#yes I know that they are actually Matryoshka dolls but they look like bowling pins

[pasteldaifuku]

Will he get a strike?

[og-peach]

Apparently when I’m sleep deprived I write horror stories. Please enjoy the fruits of my suffering.

It’s too damn cold. The alley is dark, filthy, freezing, and—was that a rat or a cat?! Or was it a cat-sized rat?! I shudder. Gaud, I don’t want to be here.

I freeze, feeling eyes boring at me from beyond the void, assessing me, judging me. I don’t look, barely breathe, and pray the pink eldritch creature moves on.

Seconds turn to minutes, minutes turn to hours, time flowing like molasses under Their fathomless stare.

I’m getting lightheaded, I need to breathe! Breathe damn it! Why won’t my lungs work?!

Finally, finally, Gaud looks away, and I slump against the alley wall behind me, gasping for breath. This is crazy, I should just go before I draw Their attention again! I should just—

No, no. It’ll all be worth it, soon enough. I just need to be patient.

Where the fuck is he?

I check my watch, see he’s ten minutes late. Did something happen? Was he caught? Am I next?

No, no I’d have already been taken by now if he had. Just be patient. This is worth it. Breathe.

Crunching from my left startled me, and I whip around to see my contact trudging through the dirty snow from the other end of the allyway. I can’t see his face very well, the shadows are too dark for that, but his triumph is obvious in his body language.

“You’re late.”

“Yeah yeah. You trying breaking into G—“ he cuts off, looking around nervously. I shudder at the close call. That would have been bad. We can’t afford their attention again, not now. “Th-their place and not take a damn millennia. Do you know what I had to go through?” I open my mouth to answer, but he steamrolls right over me. “Hell! That’s what I had to go through! Literal hell, and a couple of crazy ass pocket dimensions all connected to each other! And that’s just to get to the damn front door! Never again, I tell you! Never again!”

“Well did you get it?!”

“Did I—? Did you not hear what just I said?!”

“Of course I heard you, but if you got it, neither of us will have to go back.”

He huffs and grumbles, before finally nodding with a reluctant sigh. “Yeah, I got it.” He starts to reach into his backpack before pausing again. What the fuck now? “You do realize...once They’ve realized what we’ve done, that we took it, we’re both taking a one-way trip there, right? And we’re not gonna be coming back? At least, not as we are.”

“I know the risks,” I hiss. “You told me them repeatedly before we started, I don’t need you telling me again now when it’s far too late! Now give me the stupid thing already! Before we’re caught!”

He hesitates another moment, before finally pulling a package from his bag. It is deceptively small and unassuming, all brown and black patterned paper and string cord wrapped around an object the size of book. I snatch it from him, shoving it in my own bag as I turn away.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” he scoffs. “We’ll both be suffering by the time this is over.”

“I know. But it’s worth it.”

“Yeah...for what it’s worth? It’s been an honor to know and work with you.”

My breath hitches. “Same.”

“Go. I’ll act as a distraction.”

I shudder. That was an awful role to play, but then, so is mine. The nessesary tasks are always the cruelest. “Goodbye.”

Without another word we both take off into the snow, he to his death, me to the shadows.

I scurry between alleys and back ways, avoiding the busier streets full of watchful eyes and cultists that would soon be on the lookout for me.

I used to be one of those sheep once, just another part of the mindless flock. Then I got rescued, deprogrammed. Joined the resistance.

Never again. And soon, they’ll be free too.

I make it back to my current safe house without incident, though how safe it is at the moment is up in the air. It‘s just a shitty one-room appartment, barely more than a studio, but it works for keeping my head down.

Quickly putting the place on lockdown against human interference, I settle into the living room to prepare the magical defenses for the supernatural ones. Wards, talismans, barriers, all preprepared in advance and put up in minutes. Next come the containment magics, to keep what happens inside from being noticed from anyone outside; and to keep anything inside from escaping. Finally comes the special spells, the blackest of magic, intended only for punishing the worst of offenders.

Once done, the appartment is fully cut off from the world; it’s own sealed pocket dimension, completely untethered from the rest of reality. No way in or out. I am sealed inside, trapped forever in this shitty apartment. Assuming I survive this, I’ll still end up dying in here. Whether from running out of food or from the pipes being cut off from water, this place will be my grave.

But it is necessary. I can’t do my task if I can still be found, after all. And the one I am running from is too powerful to take any chances.

Finally, with all my preparations complete, I take the package out of my backpack again. It feels too heavy in my hand for such a small thing, and I am quick to place it on the table.

A closer look reveals that the black and brown pattern on the paper is actually a mess of notice-me-not seals and anti-scrying spells, and the string it’s tied together with is covered with similar lines. I carefully unwrap it, needing to know exactly what it is I’m working with here. Inside the package is a silk bag, the fabric woven with containment charms and spells. I pull open it’s drawstring to find another magicked silk bag and an iron box, similar containment magics hammered and shaped right into the metal. It’s sealed with a thick iron padlock, the key to which is in the other silk bag. I quickly unlock the iron box to find a small wooden box inside.

“It’s like a damn matryoshka doll.” I mutter, only to freeze when I actually look at the tiny wooden box. The wood is warped, the grain twisted to form nonsense phrases in an unnatural pink tint. Holding my hand over it, the box feels burning hot, like the wood should have caught fire long ago.

Swallowing thickly, I brace myself before flipping open it’s simple latch. The box springs open on its own, revealing my hard-won prize. The thing I and others would be dying for.

The laugh that bursts out of me is half shock, half disbelief. Inside, looking innocuous and inconspicuous, is a simple pink stick drive. The prior heat is long gone, like opening the box released it, leaving its contents seeming perfectly normal. Like it isn’t something worth dying over.

“So this contains the source of G—Their— power, huh? Can’t believe he was able to fit the thing in a usb drive. Can’t believe it held.” I take the stick drive out and move the containers to the floor so I can have some space on the table in front of me. Something like this..hmm. “How to destroy you? I can’t just leave you here with me, even if this place is cut off from reality, and thus from Them, there’s no reason I should take any chances...” I study the stick drive, weighing it in my palm as I consider my options. “An enchanted hammer would work best for smashing, but that might set the power free...An atomizing spell would do the same...”

I absently reach over and grab a peach from my fruit bowl, munching on it as I think over my problem. My fingers rub the drive absently as I think, and I don’t notice when the tiny piece of tech starts pulsing with power. It isn’t until I’ve thrown the pit away and closed my eyes in concentration that I register the power coursing through me. I shiver at the feel of it, luxuriating in how strong it is. Yes, this would certainly be enough to destroy the drive and it’s prisoner. But what—?

A jolt of panic runs through me at the realization that I don’t recognize this power, and my eyes snap open. It takes me a minute to focus, suddenly feeling disoriented, but I pale when I do. My laptop is set up on the table in front of me—when did I even get it out? It had been turned off and lying on the couch—and my hand is millimeters away from inserting the stick drive.

I jerk it back with a gasp, nearly flinging the usb across the room in my panic. “No no no no no! What was I—?!” I quickly drop the usb on the table, staring at it in horror. “I need to destroy that! Now!”

I go to grab my bag, still not sure what tool I’ll be using but needing to do something, when my hand is stopped cold by a sudden grip on my wrist.

“You know, I very much believe in being kind and patient with people until they cross you one too many times, and then letting neither mercy nor pity taint your vindictive wrath.”

My blood runs cold and I choke. “G-gaud.” My eyes are stuck on the pink digits holding my hand in a bruising grip, and I’m too stunned to fight as my hand is forced to the arm of my chair, my other wrist and shoulders pinned to the chair by similarly pink hands.

“You—but—this place is—“ This isn’t possible, this can’t be possible!

“Cut off from the rest of reality? I know. Welcome to the land of dead gods and forgotten nightmares.” I’m too much of a coward to look over my shoulder, to look Them in the eye, but I start to struggle to get away. Where I’d go in this one-room world I don’t know, but I have to at least try. “Now then, the die has been cast, and the consequences are yours to reap. You should have taken care, mortal.” A fifth pink hand slides past and grabs the stick drive from the table.

No. No!

I struggle even harder, but it’s no use. Their hands are like steel bands, holding me in place effortlessly as They plug in the drive. Immediately, a music player I know I don’t have pops up, a black play button on a sickly pink background that takes up up the rest of the screen. The hand that inserted the stick drive clicks play, and a horrible sound comes out.

With the sound comes a further warping of reality, the walls bleeding pink ooze that quickly spreads and flows until it’s dripping from the ceiling and furniture too, dyeing everything inside that same sickly pink. Even the fruit bowl and it’s contents are dyed an awful pink, peaches turned an unnatural shade.

I try to keep fighting, but the awful audio just plays on loop again and again, draining my strength with every note. Soon I’m slumped in my chair, Gaud’s hands the only thing keeping me from sliding off and to the floor. My chin lolls against my chest, and I can do nothing but shudder and whine pitifully when I feel a hand running soothingly through my hair. “Shh. You’re doing well.”

“Please,” I whimper, and can’t even fight it when the pink ooze starts crawling up my skin. “Please.”

But Gaud just leans in to my ear and starts singing along with their source of power.

Never gonna give you up

Never gonna let you down

Never gonna run around and desert you

@biggest-gaudiest-patronuses

Thank you @biggest-gaudiest-fish for beta-reading this for me.