#fatal frame part 11 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rintarousgirl · 7 months

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i wanna be yours -- 11. baby, i'm yours

✦ - Y/N is a small business owner, offering her services not only as a designer but an at-home makeup artist and cosmetic producer as well. She's perfectly content with her small life when she's approached by the manager of the INARIZAKI band, asking for her to fill the position of backstage artist on short notice. Needing the money, and wanting the experience, Y/N agrees. Little does she know of the fatal attraction she will share with the band's lead, Suna Rintarou.

a/n: making this series was so amazing. i got so much support throughout, and i've always wanted it to be the absolute best for all of you. i hope this is a satisfying ending in your eyes, even if it isn't in mine. i apologize for the hectic uploading schedule. i've been overestimating just how much i can do and recently had to drop a day in my schedule because i was just getting so sick and run down all the time. tysm to everyone who stuck around, i love every single person who takes the time to read my silly little internet stories.

The hallway is quiet, save for the rolling carts of a few hotel maids. Kita had rented out the whole floor, seeing as we had two weekend shows at different locations in the same vicinity.

Your room had been on the far end, Kira’s next to it, and then the rest of the band. It’d been his idea, supposedly, but you’re sure the far proximity had something to do with Rintarou’s room down the hall.

You make your way down the hall, planting your feet right outside his room. You raise your hand to knock when your heart gives one particularly harsh beat in your chest that shocks through your core like lightning.

Fear.

What if he left you because he was bored? What if he lied? Maybe it wasn’t because he thought he was ruining your friendships, maybe he just wanted someone else.

Your stomach churns uneasily, rolling back into your gut like a tide before a tsunami.

You were stupid, so so stupid for all of this.

Your hand falls to your side, but you can’t seem to move your feet. They’re weights, stuck to your legs, keeping you grounded.

Flightless, trying to force you to accept the fears you’ve been mulling over for a month. All the running and avoiding. The hoops you jumped through so you could do his makeup and be done with him entirely. Out of blind anger, hatred, and pure unadulterated love.

You loved Suna Rintarou, and clearly he loved you it he was willing to let you go for your own happiness. And at the same time he was so unbelievably foolish.

You turn on your heel, and head back down the hall. In your pocket, your phone dings with another text from Tetsuroo.

You pull it out, halfway back down the hall, and read it.

“tell me how it goes!”

He was waiting on a response.

Your blood turned to steel in your veins. You weren’t gonna be a coward about this. No. Not when it’s about something this important.

You march back down the hall, right outside Rintarous door, and give three quick knocks. As soon as it sounds out, your hand falls to your side and you’re taking in deep breaths.

There’s a bit of shuffling on the other side, and the soft patter of footsteps, before the door swings open.

There stands Rintarou in all his glory.

Sleepy eyes look at you, blinking as if he couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or not. His pajamas hang loosely on his frame, and his hair is messed up but he still manages to stay so beautiful.

You cant help it.

“I love you,” you blurt out.

His lips part into a soft round ‘O’, and he still can’t quite seem to tell if he’s dreaming.

In a moment of delayed confidence, you lean forward and press your lips to his. He tastes of mint toothpaste and smells of shampoo. Exactly how you remember. Your hands reach up into his hair, curling in brunette locks as he smiles against your lips.

You pull back, cheeks flushed and giggling, “we still need to talk,” you declare, but his hand is on your waist and he’s leading you inside.

“Of course,” he says, pulling out a chair for you to sit in. You sit down as he pulls up another own for himself, looking all too comfortable in his pajamas.

You sit in silence for a second, taking in each others appearance. He must notice the way your eyebags had darkened or your skin had gotten paler. Just like how you’ve noticed how much more tired he’s been and how strained his voice has become.

“What happened?” you asked softly, looking down in your lap, “Between us, I mean…it couldn’t have just been Akaashi.”

He looks at his own lap, more so with an expression of shame. His hair hangs in front of his beautiful eyes. You want nothing more than to kiss him once again and sweep him tight into your arms.

“I didn’t want to see you upset,” he whispers weakly, “It killed me to see you so stressed, especially with me at the root of it. I thought if I left, maybe you’d be able to make up with your friend. I never meant to hurt you.”

His tone is genuine, and his eyes shine with sincerity as he looks at you. No hints of secrecy, or anything. Just admiration and regret.

“You’re so stupid,” you laugh, “both of you. I cant believe… how could have you even come to that conclusion?”

And despite it all, you’re still so unbelievably in love with him and all he stands for. All he’s done. Proud of his accomplishments, grateful for how well he treats you.

You rise from your seat, and walk in front of him. His hands come to rest on the backs of your thighs as you cup his cheeks in your hands.

“Can you forgive me?” he asks, a little cheekily, a small smile growing big on his lips.

You pretend to ponder for a moment, before sealing your decision with a sweet kiss.

<- previous | masterlist

★ - akaashi ditched the way he normally texted when apologizing

★ - after akaashi's apology, there is a one month time skip

★ - suna and akaashi never truly made up and became friends, but they're on even terms now

★ - y/n and kiyoko do end up meeting in the future, but y/n doesn't even recognize her until she says her name

★ - suna and y/n live happily ever after the end!!! LMAO

taglist:

@mannaornot \ @gojoscumslut \ @sunarots \ @alienvarmint \ @tojirin \ @tkooooop \ @cheriesdear \ @shotenvinsoot \ @wolffmaiden \ @riiceandsoup \ @thebrownemo \ @vivian-555 \ @effmigentlywithachainsaw \ @rukia-uchiha-98 \ @weird0o0 \ @seiamor \ @rory-cakes \ @blue-violin \ @reveusecherie \ @hellokittylover9 \ @yourlocal-bunny \ @keniza \ @cerberuspuppy1 \ @baramii \ @kirbyscreeper \ @rioiio \ @noideawhothatis \ @ris-krispie \ @noideawhothatis \ @venusinx \ @arminseas \ @iluv-ace

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sittingonfilm · 4 months

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A Satyr Against Reason And Mankind

By John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Edited and annotated by Jack Lynch

Were I (who to my cost already am One of those strange, prodigious 1 creatures, man) A spirit free to choose, for my own share What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear, I’d be a dog, a monkey, or a bear, [5] Or anything but that vain animal, Who is so proud of being rational. 2

The senses are too gross, 3 and he’ll contrive A sixth, to contradict the other five, And before certain instinct, will prefer [10] Reason, which fifty times for one does err; Reason, an ignis fatuus 4 of the mind, Which, leaving light of nature, sense, behind, Pathless and dangerous wand’ring ways it takes Through error’s fenny bogs and thorny brakes; [15] Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain Mountains of whimseys, heaped in his own brain; Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down Into doubt’s boundless sea where, like to drown, Books bear him up awhile, and make him try [20] To swim with bladders 5 of philosophy; In hopes still to o’ertake th’ escaping light; The vapour dances in his dazzling 6 sight Till, spent, it leaves him to eternal night. Then old age and experience, hand in hand, [25] Lead him to death, and make him understand, After a search so painful and so long, That all his life he has been in the wrong. Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine 7 lies, Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise. [30]

Pride drew him in, as cheats their bubbles 8 catch, And made him venture to be made a wretch. His wisdom did his happiness destroy, Aiming to know that world he should enjoy. And wit was his vain, frivolous pretense [35] Of pleasing others at his own expense. For wits are treated just like common whores: First they’re enjoyed, and then kicked out of doors. The pleasure past, a threatening doubt remains That frights th’ enjoyer with succeeding pains. [40] Women and men of wit are dangerous tools, And ever fatal to admiring fools: Pleasure allures, and when the fops escape, ’Tis not that they’re beloved, but fortunate, And therefore what they fear, at heart they hate. [45]

But now, methinks, some formal band 9 and beard Takes me to task. Come on, sir; I’m prepared.

“Then, by your favor, anything that’s writ Against this gibing, jingling knack called wit Likes me 10 abundantly; but you take care [50] Upon this point, not to be too severe. Perhaps my muse were fitter for this part, For I profess I can be very smart On wit, which I abhor with all my heart. I long to lash it in some sharp essay, [55] But your grand indiscretion bids me stay And turns my tide of ink another way.

“What rage ferments in your degenerate mind To make you rail at reason and mankind? Blest, glorious man! to whom alone kind heaven [60] An everlasting soul has freely given, Whom his great Maker took such care to make That from himself he did the image take And this fair frame in shining reason dressed To dignify his nature above beast; [65] Reason, by whose aspiring influence We take a flight beyond material sense, Dive into mysteries, then soaring pierce The flaming limits of the universe, Search heaven and hell, Find out what’s acted there, [70] And give the world true grounds of hope and fear.”

Hold, mighty man, I cry, all this we know From the pathetic pen of Ingelo; From Patrick’s Pilgrim, Sibbes’ soliloquies, 11 And ’tis this very reason I despise: [75] This supernatural gift, that makes a mite Think he’s an image of the infinite, Comparing his short life, void of all rest, To the eternal and the ever blest; This busy, puzzling stirrer-up of doubt [80] That frames deep mysteries, then finds ’em out, Filling with frantic crowds of thinking fools Those reverend bedlams, colleges and schools; Borne on whose wings, each heavy sot can pierce The limits of the boundless universe; [85] So charming ointments make an old witch fly 12 And bear a crippled carcass through the sky. ’Tis this exalted power, whose business lies In nonsense and impossibilities, This made a whimsical philosopher [90] Before the spacious world, his tub prefer, 13 And we have modern cloistered coxcombs who Retire to think ’cause they have nought to do.

But thoughts are given for action’s government; Where action ceases, thought’s impertinent: [95] Our sphere of action is life’s happiness, And he that thinks beyond, thinks like an ass. Thus, whilst against false reasoning I inveigh, I own 14 right reason, which I would obey: That reason which distinguishes by sense [100] And gives us rules of good and ill from thence, That bounds desires, with a reforming will To keep ’em more in vigour, not to kill. Your reason hinders, mine helps to enjoy, Renewing appetites yours would destroy. [105] My reason is my friend, yours is a cheat; Hunger calls out, my reason bids me eat; Perversely, yours your appetite does mock: This asks for food, that answers, “What’s o’clock?” This plain distinction, sir, your doubt secures: [110] ’Tis not true reason I despise, but yours.

Thus I think reason righted, but for man, I’ll ne’er recant; defend him if you can. For all his pride and his philosophy, ’Tis evident beasts are, in their own degree, [115] As wise at least, and better far than he. Those creatures are the wisest who attain, By surest means, the ends at which they aim. If therefore Jowler finds and kills the hares Better than Meres 15 supplies committee chairs, [120] Though one’s a statesman, th’ other but a hound, Jowler, in justice, would be wiser found.

You see how far man’s wisdom here extends; Look next if human nature makes amends: Whose principles most generous are, and just, [125] And to whose morals you would sooner trust. Be judge yourself, I’ll bring it to the test: Which is the basest creature, man or beast? Birds feed on birds, beasts on each other prey, But savage man alone does man betray. [130] Pressed by necessity, they kill for food; Man undoes man to do himself no good. With teeth and claws by nature armed, they hunt Nature’s allowance, to supply their want. But man, with smiles, embraces, friendship, praise, [135] Inhumanly his fellow’s life betrays; With voluntary pains works his distress, Not through necessity, but wantonness.

For hunger or for love they fight and tear, Whilst wretched man is still in arms for fear. [140] For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid, From fear, to fear successively betrayed; Base fear, the source whence his best passions came: His boasted honor, and his dear-bought fame; The lust of power, to which he’s such a slave, [145] And for the which alone he dares be brave; To which his various projects are designed; Which makes him generous, affable, and kind; For which he takes such pains to be thought wise, And screws his actions in a forced disguise, [150] Leading a tedious life in misery Under laborious, mean hypocrisy. Look to the bottom of his vast design, Wherein man’s wisdom, power, and glory join: The good he acts, the ill he does endure, [155] ’Tis all from fear, to make himself secure. Merely for safety, after fame we thirst, For all men would be cowards if they durst. 16

And honesty’s against all common sense: Men must be knaves, ’tis in their own defence. [160] Mankind’s dishonest; if you think it fair Among known cheats to play upon the square, You’ll be undone. Nor can weak truth your reputation save: The knaves will all agree to call you knave. [165] Wronged shall he live, insulted o’er, oppressed, Who dares be less a villain than the rest.

Thus sir, you see what human nature craves: Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves. The difference lies, as far as I can see, [170] Not in the thing itself, but the degree, And all the subject matter of debate Is only: Who’s a knave of the first rate?

All this with indignation have I hurled At the pretending part of the proud world, [175] Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise False freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lies Over their fellow slaves to tyrannize.

But if in Court so just a man there be (In Court, a just man, yet unknown to me) [180] Who does his needful flattery direct, Not to oppress and ruin, but protect (Since flattery, which way soever laid, Is still a tax on that unhappy trade); If so upright a statesman you can find, [185] Whose passions bend to his unbiased mind, Who does his arts and policies apply To raise his country, not his family, Nor, whilst his pride owned avarice withstands, 17 Receives close bribes through friends’ corrupted hands— [190]

Is there a churchman who on God relies; Whose life, his faith and doctrine justifies? Not one blown up with vain prelatic pride, Who, for reproof of sins, does man deride; Whose envious heart makes preaching a pretense, [195] With his obstreperous, saucy eloquence, To chide at kings, and rail at men of sense; None of that sensual tribe whose talents lie In avarice, pride, sloth, and gluttony; Who hunt good livings, but abhor good lives; [200] Whose lust exalted to that height arrives They act adultery with their own wives, And ere a score of years completed be, Can from the lofty pulpit proudly see Half a large parish their own progeny; [205] Nor doting bishop, who would be adored For domineering at the council board, A greater fop in business at fourscore, Fonder of serious toys, affected more, Than the gay, glittering fool at twenty proves [210] With all his noise, his tawdry clothes, and loves;

But a meek, humble man, of honest sense, Who preaching peace, does practice continence; Whose pious life’s a proof he does believe Mysterious truths, which no man can conceive. [215] If upon earth there dwell such God-like men, I’ll here recant my paradox to them, Adore those shrines of virtue, homage pay, And, with the rabble world, their laws obey.

If such there be, yet grant me this at least: [220] Man differs more from man, than man from beast.

▬▬ι══════════ι▬▬

Notes

1. Prodigious, “monstrous” or “unnatural.”

2. A common definition going back to Aristotle insisted that homo est animal rationalis, “Man is the reasoning animal.”

3. Gross, “imprecise.”

4. Ignis fatuus, “Will with the wisp; Jack with the lanthorn” (Johnson). A “false fire,” known to lead travelers astray.

5. Bladders, “floats” or “water-wings.”

6. Dazzling, “dazzled.”

7. Engine, “Any mechanical complication, in which various movements and parts concur to one effect” (Johnson).

8. Bubbles, “dupes.”

9. Formal band, a “Geneva band,” worn by many clergymen.

10. Likes me, “I like” (like meant “please”; compare Spanish me gusta).

11. Nathaniel Ingelo, author of Bentivolio and Urania; Simon Patrick, author of The Parable of the Pilgrim; and Richard Sibbes. All were authors of popular religious works.

12. Witches were supposed to anoint themselves in order to be able to fly. Charming here means “magical.”

13. Diogenes the Cynic, an ancient Greek philosopher who argued that virtue consisted in avoiding pleasure. He spent much of his life in a bathtub.

14. Own, “admit” or “acknowledge.”

15. Sir Thomas Meres, a politician.

16. Durst, “dare.”

17. “Nor, while his pride withstands admitted avarice.”

#poetry #john wilmot #A Satyr Against Reason And Mankind

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newstfionline · 9 months

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Saturday, August 12, 2023

Death Toll Soars in Maui, as Rescue Crews Scour Decimated Town (NYT) The death toll in a historic Maui town leveled by a wildfire soared to 53 on Thursday as the U.S. military joined search and rescue operations in the charred ruins of one of Hawaii’s most celebrated tourist destinations. Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii said on Thursday that the number of fatalities from the disaster, already the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history, would likely exceed the 61 people lost when a tsunami crashed into the Big Island in 1960. Before this week’s fire, Front Street in the western Maui town of Lahaina was a leafy, oceanside tourist thoroughfare of art galleries, souvenir shops and restaurants. The firestorm decimated the street, burning right down to the edge of the Pacific Ocean, a grasslands wildfire that became a house-to-house urban inferno. Along Front Street, wood-framed stores were unrecognizable. Other structures were reduced to concrete shells. Some 270 structures—including homes, businesses, a school and a church—were destroyed or heavily damaged, the authorities said.

Millions of kids are missing weeks of school as attendance tanks across the US (AP) When in-person school resumed after pandemic closures, Rousmery Negrón and her 11-year-old son both noticed a change: School seemed less welcoming. Parents were no longer allowed in the building without appointments, she said, and punishments were more severe. Everyone seemed less tolerant, more angry. Negrón’s son told her he overheard a teacher mocking his learning disabilities, calling him an ugly name. Her son didn’t want to go to school anymore. And she didn’t feel he was safe there. He would end up missing more than five months of sixth grade. Across the country, students have been absent at record rates since schools reopened during the pandemic. More than a quarter of students missed at least 10% of the 2021-22 school year, making them chronically absent, according to the most recent data available. Before the pandemic, only 15% of students missed that much school. All told, an estimated 6.5 million additional students became chronically absent, according to the data.

Biden asks for $20.6 billion for Ukraine as counteroffensive sputters (Washington Post) President Biden on Thursday asked Congress to approve $20.6 billion in additional funding for Ukraine, as that country’s military struggles to achieve a decisive victory in its counteroffensive against Russia. In a letter to lawmakers, the White House Office of Management and Budget asked for $13 billion in new military aid and $8.5 billion in additional economic, humanitarian and security assistance for Ukraine and other countries affected by the war. The funding request also includes other forms of assistance for Ukraine. The White House also is seeking more than $12 billion for disaster relief and other emergency domestic funds, including hurricanes, as well as tens of millions of dollars to boost pay for firefighters on the front lines of the wildfires that have hit many parts of the country. In total, Biden is asking Congress for about $40 billion in new spending.

He was sentenced to a year in prison. He had been held more than nine. (Washington Post) On the 3,378th day of his detention, Evest Adonis finally heard his name called. Adonis, 39, had already been held at the National Penitentiary in Haiti for more than nine years on charges stemming from a fight in 2014. That was longer than he could have been sentenced in the unlikely event that a judge had ordered the maximum. But there had been no judge—just the years-long wait to have his case heard. Now Adonis sat in a 98-degree courtroom as lawyers argued his case in French. A Haitian Creole speaker, he understood little of the hearing last month. Including the moment when Court of First Instance Judge Marthel Jean-Claude pronounced his sentence: One year in prison. Jean-Claude switched to Haitian Creole to announce he would release Adonis. His time in pretrial detention had exceeded his sentence by more than eight years. Cases such as Adonis’s are common in Haiti, where lawyers and rights groups say the prison system is a black box, routinely holding suspects in pretrial detention for prolonged periods—often for longer than their potential maximum sentences—without charging or trying them.

Guatemala and guns (WSJ) US gunmakers are sending thousands of guns to Guatemala since a 2020 regulatory change. The influx has pushed Guatemala ahead of Brazil, a country with 12 times its population, as the top destination for US-made semiautomatics in Latin America. The results have been stark. The number of murders in Guatemala—more than 80% of them involving firearms—has risen annually. Waves of migrants from the country are now showing up at the US southern border, underscoring how nations on the receiving end of US firearms are ill equipped to handle the influx, and the blowback that results for the sender.

Ukraine update (Worldcrunch) Ukraine announced a plan to create a “humanitarian corridor” on the Black Sea to release cargo ships stuck in port due to Russia's blockade—a major test of Kyiv's ability to reopen sea lanes after Moscow abandoned the grain export deal last month. A Russian missile hit a civilian building, often used by UN staff, in the city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday evening, leaving one dead. Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities have ordered the mandatory evacuation of nearly 12,000 civilians from 37 towns and villages in the eastern Kharkiv region, where Russian forces are reportedly making a concerted effort to charge through the front line.

Two years after fall of Kabul, tens of thousands of Afghans languish in limbo waiting for US visas (AP) When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, Shukria Sediqi knew her days in safety were numbered. As a journalist who advocated for women’s rights, she’d visited shelters and safe houses to talk to women who had fled abusive husbands. She went with them to court when they asked for a divorce. According to the Taliban, who bar women from most public places, jobs and education, her work was immoral. So when the Taliban swept into her hometown of Herat in western Afghanistan in August 2021 as the U.S. was pulling out of the country, she and her family fled to Pakistan. The goal? Resettling in the U.S. via an American government program set up to help Afghans at risk under the Taliban because of their work with the U.S. government, media and aid agencies. But two years after the U.S. left Afghanistan, Sediqi and tens of thousands of others are still waiting. While there has been some recent progress, processing U.S. visas for Afghans has moved painfully slowly. So far, only a small portion of Afghans have been resettled. Many of the applicants who fled Afghanistan are running through savings, living in limbo in exile. They worry that the U.S., which had promised so much, has forgotten them. “What happens to my children? What happens to me?” Sediqi asked. “Nobody knows.”

Australian journalist held in China writes ‘love letter’ home (Reuters) Australian journalist Cheng Lei, detained in China on national security charges, has described how she is able to stand in sunlight for just 10 hours in a year in a “love letter” home, her first public statement since her arrest in 2020. Cheng, 48, was a business television anchor for Chinese state television when she was detained in August 2020 for allegedly sharing state secrets with another country. Her first public statement since her arrest came in what she called a “love letter to 25 million people” which was dictated to consular staff during a visit and released by her partner. “In my cell, the sunlight shines through the window but I can stand in it for only 10 hours a year,” she wrote. “I haven’t seen a tree in three years. I relive every bushwalk, river, lake, beach with swims and picnics and psychedelic sunsets. I secretly mouth the names of places I’ve visited and driven through.” Cheng has yet to receive a verdict after facing trial more than a year ago in a closed court in Beijing. The precise details of her alleged crimes have not been made public.

In Israel and the U.S., ‘apartheid’ is the elephant in the room (Washington Post) For months, tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in defense of their democracy, which they fear may be greatly imperiled by the far-right ruling coalition’s desire to curtail the independent powers of the country’s judiciary. But the protests have seldom dovetailed with a recognition of the other profound mark against Israeli democracy—the ongoing occupation of the West Bank and the denial to millions of Palestinians the same rights as their Israeli neighbors, including half a million Jewish settlers. In a letter with more than a thousand signatories, a group of prominent academics in the United States and Israel pointed to this exact “elephant in the room.” The statement called out the “regime of apartheid” that prevails for Palestinians living under Israeli control. “There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid, as Israeli legal experts have described it,” the letter reads. In the authors’ view, it’s impossible to separate Netanyahu’s quest to extend legislative controls over the judiciary from his far-right allies’ desire to annex Palestinian lands and further erode Palestinian rights. “The ultimate purpose of the judicial overhaul is to tighten restrictions on Gaza, deprive Palestinians of equal rights both beyond the Green Line and within it, annex more land, and ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population,” the letter goes on.

Bodies pile up without burials in Sudan’s capital, marooned by a relentless conflict (AP) It was a funeral no one had envisaged: Sadig Abbas’ lifeless body was lowered hastily into a shallow unmarked grave in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, not long after dawn. Even the few family members and neighbors who could attend were distracted, scouring the cemetery’s surroundings for warnings of incoming fire. Nearly four months of violent street battles between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have made funerals a near impossibility in Khartoum. Amid the chaos, residents and local medical groups say corpses lie rotting in the capital’s streets, marooned by a conflict that shows few signs of easing. There is limited data on the casualties in Sudan. The country’s health minister, Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim, said in June that the conflict has killed upward of 3,000 people but there has been no update since. The true tally is likely far higher.

Zuma released (NYT) For some people, a 15-month prison sentence means 15 months. For others, such as former South African President Jacob Zuma—who was charged with defying a court order to testify on corruption allegations—it means two months in prison, then medical parole, then less than one day behind bars before being released due to overcrowding. Political opponents have accused the government of giving Zuma preferential treatment after his release on Friday. Let’s be honest; it’s not too hard to see where they’re coming from.

#headlines #news

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containatrocity · 11 months

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THE GHOULISH: GABRIEL "G" WESTFALL

Fractal, how the pattern repeats itself. Its smallest details repeat indefinite- I hear a voice from an empty room make small talk.

"I'm Gabriel Westfall. Most people just call me G, anymore. I'm 27 years old and I grew up here in Huntsville. Growing up, I wanted to be a horror novelist, but I work as a Cashier at the Food Market, now. I've been an orphan since I was sixteen, and according to my single visit to a therapist... ever- I suffer from Cotard's Syndrome. I've spent the past 12 years grappling with the fact- though some would call it a belief- that I am dead, and one of the ghosts that haunts the woods around Huntsville- I'm simply too capable at mimicry, and can't work out how to get home. I don't spend much time around the commune, as most people give me a wide berth. My fatal flaw has always been my upset that I never got to leave Huntsville often leading to outbursts and the fact my view of the self is so skewed I'm sometimes a danger to myself and others."

Name: Gabriel Ezekiel Westfall

Aliases: Gabe, G, Gibbs

Age: 27 (February 27th)

Sexuality/Gender: unsure of both. for now, he's comfortable enough using He/Him.

Personality: Gabe is a quick witted, socially awkward young man, with a tendency to come across as a know-it-all. He's confident despite his strangeness, brave to a fault, due to his belief he's already dead and some kind of monstrous creature, he's got a tendency to charge into things headlong without thinking them through, often ending with an injury of two. Despite his strangeness, he's a loyal friend and doggedly reliable companion, having at least accepted within the frame of his delusions that the people around him would be killed if he did something stupid, he's relatively harmless, now. He has a tendency to flash to anger relatively quick, however, if treated like he's stupid, or given pushback on his delusional thinking- the opposite is also true, far more personable, if people are willing to operate within the thoughts he holds to be true, and due to his loyal nature- this could cause issue, in the future.

Occupation: Cashier at Food Market, aspiring author, scavenger and forager when given the free time to seek things out for trade.

Affiliations: No known affiliations outside the Westfalls, and the Cho family.

Scent Profile: The sickly sweet smell of tilled earth and blood, tattoo ink and dusty silk flowers. The comforting, musty smell of an old book and pencil graphite. there's something oddly chemical that clings as well, like house paint or leatherworking supplies.

Aesthetic: Too many hours spent under the awning of mausoleums, the sun setting high overhead and the stars starting to leak through, thousands of cosmic eyes watching pen across paper. Denim jackets and long hair, tattoos and other displays of threat, to engage distance between you and the living. The lid of a pine box kicked shut over the face of someone far too young- screams until your throat's raw that you're alive, you're alive- until some part of you beneath the desperate clawing at the lid believes the laughing high above. Bugs eating away at something still too alive, no funeral or stone for a boy who never died. Blood in teeth, blood in claws, maybe not dead, but maybe not human. something off. something wrong. Something cosmically strange. Something worth burying in the woods all too young, like you have been.

The fear has to stem from something! The horde I can hear from my couch, wanting eyes on them. Significance. Just take it and go away....

CHAPTER ONE: LIFE IN HUNTSVILLE POST PARADOX

While Gabe's mental health seems only to have deteriorated in the past 11 years- the treatment for his comorbid disorders medicine he simply has no access to- He's managed, through the help of his scant few friends, to integrate into town safely with only minimal difficulty, in the event the ghosts haunting the town or G's ultimate fate is brought up. It's fact enough that he's started going by "G" since his 'death', no longer entirely identifying with the name "Gabe" or "Gabriel" as he believes that boy died at 15, in a shallow grave, in a pine box in the woods. He remembers the location, and has created a makeshift memorial- taking his days off to sit beside his 'grave' and smoke, pick dirt from beneath his nails, and write, as he always has.

He, much like the ghost he believes himself to be, drifts from point to point, days spent at work or in the woods, in the graveyard, and then back to the Cho home- to lock himself in his bedroom for the course of the night, the person who trusts him the least in town surely himself. There is avoidance- of the sister who saved him, of the classmates still living who made him this way, of the church and the commune and the lingering conviction that he is a stranger here, wrong among the living, something rotting and hosting bugs and stench. He wants to make connections, but knows better than to think most would want him around. The bones tattooed on his fingers and arms wound with funerary flowers. His body a eulogy to a life he never even allowed himself to live, 12 years a corpse, only 15 a boy.

In the wake of many deaths, G has, perhaps inversely- made the move to be more personable, spending his time writing in the library, instead of out beneath the great tree that had once served as his burial site, chewing his nails to the quick. He pretends he can't hear the whispering. It's almost funny, he thinks. That in a town wrapped with fear, with murder and death painting it's streets- that some still find the time to think he's strange.

#g.threads #g.musings #g.headcanons #g.music #g.bio #g.aesthetic #Living Dead Boy;#huntsvilleintro

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galacticonejos · 2 years

Note

1- Favorite game

2- Favorite console

3- A game that holds a special place in your heart?

4- Favorite game character

5- Least favorite game character

6- Favorite genre

7- Game characters you had a crush on

8- First game

10- Hardest game

11- Game you've spent most time on

13- Scariest game

15- Game characters you wish you could meet irl

16- PC, Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo?

17- Gaming company you're most loyal to?

23- Ever go to a videogame convention?

25- Videogame you wish you could burn from your memory

26- Favorite game series

Hello! Thanks for the ask 💖 I'll try to answer all.

1. I think can't choose just one. Sonic heroes, tloz wind waker, megaman 7, castlevania dawn of sorrow, psychonauts, nitw, hollow knight the list simply keeps growing.

2. Gamecube!

3. Lots of my favorites do.

4 and 5. Depends on the game too many to choose.

6. Does metroidvania counts as genre?

7. I had a crush on shadow the hedgehog voice when I was a kid. Had a thing for E. Honda when I was a kid too. Also Kai from Harvest Moon. Kuja FF, Bayonetta. Shermie KoF, Rebecca Chambers. Leon S. Kennedy, Roadhog.

8. Not sure what was the first but Pokemon definitely was one of them.

10. Dark So- I'm kidding lol it's actually Ninja Gaiden.

11. I spent too much time on my favorites.

13. This isn't the most scary game out there but Fatal Frame 2 got me real bad when I played it the first time I never forget that lol. Also in RE 4 when I got to the regenerators part I had a bad time.

15. Sonic the Hedgehog should be real.

16. PC I grew up emulating games lol.

17. None. If it isn't on pc them piracy is always the way to go.

23. I went to a video game convention once can't remember the name but it sucked ass.

26. I don't think I have a favorite but there are some I usually go for like Sonic or Zelda or Souls. It always depends.

#ask #long post

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thequietdoll · 6 months

Note

For the artist ask thing

1 2 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 15 17 21 22 23 24 27 28?

[LINK TO ASK]

1. Art programs you have but don't use

-- Paint Tool Sai (I need to get my brushes back and figure out how to turn it to dark mode so I don't get flash banged every time I want to use it)

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

-- depending on the angle but mainly front facing

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

-- 50/50 if I like it a lot I'll post it

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

-- I don't think so

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

-- traditional and pixel art cause you guys are really cool when it comes to that stuff

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

-- the stained glass projects of the Fatal Frame/Project Zero I had a lot of fun, and I should redraw all of them and start on the 5th one if I remember/have any motivation to do so

9. What are your file name conventions

-- normally what I'm working to be the title of the post or if it's for like inktober what day I'm on

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw

-- skirts unless it's pleated then I take forever to get it right

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

-- either manlybadasshero, markiplier, or JSE. Let's play if I'm not listening to any old music playlist

12. Easiest part of body to draw

-- this is gonna sound typical, but eyes

14. Any favorite motifs

-- if I can, I'll add little shapes in the eyes, hi lights, but if I know that a character is like the sunshine character, I'll either add yellow/orange to them either it be a physical item or lighting or I'll put a warm overlay on them if I can

15. *Where* do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth)

-- I don't draw in public hell I hardly even stream anymore

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what

-- tea mainly I tend to take a break when I eat/make a meal

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

-- The comic(?) Cheese in trap, I need to finish it, but I love the art style it's so simple

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any

-- I sadly don't I need to before I end up with more health problems

23. Do you use different layer modes

-- Soo many it would make a color theorist cry

24. Do your references include stock images

-- Yeah, especially some poses that I can't take myself

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with

-- no, but I really need to do that as well

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)

-- like one zine, if you don't count egoweek/Septictober or anything like that, it was fun. I want to do it again, but with drama around it, i kinda don't want to anymore

#ask meme

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davenskilnyk · 1 year

Link

#Fatal Frame #mask of the lunar eclipse #PS5 #horror games #horror family #horror fans #horror #daven #castle #japan #hospital

0 notes

hellman55 · 1 year

Video

youtube

Project Zero 4 / FATAL FRAME 4 | [Switch] Gameplay Walkthrough Part 11 Final Phase | No Commentary

#fatal frame 4

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aquoteamusetheword · 1 year

Photo

67 Stitches Later

“Adversity is an uninvited, unwanted friend in the hands of an all-knowing God whose purpose is to wean us of our self-dependency and pride.” ~ Chip Ingram

11/11/2013

The Accident

Around 5:30 pm I was carrying a large frame with broken glass. Despite my training and better judgment, I was not paying attention to what I was doing. I leaned back to answer a question and the staples that I should not have trusted to hold the glass gave way and a 3' x 12" piece of glass fell into my forearm. I screamed, not in pain, but because I saw it happening and could do nothing to stop it. I knew it was pretty bad. The staff handed me a wad of paper towels, we headed for the kitchen and they dialed 911. I was holding my arm above my head; there was a lot of blood but not a severed-artery amount of blood. My hand was tightening up, but all my fingers and my thumb worked. I took a second, thanked God for my calm, lack of injury, lack of pain and asked Him to comfort our staff. It was in slow motion! Like a car wreck. Alice (a staff member) called Leigh and was very calm. I talked to Leigh and thought I was pretty calm. I told her I would call her when I was situated and knew my destination.

The Ambulance

The EMTs got me into the ambulance and informed me that North Fulton was the best choice for care. I called Leigh back and told her not to be in any hurry because I was sure it would take hours and for her to go ahead and attend her "Women at the Well" meeting and that I would call later. She said okay, that she loved me and to call her soon. When I got off the phone, Mark, (a mountain of a tattooed EMT man) said, "I am not trying to scare you but you sure are calm. That’s a bad cut." He was concerned that I was going into shock. I informed him that I had prayed and that I was in no pain, my hand still worked and if it was really bad the lights would be on and we would be darting in and out of traffic and running red lights. He laughed and his phone rang. His ring tone was Brandon Heath’s "Give Me Your Eyes.” I told him that was cool because I was part of a group of men that had just done life together this year and that song was the epitome of the prayer I asked them to pray for me. That I would see people as God sees them, not for what they do that angers or inconveniences me. That I would see their pain and offer unconditional love before I offer judgment. He asked if he could pray that prayer now as well as a prayer for my comfort and healing. It was an awesome prayer. He told me that he had grown up in church but fell away in his teens and college. After becoming an EMT, God started working on his heart. He would respond to gunshot wounds, domestic violence, drug overdoses, fatal car accidents, etc... He knew that if he was going to be the last person that someone saw on this earth that he had to be prepared to be God's hands and mouth. He is now involved in a church and leads a bible study with other EMTs. I prayed for him and his ministry. Time had flown by; we were at the hospital and I was not even thinking about my arm!

The Hospital

I was admitted at 6:15pm. The RN administered Dilaudid for pain and told me the doctor would be in shortly. I called Leigh, she was on her way (not the first time she knew not to listen to me) and she told me that our friends Lynn and Tom were on their way. She had been very busy. Our friend Barry’s men’s group was meeting when Leigh texted him, and they all prayed for me. All of Leigh’s "Women at the Well" were praying for me. Our small group was praying for me. It was unbelievable and very humbling. The doc came in and told me no phone calls during surgery. I told Leigh bye and he went to work. He was funny and had a bit of a potty mouth. Lynn and Tom arrived and sat through the sewing up process. Lynn smiled, held my hand and comforted me. Tom occupied the doc with SEC football talk. Time flew by again. We were discharged before 7:30! Leigh was stuck in traffic so we filled the prescription and met her in Buckhead.

Home

The next morning, Jenni brought banana nut bread. Elizabeth came over to show Leigh signs to look for during my healing and how to dress the wound. My phone and Leigh’s phone were constantly going off with calls and texts from countless people throughout the day. Peggy and Roc brought homemade potato soup, Mikie's Big Burger provided veggie wraps, Carol made veggie burgers. My Dad called multiple times to check on me with concern and compassion in his voice. It goes on and on and on ....

Conclusion

Sometimes God uses something like accidents to slow us down and show us how many people care about and love us. I was and still am humbled and honored by the outpouring of compassion and concern. I had no pain outside of what I would call discomfort. Everything that I needed was provided. Looking back, He walked with me every step of the way. I praise God that I see it in this light and give Him all of the honor, glory and praise.

Philippians 1:3, Ephesians 1:16, Philemon 1:4

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demonlordcosnime · 1 year

Video

youtube

lets play fatal frame mask of the lunar eclipse part 11

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mableray · 2 years

Video

youtube

#11【ホラー】「零 -濡鴉ノ巫女- リマスター版」【ゆっくり実況プレイ】

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mortallyclearwonderland · 3 years

Text

Star Wars Alien Species - Kel Dor

Dorin was a dark and dusty planet in the Expansion Region. It was the homeworld of the Kel Dors, with an atmosphere of a unique gas and helium.

The planet was situated between two black holes, making access to the planet limited, while space travel for the natives was highly dangerous. Dorin's atmosphere contained very little oxygen, and barely supported life, although some flora did exist on the planet. This atmosphere mix affected the evolution of the Kel Dor, requiring them to wear antiox breath masks to filter out oxygen while off-world. Likewise, many non-Kel Dors visiting Dorin would have to wear breath masks of their own for the gases they required. Humans, however, could survive at least a short time in the atmosphere without suffering any ill effects.

The Kel Dors were aware of and used the Force long before they joined the Galactic Republic and the Jedi. This proud Force tradition was known as the Baran Do Sages. The Baran Do Sages often acted as advisers to rich and powerful Kel Dor families. Initially, their powers centered on weather-prediction, but as the Baran Do Sages learned more about the Force, they realized they had an affinity for detecting, and subsequently preventing, dangerous events. Wars and disasters were often averted simply by the insight of a Baran Do Sage. After joining the Republic, the Baran Do Sages dwindled in power and number, due to the Jedi's greater knowledge of the Force, and their taking of Force-sensitive infants. Those Kel Dors who were even aware of their existence considered them to be eccentric wizards. Some traditional families still sent Force-sensitive children to learn from them, however. Because of their obscurity, the Sages managed to escape the Great Jedi Purges, for the most part, unscathed.

Kel Dors were noted for their simple approach to justice, and they typically saw moral issues in black and white. On the one hand, the Kel Dor were noted for their hospitality, they would never turn away a stranger in need. Yet, Kel Dors were not averse to taking the law into their own hands, and had no compunctions about putting to death a thief who was merely stealing to feed himself.

Kel Dor surnames, like Human surnames, were based on ancient family trades or jobs, or even a description of a particularly famous Kel Dor in the family. The Koon family name, for example, meant 'explorer'.

Kel Dor given names were based, loosely, on the sounds generated by Dorin's unique atmospheric phenomena. This tradition was highly popular among the Kel Dors, and the upper classes considered it bad luck to name a child away from Dorin. Kel Dor names tended to be short, usually monosyllabic, due to an ancient superstition about the "wind spirits" of Dorin. Upon hearing the sustained wind-sound of a long name, so the story went, the wind spirits would have mistaken the child for one of their own, and carried him or her off to be raised as a wind-child. No one believed in this myth for thousands of years, but the effect it had on Kel Dor naming conventions remained.

The tradition of using the sounds of atmospheric phenomena meant that Kel Dor given names appeared to have almost no meaning to an outsider, but another Kel Dor who had heard the sound in question and could identify the phenomenon would understand the significance and meaning of the name.

Likewise, objects and techniques were often named after their purpose or effect. For example, the Baran Do Force technique ayna-seff, which caused brain activity to become undetectable, translated to "dead brain" in Galactic Basic Standard.

Dorin joined the Galactic Republic in 5975 BBY, and had direct representation in the Galactic Senate. Because so many Jedi came from Dorin, the Republic funded the construction of an enclave on the planet. The atmosphere limited the regular students to Kel Dor, although many Jedi of other species visited the enclave to learn from the Kel Dor masters. While its isolation allowed the planet to remain unharmed by the Old Sith Wars, nearly all Jedi at the enclave on Dorin were killed by Sith assassins following the Jedi Civil War. During the New Sith Wars, the planet was the site of a battle won by the Sith.

During the Clone Wars, General Grievous led an attack on Dorin, but the Galactic Republic defeated his forces.

Dorin fell within space controlled by the Galactic Empire during the Hunt for Zsinj of 7–8 ABY and was within the core territory of Grand Admiral Thrawn's confederation during his campaign against the New Republic in 9 ABY. Dorin was outside of Imperial space by the following year, during which it was attacked by Imperial forces as part of an offensive by the reborn Emperor Palpatine's alliance of Imperial factions. Dorin later joined the New Republic, and the Baran Do engaged in contact and exchange with the New Jedi Order.

During the Yuuzhan Vong War, the planet fell into the hands of the invaders. After 35 ABY, the territory of the Imperial Remnant expanded, and Dorin was within the borders of the Remnant during the Second Galactic Civil War of 40–41 ABY. In 43.5 ABY, Luke and Ben Skywalker traveled to Dorin to consult the Baran Do and their involvement in Jacen Solo's fall to the dark side.

Early in the reign of the Darth Krayt's Galactic Empire, Dorin was blockaded by the Imperial Navy. The Sith then ordered that the best and brightest of Kel Dor offer their service to the Empire, or their people would suffer. As a result many Kel Dor entered the Imperial service, though the blockade remained in place. A secret route onto the world, called the Dorin Run, was discovered by smugglers, though it lay so close to the black holes, that all but the most reckless considered it too dangerous to use.

Their skin ranged in color from peach to a crimson red. Most had dark, black eyes, although some were born with silver irises, a mark that was often seen as an affinity for the Force.

Kel Dors were, as a whole, considered an unattractive species due to their strange facial structure. Their noses were described as falling short of becoming a beak, with a gaping opening that descended to the mouth, a toothless chasm with drooping fleshy strands. In place of teeth, Kel Dor had an upper and lower hard-palate, visible only when they pulled their lips back. Framing their head were extrasensory organs which terminated in small black tusks.

Due to Dorin having a unique atmosphere composed of helium and a gas unique to their world, the Kel Dors were forced to wear an antiox breath mask and protective goggles whenever in atmospheres of a different composition. This equipment protected them from carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and oxygen, which were fatal to a Kel Dor. The breathing mask also helped to amplify the Kel Dor's voice, as they were forced to shout to produce any sound when out of their native atmosphere. Without their protective goggles, Kel Dors were considered effectively blind when away from Dorin. They were also able to survive in the vacuum of space for a short time, though it was unknown exactly how long they could withstand it.

The Kel Dors also had heightened reflexes, a result of the extrasensory organs in their heads. As a species, they were thought to be typically quick and wise, but of a weaker constitution, when compared to other species. Kel Dors were also said to communicate with their minds using a form of telepathy. This form of telepathy was thought to be a Force technique known only among the masters of the Baran Do order, but was later exposed to be a lie spread by the Baran Do sages.

The average Kel Dor stands between 1.6 and 2 meters or 5.2 and 6.6 feet tall and weighs 70 kilograms or 154 pounds.

Kel Dor age at the following stages:

1 - 11 Child

12 - 15 Young Adult

16 - 44 Adult

45 - 59 Middle Age

60 - 69 Old

Examples of Names: Dorn Tlo, Plo Koon, Sha Koon, Torin Dol.

Languages: Kel Dor, or Kel Dorian, was the native language of the Kel Dor species from Dorin. Most Kel Dor were fluent in both Kel Dor and Basic, preferring to use Basic over their own language when away from their homeworld due to oxygen atmospheres making it more difficult to understand. It was easier to speak the language when in Dorin's atmosphere, though this did not prevent some non-Kel Dor from learning the language. Vylanthar Merric and Commander Doel Scherp both had learned the language, as well as the Jedi Bultar Swan and Ahsoka Tano.

#Kel Dor #star wars aliens #star wars species #Plo Koon #Sha Koon #Ahsoka Tano #Bultar Swan #Commander Doel Scherp #Vylanthar Merric

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gingersnaaps · 3 years

Text

at your window

hanahaki: the fictional disease where a person, afflicted by unrequited love, grows flowers in their lungs and stomach. unless the love is reciprocated, the disease will grow fatal. there's one workaround, though - one that issei matsukawa is very interested in: the plant can be physically removed.

wc: ~3.8k

tags/tw's(PLEASE PLEASE READ): n*fw, masturbation only(no sex), stalking, snuff, gore, blood, yandere!matsukawa, sorta necro(attraction but not sex), noncon filming, fem!reader but no mention of genitals

a/n: for @suedebunn's april showers collab // this is the most self-indulgent thing i've ever written and i spent way too long on it. it's supposed to lean towards horror?

i don't want minors interacting with my content

March 8th, 2013

[12:47 am]

The longer Issei sits outside your window, the harder it becomes to stop himself.

His face is pressed up against the dusty glass pane, peering inside at the outline of your sleeping body, and he finds that he can’t help but fixate on it. You look so peaceful, so tranquil, completely at rest as your mind flits between the shadowy realms that dreams inhabit.

He wonders what kind of wonderland you’re in right now - if it’s cotton-candy pink and delightful, just like you, or dark and hazy and spun with danger.

You’d look beautiful in any setting, he thinks, and finds his hand inadvertently drifting downwards.

His gaze rakes over the rise and fall of your chest, taking in the flashes of bare skin where your sheer nightgown rides up, his breath catching as his palm glides over his clothed cock. The friction feels so good - there’s no question that he wants this, needs this - and he wastes no time unzipping his pants and reaching in to free his dick. He doesn’t need to fantasize much, not when you’re mere feet away, instead making sure he sears every detail of your sleeping form into his mind: your fluttering eyelashes, your shallow breaths, the soft glow of your skin in the moonlight.

Issei quickens his pace, stroking up and down the shaft of his cock with purpose, thumb flicking over the slit. His breath huffs against the glass, clouding the surface until it’s dripping with condensation, but he still sees you as clear as day in his mind even as the real image of you blurs. You’re blissed out and relaxed, shoulders free of tension, your lips curving slightly into a smile.

He closes his eyes, rolling his head back as he works his cock, every single brush of his fingers leaving him twitching with sensitivity. You look like an angel, picture-perfect and frozen in time and consciousness, as if you were a framed picture or a museum exhibit preserved just for Issei to admire. Just for Issei. He lets out a quiet groan at the thought as he cums, his hips stuttering and cock jerking up.

You turn over fitfully in your sleep.

Looking down at the cum dripping off his fingers, he wants nothing more than to crawl in through your window and wipe it on your face. It’s an unmistakable mark of ownership, a sign that you belong to him alone, but he hesitates. He’s a bit of a shy guy, you see.

He can wait.

March 14th, 2013

[10:01 pm]

He has to conceal himself a bit better tonight than he would on his normal visits. This time, he’s a bit early, and you’re still awake.

His back is up against the siding of your house, right beside your window, but he can still see you in the periphery of his vision. You’re sitting at your desk, bathed in the warm light of your desk lamp, hunched over some math worksheet and scribbling furiously with the pencil in your hand.

Forget the moon; you glow even prettier as the world around you fades to dark.

Just like every other night, he takes in every detail meticulously. Your hair is messier than it was the previous day - maybe you hadn’t washed it in a while? He doesn’t mind, because it’s endearing when you’re messy and imperfect, barefaced in your pajamas, a little rough around the edges.

He thinks it’s similar to the way you’d look after being fucked stupid, if he closed his eyes and tried to picture you being ruined.

Issei tries very hard to ignore the way his cock strains in his pants at the thought.

March 23, 2013

[11:30 pm]

The mild spring breeze carries the sweet scent of fresh blossoms and green grass, leaving behind the wintry chill that he had to shiver through each night to be at your side - well, as close by your side as he could get.

These little visits have become a part of his life now, as ingrained as waking up in the morning or eating three times a day. It’s comforting for him to watch you from his spot outside your window each night, admiring you as you go about your nighttime routine, puttering from your desk to your bathroom to your bedroom.

He’s started to take some pictures, maybe even a shaky, pixelated video or two, just to tide him over when he’s alone by himself. They’re no replacement for the real thing, obviously, but it’s enough for him to be able to carry around a reminder of the way you look and sound all the time, even if it’s just a shadow of what you’re like in person. He’ll scroll through his camera roll, fingers trembling with excitement, hissing as he brings his hand down to stroke at his cock.

It’s always better in person, though. He sees you more clearly, hears the sound of your voice muffled through the walls, and most of all, he’s closer to you.

Issei likes to make it last, likes to prolong the pleasure as much as possible, so he always starts off with slow, gentle, pumps, gliding up and down his cock with his index finger and thumb curled into a circle. It’s honestly a miracle how you haven’t noticed yet, because he always tends to lose himself after he starts.

Face pressed close against the window in order to get the best view possible, his warm huffs of breath cloud up the cold glass as he strokes himself faster. His eyes rolling back into his head, his two digits of measured stimulation give way quickly to full, hard, pumps of his cock until soft moans start to spill from his mouth.

It’s hard to resist when you’re right there.

Tonight, you’re sprawled out on your bed, phone held above your face as you chat with your friend on video call. You’re shaking with laughter at some silly joke your friend’s telling, head thrown back and chin tilted upwards, face shining with joy, and he suddenly feels a warm, warm feeling of arousal course through him.

Seeing you happy turns him on, makes his cock so hard even though he just came minutes prior.

The sound of your voice carries through the walls, carefree and bright, chattering on and on about some assignment - or maybe it’s a complaint about the teacher, he’s not too sure - and he smiles contentedly at your silly little worries. Too cute, really.

You suddenly cough.

It’s an ugly sound, dry and strangled, and he cringes at the way your body tenses up and shakes. The coughing fit feels far longer than it actually is; every second of your hacking and wheezing is compounded by the panic gripping him. He watches, helpless, as your face turns ashen and grey, his heart seizing with dread and pounding in his chest.

It’s over as quickly as it begins.

You smile weakly, brushing it off as you apologize to your friend, but he can’t shake the uneasy feeling that settles at the pit of his stomach. He tugs up his pants, bare thighs and dick feeling awfully exposed in the night wind, and scurries back home. Maybe another night, then.

April 1st, 2013

[12:09 am]

You’re not in your room today.

Issei leans his head against the cold glass of your windowpane, hands shoved into his jacket, his mind clouding at the edges and overrun with possibilities. He doesn’t recall seeing you making plans with friends the previous night, and there’s not much you could be really doing right now - you have no boyfriend, no plans that he knows of, no real reason to just be gone.

He’s always thought of himself as a calm person. He doesn’t fall victim to temporary urges and flights of emotion the same way that Oikawa or Iwaizumi might, doesn’t do anything reckless on whims he knows will disappear just hours later.

But there’s just something about you that always makes him lose himself, isn’t there?

The window is fogged up with condensation, obscuring his view inside your room. He reaches out the sleeve of his jacket, wiping away the dew clinging to the surface, and squints as he tries to make out the scene in the dim lighting.

On the floor, awash in a pool of moonlight, lies a yellow flower petal spattered with blood.

April 4th, 2013

[4:46 am]

Issei’s not stupid.

He knows what the flower petal means, knows what your sickness means. He’s read about it in books, heard the tales from his parents friends, the whispered legends and hushed myths that make one thing clear:

You belong to someone else.

It’s a thought that fills him with revulsion. You already have Issei; is he not enough for you? Are you such a whore that his devotion falls short of what you’re so clearly greedy for?

He’s stopped restricting himself to just his nightly visits. They’re not enough, not when he can’t seem to go five minutes without his thoughts inevitably drifting to you - you in your fluttery, sheer nightgown, lying in your bed, your frame growing sicker and frailer as the blood drains from your cheeks and your coughing fits grow more frequent.

You can hide it from the prying eyes of your friends at school, from your teachers, even from your parents(as long as you make sure to roll your eyes a few times and lean into that murky, illusory persona of teenage angst), but here in your bedroom, your sanctuary, all your vulnerabilities crawl out and bubble to the surface, bared to your four off-white walls and his eyes only.

You can’t hide this from Issei; not the symptoms, and certainly not the disease.

He sets his alarm every day early enough to hear the nighttime croaking of frogs, the shrill, insistent chirping of cicadas, hours before the sky bleeds daylight, making his way over to your house. He stands outside, silent, his fingers pressed up against the window.

He doesn’t know why he goes anymore. You look ugly when you’re sick. Your healthy complexion has given way to grey, and his dick goes limp every time he tries to jerk himself off. It’s a reminder of the fact that he can’t ever have you the way he used to dream about: lively, healthy, and wholly devoted to him and him alone.

At this point, the pictures and videos of you are the only thing he has left, a pitiful reminder of everything you used to be. He has no use for those other girls from porn sites online, or even the scantily clad social media posts of his classmates. Issei only wants you, but you aren’t quite who you used to be, and every time he trudges home after staring through that stupid window, there’s always a bitter aftertaste in his mouth that makes his blood curdle.

It’s not that he’s jealous, exactly. He doesn’t really give a fuck who you’re pining after, because it’s you he cares about. He wants to own you, to possess your body, mind, and soul, wants you to end up at his side one day, acknowledging him with tears brimming in your lovely eyes, voice raw and hoarse as you chant thank you Issei, thank you, thank you for watching over me, Issei, i’m yours, Issei, i love you, Issei

Maybe it’s no wonder he can’t stop thinking about you.

April 19th, 2013

[11:52 pm]

He finds you passed out on the floor, surrounded by crumpled piles of faded carnation petals. They’re a sickly yellow, browning at the edges, tinged with blood and vomit and spit. It’s a scene straight out of a movie, illuminated by the waning moon, the cold, pale, uneven light casting shadows that dance across your body.

April 24th, 2013

[2:03 am]

Issei is nothing if not a practical man. If there’s a problem, he’s going to fix it.

He’s had enough of waiting, anyway.

April 25th, 2013

[12:00 am]

He’s never actually been inside your room before. It’s eerily quiet, save for your shallow, rapid breaths, all outside noises absorbed by the walls and curtains. It almost feels like he’s dreaming as he makes his way over to your bedside, his shadow stretching and bending in the distorted light like those funhouse mirror reflections.

Your lips are parted slightly, mouth agape as if in waiting, and he can’t help but run a finger along your cracked, ashen lips.

Issei shivers.

He’s never been quite so close to you before. It’s almost anticlimactic, the way he ends up at your side. He won’t lie; he had been hoping for a different ending, one with more sunshine and roses, one where you’d be smiling happily by his side as he tenderly holds your hand.

But he can’t change the way things are, and he’s more than willing to make the best of what he’s got.

He doesn’t have any surgical tools that might’ve been more fitting, but he supposes a kitchen knife - one he’d sharpened just yesterday - should work well enough. He runs a finger along the back of the gleaming metal, admiring the way it glints, brilliant and blinding, even in the midst of the dim room.

The old, worn, bed creaks beneath him as he climbs carefully on top of you, straddling your torso, taking care not to place too much pressure on your body. He reaches out to caress your face, brushing a loose strand of hair aside as he appraises you. In sickness, you were nowhere near as beautiful as you were before, but your proximity almost makes up for it; Issei can feel your heart thrumming beneath your skin, can feel the huff of your breath on his hand as your chest rises and falls.

He almost regrets having to do this.

Bringing the blade up to your chest, he begins to cut through your paper-thin nightgown. As the fabric rips, it falls to either side to reveal your chest, and his breath catches. The soft curve of your tits are stained with red, little green buds of growth peeking out from your chest and between your ribs. Blood blooms across your skin, thorns and stems pricking out from the smooth surface of your skin, standing out in stark relief as the sick, twisted, unnatural growth threatens to burst out of your body.

He flutters his fingers along your delicate skin, trailing gentle touches down your stomach, completely absorbed in the way you look and feel.

So absorbed, in fact, that he almost doesn’t notice the way you tense, eyes blinking awake, as pain lances through your body.

Issei’s quick, though - far quicker than you, at least, and by the time you open your mouth to scream, fear catching in your throat, he shoves a large hand over your mouth to muffle any of the unpleasant noises that threaten to spill out.

“Shh,” he whispers, voice hoarse and foreign in his own chest. He’s not used to speaking to you. “If you don’t hold still, it’s going to hurt even more.”

You freeze in terror at the implications of his words, eyes catching on the blade pointed at your chest. There’s a sudden urge to lash out, to fight back - but it quickly passes. You’re not stupid.

You know that he’s far stronger than you, far faster, and as his calm, remorseless gaze latches onto your body, you realize very quickly that any resistance would be futile.

He begins his work as soon as he feels you go limp beneath him. You’re still trembling slightly, shivering from both the fear and the cold, completely exposed, completely at his mercy. You’re still not sure who he is; maybe you’ve caught a glimpse or two of him in your classes in the past, but for the most part, he’s still a complete stranger.

Issei, on the other hand, knows you very well.

As the knife slips beneath your soft flesh, your bed quickly turns into a sea of scarlet, of vermilion and ruby, of wine-red blood that grows from a trickle to a stream to a rushing, spurting mess that stains your sheets and spills onto the floor. He can feel the spatters of your blood on his face, his clothes, can see the periphery of his vision growing red as the blank, white walls turn crimson.

He finds it’s a bit difficult to hold himself back.

Cutting you up feels like catharsis to him. He’s never seen you quite like this before, but he thinks this version of you looks very pretty, your eyes rolling back into your head, your chest shaking uncontrollably as he rips his knife through your flesh over and over again. A small, barely audible whimper slips from your lips, and he feels a shuddering mix of pleasure and revulsion wash over him.

The stark white of your bone peeks through the ripped, bloody mess. Perhaps he’s finally gone far enough.

There’s no slit or hole for him to find - he wasn’t quite so careful - but he reaches a hand in to dig around at what used to be your stomach, and begins to pull out the flowers from the roots. They’ve spread to your lungs, climbed almost all the way up your throat, the green stems and yellow flowers twisting and threading between your organs and ribs. He removes them one by one, meticulous and careful, tossing them aside as he searches and prods and kills every last trace of your disease.

The lungs are by far the hardest for him, the branches of tissue packed densely with blood vessels and capillaries, and he has to pry the clusters apart to remove the growth that’s embedded itself within the organ.

If you think about it, he’s really doing you a favor.

A wave of relief courses through him when he’s finally finished. It’s unfortunate that it had to end this way, with your face screwed permanently into that pained, tortured expression, but it’s nothing he can’t fix - he brings a bloody finger up and adjusts your features until they resemble something slightly more pleasant.

There’s no heartbeat anymore, he realizes, no rhythm thrumming and pulsing beneath your skin.

He climbs off of you awkwardly, swinging his legs back over the bed. The quilt, pooled around your ankles, is still remarkably clean considering what the rest of the room had been through, and he pulls the soft, white cover over your mangled body until it comes up to your chin.

If he moves backwards a little and squints, it’s almost like you’re still asleep.

And if he tries really hard, uses his imagination to fill in the gaps and blot out the unnecessary bits, the blood smeared on your cheeks and lips almost seems like makeup, covering up that ugly, ashen complexion from your sickness, like a rosy imitation of what he used to find so beautiful.

Maybe it’s all in his mind, but he thinks you really do look better dead than sick.

He knows it’s not right.

He knows he shouldn’t.

He also can’t quite bring himself to care.

Cursing softly under his breath, he hand wanders until it finds the growing outline of the bulge in his pants. It feels so good to do it right in front of you, especially when you look better than he’d seen you in weeks(as long as he sort of squints), and he shudders with pleasure as he palms his cock slowly.

He usually likes to hold back a little, but there’s really no point this time - it’s the last time he’ll ever be this close to you, so he might as well make the best of it, right?

His cock is rock hard and dripping with precum by now, straining with arousal against the pressure of his fist, gliding and stroking along his curved, thick length until he begins to feel that warm heat coiling in his stomach. He kind of wishes that you were still alive to see him jerking off to your perfect face, pumping his cock desperately as he fixates on the fake blush of your skin. It’s almost exactly how you look before you fell sick - minus the gore splattered on your sheets, of course - as long as he pretends that you’re still breathing, that your pulse is still thrumming steadily beneath those soft, white quilts.

He fists his cock a bit faster, rhythm increasing as he feels his balls growing heavier, his dick flushed and desperate for release. Although he’s sad that you’d never be able to fully participate, he supposes it’s for the best.

Better dead than hung up on someone else, right?

As he turns his gaze back onto the flowers he’d ripped out from your chest cavity, he feels a perverse burst of pleasure coursing through him. He can’t help but feel proud of the way he’s made everything right, how he’d gotten rid of that annoying little crush you’d been harboring for weeks. If he closes his eyes, he can almost see the way you’re thanking him from the afterlife, tears of gratitude and joy in your eyes at the freedom he’s finally given you.

Issei finishes with a low, pleasured, groan, his cum spilling into his waiting hand as he strokes himself through his orgasm. It’s one of the strongest orgasms he’s had in quite some time, and he can’t help but think it’s the commemoration you deserve.

As the blood rushing in his eardrums slows, the hazy, uncertain world around him seems to stop spinning, and he feels himself being pulled back down from his high. If he strains his senses, he can hear the nighttime din through your walls, quiet and ever-present. He looks outside, the streetlamps flickering dimly, staring off into the inky stillness of the star-lit night.

Funny that he’s finally on the other side of your window.

Maybe he should leave you one last present.

April 26th, 2013

[9:00 am]

When they find you in your bed the next morning, your mother screams and your father cries.

They never saw it coming, did they? You were a good girl, someone who always did what they were supposed to do, said what others told them to say, acted exactly how they expected you to. Never got yourself into the slightest hint of trouble.

It’s a horrific scene: their precious daughter, limbs mangled and organs torn up, stomach and chest cut wide open as if straight from a horror movie. The room seems to swirl with hostility, and the four walls, once your sanctuary, had turned into an image of brutal, bloody, violence - with your body as the centerpiece.

It’s not until they step closer that they realize the dried, white, glaze on your face is cum.

203 notes · View notes

fermataheart · 2 years

Text

Not a Squatter | Virgil & Silas

TIMING: ~ 1 month ago, shortly following ‘this isn’t fair’ LOCATION: silas’ apartment. PARTIES: @fermataheart & @virgil-achyls SUMMARY: silas returns home after a rough day to find a stranger has taken up residence. CONTENT WARNINGS: suicidal ideation

He hadn’t been home in what felt like weeks. Not that he was missing much, the Bend didn’t really offer great quality when it came to living conditions. His apartment building was just as dilapidated as the rest of them, a crumbling brick exterior with cheap, paper-thin interior walls that did very little to keep cold out or sound in. Didn’t matter, Silas didn’t sleep much, and preferred the cold for obvious reasons.

It was a small, one-bedroom setup with very little furniture—a mattress on the floor in the bedroom, something that resembled a couch in the living room, and no kitchenware to speak of, though for some reason his plastic tote of clothes had found a home there. The hardwood floors were scuffed and uneven, the windows dirty and ill-fitted to their frames, and none of the light bulbs had been replaced after burning out. Squalor, if you wanted to sum it up with one word. The zombie lived in squalor.

Heaving himself up the steps, long hair framing a tired, emotionally drained face, he made his way down the hall to the door of his apartment. Lucky number 11. Keys slid into the lock, jiggling to get it to disengage (because naturally, it was also half-broken), and Silas stepped into the dark entryway. The untouched kitchen was to his immediate left, the living room dead ahead, and the bedroom and bathroom down a two-foot long hallway to the left. Without noticing the figure that was perched in the living room, Silas kicked the door shut softly behind him and moved, head down, into the small kitchen. Pulling his dirty, blood-stained clothes from his body, he rifled around through his tote for something clean to wear, dropping a black long-sleeved shirt on the floor before hunting for his favorite pair of joggers. “Fuck me,” he groaned to himself, annoyed to be down another outfit when he had so few to spare. The blood never really washed out.

—

Virgil jumped as he heard the door slam, automatically pulling the long shadows of the apartment to cover himself. He’d spent the past week watching a medium who lived here, trying to figure out its schedule so he could have it in his mind when he was ready to start actually taking humans. Normally he was fine to just watch from outside, but with the forest off limits, he wouldn’t have anywhere to vanish if he was spotted. Also, it was cold, and he didn’t particularly want to stand around and risk getting frostbite. So he went into an apartment which looked abandoned, with no working lights and walls that seemed to be crumbling to dust. Nobody had come or gone from it in the few nights he’d spent. And it had a great view of the medium’s apartment, so Virgil could easily make notes of when it came home and left for work, and when it was there alone. While he had his sunglasses on so as not to draw attention to himself, he was unglamoured, and therefore sure to cause a panic when he was seen. At first he thought it was someone breaking in, and then he had the notion that someone might’ve seen him, and was coming in to get rid of him. He turned to the doorway, waiting and ready to either disappear or drop his glasses. But the intruder didn’t even notice him, it just slouched into the kitchen, banging around while swearing to itself.

It had keys. It wasn’t acting like an intruder. It was acting like this was its home. And it was covered in blood. Human blood. Virgil had seen enough of it in his life to know for certain what it was. And from what little he’d been able to glimpse, there was a lot of it. Enough to be fatal to whoever lost it. Something morbidly curious welled up in Virgil. He had no desire to see dead humans, nor any parts of their insides; he’d been exposed to more than his fill of that back home. But he wanted to know why the human whose home he was invading was that bloody. His humans back home had always had each other’s backs, united as they could be against the horrors of the Mirror. This human seemed to be carrying a heavy burden. He didn’t care about its feelings, nor the pain it must be going through. It was more like asking a stranger to gossip with you for the sake of some brief entertainment. And after spending days with nothing to do but watch the humans go by, he was itching for some stimulation.

Virgil walked to the kitchen, making a conscious effort to make his footfalls noisy, so it didn’t seem like he was sneaking up on the human. He paused in the doorway, pulling his glamour into place so he at least looked human on the surface. It might be less scary if the human thought he was just a neighbor who’d come by to gossip.

“That’s a lot of blood. Are you okay?”

—

Footsteps. Loud footsteps, coming right up behind him. Silas should have been freaked out, should have whipped around in a panic to confront whoever—or whatever—was about to be breathing down his neck, but instead he just slowly straightened his spine and turned to face them, bare-chested and with his jeans pulled halfway down his ass.

There was a long silence that passed between them while the zombie tried to process what the fuck was going on, his reaction utterly deadened by the events of that night. It was around five or six in the morning at this point, he hadn’t slept in at least 24 hours, and his tolerance for confrontation was at an all time low.

“... I’m… yeah. M’fine,” he responded warily, narrowing his eyes at the intruder. People who were out to get you didn’t usually open with a line like that, or at least not spoken so earnestly. It was weird, extremely weird, but so far not exactly threatening. Silas bent down to pick up the clean shirt he’d dropped earlier, tugging it on over his head and pulling his hair free from the collar. Sparing a glance down at his legs, then to the bin of clothes behind him, Silas decided that he cared less if this stranger saw him naked than if he spent another second in these damn pants. Returning to his hunt for something to wear, the zombie kept Virgil in his peripheral vision, just in case.

“You a squatter?” he asked plainly, figuring that the guy must have been here for a while—it wasn’t like there was anything worth stealing. That said, he looked a little too groomed to be homeless, so who knew? “S’fine if you are, I get it. Cold out there.” Finding what he was looking for, Silas stood back up again, shaking out the sweatpants with one hand and hooking a thumb over the waist of his jeans with the other. “Look, uh… don’t make a difference to me if you stand there or not, but I gotta get out of these things,” he explained, giving the intruder a moment to turn away if he wanted. Regardless, Silas tugged and wiggled out of the bloody, muddy jeans and undergarments, kicking them into the corner before slipping into the much comfier joggers. “Fuck, that’s better,” he sighed to himself, feeling the tiniest flake of the shit-cake that was his night break off and float away, making the burden that much lighter.

—

“No, not a squatter. Just taking a break to do some people watching. I find it helps to calm my mind. I thought this place was empty, and it has a pretty good view of the outside, so I came in to get out of the cold. It’s freezing out there, isn’t it?” Virgil looked around the place as the human took off its clothes, not particularly interested either way, though he knew some could be fussy about it. What did interest him was the state of the place. He understood making do with what you had, and having an old home which one could only repair so much. But this place was a complete disaster, and it all became more serious now that he knew it wasn’t abandoned. There was no attention paid to the things that could be controlled, like swept floors and a clean counter. Virgil almost wanted to beg this human to let him clean it up just a little bit. Humans could easily get sick from living in filth. He understood that sometimes neighbors had to step in and help with the things others had trouble handling. He’d never minded cleaning. But then he remembered that here, he had problems keeping things clean too, not because he just couldn’t, but because if he looked down for too long, he got dizzy enough to collapse. He pressed his mouth into a thin line and took a breath. The human would have to sit in its mess for now. Still, how could it handle it? “I appreciate that you’re being chill about finding a complete stranger in your home. And I apologize if I scared you.”

Virgil paused for a beat, wondering if he should just call it a night and leave. He hadn’t expected to speak to a human tonight, and wasn’t mentally prepared for it. It’d been quite a while since he’d had to act like a human since most of the company he kept knew about him. He was a little rusty, and without time to practice moving like a human, or even smiling like one, it was only a matter of time before he revealed himself. He could already tell that his smile was just a tad off, perhaps crooked, or showing too many teeth, conveying something cold and predatory rather than some genuine human emotion.

But he was loathe to go back outside in the snow. And perhaps he owed the human something for using its home to stalk other humans. He was also morbidly curious about the blood.

“So,” he said warmly, to distract from the severity of his smile. “Whose blood is that? I assume it’s not yours, or you wouldn’t be standing.”

The shadows in the room, long and strong from the house’s perpetual darkness, seemed to reach for Virgil, curling around his feet like cats. Despite the mess and the stranger, the house was comfortable. His kitchen had fluorescent white lights which always seemed to make his eyes sting when he was trying to cook for his Lucas. This place had nothing. It was dim, and he somehow felt at home in it.

“Are you hungry? Or maybe thirsty? I can fix you something to eat, if you’d like. You must be hungry. You look half dead with exhaustion.”

—

“People watching,” Silas parroted him, one eyebrow raised quizzically. “Hey man, whatever gets your goat…” As he was offered an apology, the zombie shook his head and shrugged. “Forget about it,” he sighed. “Mighta scared the fuckin’ hell outta me any other day, but I’m just—” He didn’t owe this guy, whoever he was, his whole life story. Letting the thought die there, Silas gathered the bloody clothes from where he’d dumped them, opening the cabinet beneath the sink to throw them in the little trash can that was hidden there. The action seemed to pique the stranger’s interest, which drew another curious stare from Silas. Except this time, he noticed it. It was a hard thing to pin down, but it was off. It was wrong.

Something about this guy was very, very fucked up.

Not allowing the fear that slowly settled over him to show, Silas straightened up and gave him a nod. “Yeah, you’re right about that. It’s kind of a long story… an accident.” He squinted at the guy, looking for any other tells of his weirdness but finding none.

Was he hungry? What an unintentionally loaded question. “I’m fine…” he started, catching movement out of the corner of his eye. His gaze dropped to the floor, and he could swear he’d seen some sort of shadow on the floor. “... I always look half dead. Or whole dead, if we’re being honest.” Silas lifted his gaze again to meet Virgil’s. “Undead, if we’re being pedantic.” He shifted his weight, arms folding across his chest.

“What, uh… what’s up with you? You’re weird. Weird like me, but in a different kind of way. You got too many teeth, man. I ain’t super familiar with shit outside my wheelhouse, but I ain’t dumb, neither.”

—

“I will forget about it, then. I’m glad I didn’t scare you.” Virgil listened intently as the stranger hopped from term to term before settling on the one that actually meant something to him. “Undead? That’s interesting. Are you a vampire? I seem to be meeting a lot of vampires here.” He thought fondly of his Milo, and wondered if these two knew each other. His first reaction to imaging the two together was that this creature would be a bad influence on his Milo. His second was that they’d probably get along perfectly.

Virgil watched heavy awareness settle over the stranger’s face as it took in his teeth, then looked at his feet as if trying to pick out a shape in the dark mass of shadow. Not quite fear, but it wasn’t quite at ease with him either. That was fine. Virgil had no desire to be genuinely threatening towards this individual. But at the same time, it was disheartening that after all this time living in White Crest, he still couldn’t blend in at all, or fool even the most distracted humans when forced to interact with them. Then again, there was always something liberating about being freed from the confines of his (admittedly poor) human charade.

“I do? Oh dear, how embarrassing!” He covered the smile and leaned in, as if this was some inside joke between them, and chuckled at himself. “It’s difficult to get my glamour just right sometimes. It’s never been natural for me. You’ll have to excuse me.”

This creature was sharp, Virgil had to admit. But maybe not that smart for calling him out on it instead of just rushing him out the door with fond goodbyes. “You’re a smart thing, aren’t you? For noticing so fast. I’ll keep it on even if it’s not quite right. The real thing might scare you.”

Now, Virgil had dropped any shred of humanity besides the glamour. He was completely still, like a spider, or a cat, who was just waiting for their prey to come within reach. Even his eyes were fixed directly onto those of his host, unwavering. The only thing that moved was his mouth, which stretched oddly as he spoke, as if animated by a maw that was much wider than the one his human disguise had. The shadows nearest to him twitched and swirled, contrasting his stoicism. The darkness began to ever so slowly creep towards his host.

“I mean you no harm,” he told it, which was at odds with his appearance, but true nonetheless. “Since I invaded your house, I feel it’s only fair if I do something for you. Is there something you need done? I can do a bit of cleaning, if you’d like. Get that blood out of your clothes. I could cook you something, though I’m not sure how to prepare dinner for the undead. It looks like you’ve already eaten, anyway.” He waved a hand at the gore still covering the stranger like a second skin. “Or you can send me away. No hard feelings. I’ll go without a fight. Just let me know.”

—

Vampire? “Oh, no, uh… zombie. Other kind of undead. Less cool, if I’m honest.”

Alright, that was weird. Virgil’s reaction was more off putting than the realization he wasn’t human, but Silas did his best to stifle it. “Uhh, no problem, mon frère,” Silas muttered, inwardly desperate to recoil. The real thing might scare you. Jesus christ, what the hell was this dude?

Silas quickly realized he didn’t want to know, watching the way he just… froze up like a shitty glitch in the matrix. “You sure about that?” Silas scoffed at the assurance of his safety, though it was halfhearted at best. No point in pissing this thing off, he’d been… weirdly pleasant so far. Thick eyebrows rose as the zombie noticed the shadows moving again, closing in on him in a way that was most unsettling.

Cleaning. He wanted to… clean? The offer to just shoo him away was tempting, but when Silas took a moment to consider the alternative—sitting alone in his shitty apartment, stuck with the thoughts of how pissed Milo and Emilio had been, replaying the night over on repeat… fuck. Some creepy creature was definitely preferable.

“Uhh, no, that’s—I mean, I guess… if you want to stay, you can. It’s not… great in here, I know. If you really want to clean, knock yourself out. But you don’t have to, I’m—you can just…” Realizing he was just talking in circles, Silas fell silent. There was a slight pause, then he sucked in a sharp breath. “Sorry, why were you people watching from an apartment you thought was abandoned? Ain’t there better places to do that, like the Commons?” The cold. “Oh, wait, nevermind. S’cold out, right.”

God, he was so shit at small talk.

“What’s your name?”

—

“A zombie?” Virgil repeated, and tried to put the name to meaning. All he could come up with were commercials for human shows and games about zombie invasions that played before his cooking videos. He’d never really heard the term before coming to White Crest, and he didn’t know of anything that was comparable in the Mirror. The only thing he knew for sure was the fact that this creature was, as it’d said, undead, and apparently ate humans. “I don’t know much about zombies, unfortunately. You eat humans, right? What parts?”

It was obvious by the zombie’s rambling and posture that it was uncomfortable with him. Perhaps even frightened. He would’ve thought that staying in his human form was the right choice, since his true form was the one that humans historically reacted poorly to. But this creature was acting like the problem was his glamoured form, staring at him like he’d grown a second head.

“I owe you a debt. You can trust the word of a fae.” Virgil spoke clearly so it would know that he wasn’t going to let its nerves affect him. He stepped away from the doorway and to zombie’s side, moving slow, letting it see the stiffness in his neck and head, and the uneven way he walked, as if he was on a boat, contrasting the coiling way he stood. His steps were still nearly silent, drowned out by the swishing of his long coat around him. Darkness followed him like a cloak. He supposed there was only so much he could do to put the zombie at ease. “Do you have cleaning chemicals? A rag? I was thinking I could do the counters and then sweep in here. I don’t want to keep you all night.”

He didn’t usually show his weakness to strangers. It bothered him that he was doing it now. But if it got this creature to relax a little, to let it know that it had more control over the situation than it realized, he supposed he could deal with it. He found its fear confusing since it could easily overpower him if it came to a fight, and if it wanted him gone, he’d leave. He had nothing to gain by invading some zombie’s home and attacking it, nor any desire to partake in violence. It’d said that it was cool with him staying, so why was it acting like it wasn’t?

“The Commons might be a better place to do it. But I was just watching one specific human, and it lives here, so I’m here too. It’s honestly really boring to sit around and wait for it to come home, but it’s just one of those things that has to get done, you know?” This kind of mundane talk was something that Virgil would’ve spurned as below him, unwilling to go along with behaviors that were so obviously human. However, he found that staying in his glamour made him want to keep up the act. Not to try to fool this zombie, but perhaps to learn something for the next time he found himself speaking to a human. “What do you do with your spare time?”

“I’m Virgil.” He extended his hand, slow and harmless, in greeting. “What can I call you?”

—

Grimacing, the guilt of what he’d done far from gone, Silas shook his head. “I mean, I try not to,” he said softly, guilt dripping from his words. “It's mostly animals. Any part’ll do, but the brains are… preferable.”

Owed him a debt? Wait—wasn’t that a really reckless thing for a fae to say? Surely this… whatever he was knew that. Even Silas knew it, and he barely knew shit about other types of supernaturals. Wondering if that was some kind of indicator that this guy really was harmless, the idea was only backed up by the awkward way he shuffled forward, looking terribly off balance. Silas was about to ask if he was okay (why did he care?) when Virgil inquired after cleaning supplies. “Oh, uh… yeah, I—yeah, hang on,” he muttered, turning toward the sink to open the cabinets beneath it again. Reaching past the waste bin, Silas snatched up a bottle of some kind of all-purpose cleaner, noting that it itself was covered in dust.

Man, he’d really let the place go, hadn’t he?

Next was a roll of paper towels, plucked from atop the unused fridge and set on the counter beside the bottle. Turning back to the fae when he explained about the… what sounded like stalking… Silas raised a brow. “Sure, man. Just one of those things,” he agreed, finding the sentiment almost funny. This guy was weird, but in an endearing way. So far, at least. “Virgil,” he repeated, reaching for the extended hand. “I’m Silas. Don’t do much these days, play music, that’s about—” His words died on his tongue as their hands made contact, a bizarre feeling coming over him. The zombie, who was quite cold to the touch for his own part, noticed a certain… stickiness to the fae’s grasp. Hm. Well, if the way he seemed half made of shadows was any indicator, it was probably safe to assume it was normal for him, and not the result of something nasty on his palms. Deciding to ignore it, the zombie smiled for the first time that evening. “—it. You all good? Looked a little… stiff, there,” he remarked gently. “Outta your element. Not from around here, m’guessin’?”

—

“We have something in common, then. You’re no stranger to hunting animals,” Virgil said, noting the way it raised a brow when he brought up following a human, and wanting to remind it that it was also a predator. “Do you have any loss of sensation?”

He watched the zombie putter around its kitchen, fetching cleaning supplies from completely different places as if they’d been scattered by the winds of time. When all were located, Virgil thanked his host with a polite nod, already having decided that the counters were first on his list.

“Silas. Nice to meet you.” Virgil couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy it when Silas stopped mid-sentence to shudder at the sensation of his skin. Still, he kept going as if he didn’t notice, smoothly shaking the cold hand. The sensation of the zombie’s skin confirmed that it was in fact dead, and Virgil’s mood reflexively dipped. Silas was neither truly dead nor one of Virgil’s humans, but he was so used to a final goodbye when humans felt like that, he couldn’t help but feel a touch of loss.

When they separated, there was a slight tearing sensation as the skin of his fingers tried to stick to that of the zombie’s. He almost wanted to keep the contact, to assure himself that there was life in the movement of its body even if its skin marked it as a corpse. His eyes flickered up to meet Silas’ through the red tint of his glasses, finding them exhausted yet alive, which somewhat helped.

He grabbed the cleaning fluid and gave the counter a heavy spritz, then let it soak in while he unrolled a few paper towels to wad up. It amazed him that Silas had paper towels, that people here could use disposable paper for cleaning instead of just whatever scraps of clothes had gotten too threadbare to keep wearing. Despite the gubbiness, the apartment suddenly felt a lot more glamorous.

At the mention of being a musician, Virgil’s attention was genuinely piqued. The music from White Crest was one thing he enjoyed more than the kind they had at home. In the Mirror, Fae played on whatever they had, mostly providing background music for parties, events, or plays. They’d certainly been good, but it got a little repetitive to hear the same sound and the same songs over and over. Here, there were all sorts of instruments and technologies that were combined to make new, invigorating songs the likes of which he could never even dream of. Some of those music videos were incredible. With admiration, he regarded the zombie again. “That’s not an easy thing to do. What do you play?”

Virgil tilted his head down to his work, listening with half an ear as he cleaned. The smell of bleach filled his nose, familiar, and with a little elbow grease, the counter began to look better.

“I’m fine. Just a little dizzy.” Just as predicted, the zombie had taken the bait. It relaxed visibly, and Virgil considered himself successful in convincing his host that he wasn’t dangerous, even if his pride was stinging.

Silas was once again displaying that it was too smart for its own good. The offhand guess was far too on the nose for Virgil’s liking. You have no idea how right you are, he thought. What was that line he’d used back when he first came? He scrubbed at the counter, pensively removing some built-up scum. It’d been so long since he’d needed to devote any effort to those little sayings, the ones that were vague enough to be true without really giving anything away. It wasn’t really this stranger’s business where he was from.

“No, I’m not from here. I came to White Crest to help out the family business, so I’m here for the foreseeable future. I can’t say I’ve been adjusting well,” he said finally, and then, as a diversion from the topic of himself, added, “Forgive me for saying so, but I don’t know how anyone can live here peacefully. How do you stay sane when the world is constantly trying to kill you?”

—

Loss of sensation? Silas smiled ruefully. “Yeah. Can’t barely smell, taste, or touch… sucks, most of the time. Y’get used to it, though.”

Watching Virgil go about cleaning, the zombie couldn’t help but feel a little guilty, despite there not really being a reason for it. The stranger had offered, and who was Silas to insist that he—a weird non-human he knew nothing about and whose intentions were still murky at best—leave? He couldn’t really take Virgil at his word that there wouldn’t be any problems, as much as he wanted to. So he decided he was just going to roll with the punches, and keep the guy at least somewhat entertained until he decided to take his own leave.

“Oh, uh… a lot of things, actually. I only own a guitar n’ a fiddle, but… I can play just about anything you put in front of me. Went to school specifically for music composition, so…” Feeling strange just standing there watching, Silas grabbed a handful of paper towels to help. An added bonus was that this allowed him to stare at what he was doing while speaking, rather than at Virgil, who was still eerily off putting in a way he couldn’t wrap his head around.

The next question came as a surprise, blunt as it was, and Silas almost stopped scrubbing. “Well…” he began, brows furrowed in thought, “... I guess you don’t stay sane.” His expression softened and he looked up at the fae, considering all the things he’d gone through that night alone. Tears would have sprung to his eyes if they could, but as it was, a distinct sadness settled into his features. “‘N it sure ain’t peaceful, I can tell you that. Just last night, I—” He didn’t owe this man anything. There was no reason to open up to him, to confide in him or show him any sort of weakness, but Silas wasn’t strong enough to stop himself. Overwhelmed, he didn’t even try to stop it as it spilled out, delivered with the quiet desperation of a person who felt they had no one left to turn to. “—I lost someone real important to me. Someone I should hate, but I don’t. And the people I shouldn’t hate, the people who cared enough to help me outta a bad situation, I just fought with all of ‘em. Burned bridges, fucked it all up.” He gave a mirthless laugh, gaze averting toward the ceiling. “Been threatened by death even after dyin’ once, by all sorts of things—even myself. It sucks, Virgil. It sucks real fuckin’ bad and I’m afraid I don’t got a good answer as to how we keep truckin’ on. Guess it’s just… human nature.” Falling quiet again, the zombie shook his head and resumed cleaning. “Anyway, hope for your own sake that you can get back to wherever you came from sooner rather than later. Y’don’t wanna be ‘round here, trust me.”

—

“Music composition?” Virgil echoed, taken aback by the odd answer. He only had a vague understanding that humans learned very different things than him. School was a word he’d heard floating around a lot, though he had little idea what humans did there. He’d been taught how to make cloth, grow food and medicinal herbs, cook, repair homes, and tend to animals, though his experience was more about survival than mastery. Even the musicians back home were just folks taking a break from their day jobs. It never crossed his mind that musicians might learn to be professionals by going to school for it. Again, he felt a flash of admiration for Silas, who had an education in something that sounded so strange it was almost magical. “What made you decide to learn about music?”

Virgil’s eyes flickered to Silas, taking in the troubled expression on its face as it spoke of burning bridges and spurning the people who tried to help it. He felt for it. Silas must be hurting quite badly if it was telling this to Virgil, who was still regarded as something of a threat. He listened, letting it finish getting it out before he reacted. Part of him wanted to reach out and touch, to offer comfort with his hands in the way that was so familiar to him. That was overstepping a bit, even for him. But it didn’t feel right to just stand there like he didn’t care that this stranger was sharing something traumatic.

A less kind part of himself was intrigued by the admission. He knew that humans, and by extension Silas, dealt with death all the time. It was part of their lives in a way that it just wasn’t part of Virgil’s. Sure, he’d had humans die on him, but they were nothing more than blips compared to the loss of his brother. Virgil had been blindsided by his death, with no idea how he should feel, or what to do, so he just locked up the memories that remained and kept them deep within. He was almost eager to hear what a human (or, former human) might be feeling about the loss of someone it knew.

“Who did you lose?” He prodded gently. “Why do your friends think you shouldn’t love them?”

—

“Ah, guess I’ve just always had an affinity for it,” Silas answered slowly, surprised by Virgil’s continued interest. “Been playin’ stupid songs for myself since I was a little thing, with whatever I could find ‘round the tra—house.” Falling silent, the zombie tried to focus on what he was doing.

His expression hardened at the questions, and suddenly he wished he hadn’t said anything at all. “Doesn’t matter who he was,” he muttered. “He’s dead now, and I’m sure I’m better off. I’m sure.” His voice wavered, throat constricting. Seeing Andreas dead had been difficult enough, but the manner of his death was altogether another hurdle that Silas hadn’t quite been able to leap. Head severed from his neck, the evidence of a struggle surrounding his corpse… Silas had struggled to haul him out of the decrepit cabin, and going back for his head had almost made the zombie sick.

Now he was pushing daisies, buried as deep as Silas could stand to go before the grief had overwhelmed him. Before he had come running back home, exhausted and looking like hell. Before he had encountered a strange fae in his apartment, stalking one of his neighbors.

“Think this is about as clean as the counter’s gonna get,” Silas said with an edge to his voice. “I’ll take care of the rest myself. Appreciate the help, stranger. I… I’d like to be alone now, if y’don’t mind.”

#. para ;#. para ; not a squatter #. with ; v. achyls #suicide tw #[ it's BEDTIME no graphic for this one ]#wickedswriting

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