was a cipher. Paul thought on this.

He started trying combinations of buttons. The cipher thing was the key somehow, he knew it. A cipher worked with a code. Where was the code? Maybe it had to do with the symbols, not the numbers…

Suddenly, it all made sense to him. He pressed a set of numbers and then hit the door open button.

To his delight and satisfaction, the elevator doors creaked open. And with them came light.

Paul could see well enough now to see that he faced a concrete wall, which took up the whole lower half of the exit. But above that half, Paul could see a hallway of a hotel, so tantalizingly close.

Paul had beaten escape rooms that had physical components to them before, so this was cake. He gripped the edge of the concrete ledge in front of him and pulled himself up. He let out a grunt as his head and arms made it over the threshold. He just had to find something to grip so he could drag the rest of himself through the gap, and then it was on to the next puzzle.

The elevator lurched.

There was a sound. A scrape, a crash, a wet squelch, a snap. It all happened at once, and it was the loudest sound he ever heard.

When Paul finally sat up, he was somewhere completely different. It was dark here. Darker than the elevator car. The darkness of this place was crushing, like the depths of the deep ocean. There was a smell of meat all around. Paul quickly dismissed the idea of trying to adjust his eyes– he’d navigate by feel.

Paul reached out into the darkness and felt nothing. He stood. His hands pushed him up from a strangely soft, lumpy floor. He noticed something strange about the sound of his movements, and let out an inquisitive “Hey!” to check the echo. It did not bounce. He was… outside?

No– he must be in the disused waterpark proper. The building was huge. Paul was delighted by this thought. He’d chosen the right room.

Paul felt around for a wall, a light switch, a puzzle. Anything.

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” said a deep voice.

“Hello?” Paul said after a moment.

“You lived a selfish life, Paul. You cared for nothing and no one but yourself and your own pleasure. You were an idolater, a heretic. You raised the Escape Game to the heights of a god. Pity that from this place, there is no escape.”

Paul listened carefully to the monologue. Selfish. Idolater. Raised. Heights. These things might be clues.

“Paul,” said the deep voice, which seemed to come from above, below, and all around him, “You died a foolish death. Pity that you did not suffer. But now, you will suffer for eternity.”

Paul was already climbing up a staircase he’d found. It was the disused waterpark. Raise, he thought. Heights. The key was to go up.

He found a craggy, warm wall. There was something under his hand– a button? He pushed it in, hard.

Under his hand, a huge glowing red eye flew open.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!”

The eye blinked in pain and fury, welling up with tears. A thousand more eyes flew open along the wall before him, and Paul saw that it was not a wall at all, but some kind of enormous creature. It stirred, its red gaze illuminating the space around them.

“Stupid man. You woke something up.”

But now Paul could see the entire room– or space, or whatever it was. What he’d taken to be the “floor” was a mass of flesh– human hands, it looked like, reaching up stiffly. The hands started to stir as the creature woke from its slumber. What Paul had taken for a staircase was not that.

Paul was making some real progress. As the hands clamored over each other, rising like tentacles from around the immense eyes, Paul hopped onto the face of the thing and started using the eyes as hand-and-footholds, which was their obvious use. Paul could spare no time on figuring out little things like that the honest way, he was on a clock. As he stepped on the creature’s eyes, it let out another unearthly roar and started to rise.

There was a hole in the ceiling. Yes– this was meant to be a cave of some sort, and it had an exit.

“You idiot,” the voice boomed. “You–”

Paul kicked the creature in the eye a few more times to make it rise faster. A tsunami of pale, writhing hands on wiggling stems shot up towards him to slap him away, but by the time they reached him, he was already through the hole.

Paul scurried through the tunnel as fast as he could. If it was a three-person puzzle, you couldn’t waste any time.

He came to the next room, which was well-lit– a nice reprieve. In this room, a sweltering cave, some props department had gone all-out carving little demon faces that stuck out from the sides. These gargoyle-like stone structures leered at him and grinned in anticipation.

“The flametongue is coming, kindling,” the demon voices hissed. “Ready or not!” Paul heard a splashing, gurgling sound up ahead. He took quick note of some of the quirks of the gargoyle faces– most of them had black scorch marks on them, but some didn’t. That was a clue. The light from the other end of the tunnel grew brighter, as did the gurgling. Paul realized what he was meant to do, climbed up the protesting gargoyles, and found a set on the ceiling which had no scorching on them. Below, a wave of red-hot boiling sulferous-smelling magma flowed down, passing over the other gargoyles, who screeched and sputtered in it. Another puzzle solved. Paul dropped down once the stones cooled, and hurried up the tunnel– no time to spare. Only one more wave of “fire” passed before he solved the gargoyle pattern and pulled the right ones out of the wall in sequence to reveal a hidden exit.

This escape room was huge. He made his way through a room which featured a river of moving knives, which he was able to avoid by memorizing the timing and patterns, and climbed up into a room full of blistering ice and animatronic zombies which lurched toward him, their bodies crackling as they froze just as soon as they’d moved, their lips split by the cold. This puzzle was a simple matter of lining up the giant shards of ice in the room so that the light concentrated and blasted a hole through the glacial wall.

Paul’s own body was profoundly frostbitten by this point, but he didn’t notice. He was on a timer.

By the time Paul finally made it past the “three-headed-dog on a chain” puzzle, that subterranean voice from the first room had caught up with him.

“Paul,” the voice said. “There is no hope. There is no escape. Do you understand? You are dead, Paul–”

“Ssh,” Paul said, gazing at the puzzle before him.

The door was immense. It seemed to stretch above him and beyond for miles. It was carved from stone older than the bedrock of earth, and above it, in an arch as large as the firmament, there was carved a phrase:

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

This was clearly important, because the deep voice had already voiced it earlier in the game. After checking the area for tools, Paul ran through anagrams. There were a lot of little props around the big door– lots of discarded holy texts, some bones, some strange bits of giant insectoid carapaces which Paul could not immediately identify. The bibles and such had bits burned and torn off of them in places. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. That was a ciper, maybe. He was sweating. He had to be at nearly an hour already. He started arranging the bones.

“What you are doing is futile nonsense,” the deep voice said.

Aha! By turning the phrase above the gate into numbers and then matching those numbers to the non-burned sections of each holy text, organized by the printing date, Paul had discovered an anagram which, when re-ordered, spelled out skeleton key prop, ds flo knemb yyuq. Paul had only bothered to spell out the first three words, however, due to the time crunch. That was all he needed to understand what to do, and he had done it: he had connected all the bones into one big key.

“I don’t think you understand, Paul. This is not a game. You cannot escape your fate. You cannot escape your death. You cannot escape damnation. You cannot escape from Hell.”

Paul slid the giant skeleton key into the lock. It took all of his strength to shove it to the back. Behind him, the host of hell scrambled over each other up the lip of the abyss– the thousand hands and eyes, the fire-spitting gargoyles, the lurching ice zombies, the great black dog, and many others, come to claim him for their own special torment.

Paul turned the key. There was a click.

Well– more of a thunderous clunk.

The deep, gravelly noise of the stone door opening reverberated all throughout Hell.

“What the–”

“Hell yeah!” Paul shouted. He ducked through the door.

The red eye of the security camera caught it all. The man, crawling through the gap in the elevator. The lurch. The fall. The split.

The hopeless paramedics, the traumatized front desk boy, the shaking venue manager, the anxious lawyers, the dozens of police putting up brand-new yellow “do not cross” signage around the old hotel.

The red eye of the security camera watched on as people in grim uniforms put the larger piece of what had been paul into a black bodybag and fetched the rest from the third story floor.

“Used to love this waterpark when I was a little kid,” said one of the paramedics to another. “Now I hope they tear it down.”

“Wasn’t this place a lawsuit magnet back in the day?” said the other. “I remember a kid–”

The paramedics both noticed at the same moment that the body bag was moving. A lot.

“Is he alive in there?” The first paramedic choked out, even though he understood that the answer had to be no. But then the zipper started sliding down. The bag was opening from the inside.

The headless body of Paul Gibson sat up. It reached out with its stumps of fingers, covered in cool dark blood, and rolled out onto the hotel lobby floor. Both paramedics screamed and leapt away as the decapitated Paul stumbled to its feet and lurched forward. It felt around without its fingers, leaving smears of blood on the front desk, the wall, the table, the “do not cross” tape, until it found the small white cooler on the floor. He pried it open with his mangled hands and lifted his own iced head out.

Paul put his head on top of the gristle that was his neck. He had it the wrong way around, but his eyes opened and he smiled through bloody teeth.

“I ss-ss-olved the b-a-ag puzzle,” the formerly dead man sputtered. “Did it a-all mys-self.”

He turned around to face both paramedics, so that his front side faced away.

“Uh… congratulations,” the second paramedic said.

Paul choked up more blood and grinned wider. He stumbled toward the front desk, toward the paramedics. They backed away from him in horror as he reached out the wrong way and grabbed a commemorative I Escaped! sticker from the top of the pile.

“Th-a-ank you,” Paul said. “I’ll be su-ure to come back soon!”

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