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lunarw0rks · 10 months

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Through The Ashes | Alternate Ending

Summary: You've been given an offer to join the 141 Task Force. Upon taking it, you find yourself ensnared with the mysterious masked man who won't take his eyes off you.

Warning(s): canon-typical violence, mild injuries/gore, gun mention, suggestive content (18+), fluff

A/N: for those of you who desired a sunnier ending, here you go! This was requested by @redhoodsupergirl. the bold text is a passage from the original. I apologize if this is Bestie!Soap erasure h/j (I didn't know how to fit him in)

❥ y'all should comment where you think y/n went during leave, and if you think she ever came back | Word Count: 2.4k

꒦꒷ MAIN MASTERLIST ꒷꒦ GHOST MASTERLIST ORIGINAL ENDING // requests | ao3 ver. | playlist

Alternate Ending

“Good to see you boys again.” The glitched voice emitting through your wire stops you dead in your tracks. You place a hand on Ghost’s shoulder, yanking him to a stop so you can hear it further.

When he does, he sprints to the other side of the large room, checking the entrance and windows for any sign of hostiles.

You look at him wide-eyed, as the line goes dead again. Graves had patched into your frequency and clogged it so you couldn’t reach your team. Whatever he was planning before, it’s here now and there’s no time to stop.

Your earpiece unexpectedly picks up the frequency again when you reach the middle of the dining hall. It gargles out a few words that you can’t understand, and then it emits a high-pitched shriek so boosted it makes you keel over and rip it out.

Ghost moves quicker than before, as your hurried steps try to catch up with him, your boots echoing with each careful stride—as if to not get your foot caught in any of the uneven patches of flooring.

The glass on the chandeliers began to rattle, as did the glassware packed away in boxes. You felt the floor vibrate, and the tarps over the exposed drywall began to whoosh. The electricity flickered as a loud whoosh of a jet passed overhead. The lights exploded into sparks, making you cover your ears for cover.

You had no time to get any closer to the door before the force of a nearby explosion knocked you to the hard ground. The world around feels like it’s been tilted on its axis, and your vision is doubled. You see Ghost already scrambled to his feet, and he’s outstretching his hand to help you up.

You reach for it and just barely brush against his fingertips. When you’re too sluggish, he clasps your upper arm and jerks you toward him, just barely getting you upright.

Another jet passes overhead, and the sound of the engine fills your ears once more. When another bomb drops, it’s closer than the last. You knock into one of the pillars, losing your balance again. A clamorous groan of the building causes him to lose his grip on you, and you’re knocked down again, fading in and out of consciousness.

Ghost comes to, and looks around at the rubble before him. The section you ended up on was completely blocked by walls and exposed cables that shot sparks every few seconds. Besides those, the night sky was his only guide, casting a blue tint on the hotel now in pieces.

“7-1, this is Ghost, how copy?” He spoke into his radio, hoping to hear yours going off in the distance.

“Frequency’s shot…” He growled under his breath, tightening his lip in concentration. Not only was he down his comms, you were on the other side of the rubble, or God forbid, already gone.

Wherever you were, he was going to find you. You weren’t going to fight this alone, no matter what ambush Graves had planned.

He raised his rifle, sweeping the remains for any signs of Graves’ men. His ears were trained on any sound of life, enemy or not.

The place was quiet—too quiet, for his liking. Either his entire team was dead, or another fiery pass was coming.

The only way to the other side of the dining hall was climbing through one of the vents he spotted by the stairs if there was one remaining after the blast. He crept through the doorway, keeping his strides near silent as he made it to the stairwell, which was missing its bottom half now, nearly disconnecting the entire upper level of the building.

He spotted the vent and hoisted himself up on it using the front desk. He felt around inside, making sure it was stable enough to let him crawl through. His rifle went in first, then his upper half.

He inched his way through the tight squeeze, grunting at the strain it was putting on his ribs. He knew that pinching pain, he’d cracked a rib when the second pass sent you both astray. There was no time to whine, he kept army crawling through the vent, finally seeing the literal light at the end of the tunnel.

He made it to the other side, finally around the large lumps of rubble. He slung his rifle back to its previous position as he crept through the dark space, dodging the broken furniture and turning to ash before his eyes.

Finally, he heard the faint gurgling of a radio in the distance, meaning you had to be nearby, or at least your radio was.

His rifle lowered when he saw an arm sticking through one of the chunks of concrete, your full frame covered by a china cabinet that luckily was being held up by one of the remaining pillars. He’d never moved faster, shoving the cabinet aside like it was nothing to him.

His sore ribs screamed as he tore through the decay, finally revealing you to him.

He let out an audible sigh, seeing that you didn’t end up in the gruesome state he was imagining you in when your hand left his. Besides being banged up, it seemed only your foot had been nailed by the wreckage.

He knelt beside you, pressing his two fingers to find a pulse. Faint, but there nonetheless.

“Ghost, what’s your status?” His radio chimed, forcing him to take his attention off you for a few moments. “Ghost, do you copy?” The voice repeated.

“This is 7-1 Ghost responding, solid copy. One injured, working towards an exit strategy now.”

He engaged back, only keeping himself composed because he knew he had a job to do. You. It was his job to get you out of here, and he’d be dead before he failed that job.

Your eyes opened only a small amount at the sound of his rough voice. You were too out of it to be of any assistance, or to figure out what the hell happened for that matter.

When you tried to move yourself out of the odd position you were in, he pinned you by the shoulders. “Don’t move your legs.” He muttered, scanning the situation around him for a way to jack the rubble up and free the foot.

You had no choice but to lay there, coming in and out of prudence. The only pain you felt besides a small headache, was a persistent compressing sensation in your right foot.

He managed to use one of the boards as a jack, hiking the block up enough to shove your foot out from under it.

You groaned at the sudden release of its pressure, which only unleashed the pain the lack of blood flow was preventing. At least you knew your foot still had some nerves left, if you were in a position to think of the silver lining.

“Lean on me, Sergeant.” He wrapped his arms around you, using all his strength to get you upright. There was no way you’d be putting weight on your leg, so he not only had to guide you out of here, but now he had to find an exit.

Your head fell forward as he practically dragged you along, unable to hold any part of yourself together.

“I got you…” He kept repeating it as if he was also comforting himself. He pulled out his sidearm, keeping it at the side with his free hand.

He squinted into the void, finding a patch of wall that had a hole big enough for the both of you. That was his best bet.

There was no guarantee this “convoy” would be out there waiting for you two, in position to neutralize the two of you the second he crawled through. That was the risk he was willing to take.

Worst case; you looked mangled enough, that if he needed to shield you while being pumped with bullets, there might be a chance of you passing for a dead body.

“7-1, approaching the South side. Is it clear?”

“All clear. No sign of hostiles since the blast.”

He threaded himself through first, scanning the hillside to be sure of its safety first just in case. He leaned through wrapping your arms around him first, then lifting you so you would have to put pressure on the leg.

When you’re both through, he slithers down the tattered village, looking for any sign of the team.

He spotted the emergency lights in the distance, finally finding the triage center Price set up. When the superior turns his head, seeing Ghost’s outline carrying your unconscious self, he runs over, helping to distribute some of your dead weight.

“Leg injury, concussion too,” Ghost spoke in a pressurized tone as you were passed along to the medics. Price watched Simon with concern, privy to his attempts at hiding his own injuries—he’d done it many a time before.

Captain Price replied sternly, making sure the entire Task Force was at his attention.

“I want us all out of here before Graves gets a hold of another bloody missile. We’re going to recover, and then come at him hard.”

—

The four hours it took for your surgery to finish, he spent pacing in his dorm, despite the nurse’s orders to stay off his feet. He did indeed have a rib fracture, and he was lucky that’s all had, according to the medics.

A soft knock at his door halted his anxious pacing, making him hastily open the door. He was greeted by Price, whose professional poker face wasn’t doing Simon’s unnerve any favors.

“Hospital called me. The surgery went just fine, but they’re keeping her for observation.”

If he wasn’t so experienced in keeping his composure, he would’ve jumped into his car and driven there that second. Price kept the announcement short, and continued on his way back to his office.

Despite whatever came of all of this, you were out. He’d gotten you out, and you were now free to get out of this hellhole before it swallowed you.

That look on your face when you asked him about the violence, and how everyone else carried on like it wasn’t making them sick to their stomach.

That look was the reason you needed out of this life. He wouldn’t deny your skills as an operator for a minute, but you weren’t broken like he was. Not yet. If you were to have second thoughts about stress leave, he’d push you out the door himself. Nearly losing you today was enough convincing.

—

Simon stared blankly out the window of the bar he’d picked out.

Every vehicle that pulled into the lot made him straighten his posture, hoping it would be you each time. Finally, a taxi pulled in, and he saw your familiar figure step out. The dim lights on the entrance didn’t do much to reveal your state to him as you passed the windows, making your way towards the entrance.

The ding of the bell above the door makes him set his bottle down and lift the scowl off his face.

“Thought you wouldn’t show.” He said as you approached the booth, a large cast on your right leg, and a few scrapes in the process of healing.

“Why not? You pulled me out of a burning building, L.T.” You carefully tucked your leg into the booth, shifting in the cushion to get comfortable. The limited movements were something you still needed to get used to, but you were glad to even have a leg.

“Simon.” He says, making you lift your eyes from the menu. “You’re not under me anymore.” The last sentence sounded like a justification as if that wasn’t his real reason for letting you use his name.

If you had told your past self, the newbie with a fresh hatred for him, that you’d be sitting in a bar having a civil conversation—you’d have thrown a fit.

The drink he ordered for you arrived; a stout, of course.

“How’s the pain?” He asked, attempting to mask his concern as he finished off his pint.

“Burns sometimes… but other than that, no nerve damage.” You responded, resting your chin on your fist.

“Shouldn’t put a damper on your vacation then, right?”

You chuckled at his attempt at humor. “Not on my watch. I’ll be relaxing with one leg up the entire time if I can help it.”

His eyes scanned you in an up-and-down fashion as you sneered—like you’d noticed him doing many times before. At least this time it wasn’t lustful or hateful, it was civility.

You both enjoyed a few drinks, keeping up the friendly banter through the entire evening. As the bartenders began wiping down tables and flipping chairs, he placed a bill on the table and walked you to the door.

You turned on your phone, checking the time. “I should get going. My flight was pushed to to tomorrow morning.”

“I can drive you, in the morning?” He proposed, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

You smirked and stepped a little closer. “I think we’re past sharing car rides with one another, Simon.” You had flashbacks to the last time he drove you somewhere, which only ended in a very risky hookup.

You could picture the reddened cheeks he had, even through the mask. His mouth said nothing in response, but his eyes had a way of uttering the words ‘Touché’ at your brazen remark.

He’d die at the chance of touching you again, but you weren’t in any position physically; emotionally, you were right about one thing—the impure mistakes you two made on your journey to this point.

You opened the taxi app you’d used previously and arranged your ride back to the hotel, exchanging glances with him as he watched you. You slid your phone into the pocket of your wallet, waiting patiently for your ride.

Like many times before, the silence between you two was more than enough conversation. Though there were thoughts racing through his head the entire time, he wasn’t sure where to start.

The crunch of the gravel under the taxi’s tires woke you both up, making you turn to one another for your farewell. A hug too innocent, a handshake too professional, and words unjust.

As you approached the car door, he cleared his throat to get your attention. He’d be damned if he didn’t get this out of his system before you leave the Task Force and possibly never see him again.

“Did you bring your files with you?” He asked, making you contort your brows in confusion. Files?

“The number listed on mine,” he began, shifting in his stance as he gathered the courage for his brave finish.

“You should call it.”

TAGLIST: @neoarchipelago @ghostlythots @gothgirl6-6-6 @cloudyyjanee @ladyelissarose @almightywdm @glitterypirateduck @brokenghostgirl1 @cheyenne-with-a-c @a-jupiter-n-mars-blog @liliumbosniacum (if you're not tagged it's not letting me)

#simon riley x reader #mw2 fanfic #mw2 #call of duty #ghost mw2 #task force 141 #simon riley #simon riley fluff #simon riley angst #task force 141 x reader

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it-was-too-cold-always · 5 months

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We're Not in CW Anymore - 5

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

The reader gets blasted into another universe - one where Sam and Dean Winchester are real people, real hunters, and really fucked up. To her surprise (or horror), Dean has been getting glimpses of her life in his dreams and is completely enamored with her. It's nothing like the cable-friendly CW show that she knows and loves.

Reader x Dean Winchester

Warnings: language, violence

Chapter 5: RIP Buster

Perhaps it was the comfort of the Impala, or the craziness of your Target experience, but you were quickly snoozing in the backseat. The hum of the engine on the highway was incredibly relaxing. As you slowly made your way back into consciousness, you could hear Sam’s voice.

“All I’m saying is we don’t know anything about her. I’m not saying she can’t be trusted, just that we need to keep in mind that she’s a complete stranger.”

“Sam, I’m not an idiot. But you don’t get it. It’s wild, man. It’s like I’ve known her my entire life,” Dean replied.

Hearing them talk about you made you flustered, and you couldn’t pretend to be asleep any longer. You let out a groan as you stretched, letting them know you were up now.

“Well good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Dean teased.

“Where are we?” you asked, ignoring Dean’s comment. You weren’t awake enough for a witty response.

“Stratton, Nebraska. A man was brutally murdered in a locked room, in a locked house. No signs of forced entry. Definitely a ghost,” Sam replied.

You hummed in response. A ghost – this was actually happening. You were going to work a case with Sam and Dean Winchester. Anxiety fluttered in your stomach as you thought about it – you were never the horror type. Gore, you could handle. But jump scares? You were a wimp. Hopefully they weren’t expecting you to hunt with them.

Your thoughts were interrupted as the car pulled up to a large farmhouse. You thought you saw movement in one of the second-floor windows, but your mind was probably making things up. You were already scared. This was going to be a long day.

Dean picked the lock on the front door with quick precision, and the three of you walked inside. The interior was actually quite charming. You could smell the fresh coat of paint on the walls. It was hard to imagine such a brutal murder occurred in here not that long ago.

The boys surveyed the house room by room. Sam was holding an EMF reader that was beeping almost continuously.

“EMF is going wild,” Sam observed.

“Yeah, but look – power lines,” Dean said, motioning out the window. “EMF means jack squat.”

Moving upstairs, you decided to check out the rooms for yourself. Out of pure curiosity, you opened one of the closet doors. Sitting in the smack middle of the floor, there was a doll’s head, hair practically all gone, covered in dirt. Fuck that. You were too focused on the disturbing doll to notice Dean walking up behind you.

“That’s not creepy,” he said sarcastically, making you jump out of your skin. You turned around and smacked his arm.

“Dude!” you yelled, your heart racing.

“C’mon sweetheart, it’s just a doll,” he chuckled. “It’s not going to hurt you.” Apparently he thought this was funny. He softly grabbed your arm, rubbing his thumb on your bare skin. You crossed your arms and glared at him.

“We got a fucking problem,” Sam said as he jogged into the room. The three of you peered out the window as you saw a car and a U-Haul pull up to the house. A boy and his dog jump out of the car and start running around in the front yard. “We gotta get them out of here,” Sam says, pulling out a fake badge from his inside coat pocket. Dean nods his head and turns to you.

“Keep close and play along,” he warns. “This shouldn’t be a problem, but you never know.”

Walking down the porch steps, Sam hollers to the family in the yard. “Sorry folks, but this house isn’t livable. You’re gonna have to pack it up and stay somewhere else tonight.”

“Not livable? We just had it inspected last week! Who exactly are you?” one of the men exclaims.

“I’m Mr. Stanwyk, this is Mr. Babar, and our intern Ms. Fogerty,” Dean says as he and Sam whip out their badges. “We’re with County Code Enforcement. We have evidence of asbestos and a gas leak. Nothing you want to mess with. I suggest you stay at a motel tonight.”

The teen girl groans, “Dad, you can’t be serious!” The dad sighs and complies with Sam and Dean’s request.

“One night. One. Then we’re coming back in the morning and moving in,” he says.

The three of you jump in the Impala to talk to the longtime housekeeper. Surely if there’s a ghost in that house, she’ll give the boys a lead on whose body needs to be burned. You waited in the car as they spoke with her on her porch. Your thoughts wandered towards the moment in the bedroom after Dean scared you. It was like he was trying to comfort you. You wondered if he felt bad about it. The memory of his hand on your arm sent shivers down your spine. His touch was intoxicating. You wanted more.

The boys got back in the car, settling in their seats with a frustrated sigh.

“How’d it go?” you asked.

“The wife died in childbirth, and the daughter hung herself. Both were cremated. So either someone else is haunting that house, or one of them is hanging onto something in that house. We’re gonna have to go back and take a look. Maybe the attic or under the house there’s something sentimental they’re stuck to,” Sam explained. Great. Back to the creepy old house, right as the sun was setting.

Dean cussed as he pulled up to the farmhouse – the family was back. The car and U-Haul were back in the driveway, and light shined through the upstairs windows. They had moved into the haunted murder house.

“Fuck!” Dean cursed as he slammed his hand against the steering wheel, “What are we gonna do?”

“We could tell them the truth,” Sam replied.

“Really?” Dean asked, shocked.

“No, not really.” Sam shot Dean a look for even considering that he was being serious.

Screams came from the house, and quickly Sam and Dean jumped into action. Busting the front door open, the boys took a moment to assess the situation. You ran up to the house and immediately saw “GO” written in red crayon on the wall. The teenager was shrieking and crying.

“What’s wrong, what happened?” Dean demanded.

“What’s wrong is the girl in the walls LICKED me!” the teen yelled, gesturing to her hand.

Before Dean could even try to process that statement, you heard the dog yelping loudly outside.

“Buster!” the dad yelled, running out the front door to find his dog. Sam, Dean, and you followed him out, finding a highly disturbing message – “TOO LATE” was written in blood on the side of the U-Haul.

“There goes Buster,” you muttered to yourself, not quietly enough though. Dean snorted, then tried to play it off as a cough. Sam glared at both of you, then turned to the dad.

“You need to get your family and get the hell out of here. Go into town, find a motel, and let us handle this.” The dad nodded and went inside to gather his family. Dean turned around to grab supplies from the trunk of the Impala. That’s when you noticed something off.

“Um…guys?” you said, pointing to the tires. All of them were slashed: the Impala, the car, and the U-Haul.

“Seriously?! What kind of ghost messes with a man’s wheels?!” Dean yelled, assessing the damage done. Sam opened up the trunk, finding it completely empty.

“Be honest with me,” you whispered, “how fucked are we?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Dean swore. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.” His promise sent chills down your spine. He seemed so protective, it was making your knees weak. Of course you were swooning when you might not live to see tomorrow.

Sam gathered everyone back inside the house and rummaged around for salt and iron. While he drew out the salt circle on the living room floor, something was eating at you. And no, it wasn’t the intense fear that a ghost could pop out at any moment and kill you. There was something about this that was so…familiar. You’ve seen this before, but you can’t remember how it ends.

The sound of the closet door squeaking grabs everyone’s attention. A dirty, demented-looking little girl slowly creeps out of the darkness of the closet. The family screams.

“Everyone stay calm! As long as you stay inside the circle, she can’t hurt you,” Dean said. But that’s when it clicks for you – this is Family Remains. That’s not a fucking ghost.

Chapter 6

Tags 💛

@5tud10-54r4h @deans-spinster-witch @nelachu2423 @nancymcl @nelachu2423 @ghxul-x @foxyjwls007 @ladysparkles78 @verypostcrown @thej2report @lyarr24 @kazsrm67 @lino-se

#dean winchester #supernatural #dean x reader #sam and dean #team free will #spn #fanfic

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robsheridan · 10 months

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Stills from the 1988 sci-fi horror miniseries VIDEONOMICON, in which a mysterious AV club lures university students into a paid “research program” that isn’t what it seems...

A group of volunteer students, eager for some easy cash in exchange for “providing feedback on a series of audio-video test patterns,” find themselves hypnotized by a bizarre video pattern, becoming addicted to watching it for hours a day under the guidance of a mysterious figure who only speaks through a microphone installed in wall-mounted goat heads. Soon the AV club reveals itself as a front for a demon-worshipping video cult that is using the students as flesh vessels in a Techonocallistic ritual to transfuse demonic spirits through interdimensional video signals, trapping the souls of the students in a netherverse while their bodies become warped meat puppets controlled by demons to conquer earth.

Videonomicon was the first in a series of original films produced for the obscure premium cable network Zolmax that were also written and directed by Zolmax’s eccentric founder, mysterious auteur turned media mogul Maxim Voronin. After having his films rejected by major studios and networks for being too disturbing, Voronin founded Zolmax, pitching it as “Cinemax for the strange.” A mix of curated cult films and original content, Zolmax’s programming was described as “some of the most bizarre and deranged material to ever find its way onto television.” Black magic, devil worship, sexual depravity, and excessive gore were common sights on Zolmax, “painting a picture of a very disturbed man at the helm of this blasphemous sewer of a network,” wrote TV Guide in 1989.

Unphased by criticism, Voronin continued to produce his own films for his network for eight more years, including two sequels to Videonomicon.

To be continued…

-----------

NOTE: This alternate reality horror story is part of my NightmAIres narrative art series (visit that link for a lot more). NightmAIres are windows into other worlds and alternate histories, conceived/written by me and visualized with synthography and Photoshop.

If you enjoy my work, consider supporting me on Patreon for frequent exclusive hi-res wallpaper packs, behind-the-scenes features, downloads, events, contests, and an awesome fan community. Direct fan support is what keeps me going as an independent creator, and it means the world to me.

#rob sheridan #nightmAIres #ai horror #synthography #ai art #synthography horror #horror stories #sci-fi horror #demons #satanic #zolmax #videonomicon #maxim voronin #alternate history #80s horror #cosmic horror #fake movies

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mostlydeadallday · 1 month

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Lost Kin | Chapter XXXIX | What Must Be Done

Fandom: Hollow Knight

Rating: Mature

Characters: Hornet, Pure Vessel | Hollow Knight, Quirrel

Category: Gen

Content Warnings: gore, body horror, panic attacks, dissociation, vomiting, flashbacks, referenced abuse, referenced self-harm, child death

AO3: Lost Kin | Chapter XXXIX | What Must Be Done

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Chronological

Notes: Hornet and Quirrel address the remaining infection.

○

Hornet held her sibling’s hand until they stopped trembling and the awful rasping in their throat died away. Until they could see her again, the void in their eyes no longer twisting frantically, loosening enough to follow as she moved.

Panicking them just before she began work on their wounds was the last thing she had wanted. But it had happened, regardless—the strain of being asked to use the new signs piling atop the stress of being moved, tied down, and anticipating what she was about to do. Quirrel’s proximity had likely not helped them admit something they likely would have struggled with even had she been alone with them.

She finished checking the anchors fastened to the floor along her sibling’s side, wider points of silk glowing bright where they met the stone at regular intervals like the cables of a bridge.

They would hold, she hoped. It was a precaution she wished she did not have to take, but despite Hollow stating that they would communicate with her, she refused to trust in that alone.

Her pulse was quick, quick, feathering in her throat, and she kept her gaze on her hands so that she would not have to look at them laid out flat on the floor, limbs stretched out and tied down, their every breath pulling the silk-lines taut.

She had to do this, she had to, she had to—

“Hornet?”

Without raising her gaze from where her hands had frozen beside Hollow’s hip, she answered. “Get the tools.”

He did as she asked, with a murmured “One moment,” to Hollow as he left their side. She heard him rearranging things on the tray he had found and cleaned, the soft clink of metal on metal doing nothing for her fraying nerves.

She had made this harder on herself.

She hadn’t meant to. She had intended, this morning, to bind herself firmly into that cold, distant mood she could put on like a second shell, piece by piece, like one of the Five readying for battle.

That had not happened. She’d crawled out of that nightmare already wounded, with her shell already pierced, and seeing Hollow safe, alive, craning their head to peer at her as she stepped into the room, had finished her. She hadn’t been able to stop herself going to them, touching them, holding them, to be sure that they were real. A hideous relief had taken hold of her—relief that they were unharmed, hideous because that would soon no longer be true.

She could not deny that it had felt like, if they could, they would have reached out to hold her, too.

Quirrel reappeared, setting down the tray and pushing back the mattresses so that they would have more room. His hands were wrapped in a thin layer of her silk, a precaution he’d requested after she mentioned that, being fully mortal, he would not share her resistance to the caustic effects of void and infection.

Hornet laid her hand on Hollow’s again. Her claws were dwarfed by theirs, and her heart lurched when they shifted their thumb to touch her fingertips, brushing her chitin with the cool roughness of the pads set into their shell.

She looked up into their face, into the eyes of someone she had denied the existence of for so long, and saw acceptance. The acceptance she could not give herself: that there were things that must be done, painful and inexplicable though those things might be, and that they would obey her in spite of it.

No, she wanted to hiss, and stop it, stop it, I don’t want this, I don’t deserve it.

But she would not—not if it brought them peace, not if it helped them endure what she needed to do.

Choked with her own refusal, she couldn’t say any of the thousand things that crowded her throat, things she’d already tried, in one way or another, to convince them of. I’m sorry had already been said, and she did not know how many more ways she could find to say it. Hold on passed between them, silently, in the grip of her hand over theirs. And hidden somewhere deep, in a recess of her heart she had almost forgotten, frail and small and afraid but unsilenced, was—

I love you.

Was it folly, to admit to loving someone she had only just met? That she had no tie to, other than the cursed blood that bound them as kin? Someone so damaged, so broken, that she did not even know who they were? Someone she did not know if she could save?

It did no good to deny it. If that was folly, then she was the kingdom’s greatest fool.

She stood.

Her legs were unsteady still. They had been since she stumbled out of the kitchen, half-convinced that she would find Hollow dead and gutted on the floor in front of her. There was a cruelty to the way they lay there now, as if in deliberate echo of her nightmare, but she held to the sound of their breathing, the faint motion beneath their mask, to tether herself to reality.

She’d placed them on their back, with cushions to prop up their torso and neck, keeping their horns at a low angle off the floor. The blankets would insulate from the chill of the flagstones, although she did not know if that needed to be done—would they prefer to feel the cold, if the infection was still keeping their body from returning to its normal temperature? At least it would protect their shell from scratches if they struggled.

This would not be comfortable, not for any of them, but she’d done what she could.

As an afterthought, she spun one last web between their horns, thinner than the rest, anchoring their head to the floor—though with enough slack that they could move if need be. This one, she did not trust to hold, but it might give her enough time to move if they attempted to bite.

With one hand still on their horn, she spoke again. They likely already knew this, but she could not help drawing the boundaries once more.

“This may take some time. Quirrel is here only to assist me; he will not touch your wounds himself. Unless you are moving to sign to me, please—lie very still. I know it will hurt, and I… I must ask you to endure it.” She tightened her grip on their mask, pressing her fingers round its curves. “Do you understand?”

Their claw lifted, tapped out two faint beats on the stone. Yes.

No more reason to delay. Nothing left to do but what she had been dreading.

She moved to kneel at their left side, on a folded towel that Quirrel had placed within reach of the basin of water, the stack of rags, the tray of shining tools. Her head was swimming. The words stuck in her throat felt almost literal; something was swelling there nearly large enough to stop her breath, and when she pulled out the pouch of herbs from beneath her cloak, her hands were shaking.

Quirrel moved to sit beside her. Somehow without looking at him she knew the expression he’d be making—all hunched shoulders and lowered antennae, interest and concern that she couldn’t take right now. She pinched a dose of herbs between her claws and tipped her head back, shredding the leaves with her fangs and teeth until the bitter-sharp taste filled her mouth.

Better. Slightly. It gave her another thing to focus on, at least. She passed the pouch back to Quirrel. “I may need you to give me more of that.”

He answered with a brief word that she didn’t hear. Her mask seemed full of a deadly hum, like the warning buzz of the Hive, making her voice too close and his too far away.

She beckoned the lantern over, and when he brought it to Hollow’s side and shone the harsh light on their shoulder, she bent down to inspect the work she had done so far.

It was, plainly speaking, an ugly mess. But not a mess she could solely blame herself for. A few sharp edges of shell plate on their back and chest still protruded out into nothing, left behind as muscle and bone dissolved away beneath them. The sunken pit between was a twisted knot of scarring—some of it swollen, perhaps inflamed, though it was difficult to tell with their flesh so dark and their blood the same color as their skin.

It was difficult to tell anything. Especially with the empty blister sacs hanging in clusters on their withered shoulder, deforming the outline of their body into something barely recognizable.

She lifted one to peel it away, working her fingers under the ragged edge and loosening it, trying to pull as little as she could on the still-living flesh beneath. Flesh that was soft and pliable, springing back when she pressed against it, deeply exposed and unprotected in a way she dearly hoped her own body never would be.

The empty pustule detached with only a little trouble, leaving her holding something that hung slack from her fingers like a limp, puckered seed-pod—something she did not look at too long before dropping it in the rusty bin procured for that purpose.

She breathed deeply for a moment, the tension still not abating, though her hands had steadied. Hollow hadn’t moved, shifting not an inch in their bonds, but then, she had not really hurt them. Not yet.

The second empty sac came away cleanly, and the third. With every one disposed of, she moved closer to the active infection, closer to the light-filled blisters crowding out through their skin.

Caught in the dread of it, fresh nausea roiling in her gut, she pulled too hard. The fourth tore free.

She felt it rip, felt the weak resistance of the still-healing scar give out. Her hands went cold. Void oozed up, welling from the ragged wound, tracking down through the snarled maze of their scars and onto the sheet. It spread as it fell, like blots of ink.

She forgot to breathe.

A warm, dripping rag was pressed into her hands. Her claws squeezed it automatically, wringing clean water down over her knees. Her own inhale sounded loud inside her mask.

Right. Right. Mustn’t fall apart yet. She had only just begun.

She took Quirrel’s unspoken suggestion, clamping the rag to the wound until it stopped seeping—surprisingly quickly. Their shoulder had bled very little the first time. The infection must have cut off the supply of void to the area, causing what remained to wither and shrink, acid and heat searing them down to the marrow.

“Sorry, sorry,” she heard herself whisper. Hollow did not respond. Didn’t even twitch as she patted the stump clean again, wincing every time she passed over a snarl of scar tissue or a hidden knob of bone.

Their strength was holding. That was good—it was, no matter that the lack of reaction made her want to ask if they were all right, if they could hear her at all.

She managed not to tear open any more wounds as she removed the rest, leaving their shoulder a slightly less horrific mess than it had been. Less misshapen, less grotesque, less like the dead husks she saw lying in the streets, corpses worn down and drained of life twice over.

And—more their own. All that remained was theirs, both what was still intact and the results of their body’s attempts to retake what belonged to it. With a muted sense of relief, she dropped the last deflated sac into the bucket, resisting the urge to wash her hands—the infection had not even touched her yet, and already her shell was crawling.

Quirrel cleared his throat as he took the void-stained rag from her. “I think you should remove the rest as we go. It may cause more bleeding than we want, but… the injuries will close with soul-healing, correct?” At her nod, he went on. “Then that would be best. It will save us having to return and finish later—and what’s left may be harder to reach once the infection recedes.”

“All right,” she breathed, and took a scalpel from the tray—fine, thin, with a sharp tip, weighing heavy in her fingers.

Exhaling shakily, she turned and picked up a hollow shell bowl, another thing Quirrel had discovered while raiding the cabinets, and set its edge beneath the rim of a half-filled blister. Then she pressed the tip of the scalpel in, just above the puckered flesh beneath.

The swollen surface dimpled slightly, then gave, spilling open all at once like the gut of a butchered animal, and a sludgy stream of rot gushed into her bowl.

Hornet tried not to breathe. The sweet, flowery reek of it surrounded her, pressing against her mask, into her lungs.

Hold the bowl steady. Hold the knife steady.

Widen the cut, deepen the gash. Watch the god-light seethe and steam.

Don’t think. Don’t think.

Quirrel was holding out a clean cloth when she turned to ask for one, taking the full bowl from her and emptying the contents into the waste. She kept pressure on the cut until he gave the bowl back. Then she set her hand on the sagging blister, resisting the urge to jerk back from the heat against her palm, and pushed.

It dislodged a fresh gush of yellow and two half-formed clots, one after the other, threatening to slosh over the side of the bowl. Hornet bit down on nothing, jaws aching, and pushed again, watching the stream of ichor wane. Until the blister was flattened under her hand, until the thin fluid that she pressed from the cut ran only black.

Quirrel had the scalpel in hand when she turned to reach for it.

Rather than pull at something that was not ready to come free, she felt along its base before she cut. Guessing at where the damage began, at the point where it became no longer their own. At where the light had forced its way out, swelling and stretching within their own skin until the damage was too great to heal and their body rejected it.

She guessed wrong.

Void welled freely beneath her knife. Dark, wet, shining; she shuddered, the inside of her mask still ringing with the screams of pain from her nightmares. She stripped the excised flesh away, fumbling for another rag to press to the wound, and held both hands against it, arms nearly weak enough to give way.

Hollow’s side shifted beneath the pressure, and she almost let go, resolve faltering, until she heard a long, deliberate scrape of air through their throat. They inhaled, deeply, and exhaled again, each measure precise, each respiration held and released beat for beat.

A pang of nausea twisted her gut. She recognized this. This was exactly what she remembered, exactly what they had done the first time under her knife, down to the very rhythm of each breath.

She did not look over toward Quirrel’s soft exclamation, did not look at her sibling’s face as they did their best to endure this. She looked at her hands again, black claws twisted into blackening cloth. At the movement, up and down, as her sibling took another long, intentional breath.

The feeling swirling in her chest was no longer dread, or anger, or anything in between—anything but hate. She hated that they had learned to do this, and she hated imagining why. She hated what the world had done to them—what the goddess and her father and she herself had taught them to expect.

That their life would never be their own. That they would always be suffering for someone else’s cause. That they would never have a choice. Always bound, by one chain or another, and always, always, hurting.

Dwelling on this would not help. It would not help. She had to go on.

She shook herself, roughly, ignoring Quirrel’s questioning look, and loosened her grip, peeling back the corner of the cloth to check the bleeding. The gash was not deep, but this lower point on their shoulder—past the worst of the scarring—was better supplied with void than the rest.

She would have given them soul to heal, but she did not wish to waste their strength unless it was necessary. Asking them to heal could break their concentration, sending them into a spiral that would be harder than ever to interrupt. Nor could she forget that giving them soul was tantamount to handing them a weapon. She had to take more care with Quirrel nearby; any one of the dozens of spells Hollow knew could easily kill him, if they panicked badly enough to try.

They had not done so yet. And it seemed unfair to assume the worst, when they were trying so hard, trying to do everything she asked of them. Even when they broke that pattern, it was only ever to protect, not to harm.

She did trust them, as much as she could. She did—but trust was as useless as geo, and she would give them all she had, but she did not have much.

Instead, she kept applying pressure to the wound, checking it occasionally as she waited for the bleeding to slow, and switched hands when the chill of the soaked bandage made her joints begin to ache. Quirrel offered her a second to place as a buffer over the first, though the flow had nearly clotted by then. She gave it an extra minute or so after lifting her hands away, watching to be sure the fragile scab would hold, before she moved on.

With the next, she took greater care. Watching, forcing herself closer, forcing her mind to focus on each detail. With every wary cut she made, with every halting press against the bloated thing, she imagined her own skin parting, her own blood welling, acid sizzling against her own shell, leaving pocks and craters even after she wiped it away.

The tools felt hot in her hands. Hollow’s breathing had changed the moment the knife touched them again—inhales becoming quick, shallow, as if they were barely holding their mask above water and any reckless motion would send them under.

She wished that they would stop. Every tiny sip of air, every crackle in their throat, was a reminder that they were hurting, that she was hurting them, and the measured, stifled movement making it easier for her to work only added to the pain.

She almost wanted to snarl at them, to snap them out of it—

Careful. Careful. The anger simmering in her was destructive, she knew; she could not let it boil over.

A long, careful slice, right at the seam where the blister emerged from their body. A press of her palm over a rag over the wound, to hold back the void that bubbled up. A tense silence while the wound clotted. This time she allowed Hollow three full breaths and half of a fourth, waiting until they had filled their lungs before she bent down to her work again.

The remaining sacs on their shoulder, the ones that had refilled after her first attempt, were easier. Less pressure—the infection had receded from this area—and once drained, they came away without much bleeding.

She handed the bowl back to Quirrel to be emptied, laying another bandage down to sop up a weak trickle of yellow from the last flattened blister.

He touched her. Just two fingers on her shoulder, brief, but she jumped, and before she’d fully turned to hiss at him he was already apologizing. “Sorry, I—sorry. Slipped my mind.” He laughed shakily, not meeting her eye. “I just—I need a moment to empty this.”

The waste bucket. It was nearly full already, sloshing unpleasantly as he lifted it, and she averted her eyes, unable to avoid the waft of metallic, putrid sweetness that followed as he moved. Like blood, like nectar, and at the same time like neither. Like the rot hidden at the core of a thing. Like corpses piled to burn, piling higher, higher, higher—

She swallowed a lump that burned all the way down her throat. Her whole body pulsed with remembered dread, with the constant live-wire terror running just under her shell. It had been an age since the height of the infection, since there were bodies still to burn, or anyone living left to burn them.

But that smell—it was inescapable. Like the dread. Like the slow-motion certainty that there was nothing she could do, that her entire world was dissolving, day by day, before her eyes.

Your mind is your own.

Her mind was, still, her own. By some miracle. By some protection from the divine in her heritage, some useless trick to ensure she remained sane to witness the chaos. Something her father had evidently been unable to extend to his so-called Pure Vessel, whose downfall he’d acknowledged only by disappearing, along with his entire court and the palace she had once wished she could tear down stone by stone.

Leaving her with a crumbling kingdom. Leaving Hollow to burn, and burn, and burn—

Breathe. She had to breathe, had to stay here, stay now. For them.

The air, when she took a tentative gulp of it, did not reek. It was cool and clean and still. Those terrible days were long behind her. She was—no longer as alone as she once was. Her sibling was here, freed from their bonds, far from unharmed but also far more alive than she ever expected. And Quirrel—

Quirrel was kneeling beside her again, murmuring something that sounded concerned. All her fingers were buzzing; when she looked back down at them, her claws were sunk in the cloth she’d been using, clenching hard enough to tear.

She opened her fists. Flexed them, coaxing the feeling back.

Over her shoulder, quiet and level, she said, “I think I need more of those herbs now.”

He obliged, passing her the pouch, and waited until she had bowed her head to swallow—painfully—before he said, “You’re doing very well.”

She scoffed.

“Truly,” he hastened to add, before she could argue. “And you too, my friend.”

Hollow did not reply—could not, with the options she’d given them—but, as she watched, their head tilted. Questioning. Barely enough to be noticeable, except that she had been waiting, breath held, for any sign from them. And this…

This was the first reaction they had truly shown since she began.

She reached to touch them, one shaking hand smoothing over the shell at the base of their shoulder, where no nail or burn wounds marred it. “You are,” she whispered, and meant it. “I’m sorry, I’m—it must hurt, but—”

She wished she could tell them it was almost over.

The void was swirling softly when she met their eye, in a pattern she did not know how to interpret. Perhaps if she had seen the signs, had listened to her buried instincts sooner, she would know what it meant. The best she could do now was offer them what she herself would want, if she were in their place.

“All of the cysts on your shoulder are removed,” she explained. “The bleeding has stopped. The next step is to drain the infection in your chest.”

That would be the truly delicate work. The first few single blisters were clearly visible, following the lower curve of their pectoral plate. But farther on, they were grouped in clusters, crowding together, protruding like a clutch of eggs from the fractured cavity carved out by their own nail.

Self-inflicted, she heard Quirrel’s words echoing, and shook the memory away before it could paralyze her.

Perhaps she was accomplishing what they could not. Perhaps, in some way, they had been trying to rid their body of this plague, by the only method allowed to them.

Gods. How deep would she need to go to remove them all?

She could do this. She could.

She had to.

Hornet slid her hand from their shell and clenched her jaw, holding onto the bitter taste in her mouth. “Syringe, please.”

Quirrel placed it in her hand, a heavy, shining thing with a thick barrel and a long, slender needle. He had tested it while she was readying her other supplies, ensuring that it did not leak. Rather than cutting into the difficult-to-reach cysts and risking the infection draining back into their body cavity, he’d suggested she use this to draw the fluid out, until the entire growth could be removed safely.

In theory, this had sounded simple.

In practice, the first time she pierced the skin of one of the bright, angry blisters in their chest, it sprayed molten light down her front, flinging an arc of infection across her mask and arm in a string of golden droplets that immediately began to burn.

She couldn’t help the sound that she made: a visceral, stuttering hiss. Hollow had not flinched at the sting of the needle but they did flinch now—a spasm jerked their chest tight as they attempted to lift their head, quickly halted by the silk round their horns.

Before they could panic and struggle, Hornet wrestled her voice and her own momentary panic under control, though the edge of a growl still crept through. “It’s fine, everything is—fine. Please lie still.”

It was not fine. Her heart was thumping hard, the heat of the infection seeping through the collar of her replacement cloak and dripping down her mask, pouring down Hollow’s side from where their motion had torn the opening wider. Dropping the syringe with a clatter, she snatched up a rag and pressed it close to soak up the fluid before it could reach their shoulder and scorch the exposed skin even further.

There was more, too much more. “Bowl,” she snapped, and then it was in her hand. She wedged it under a lip of warped shell, damming off the other routes for the infection to flow with her handful of cloth.

Hollow’s breathing pattern had broken for an instant, but they were back to it now, as rigid as if they’d never left it, though each breath warped and wavered like heat waves in the air. She couldn’t take the time to think about it, between emptying the bowl and sopping up the stray runnels as the flow dwindled.

This blister was in danger of collapsing into the space it had carved out between their chest-plates, and she very much did not want to have to dig it back out—but the only things in her hands were not helpful for this. She dropped the rag, then held out her hand to Quirrel. “Forceps.”

A pause. “Which kind?”

She whipped around and saw his hand hovering over the three options on the tray. “The kind that grab things,” she hissed, snatching up the closest one.

Snagging the blister with the tool, she fumbled for the scalpel until Quirrel pushed it wordlessly into her hand. She stretched out the soft, swollen thing as much as she could, reached into the gap and, holding her breath, sliced it free.

Packing a damp, folded rag into the space worked to slow the bleeding, but she could see that she’d need to ask them to heal soon. The farther she went, the deeper she’d have to reach to cut the drained cysts out, and soon there would be no easy way to apply pressure. And the sooner they did heal, the less she would have to worry about any of the previous injuries breaking open if they struggled.

They’d not given any indication that they would. In fact, they’d given very little indication of anything. Even with her observing more closely, almost nothing betrayed their pain, the occasional quick tremor in their throat muffled and subtle, easily missed. But—if she took time to notice—she could feel the tension in their body, each plate tightened and tucked close, corded muscle showing in their ruined shoulder and at the front of their neck, where their scales faded away into skin.

The lump pressed on the back of her throat again, the urge to gag taking her by surprise. The sickening stench of the infection was not helping, wafting up in hot, sweet waves and lingering on her mask from the cooling splatter.

She couldn’t release pressure on the wound yet, so she turned her face aside, tucking her chin over her shoulder and breathing air that was a touch cleaner. Enough—it was enough.

Quirrel made an offended noise when he saw her face. Before she could protest, he had dipped a clean cloth in the basin and was wiping the filth from her mask. His touch was brisk but gentle, the rag smelled of nothing but soap, and his sharp mandible-click of distaste brought her back to when her nursemaids would clean hemolymph from her jaws, while she’d still been growing into them and had been far messier about her meals.

He folded the rag over itself to dab at the spots on her arm, too, and she let him, still trying to breathe, to push away the dizziness.

“Perhaps it would work better at a different angle,” he suggested. “Or try drawing back slightly on the plunger when you breach the surface.”

She nodded, unable to speak yet. She tried letting Hollow’s steady breathing lull her, shifting with them as their chest rose and fell in the longer pattern they allowed themselves.

Had they learned this from undergoing their father’s experiments? He had made references to a laboratory, deeper in the Palace than she had ever gone. Had he made and remade them using the same process as the kingsmoulds and all his other inventions? How long had it taken to perfect them? How long?

She could imagine Hollow lying there, under the bright lights and the god-king’s scrutiny, while he wove seals through their shell with mind and soul and scalpel. She could imagine them trying to deaden the pain, draw their mind away, focus on something other than the welling void beneath his touch. Trying, in some way, to exert control over something, anything, of their own body, when every other impulse was caught and ground down to dust.

Anger simmered and steamed in her stomach again. No, no—she had to shove it back, push it down. She would not make Hollow think she was angry at them—she would not.

Exhaling faintly, she turned to face her task again, lifting the rag out away from the wound and checking that a clot had formed. She could move on to the next one, now—and then the next, and the next.

Quirrel’s advice worked, though it was still a demanding, messy process—a careful slide of the needle into the cyst, a measured pull of the plunger, a breathless wait as the glass tube filled with glistening yellow. Each one required multiple rounds to empty, and she had to switch between drawing out the fluid and stopping up the opening as she handed the syringe back to be drained into the waste bucket.

When the sac deflated enough that there was too little for the needle to draw, she pressed the remainder of it out with the back of the knife, then cut the entire thing free.

The horror of it dimmed in the repetition.

Pierce. Draw. Scrape. Cut.

Her back cramped from bending over her work. Her wrists and hands ached with tension, with the burning light that dripped from the soaked rags, with the void that beaded ice-cold on her claws.

Quirrel offered her another set of forceps, longer. Another dose of herbs that she gladly accepted.

Through it all, Hollow was motionless. Even as she worked inward, reaching deeper, cold metal sliding between the plates and into muscle and skin. They barely breathed while blade or needle touched them, seeming to sense when she needed their stillness the most. It was a horrible sort of synergy—an unspoken effort, born of long practice, to disturb her as little as possible, to maintain that iron grip on their control.

She shouldn’t wish for them to react. She shouldn’t want to see them wince, or feel them flinch away from her hands. She should not hope the pain would prove too much for them to hide.

But it was agony, not knowing whether they would stop her. Not knowing if they were approaching their limit. It was agony to keep going, to force the same motions from her hands again and again, imagining the pain mounting with each wound.

It was agony, and she could not do it for long.

Despite her best efforts, she came loose from herself again. She sensed it happen, sensed the cord tethering her presence snap. It felt almost as it did when she was dreaming, watching her hands move from above her own head. The same motions as before.

Pierce. Draw. Scrape.

But when she reached for the knife again, the cricket did not hand it to her.

Hornet blinked, shifting her jaw out of its tight clench to demand what she needed.

The look on his face stopped her. He shook his head, glanced across her outstretched arm.

At Hollow. At the way their claws had begun to scrape at the blanket. At the barest strain in their back, a struggle not to arch against the ropes.

One claw quivered above the floor, rigid, as if they were resisting the urge to use it.

“Oh.” The sound came out barely more than a whisper. She sat forward, lifting the pressure on the rag she was holding. The tension in their neck and shoulders had gone taut enough to snap. Even their heel-spurs were digging in and ripping ragged gaps in the blanket beneath them, leaving pale scratches on the stone.

She—she had missed it. She had been too far away to see.

Before she could speak, before she could even begin to reassure them, they moved, gasping one rattling breath that abruptly broke the pattern, and tapped the stone once.

Twice.

Three times.

“I hear you,” she said, removing her hands from them entirely. “I hear you.”

They gasped. Again. Faster. And again, sucking at the air through open mouth and vents both, beginning to tremble enough to set the silk across their body vibrating along with them. They were falling apart, and she—

It was all she could do to keep from following.

Her head was light, as knotted up and empty as her stomach. What should she do? What could she do? She had known—she had known that asking them to do this would terrify them, but any plans she might have made had escaped from her head like lumaflies from a shattered glass.

She clenched her fists on her knees and tried to breathe while Hollow spiraled farther and farther into panic, their throat closing far enough that each gasp shrilled, tight and harsh.

“It’s all right.”

Both of them jumped at the voice, soft as it was.

Quirrel. Intervening. Trying to soothe them, when she could not—and any defiant thought Hornet had had about doing this without him died in an instant.

He did not reach to touch them, either one of them, but his hands, too, were balled into fists. “Stay calm,” he said, just loud enough to be heard over Hollow’s distressed wheezing. “Please, stay calm, my friend. It’s all right. Breathe. It will pass.”

Hollow shuddered. Hot tears began to prick at Hornet’s eyes. She knew who this was for, which one of them he was calling friend, but it didn’t matter: some foolish, desperate part of her was clinging to his words as if they were for her.

Useless. Useless. She was just sitting there, doing nothing while they were sinking into terror in front of her. Afraid, in pain, having been forced to the point of asking for the one thing that frightened them the most.

Stop.

Any attempt she made at reassurance would be thin, shaky—but they deserved for her to at least try.

Her fangs felt horribly clumsy as she parted them to speak. “It’s all right, Hollow, it’s—” Tears choked her words back, and she had to swallow and try again. “I-I—you’ve done what I asked. I asked you to—to tell me, when it hurts too much. And you did. You did well.”

This prompted a broken cough, perhaps an attempt at bringing themselves back under control, an attempt that rapidly gave way to a soundless, fluttering whine, a not-cry so despairing that she had to shut her eyes on a flash of white, on an image of the Palace walls racing by as their screams set the halls ringing.

“Please,” she found herself whispering, claws pricking into her knees as she fought to make the world stop whirling. “It’s all right. Please. Please stop.”

She was begging, pleading with someone she was not even sure could hear her. Their eyes were wide open, but the void was moving in sickening twists and jerks, erratic and unfocused. She leaned back, inhaling deeply, though it felt like breathing through honey. Something greedy grasped at her, dragging all her limbs down—a helplessness and despair that wanted to suck her under and never let her up again—

The string of soul vessels tapped against her chest. No. No, she was not helpless. She had this. She had the means to make their pain stop. She could allow them to heal.

If they were able.

They flinched when she touched them, the thready hiss of their breath breaking in two. Murmuring something vaguely like reassurance, words she didn’t even hear leaving her own throat, she pressed her hand to the silk-rune on their other shoulder, opening the conduit slowly, only a trickle at first.

Hollow jerked again at the influx of soul into their reservoirs. She tried to meet their gaze, to appear steadier than she felt.

“It’s all right.” Repeating herself, repeating Quirrel’s words, too, but it was the only thing she could think of. “It’s all right. Breathe. Please just—breathe.”

Her sibling appeared to try, forcing a deeper breath into their lungs—wheezing all the same in spite of it, but she nodded encouragingly, acknowledging their effort. “There. Good. Keep—keep breathing. You haven’t—I am not upset, I just—”

No, she didn’t have an explanation, not one that they could hear now. She settled for repeating what she had said already, feeding them soul drop by drop, until she could feel that they would have enough to complete a healing spell. She did not miss the way the whistle in their lungs diminished and the shaking in their limbs steadied some; an effect of the soul, or of her attempts to ground them?

“Hollow.” It was an effort to coax her voice not to shake. “Can you heal?”

They twitched. Nothing more. No response, not even in sign—when she looked, their hand was bent stiffly under, straining against the silk at their wrist.

Still terrified. Still so afraid of the consequences of expressing their pain, of asking for the reprieve they had needed.

Cold dread crawled through her. If they were afraid enough to lose control… they could, perhaps, be afraid enough to lash out.

“Step back,” she whispered to Quirrel. She heard him rise and drop something on the tray, take two quick steps. Then, after a pause, a third.

It would have to be enough. There was not much farther he could go, unless she asked him to leave the room. He had enough distance now to give him an advantage—he was quick, and she still hoped that the precautions would not be necessary.

“Hollow, heal for me,” she said again, and watched their throat spasm as they choked back another sob. Watched their hand flex, claws scraping tighter, silk creaking as they pulled against it. Wanting to hide, as they’d done before? To curl their hand close, as if it hurt them—or even to scratch their own shell open, in remorse at having asked for mercy?

Nothing she said could fix this. She had already tried—she’d tried everything she knew. If they could not heal—

If they couldn’t, she’d have to go on anyway. With her sibling in pain, more every moment, mounting with every wound she lanced. Without knowing whether the next cut she made, or the next, or the next, would be what made them lose their grip entirely, striking out at her in mindless instinct.

She couldn’t. She couldn’t put them through that again. Not knowing what she knew now. Not knowing what might come after.

The gashes in their shell—the nail-wounds in their chest—

Self-inflicted—

A flicker in her vision. Bright white, sketching spell-lines in the air. Only for an instant—then gone again, leaving a prickling afterimage.

Hollow’s shoulders went slack on the cushions, their breathing falling back to that jagged double rhythm. Void still seeped from the last emptied sac, still shone slickly on the seams where she’d cut the others away.

That had been their healing spell. She’d recognized it—but they had let their focus slip before it could finish. Something she had never seen them do, something she herself had not done since childhood. It was a waste of soul, a waste of focus. Letting go of a spell before it completed—aside from aborting a casting for one’s own safety—was the first thing she had been taught to avoid.

It was the sort of thing a beginner might do. Someone untrained. Inexperienced.

Another spell blinked out in her memory.

I know what you are.

Soul shining, faint and desperate, interrupted by a slash of her needle.

I know what you’d try to do.

Hollow sobbed again, an ugly, ragged sound, and she came back to herself, all at once.

They were spiraling. The flash of memory had distracted her—and her stunned silence had gone on too long.

“No,” she whispered, fumbling for—for anything, any way to save this from disaster. “No, I—”

A pause, while she took hold of herself, dragged herself free, scraped up the last of her strength. The warmth and solace in her voice when she spoke again was not hers. It could not be, no matter how she tried; it was her mother’s, it was Midwife’s, it was every drop of comfort she could wring out of her faded memory. “It’s all right. I—I know. I know you can. Please… please try.”

Quirrel was silent, tense, behind her, as she reached forward again to transfer more soul.

This time, she kept her hand on them, touching lightly, speaking softly, offering the only comfort she could. Coaxing them to claw their way back, breath by breath, until they regained enough control to try again.

She felt tingling in her bones, the chill flash of spent soul, as they failed.

Little shoulders hunched, cloak trembling as they shook with effort.

Soul-runes dancing over soft shell—then a surge of savage triumph as the spell vanished, incomplete.

Her own voice, cold, distant.

“I can’t allow it.”

Shit.

Not now. Not now.

It was—

The other vessel. The one now trapped in the temple. They had done this—

In combat with her.

Combat. It was unjust to call it that. There was no honor there, no respect, no glory. Only blood. Only fear.

Only slaughter.

Nothing she hadn’t done before. Nothing she would not have to do again.

Or so she’d thought.

Her heart beat faster, thumping in her mask, her throat. She was beginning to shake again, a terrible cold swelling in her chest.

They could not know. She could not let them see, they needed—Hollow needed her—

She had nearly killed them—

Her own voice reached her hearing, distant and calm, as if it belonged to another.

“You can heal. You can.” She could not feel the sound leaving her throat. She could not feel the breath leaving her lungs. “Breathe. Try again.”

They were listening. They were, though their chest still heaved and their claws still clenched, though their eyes still writhed with fear.

Please, she begged, without knowing how to say it. Without knowing if she could.

When she opened the conduit and let her soul spill over, they seemed to steady. Seemed to pull together, again, somehow. They looked her in the eyes as she spoke praise she could not hear, as she stroked their shell with a hand too numb to feel it.

Please.

Pale sparks pricked the air. A low hum built beneath her skin, like a net of threads pulling taut. Light began to lick along the jagged edges of their wounds, tracing every cut in brilliant white.

Hollow stopped breathing. Their horns arched back. Plates bunched at their abdomen, muscle tensing beneath, knees coming up against the ropes at the shuddering strain. Hornet had just enough sense left to shut her eyes before the arc of the spell closed in around them, white light flashing murky blue-gray through her eyelids.

When they relaxed, they did so completely, only a small quiver still rattling through them as they fell fully back onto the cushions in relief.

They’d done it.

They’d healed.

She—she hadn’t thought—

Hornet blinked. Stared down at Hollow, at her hand on their stomach, rising and falling as their breathing slowed. Watched the shift of light across their shell, the subtle ripple of their scars.

She should be relieved.

Why wasn’t she?

She turned her hand over. It moved when she bade it to. So there was no reason for her to feel that she was not in control, that something foreign had hold of her. She had almost expected to see silk threading from her joints like strings.

Her throat ached all the way down to her guts. There was pressure building, building, in her lungs.

But she would not cry. She would not scream. It seemed like an easy decision, effortless. She would not buckle, grip her horns with her hands, wail and sob until she lost the voice to speak. She could not let it out now, and so she would not.

She knew this. She recognized it. It was worse than before. Bad enough that she could not stop it. Bad enough that the sharp twinge of her fangs grinding was as distant as a dying spark.

It was easy, too, to swallow down the ache in her throat. To force air into her lungs. To forget her fears, screaming in the back of her head. To bury them. She had done this, over and over, throughout the long years, until it became almost instinct, as practiced a motion as sheathing her needle or reeling in her silk.

Until she felt nothing, or as close to nothing as she could.

It seemed to take a long time, and yet only a moment.

Hollow was calm enough now to continue. She saw herself check her anchors, one by one, plucking the threads that bound her sibling down—and then check their wounds, methodically, testing each new scar to be sure that it had sealed over.

Nausea churned below her shell again, somehow easy to ignore. She did not ask for the herbs.

Quirrel had drawn closer, a quiet, motionless presence at her elbow. Perhaps he could feel it, too, the way that the world had withdrawn from her.

When she spoke, it was far-off, like a voice half-remembered.

“May I continue?”

The tap of their claw against the stone was clear, though.

Yes.

Without turning, without thinking, she spoke. “Lantern.”

He lifted it, high, shining it down on Hollow’s shell. The blister she had half-drained before stopping, larger than the others, was still blocking a large part of one opening, taking up the sunken space next to their sternum. These at the center were the only pocket left; she had drained and disposed of the rest.

The room was quiet, too quiet. Every sound she made seemed unnaturally sharp: the click of the forceps, the soft pop of punctured skin, the angry sizzle of the acid as it bubbled to the surface.

She drained and cut and staunched the bleeding, her motions nearly mechanical. This was the last surface blister to remove. The only light showing now was the glimmer at the center, partially obscured by the arc of their chest-plates, deep enough within their body that her shelling knife could never have reached it all.

She held out her hand for the syringe, and Quirrel supplied it with the hand not holding the lantern. He craned forward to see and an intake of air hissed between his jaws. “Hornet—”

“I know.” She did not need the distraction. The next blister was fully inside their body. She would have to reach into the hole in their chest, first with a needle, then with a blade.

“Be very still,” she murmured, and knew that Hollow heard her.

They were holding their breath as she lowered the needle and eased it in.

The first one went just like the others—painstaking and slow, drawing out the light from the places it shone through the cracks. Pressing a wad of fabric in against the bubbling gap, plugging it with a scrap of rag clamped between the tines of the forceps, as it was too deep for her fingers to reach. Waiting, hand outstretched, as Quirrel emptied and wiped down the syringe, until he handed it back to her.

One more draw, she thought. One more.

She discarded the fabric, reaching in with the forceps to hold the thing steady. Hollow held their breath again, and she could not stop to think about how still they were, how every sign of life went utterly out of them in an instant.

The syringe only filled halfway, sputtering, and she drew it back, trading it for the scalpel as she leaned over them, resting her wrist on their chest to keep it steady.

This cyst was anchored somewhere in the pectoral muscle, below the edge of their broadest plate, and she held her own breath as she reached in to cut it free.

Just another cut. Just another blister.

A tremor seized her hands as she lifted the thing out by its edge, dangling from the end of the forceps. Quirrel took the entire thing from her, his hand warm and steady around hers as he pried her fingers free of the looped handles. He was still holding the lantern, working one-handed to provide her with her tools when she needed them, and he took longer than usual to switch out for the other pair, so she leaned forward to inspect the wounds in the bluish, swaying light.

With the first interior sac removed, there were more visible beneath it, but she could count them, now—two, three, four, all clustered on the left side, around and above a dark, veiny mass as large as her doubled fists.

A thing that she stared at stupidly for a split second before she saw that it was moving.

Beating.

Slower than the pulse beneath her own skin, clenching and relaxing in a distinctive, unrelenting motion. Black on black in the murky cavern of their body, visible only by the hateful light cast in dawning golds and oranges around it.

Their—she was staring at—

Hornet went cold. All over, in an instant, sickening plunge. And then feverish heat rolled over her, too much, too fast, a wave of it closing over her shell.

That was their heart.

The air in the room fell away. Blood throbbed in her head, writhed in her throat, filling her whole world with her battering pulse.

She should have taken the herbs.

A convulsive retch lurched up her throat. She pressed her hands over her mouth, claws scraping against bone. Could not quite stifle what escaped: a hoarse, wrenching sound, half growl, half groan. Another followed it, a spasm that clenched her whole body tight. She was—she was going to—

She flung herself away, scrambling backward over the mattresses without a shred of her usual grace.

The blankets tangled with her legs, her knees, entrapping her. One hand caught her, slamming into the stone. The jolt rocked up her shoulder, and the pain made her retch again, venom beginning to drip and scald, hissing out onto the stone and scorching holes in the sheets she had dragged with her.

Clutching her mask, fingers wrapped around one horn in a death-grip, she heaved helplessly, eyes straining open, staring at the spots of light dancing between her and the room. Her fangs and jaws spread wide, cramping. Her claws ached where she dug scratches in the flagstone.

Screaming in her head. In the halls. In her head. In her dreams.

Dreams of waking up and feeling something wrong inside her.

Of pressing hand to shell and finding a pulse of heat not her own.

Dreams of breaking light in her reflection’s eyes, of standing helpless while molten gold ran down the cavern walls, pooling, pouring, suffocating, an endless sea of foreign rage.

And—

Dreams of black, black—liquid, shuddering black. Spilling from her veins in place of gleaming blue. Draining from her shell, her warmth drunk down by a sapping cold no life-heat could quench. Eyes opening in the dark, dozens of them, blazing white and pitiless.

Void pooling in her footsteps. Dripping from her elbows. Pulsing from each fracture of a crushed mask, from the stump of a severed limb, from a gaping, caved-in chest as she wrenched her needle free—

Killer.

Kinslayer.

One life. She had spared one and could not dare to think herself forgiven. As desperately as she grasped at it, as much as every action she took was an effort to absolve herself, she knew it would never be enough.

Every pulse of Hollow’s heart, each time it beat beneath their shell, was in mockery of all the others she had bled dry.

They lay so still, so lifeless, like every other body she had buried—like every other vessel she had killed—

She choked back a last, shuddering retch and loosened her grip on her horn, dropping her hand to the floor to brace herself. It took longer than it should have to fold her fangs back into place, her mouthparts fumbling as waves of nausea wracked her. Her eyes burned, burned, burned.

At least she had not had to bite herself to make it stop.

Black. Black ichor on her hands. Gushing down their shell as they lay there, bound, silent. Black blood, dripping down the knife in her dreams.

She had to look. She had to look back at them, to see the damage. But she couldn’t—not now. Not yet—

“Hornet?”

Something clattered on the floor. Quirrel—what was he doing? She hunched her shoulders, clamping down on her fangs to keep them from flashing out. A surge of anger—and the rasping wetness in her throat—lent a guttural hiss to her words, a sound her mother would have been proud to hear if Hornet had managed it as a spiderling. “Wait a moment.”

“You may not have a moment.”

What—

That fear in his voice was not fear of her.

She turned, cold dread already closing round her limbs, and saw Hollow—

Hollow. With a hole in their chest and void staining their shell, with an entire web’s worth of silk tying them down, was fighting to sit up. Their elbow was wedged halfway underneath them, tarsals braced into the gaps in the flagstones, horns hauled awkwardly back by the taut length of rope.

The rope’s anchor flickered. Dimmed. Down their side, along their arm, each soul-light wavered, one after another, the vessel’s strength taxing them to their limit.

A single string snapped. Then a second.

“Stop,” she gasped, and scrambled back toward them. “Stop!”

They did as she ordered. Instantly. Remaining in their contorted pose, though their arm was already beginning to quiver.

No. No, it was not only that. They were signing, frantically, hand twisted hard against the restraints to turn it palm-up, fingers opening and closing at their side.

The sign for hurt.

Something was wrong. Something—she’d hurt them, somehow, worse now, perhaps the ropes were hurting them, how—

It did not matter. “I’m sorry,” she choked out, and snatched the first tool within reach of her hand—a set of shears—to slice the cords. “I’m sorry, I—I’m so sorry—”

The first cord parted. Hollow’s head came up, silk streaming from their horns like ribbons, and—

Pushed against her. Urgently, yet carefully, firm presses of their muzzle to her shell, across her chest, her arms, her face, where she’d frozen with her mouth half open. They nosed at the shape of her under her cloak, quick whuffs of cold air stirring the fabric as they searched for something.

She gulped a breath, holding herself still, the shears half-forgotten in her hand. Again, another breath, not quite a sob, but entirely too close. Hollow was shaking, obviously in pain—their breath hitched with each inhale, their claws jerking every time they moved. But they did not stop until, having fulfilled some unseen objective, they leaned back, relaxing into their bonds, staring at her intently.

Not knowing what else to do, she cut more threads, releasing their hand, their elbow, their shoulder. Her breathing was still not under control, coming in quick gasps between spasms of tension that clamped round her throat like a vise. She checked their wounds, once, twice, skirting around the hole in their chest, refusing to even glance inside.

It was the same. Everything was the same, except that another scar had torn open in their shoulder, and then stopped bleeding almost immediately. She reached up to take their pulse, laying her hands along their throat to feel them breathe, to reassure herself that their black heart still beat.

Black, it was black, she knew now, and it shone in the light like a chunk of obsidian—

“What—” she breathed, then had to stop. Had to wrestle down the numb, senseless sobs that wanted to emerge, the instinct to shatter into pieces in relief, to let out everything that was hammering at her insides. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

They looked at her, again, with that whirling darkness in their gaze. The dense shadow that she had once thought unknowable, an enigma, a blackened night so absolute that dawn would never come to it.

But they had reached out to her. They had chosen her, chosen to make themselves known, though it defied everything they were.

In two motions, Hollow signed their answer.

Hornet. Hurt.

○

Taglist: @botslayer9000 @moss-tombstone @slimeshade Send an ask or reply to this post to be added to (or removed from) the taglist!

#elletalks #lost kin fic #lost kin chapter #hollow knight #hollow knight fanfic #mywriting #hk the hollow knight #hk hornet #hk quirrel #hk

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syscardinal · 8 months

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Open Comms [2 slots!]-CLOSED!!!

Hi! I need to replace the cable of my wacom asap so I am open for this kind of comms just 2 slots for 50USD . These are full page ilustrations (2500x2500 in size) max 4 drawings per page and can include an extra chibi one! Can include some dialogues too if it fits your liking.

The piece will be delivered after full payment and completition( 1 month ) I also will send you weekly updates of the piece.

I´ll only start working after full payment is done (only paypal this time;;)

I wont do heavy gore, mecha, irl people and nsfw

I can modify the piece any times as you want in the skecth fase but once I enter the lineart fase there wont be any more changes, please be mindful of this.

Send me a DM if you are interesed!!

Closed for now!! Thank you so much!! didnt expect they be filled so quickly ;w;

#syscardinal #commissions open

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reigensexoff · 1 year

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TPOF DLC Survival Walkthrough (SPOILERS)

This is a walkthrough to get the DLC’s survival ending, “Fox kept you.” MAJOR trigger warnings for torture/violence/gore/SA/rape

Bidding

Towards the end of the questionnaire, choose “Point at the Announcer” (it doesn’t matter what you choose prior to this). The Announcer will laugh and want to wrap up but you “Beg the announcer to take you home.” After this you get jabbed and pass out. This is when you enter the “The Show Must Go On” DLC.

Show 1

You wake up in a dark room in front of Fox (the Announcer). When asked if you remember what happened, answer with “What’s on your head?” He laughs and brushes it off, then you look down and see you’re dressed in lacy underwear. Fox asks what you think of your new outfit, choose “I guess it’s cute…” Fox likes this response and then starts live-streaming. He introduces you to the stream, so you “Beg them to help you”. No one really cares lmfao. Fox then dislocates your finger and asks if you want him to put it back into place or leave it, so you say “Put it back…”, which he then does, making your finger feel a little better. He then cuts your foot and despite it bleeding a lot, Chat wants more blood. Fox asks what you think, respond with “Fuck you!”, which doesn’t phase him. He starts cutting your chest, and makes you look into the camera, saying “You’ve been so quiet, darling! Why don’t you say something for your admirers?” You look in the camera and say “… Hi…” you’re then lifted up by a cable around your neck. Fox talks to chat for a hot minute and you pass out, then gain consciousness when you fall to the ground. Fox grabs your head and slams your face into the cold floor, probably breaking your nose, and asks if Chat is ready for the finale. He shows a gun to Chat which causes you to freak out. Fox notices and says he won’t kill you if you do a good job, then makes a poll for Chat to decide if you should live or die. He points the gun to your face and you have to suck it. Fox looks at the screen, turns back to you and says “You better get to work, they’ve already started voting.” You have to Obey reluctantly since you don’t really have a choice. At the last minute, Chat decides you should live. Fox comments that you’re a natural, and Chat wants to see more! He then says you and him should give Chat a treat before you guys “wrap up for the night.” He then forces your eye open and busts a fat nut in your eye, which is already bad, but he then plunges his claw into your eye when you moved. Oops!! He then ends stream and takes his mask off and you pass out. You wake up in a shitty jail cell type room and Fox talks to you for a little bit. You touch your eye and feel bandages. Your eye is fucked tbh but Fox says you have a spare. You ask if you’re going to be let go, and he laughs at you. He says you’re not going to be leaving, you need to continue performing, and to heal as much as possible before your next show. You ask him “Why are you doing this?” And Fox laughs and says because he’s really fucking good at it. Then he says good night and leaves. You Go to sleep because your body hurts too much.

Show 2

Eventually you wake to him in your room with two guards behind him, saying that you need to get dressed, and throws fishnets toward you. You Get dressed. One of the guards puts your wrists in metal shackles before pushing you toward the streaming room. Fox asks if you’re ready and to take a deep breath, then starts the stream. He tells you to say hi to your admirers, so you say “Please go easy on me…”, looking at the camera and trying to smile. Fox first prods at your foot’s stitches, then brings a camera close to your face to show off your new and definitely not improved eye! He tugs your eye bandage off, which also tore off the flesh it fused with. Fox is like wow we probably should’ve changed that, sounding a little apologetic. He brings out a soldering gun, and asks you if you know what it is. You don’t, so you respond with “A… glue gun? I-I don’t know.” Fox laughs a little and says that’s close enough. He then carves into your back with the gun. He gets to your spine and you dislocate your shoulder as a result. He brings the camera over to your back, and you see the carving is a heart. Fox asks if you want him to push your shoulder back in, and you say “Don’t touch me!” Causing him to scoff. He unlocks your wrist shackles, giving you a moment to decide if you should try to escape or not. You decide to Stay still since your feet are still attached to the floor. He tells you to take a deep breath and make sure your tongue isn’t between your teeth. He asks if you’re ready and you nod weakly. You screamed as it happened but the pain went away quickly. He then puts the shackles back on your wrists. He asks chat if they’re ready for more, and forces your legs apart. You and Fox are going to put on a show like they’ve never seen! He tears your fishnets away and then brings out a large wedge, pushing it in front of you. He puts a tentacle gag in your mouth, and brings out a choke chain, where you will be grazed by the choke chain’s needles if you move too much. He forces himself into you, and your feet began to slip. You’re faced with an awful decision, to either lean forward into the choke chain or lean backward into him. You decide to lean backward. After he finishes in you, he talks to Chat and takes your choke chain and gag off. Chat says your eye looks terrible, and Fox agrees. He says the eye is going to have to come out. You agree, saying “Yes… Please take it out…” he says he will do everything he can to make it better, and touches his mask to your forehead like a kiss, making you feel better. He looks for supplies, giving you a moment with Chat. You attempted to Smile at them. Fox comes back and holds a metal instrument up to you, explaining its to keep your eye open. You Nod, saying you understand. He whispers he’s only cutting out the bad part for Chat, and he’ll have an expert look at it later. You start to pass out. He talks to Chat for a little, and you pass out fully. You wake up back in your room to Fox petting your head. He says your eye couldn’t be saved but you may get a prosthetic. You ask “Why would you help me?” He answers that your shows have been very popular and the audience wants to see more. You look down at his skin, noticing his scars. Fox says it’s rude to stare, and you ask “Who did that to you?” He laughs and says a dead man did. He’s about to leave, but you ask “Are you going to kill me or not?” Fox laughs again and says it’s up to Chat. You reply with “I thought you were the one in charge.” He then leaves and you go back to bed.

Show 3

You wake to Fox’s guard shaking you roughly. You look down and see you’re dressed in an extremely girly pink lingerie set. Your limbs are completely numb, and Fox says to chat you’ve had a bit of a “cocktail” before the show (painkillers and other things). He brings out a pneumatic nail gun. He points it at you and asks if you know what that is. You say “Don’t shoot me!” Which is not the answer so he shoots you. You couldn’t feel pain, the nail feels like it shouldn’t be there. He then asks you what his name is, and you truthfully respond with “I don’t know!” Since he never said. You’re shot a few more times. You ask Fox to take them out, and he responds that YOU should take them out. He unshackles you and you take them out at a quickening pace. Fox asks you to show your “new holes” to Chat, and he demonstrates how by pressing his claw into one of the holes. You think it feels good due to the insane amount of painkillers you’re on. He pushes your hand into your underwear as he pushes more of his claws into your puncture holes. Fox orders you to beg for more and you do, causing you to bust a fat one. Afterwards, one of the Chat people asks to bring out a flame gun, which he happily obliges to. He burns your skin, and you feel hungry. He brings your arm to your mouth and you pull a chunk of your meat away, chewing. Fox takes his mask off and clamps onto your collar, ripping your skin apart. He laps at your wound a few times before putting his mask back on, a little embarrassed. For the “grand finale,” he connects a chain to the wire loop around your neck, pulling you up. It was hard to stand on your toes since your body felt so heavy. He hands you a knife. Fox says Chat wants to see blood, and you slash the top of your thigh, but Chat wants to see more. You slash your legs again, and Fox says to slash your stomach, deeper. You deeply cut across your belly. Fox says “Wait.” He pauses and then turns to the screen. He says “Your wish is my… Actually, fuck that. Show’s over.” He turns the screens off, making the room go completely black. The knife is grabbed out of your hands and thrown across the room. The wire holding you is released and you fall on the ground, your shackles also released. You’re pushed onto your back, and begin to ask why Fox stopped. Fox tells you to stop talking and calls the medics to stop your bleeding stomach, he wants you alive. You’re his now.

I hope this helps! 👍 I know there is a walk thru on steam but I personally find them easier to understand on tumblr.

#ren hana #the price of flesh #tpof ren #tpof dlc #tpof announcer

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jtargaryen18 · 2 years

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How I Disappeared...

How I Disappeared

Masterlist

Words: 4.5k

Story Rating: Explicit, 18+ only Warnings: Dark fic. Torture, violence, references to murder, explicit sex, non-con, oral (fr), illegal use of mustache, kidnapping, gore. Relationships: Lloyd Hansen x Reader

Summary: You arrived early for your meeting with Ransom Drysdale about a job in publishing. You really shouldn't have...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The closet door you were cowering behind didn’t do much to muffle the screams of the man they’d been torturing for nearly an hour. There was nothing you could do for whoever they had strapped to the chair in Ransom Drysdale’s posh office.

What the hell is happening?

They’d removed several of the man’s teeth with a rusty pair of pliers as he’d emitted a macabre chorus of pain-filled cries. The last time you dared peer out the slightly opened door, you were horrified to see the car battery. There were jumper cables clamped to the man’s face, burning him until he screamed. You could smell the searing flesh. Those screams become gurgles while he fought hard not to answer the man’s questions.

But eventually, he did answer the questions to make the pain stop.

Your heart raced in your chest. You had to be quiet. It was the only shot you had of getting out of this.

The last peek you took, showed you the poor man’s lead tormentor. A tall, imposing man wearing a polo shirt in shades of mustard and tan. The gray slacks and expensive shoes hinted that he might be someone important. The gold of his pinky ring winked in the light as he moved around the chair, removing the metal clamps from the man’s ruined face.

The tormentor caressed the man’s face with his hand, a gentle gesture.

Whoever he was, you would have found him oddly attractive anywhere else but here. Everything about him from his perfectly trimmed mustache to the precise styling of his hair told you he was methodical, maybe manically so. Now that you could see him, you didn’t move. You stayed right there in the shadows, watching him grin at his tortured victim.

“See? It didn’t have to get this bad, did it?” the man reasoned, leaning down to get on eye level with him. “We all get what we want. I learned what I wanted to know. You now get out of this chair.”

At the subtle motion of his hand, armed men came into view, freeing the man from the chair and hauling him roughly out of it. As the group of them moved out of your view you heard three simple words.

“Make him dead.”

Adrenaline and fear had your body humming as you fought to stay still. Now wasn’t the time to get stupid. All you had to do was sit tight. Wait. Wait until it was quiet, and you didn’t hear anything anywhere around you. And when you were sure you were alone, you’d wait a little longer.

You were going to get out of there.

When the door flew opened, a scream ripped from your throat. You’d made yourself small in the darkness of the coat closet, shaking in mortal terror as you looked up to meet the blue-eyed gaze of the man who appeared to be in charge.

You might have thought his smile was authentic in different circumstances.

“What do we have here?” he asked in a way that led you to believe he had some idea. A spike of fear shot through your heart. “Somehow I didn’t think you made it out of the building.”

When he lunged at you, you scrambled away until your back met the closet wall. His grip on your wrist felt like a vice. With a hard jerk, he yanked you up off the floor. There was little you could do when he wrapped an arm around your waist and hauled you out of the closet.

The man was easily twice your size. You fought him but it did little good.

Yeah, you’d reached the part where you should probably be begging for your life. Tears were already filling your eyes and sliding down your face.

But he let you go. Let you stand there in the fading yellow light filtering through the office window. The man just watched you, slowly walking a circle around you and studying you like he was trying to decide something.

How to kill you most likely.

“You were here to meet Drysdale, right?” he asked with deceptive calm. There was an intensity about him that had you flinching. A blue-green storm brewing in this sharp eyes. It made you feel exposed and vulnerable. “You got here early.”

You nodded. You didn’t mean to get there almost an hour early. Just now, you really regretted it.

“Why?” he demanded.

“A j-job offer,” you replied.

The best thing you could do was cooperate, say as little as possible.

“And how did Drysdale run across a sweet thing like you?” Slowly, he walked another circle around you.

Dropping your gaze, you shrugged. “I worked for his mother’s real estate firm. He told me to make an appointment to see him about a job… in publishing.”

Ransom Drysdale was the CEO of one New York’s top publishing houses. You wanted to be an author. It was an offer you couldn’t pass up.

Were they after Ransom Drysdale then?

Your hopes sank as you realized it didn’t matter who the terrifying man stalking you was after. You’d seen something you weren’t supposed to see.

Coming to a stop next to you, the smirk was back.

“He wasn’t going to offer you a job, cupcake,” the man explained. “He was trying to fuck you.”

The stinging truth in those words had you dropping your gaze. Maybe. But given your dismal track record with men, you’d been prepared for such an offer. If men were just going to use you for sex, you may as well get something out it, right?

“Please.” You were blinking back tears. “I’ll tell you anything I know about him. I swear.”

The man chuckled, his perfect white teeth gleaming. “There’s nothing you can tell me about him that I don’t already know.”

Panic had your mind whirling. “I didn’t see anything. I promise.”

“Yes, you did.”

You were about to die.

“I won’t say anything,” you swore, pleading. “I don’t have anyone to t-tell.”

The man took a step closer. “No, you don’t, do you?”

That stopped you. He said your name quietly.

“Your mother is dead, your father was never in the picture,” the man explained. “You have no siblings or extended family. You go away? No one will miss you. You’ll be just another pretty face on a missing poster.”

You cried then. It was over. This was how you disappeared. It was the end.

“M-make it quick,” you whispered. “P-please.”

“Shhh,” he soothed, walking up and pulling you into a hug. The man was warm, solid. The scent he wore subtle. His hands smoothed over your back as you cried there against him, a lamb to the slaughter. “I’m not going to kill you just yet.”

Yet.

“I mean I could kill you and leave you here for him to find.” He spoke so casually like he wasn’t discussing your life. “And he might feel regret.”

Shaking, you just stood there with his arms around you as he impersonally decided your fate.

“But if I really wanted to piss him off, I’d take what he really wanted.”

You were all too afraid you knew what that meant.

Easing back and grinning at you like he was about to tell the best joke in the world, he said, “You’re not my usual type. You’re his. So pretty... But you are desperate, right?”

You were desperate to survive.

The man’s gaze raked over you, over the strappy summer dress you wore today. You could tell his mind was going a mile a minute.

“Take off your panties,” he ordered you.

You couldn’t have heard him correctly. What?

His brows shot up in his amusement. “You’re not commando under there, are you? If you are that will make the next part much easier.”

You shook your head in denial.

“Then take them off,” he told you. “Now.”

Humiliation burned you up from the inside as you quickly reached under your skirt and slid them down, dropping them to your ankles. They were easy to step out of with the flat sandals you wore.

You couldn’t meet his gaze once you’d done as he asked.

“Give them to me,” he ordered.

Was he serious?

“I’m waiting,” he prompted you, his jaw tightening when you chanced to look up.

Unless you wanted him to start pulling out your teeth, you decided it was in your best interest to do as he said.

Fishing them out of the floor, you held out the simple lilac-colored garment with a trembling hand.

That smirk pushed your anxiety higher as he took them from your grasp. You just stared at him when he brought them up, pressed his face into them. Breathing deeply, he took in the smell of you.

When his gaze was back on you, he nodded.

“You do smell good, cupcake.” The heat in those intent eyes had you taking a small step back. “Did Drysdale ever have you before today?”

“No,” you told him, horrified to be having this conversation.

“Not even a taste?”

You shook your head. Sure, the man had hovered over you when you worked for his mother. He tried to find excuses to touch you. He just never had much of an opportunity to do much else.

The laugh was unexpected. “Oh, this is just too fucking easy. But I’ll take it.”

Shoving your panties in the pocket of his slacks, he motioned towards the huge wooden desk that was the centerpiece of the office.

“Go to the desk, walk around to Drysdale’s chair,” he instructed. You felt his gaze as you did. “Now be a good girl and take a seat on that desk.”

Your anxiety was through the roof. You had no idea what he expected you to do. If you sat down there, you were turning your back on him. What if that made him angry? The blood-covered pliers were there on the desk not far from you. Your heart was pounding out your fear.

“No,” his voice was deceptively soft. “You’re not understanding the assignment.”

You heard his heavy steps as he walked around the desk to join you. His huge form blocked out the dying light from the setting sun. In his shadow you felt cold. You didn’t move as he pulled the enormous leather chair back and took a seat.

“Let me give you a point of reference then,” he explained, taking you in casually. You flinched when he grabbed your hips, moving you to sit directly in front of him. “We’ll pretend I’m Drysdale. And if I were Drysdale and you’d come to my little meeting, I’d sit you right here.”

You were now on top of a stack of important looking papers, contracts, and you fidgeted nervously. The man’s expression was pure disapproval.

“Now, pull up that skirt. Since I disrupted Drysdale’s meeting, I want to leave him something.”

A muscle at his jaw twitched when you didn’t spring into action. Fear had you doing what he wanted even though you were horrified to have your bare ass on top of that small stack of crisp, printed pages.

The man sighed before scooting his chair up, so he was closer to the desk. Then he did it again, until his knees touched your shins. You had nowhere to go when his hands clamped down on your knees. You froze, afraid of what he’d do next.

When he wrenched your thighs wide apart, hiking up the skirt of your dress to reveal your most private parts to him, you struggled in his hold. Tossing your ankles to the outside of the arms of the chair, he moved closer, between your thighs, one strong hand grabbing your throat. He got in your face.

“You’re going to do exactly what I say,” he told you. “Or I’ll duct tape your ass to that chair over there and I’ll treat you like I did the asshole who was just here. And I know you saw what I did to him.”

Oh, you had. You swallowed hard beneath his hand.

“Got it? When I tell you to move, you do it. When I tell you to scream my name, you scream.”

Your mouth opened before you realized you shouldn’t talk. The man just watched you in fascination.

“Oh, that’s right. I didn’t tell you my name,” he said after a moment. “It’s Lloyd. And I want to hear it when I say. Nice and loud.”

His other hand tightened over your bare knee before sliding up over the quivering flesh of your inner thigh. You froze as his fingers skimmed higher, into your folds without preamble. It took everything in you to stay in place while those digits explored you.

“This won’t do,” Lloyd told you, his face still close to yours. “All dry and scared.” The look of disapproval was back. His hand tightened around your throat. “I want this little pussy purring for me.”

Your thighs shook worse now. Was he serious?

“What do you like, cupcake?” Moving closer, his lips were by your ear. “Do you like fingers? Or do you like oral better? You can’t believe the tricks I can do with this mustache.”

Those hotly whispered words in your ear had you squirming in his hold. Despite the situation, your body was warming up to him. His fingers slid a little easier now.

Lloyd’s chuckle was dirty. “Yeah, all the girls like the stache.”

Using his hand on your neck, he pushed you down on the desk. He rose, looming over you as you lay on the desk now. His fingers were still sliding around your lower lips and your body was easing his way.

“A little above your head is the edge of the desk,” the man told you as he released your neck, lowering himself back into the chair. “Grab it and keep those hands there until I tell you that you can let go.”

What choice did you have? The movement had your back arching.

You felt his mustache first and you flinched. The brush of it over your outer lips was a duel between scratchy and soft. His lips were hot and wet as they nibbled at those petals, burning a path down towards your opening.

Sucking in a breath, your hands tightened on the edge of the desk. You’d had guys go down on you before, but it was usually fast and half-hearted. A bone they threw you until they could get their bone in you. To get to the main event. It had always been something awkward that you were in just as much of a hurry to get through as they were.

It didn’t help that you’d watched him straight up torture another man. You were terrified, had no idea what he’d do next. Every inch of you was tensed and trembling.

At first.

He wrapped his powerful arms around your thighs, holding them open for him as he just dove in. His mouth, that mustache, worked into your folds. You fought to keep quiet, to be still. But the only reason you managed the latter was the steely grip he had on your lower body.

His tongue danced around your clit for several seconds, making it throb and ache. From anticipation? Because the brush of that mustache was the only stimulation he gave it.

You didn’t know what he was doing but it was insane. The flicker of his tongue around your opening pulled breathy gasps from you. When it traced up to your clit again only to avoid it, you whined, and it was an embarrassingly loud sound. There was laughter in his blue eyes gazing up at you over your mound.

Your back arched more, your grip on the desk hurt. But you were afraid to let go. The important papers beneath your ass were no doubt ruined as the man destroyed you with his mouth and he was yet to touch you where you needed him most.

When his tongue finally slid over your clit you cried out, the sound filling the room. Lloyd laughed into your flesh as you felt a finger tracing around your opening. You realized you were fighting to get closer to his mouth, not away. You writhed on that desk as that finger penetrated you, the pad of it gently stroking your front wall in a way that took your breath.

What was he doing?

Lloyd alternated between brushing that mustache over your clit, the bristling just shy of painful. Then he’d teasing it with the tip of his tongue. The finger now was a sinful torment, sliding in and out slowly, soft strokes taking you apart on that desk.

Drunk on sensation, you squirmed, and your breath came fast. The pressure built fast, and you didn’t know if you’d survive it.

“Please,” you begged him. What were you going to do? You’d never had an orgasm with someone else present. Not once. Now you felt like you were going to explode.

His moan was a deep rumble in your quivering flesh. His tongue soothed you where his facial hair was just shy of abrasive. The rough pad of his finger tested the weeping wall within you until you were about to lose your mind. You didn’t know what he was doing, and you were ashamed that it felt amazing. Worse, you were afraid of how your body was going to react to his continued campaign.

“You’re just about there, aren’t you, cupcake?” Lloyd whispered into your soaked flesh.

You shook your head in denial. You didn’t know where was. But your heart was racing, and your thighs ached from his unrelenting grip.

“Please,” you whispered again.

“Give me what I want, and I will,” he whispered into you.

What did he want?

That finger was an unceasing torment that was zeroing in one small space inside you, stroking it with a delicacy you wouldn’t have expected from someone like him. When his tongue resumed teasing the center of your distress, soft wet strokes that you couldn’t get away from, you screamed. Whatever he was pushing you into couldn’t be avoided.

“Scream it,” he ordered.

“Lloyd!” You screamed as the gush of wetness literally burst from you. Lloyd backed away just enough to watch, delighted with what he saw. Raw currents of pleasure raced through you, wrecked you. His finger kept up those soft strokes, prolonging the wild, unfamiliar spiral he’d just sent you on.

“My little cupcake can squirt.” He waggled his eyebrows at you as he sucked you off his finger. “That’s a bonus.”

Horror at what you’d just done to Ransom Drysdale’s desk bled onto that fading pleasure. You would have covered your face in shame if you hadn’t been instructed not to let go of the desk until told.

“You’re going to be happy about that in a few seconds,” he told you as he rose from the chair, his hands going to the front of those dove gray slacks. He stopped only long enough to reach for a drawer to his left, fishing a small black condom pack out of it.

You stared at it not sure what surprised you more. That Ransom Drysdale just kept condoms in his office drawer or that Lloyd knew where they were.

Lloyd tore open the pack and got busy rolling it onto the swollen erection revealed when he opened those slacks. You shifted on the desk, the expensive paper sticking to your ass.

Those sharp blue eyes were on you in disapproval. “Don’t you dare let go,” he warned you. “I’ll fire your ass up if you do.”

You froze and you thought disappointment flashed in those blue eyes.

Then he started pushing into you with a determination that had you gasping. Sure, you’d had sex before, but Lloyd was stretching you quite a bit more than you were used to.

Sex with all the men who only managed to disappoint you in the end seemed quick and apologetic. There was nothing apologetic about the way Lloyd was claiming you. There was a dominance that had fear mixing with something primal within you, had you clenching around his intrusion.

Once he sank all the way in, Lloyd grabbed the front of your dress, and with a vicious yank, he pulled it down until the straps gave way. When he’d bared your breasts, his big hands covered them.

And then he started railing into you. His thrusts were swift and firm. They would have moved you up the desk if he weren’t holding you in place. With the position of your arms, your breasts were thrust up for his easy access.

“Such a good girl,” he muttered as he worked you hard, panting above you. “Drysdale would love this ride.”

Lloyd slid easily in and out of you on all the excitement he’d drawn from you. If the smirk he wore was any indication, he was enjoying it. His shoulders were wide enough to block out the last of the evening light, and your thighs were locked around his slim hips as they slammed into you over and over.

When he started speeding up, you hoped he was close. He leaned forward, the slightest movement, and then his pelvis was hitting your clit in such a way…

The wave of sensation rose fast, sweeping you away from a place where you were holding on until it was over to a place where you were about to fucking shatter. As Lloyd continued to fill you, fighting for his own end, you broke out in a sweat. Your core tightened as he plowed into you, your heart racing in your chest.

The orgasm hit you with the force of a hurricane. Your nipples were painful points under his hands as he rode you hard, crying out as he worked himself through his own release with strong thrusts that punched the air from your chest. Your cries blended with his. His frantic movements only served to prolong your release and you were panting and trembling as it went on and on.

Lloyd was looming over you as laid there, just trying to breathe. How the hell your hands were still over your head, gripping the edge of the desk, you had no idea.

His breath huffed over your damp breasts when he moved his hands, causing you to shiver. Those blue eyes moved over you with renewed interest.

“Let go,” his voice was strained. Smoothing back the longer locks at the top of his head, he studied you. “You’re a surprise, aren’t you, cupcake?”

You just watched in fear with no idea of what would happen now. Your arms crossed over you chest as you waited.

“You weren’t really part of the plan,” he muttered, pulling himself out of you, “but I admit I like the way this turned out.”

Pulling off the used condom, he dropped it off the side of the desk. Tucking himself back into his slacks, he took the time to tuck in his shirt, made it perfect.

“Now I’ve got to get you out of here.” Then he started chuckling as his gaze moved over you. “I didn’t give that a lot of thought,” he said as he tugged at the skirt of your ruined dress.

Lloyd walked over to the closet where he found you, searching its contents as you trembled on the desk. When he pulled out a huge camel-colored coat, you just stared.

“Up,” he ordered you as he approached the desk with that coat.

You scrambled to do his bidding, one arm trying to cover your breasts, the other trying to hold up the dress. He pulled the soaked papers away from your ass as you rose. To your horror, you saw the stack of papers was wet, the ink smeared.

Lloyd wrapped the coat around you, and you were grateful for the coverage. But was this just a temporary reprieve? Was he taking you somewhere else to kill you then?

“Let’s go,” he said, grinning back at the mess you’d both made of Ransom Drysdale’s desk.

***

Ransom Drysdale marched into his office an hour later, frustrated with how his day had gone. The board meeting he’d called had run over. He hadn’t even counted on having to deal with his legal team today. And then finding out one of the men who’d been working for him was a plant?

He’d sent Lloyd to deal with that and asked him to make it quick. He was expecting you to be waiting for him when he finally did make it back. He’d been looking forward to that all week.

It didn’t take him long to realize that those well-laid plans had gone straight to hell. The blood stains on the chair pushed out where it wasn’t supposed to be? That was the first clue. Then he saw the bloody pliers on his desk.

Goddamn it, Lloyd. Did you have to do it here?

Where were you? Had you been warned off? Scared away?

Blowing out a sigh, he walked around the desk and that’s when the scent hit him. Sex.

The contracts left on his desk for review, contracts for one of his top authors, were ruined. It didn’t take him long to figure out why his desk in disarray. With a dry laugh, he shook his head.

His phone hummed in his pocket. When he fished it out, he saw it was Lloyd.

“What the fuck?” Ransom demanded, not letting him speak.

“Oh, what’s wrong?” Lloyd purred into the phone. “Upset that I ate your cupcake?”

Peering over the edge of his desk into the wastebasket, he saw the condom.

“You did more than that, didn’t you?” Ransom asked bitterly. “Where is she?”

“I brought her back to your house,” Lloyd explained calmly. “Didn’t really have a choice. She was hiding in your closet while I dealt with our friend.”

While it wasn’t ideal having you see what Lloyd had likely done to the fucking plant, having you at his mercy? Now that was appealing.

“Where are you?” Ransom asked, grabbing ruined the stack of contracts and throwing them into the basket.

“Hanging out at your house until you get here,” he explained. “I need to catch you up on the situation today.”

Ransom nodded. There was that.

“Fine, I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said finally.

“And the girl?” Lloyd asked.

“Once we’re done talking business, we’ll have dinner.” Ransom grinned. “Then I’ll have you hold her down for me.”

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#Lloyd Hansen #Ransom Drysdale #Tag team from hell #dark fic #illegal mustache use #violence #kidnapping #non-con

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