Finally, I’m home. Thank the Gods. The front door of my house has not looked this beautiful in years.
I wish I could feel like I made more progress on this excursion, though. While I didn’t feel the urge to stab anyone like I did with that insufferable Arcean, I did have to tap out of conversations pretty quickly after starting them on account of them being boring as fuck and the boneheaded mareep just pissing me off with their… general mareepness. Oh, I have a wife and two kids, they’re the light of my life, the littler one is really big into prehistoric pokémon right now - yeah, well, I bet he thinks tyrantrum shouldn’t have feathers, as if he gets to make that decision, stupid fuck. I hate kids.
I’m frankly surprised that Red
doesn’t have his face constantly buried in a phone in public given how asocial he is in general. I’m guessing “no phones, they’ll distract you from the hunt” is one of Helix’s commands or something.
Right, well, anyway - I’m home now, and I don’t have to think about that shit anymore. All I have to think about now is getting some food. I’m starving.
I unlock the front door and open it. Fonz shouts his greeting from inside. Fuck. If he’s here, that means the omanyte is here too. I really don’t have the energy for this…
I mean, you could always just turn around and go over to McDeino’s for a value mea-
Red: “I’ll suck it up and deal with the Omanyte, thanks.” >_>;
Either way, I slip inside and kick off my shoes, giving no shits about whether they’re fancy or not. In the comfort of my own home, I can treat them any way I want. It’s not like my dad’s coming back to scold me.
Oh, so Red’s dad’s dead… or at least I think that’s the implication there.
I shuffle my way to the kitchen to scramble together something to eat. Fonz sits at the table with his own dinner - some salmon and mashed potatoes, nice. I could have some of that myself. Last night’s dream definitely put me in the mood for some seafood. But last night’s dream was also the one where --
Dammit, this is what I was talking about. I’ve already had enough trouble containing my urges today. I don’t need any more of that, regardless of what kind of urges I’m fighting.
That actually makes me wonder if GLP-1s would impact Red’s ability to feel those urges given that feeling less pleasure and excitement in general is apparently a fairly commonly reported side effect of taking them.
But the omanyte issue becomes impossible to ignore when I hear the mon chatting with a voice I don’t recognize.
It’s not Fonz, I’m looking right at him. It’s not Abe, he doesn’t sound like that. It’s not Abe’s father and it’s not my mother. So it must mean…
I clear my throat. “Did m- Helix bring someone home from school?” The name burns my throat to speak aloud, but I just can’t say ‘my lord’ anymore.
Wait, but isn’t Helix in a fishtank right now? ^^;
“Yeah,” says Fonz, grinning. “A treecko named Lily. Apparently they’ve really hit it off. Isn’t it great?”
Huh, guess not, apparently. Though I wonder if this is another TPP reference here, or if Lily is entirely a creation of this story.
I fix my eyes on the kitchen counter.
Yes, it’s great. It’s wonderful. He -- the omanyte finally has a friend. It finally found company. I can imagine how happy that makes it.
And the fact that it brought them home… means that it’s no longer ashamed of me.
Just saying, he could just be flatly ignoring you, Red.
Because I’m not there to call it ‘my lord’ anymore. I’m not there to be weird anymore. The omanyte can now bring people home because I’m no longer in its way.
He’s replacing you.
Ah yes, see,
there’s those alternative explanations creeping up in live time there.
No, no, shut up. We already went over this with the Shirlee fiasco. He’s not -- it’s not replacing me. It has only found other people, other interests. And that’s good, you know? That’s good, because that means it doesn’t need me around so much. And I’m not supposed to be close to it anyway. This is good for both parties.
So what’s the over/under of Lily getting chased out with a knife in about a minute?
He no longer needs you.
That’s not -- no, that can go ahead and be true. Because it doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter what some little mon thinks. I’m going to be a god. That’s the only thing that matters. That’s the only thing I care about.
He no longer wants you.
“Red?”
I don’t answer. [ ]
Is Red deliberately supposed to be spacing out here? If not, it might have made sense to give a bit of a reminder of what he’s up to right now. For example, if he’s staring fixedly at Helix and Lily while Fonz is still talking in the background.
I have to answer.
I grab my heart and slam it through the window. [ ]
“Yeah,” I say. “Just got lost in thought.”
“Alright...”
I feel like this moment might’ve worked a bit better with a bit more contrast between Red’s imagine spot and him snapping back to reality however tenuously for the whole “right, I’m in the kitchen still and Fonz is staring at me” or something like that.
Great, now look at what you’ve done. You’re being suspicious. You’re acting strangely. You’re raising questions. You have to fix the situation.
...I can’t. I have to take the next best option.
“Do we need anything from the store?”
Ah yes,
right after he bailed on the outside world to get away from it and be a shut-in again. I can already tell that this is going to go well™ for Red.
[ ]
“The store? Weren’t you there just yesterday?”
Yeah, weren’t you? “Yeah, but I wanna get something I forgot.”
He shifts back on that little stool of his that lets him sit by the table like a human being. “Well, I can’t think of anything we’re missing.”
I think this might have benefitted from a bit more description of Fonz’s reaction to make things a bit easier to visualize, assuming that Red is sizing up Fonz and trying to gauge how deep in over his head he is or something like that.
“That’s alright.” I walk back to the door and shove my feet back into my shoes. “See you soon.”
“Oh, s-see you,” he shouts backs as I slip outside.
Once I’ve closed the door, I let myself collapse against it.
I take it that Red’s neighborhood doesn’t get much activity normally, since you’d think that his neighbors would find this weird if they were passing by.
Well, I suppose it’s alright. I didn’t do anything explicitly harmful and removed myself from the situation before I could. That’s about the best I can ask of myself given today’s events.
Still, I…
No. Just let it go.
Wait, what was Red considering here? Since his thought process cuts off abruptly enough that I’m not sure what he was thinking about there.
With a sigh, I prop myself back up. I step down from the porch and begin my journey to the store. Well, I suppose I don’t actually have to go to the store - I can just say they didn’t have what I wanted - but as I couldn’t get myself a bite to eat back home, I could buy myself a little something on this trip. I remember them having a section with freshly baked pastries the few times I’ve wandered off my usual route. One of those sounds really good right about now…
The thought, unfortunately, only makes my hunger growl louder. I choose to defer it for the time being and try to focus on my surroundings instead.
Considering Red’s past track record at reining in his impulses and the generally unstable parts of his mind, I’ll take the under on this lasting for more than about five minutes.
For a while, it helps. The pretty weather and nice breeze do well to lift my spirits… until I come across the library.
Gods. Just a year ago or so, I could have gotten a snack from the café already and had a wonderful time, but noooo, they had to go and screw it all up as that’s the thing humans do best. Well, guess what?
I gargle up some saliva and spit it down on the asphalt. There. Let that foamy lump be a warning to any other enjoyers of decency. And who says people like me don't do good deeds.
Red: “Oh,
piss off! Steering people away from that place
is a good deed!”
I lift my head up high and continue on my way. After what felt like much too long, I finally arrive at the supermarket - but there's a commotion at the front again. And what do you know, it's the same people as before. You'd think they would’ve given up by now. In a way, I admire their resilience. And in a way, I almost pity them - they too have found themselves imprisoned by their own emotions. But I suppose, more than either of those, I feel… pride. Pride at the fruits of my labor.
… And your pride
hasn’t been imprisoning you and steering you down making stupid decisions throughout this story
how, Red? ^^;
Though it’s definitely a pretty exemplary display of Red’s protagonist-centered morality in this story.
But I do hope I can slip by either unnoticed or with a quick 'no'. I'm here for destressing, not distressing. Man. Sometimes I wish I had friends I could say these puns to.
Boy, the atmosphere back at Red’s house must be something else if he doesn’t consider
his own roommates to be his friends.
I approach the doors with a brisk pace I intend to keep no matter what. I dive into the crowd and manage to take a few steps until someone lightly grabs my arm. Alright, I was prepared for this. I turn to the culprit and --
“Excuse me, sir, have you...”
The word to speak is simple, but some group of neurons decides to block it with rage. They’ve seen the man that slammed the lid of an iron maiden onto me last night, and they’ve forgotten that it was simply a dream. It doesn’t help that the man has left his own sentence unfinished. It locks my eyes onto his face in anticipation. His dopey, dopey face. But it’s not just his expression that I can’t seem to escape - something is off.
Red, have you ever considered:
Since just saying, it would likely be a
wee bit more effective at brushing off attention right about now.
His veins. His veins and arteries. I can see them. They sprawl along his face like the roots of some fungus, diving into his sockets and orifices. Was he always this pale? Is this some reaction his body is having to the copious amounts of crying he’s done judging by his reddened eyes?
No, somehow it doesn’t look unhealthy. I’m not repulsed as I would be at signs of sickness - instead, I’m drawn in. Those red and blue lines are so vivid in their color, they’re like… they’re like candy. Sweet, juicy… plump. Full of blood. So full that it feels like the blood would just squirt right out if pricked with a needle. It would spray right onto me, my skin, my mouth…
I feel the part where Red starts veering off into murderous ideation works better split off into its own thing for emphasis.
He’s talking to me now. I think he’s talking about recognizing me from before but still wanting to ask if I’ve seen her sister. He holds up the photo, but I can barely give it a glance before I have to return to that spectacle on his face. With enough focus, I can see the minute changes in the pressure of those tubes. The squash and stretch as his muscles move. The pulses of blood that originate from his heart. His heart…
My gaze slides down to his chest. Deep in there resides that beautiful, colorful organ. Day and night it ceaselessly works to keep that blood flowing. So diligent. Yet this man gives it no thanks. He takes it for granted, even makes it work overtime with unnecessary stress.
“Sir, are you okay?”
Not at all. Not that he’s going to just go and
tell you that.
I look back at his face. Wrinkles above the eyebrows. Slightly ajar mouth. Confused. At my behavior.
“...Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” I respond with lazy lips, and he goes back to his speech.
But am I okay? Am I okay with this? No, I can’t be okay with this. He doesn’t deserve that heart. And if I’m twice the man he’ll ever be, why shouldn’t I take it for myself? If I had two hearts, neither would have to work as hard anymore. They could work in shifts, one doing what a heart’s meant to do while the other takes a well-deserved break. I’ll give that heart a good home. I’ll let it live in a body that trains regularly and eats a healthy diet. This dude doesn’t, just look at him. He’s taller than me, and yet I have not a cloud of doubt that I could kick his ass.
I could kill him with my bare hands. Eat him alive. Tear off chunks of muscle with my teeth, swallow them, digest them, put their bioenergy into much better use. Oh, Gods. How good it would taste, especially with those candy-like veins on top. I’m so hungry. I have to…
“What are you doing?”
Another spot where I think the paragraph works better split up to emphasize the different parts.
Though Red’s drooling in live-time right now, isn’t he?
He raised his hands. He stepped back. Because I… stepped forward. To lunge at him? Bite him in the neck? In this crowd? In broad daylight?
What the hell am I doing? I was just supposed to say ‘no’ and move on. Not this… this. I… oh, fuck. Just leave.
Yeah, he was drooling, I can already tell.
“Sorry, nothing,” I quickly say. “I’ll, uhh, let you know if I see anything.”
Lol. Lmao.
Before he can respond, I slip through the automatic doors. I don’t stop until I’ve passed through the store gates, something that’ll keep me from walking right back.
This was a bad idea. I should have learned by now that I shouldn’t be around anyone if I need to get myself back together. I just need to grab that snack from somewhere, buy it and get out. Eat it in the woods or something. Anywhere I can be alone.
I mean, at least it’s more dignified than going to the back alley behind the shop? Since I was half-expecting Red to go for literally whatever first quiet place he could find with how ajar his thought process is right now. ^^;
Okay, let’s see. Where did they keep the pastries again…?
I sneak across the store like a lost rodent, peeking into every aisle I pass by and changing course whenever I feel like I’ve found a right turn, but time and time again I’m mistaken. What kind of logic does this place follow? How are clothes related to cheese? Why not have the fresh pastries near the bread? No, there are only packaged ones. I don’t want those - I didn’t come all this way for something conveyor belt flavored.
That sounds like quite the grocery store there. Unless this is basically a Tesco/Wal-Mart that sells everything but with a grocery section attached to it.
It doesn’t help either that each time the signs seem a little harder to read. And each time I turn around, my steps get heavier… it must be my blood sugar dropping down. All this stress is just burning me out faster. Thoughts get blurred, repeated, forgotten only seconds later… hey, I was in this aisle already. Which way did I turn last time? Left? Guess I’ll take the right…
Oh my Gods. There it is! Freshly baked pastries. Croissants, donuts, cinnamon buns. They are sweet, they are greasy, they are…
Well, they’re…
Nonexistent? Since just saying, it wouldn’t be the
first time we’ve seen Red have an imagine spot even in this very chapter.
They’re fine, I guess. They’re exactly as pastries should be. But…
Now that they’re in front of me, I just don’t… want them.
Red’s Body:
Red: “Shut up body,
I call the shots here.” >:|
I don’t want to eat wheat. I don’t want to eat plant matter. But I’m still hungry. I want something. What do I --
A salty, metallic flavor invades my consciousness.
Without even thinking, I lick my lips, catching more blood from the chapped skin. That’s exactly it, that’s what I want. I want flesh. I want the meat of a creature that once had a pulse. Or still has…
No! Don’t go down that route. Just... get some fish! That used to be alive. That’s some flesh you can still legally get. There’s a food counter right beside the pastries, get it from there? No, better not. You should avoid human contact as much as you can right now. Get the refrigerated stuff - you just passed that aisle just a while ago.
Oh, so we’re going to see Red scarf down a raw steak in the bathroom, aren’t we?
I backtrack my steps and see the beautiful red gleam of a salmon fillet. Yes, that, I want that. No, not that, that’s raw, you can’t have it raw, get the cold-smoked one. I open the shelf door and snatch the package, nearly missing thanks to the ever-thickening haze in my head. The soft touch of the flesh underneath my thumb nearly has me sink my teeth into it already, but no, I need to be a person for just a few moments longer. Fingers clutching the package strongly enough to almost tear it, I close the door and turn to where I at least kind of think the checkouts are.
Boy, with a thought process like that, I’m half-convinced he really
has been drooling for much of the past sequence here.
Wait. Past the aisle, on the floor - a red puddle. Is that...
No, it can’t be blood. Why would there be blood on the floor of a supermarket? It has to be ketchup or berry juice or something. Yes, that’s it. Of course it isn’t blood. Nobody’s hurt, nobody’s bleeding, and that’ll become clear as day as soon as I get past these shelves --
Someone’s lying in the puddle. Face down, motionless.
Well… alright, that’s a bit more alarming… but maybe he took a fall. He does look pretty old. He took a fall and he landed on whatever he was carrying, which happened to be filled with some red fluid, and it burst open and made that puddle. That is what happened. Unfortunately, now that I’ve clearly noticed him, I’m obligated to help or else they’ll catch me being criminally negligent on surveillance tapes. What a pain in the ass…
I walk over to him, circling the puddle to avoid getting whatever that stuff is on my shoes. I crouch next to his face and reach for his shoulder --
No.
That smell is unmistakable. It is blood.
Oooooh boy, I can already tell that this is going to get really weird and creepy in short order.
Despite my awakening dread, I grab the man's shoulder. No reaction. I fold the salmon to fit it in my pocket, grab the man with both hands and flip him over.
His entrails stay on the floor.
The smell surges like a sudden gust. Not just blood - all the odors of an opened abdominal cavity, its organs, its fluids. I recoil, nearly falling on my ass, but fortunately find my balance in time to stand upright. Still, my eyes stay nailed to the carnage.
Can’t tell if this is actually happening, or if Red is having another one of those deranged imagine spots again. I’m kinda leaning towards the latter, since
boy did things go places in short order in just a few paragraphs.
What is… behind this? What would cause this? Did a rabid mon barge in and maul this guy? Is it still at large? Am I in danger?
I pause my breathing to listen for any clues - but the store's gone silent. Unbearably silent.
I look around, and what I see is even worse.
Puddles and smears of red coat the once-white floors. Bodies lay strung about here and there, some intact, others ripped apart. I creep to another aisle - same thing. Next one, same thing. Same thing, same thing, same thing. It’s really starting to seem like I’m the only one alive –
Yuuuup, we’re having an imagine spot again. Even if I’m a little morbidly impressed that Red
hasn’t killed someone in the middle of one of these things (well, Michi excluded) up to this point.
Something moved.
Something’s standing at the end of this aisle. Someone. Looks human. Has human hands. Stained by blood.
Was it him? Did he kill all these people? Did he have the same thoughts I had here last time, but lacked the luck that snapped me back to reality? He kinda looks like me. He might think like me, too. Right now, he’s frozen just like I am. Just standing there.
I’m pretty sure that that
is you, just saying, Red.
I don’t want to move, afraid I’ll trigger an attack - but I have to get my knife. I have to be able to defend myself.
I grab the hilt --
Blood.
Blood on my hands. They’re all red. Trembling.
And so are his.
That’s a mirror.
Yeah, I figured.
No. No, I couldn’t have. I’ve been shopping just like anyone else. When could I have done all this? It’s impossible! Yet the blood, the blood is there, and my knife…
I slide it out. The blade is red.
Oh shit. I need to get out of here.
Whelp, so much for getting salmon to munch on today.
I dash from aisle to aisle, careful not to slip on any blood or disembodied organs, looking for any sign of the checkouts. Though will I even be able to get through? Surely they’ve seen me on my rampage through the surveillance already. But will they have the power or courage to try and stop me? Maybe a mon would. I wouldn’t be much of an opponent to anything with elemental powers. I guess I just have to hope it’ll be humans alone or that they’ll be too cowardly to stop me. And that they have no guns…
That’s some cope if I ever heard it given that literally every police officer in a Pokémon setting has
something for a Pokémon partner assigned to them.
Wait! Maybe there’s a chance the surveillance is broken today or that no one’s looked at it yet. If that’s the case, I may even be able to get away scot-free! I just have to get this blood off my hands. But how can I do that? I can’t wipe it on my clothes, it’ll still show. Unless…
With great care not to stain any visible area, I slip my thumb underneath the waist of my pants. I pull it outwards to allow my other hand to enter the space inside, and that other hand props it up enough to let me slip my first hand in. Alright, fantastic! I rub both hands against the insides of my pants, hoping dearly that there won’t be enough blood to seep through. It seems that there isn’t, but the blood is also taking its sweet time coming off –
I like how the thought didn’t even occur to him to try and find a sink or even to grab some bottled water and splash it on himself.
“Hey!”
I look up and freeze. A man in a dark green shirt has entered the aisle, and he’s looking straight at me.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks, approaching.
Oh Gods. Why is he even doing that? He has no weapon on him. Doesn’t he know how much I’ve slaughtered? He… can’t be aware, no. If he knew, he wouldn’t dare to approach. But then what the hell is he confronting me about --
“Get those hands outta your pants!”
Well
that’s a rude awakening back to reality if I ever heard one. Have fun explaining that one, Red.
...Ohhh.
Well, this is quite awkward.
“I said take ‘em out!” he shouts again. It’s looking like he’s going to come take them out himself if I don’t comply.
But… I can’t take them out. He’ll see the blood. He’ll figure things out. Should I just kill him? I’d have to be fast and get no more blood on me, though –
Aaaaand we’ve veered straight back into
territory once again.
No, I’ve got it! Why didn’t I think of this before?
“Oh, thank the Gods you’re here!” I yell. “There’s a --”
I’ve pulled out my hands to present the blood I would claim to have bled. Only there isn’t any.
The clerk’s frown deepens. “A what?”
I glance behind me. The floors are stainless white. [ ]
“You’re gonna have to leave now,” says the clerk.
I think that the whole “... Oh, it’s not real” realization + showing off the clerk giving Red the stink-eye would be worth expanding on a bit more in this sequence.
I inspect my hands over and over, but all traces of the blood have vanished. As the clerk extends his hand to grab me, I lift them up.
“I, uhh, sorry,” I say. “My bad. I won’t be any more trouble. Can you, uhh, still let me buy this?” I gesture to the salmon sticking out of my pocket. At least that didn’t fall out during this whole thing.
The clerk eyes me and the salmon. “If you behave,” he begrudgingly says.
I’m honestly shocked that the clerk is just allowing this, but I suppose that money talks.
I nod eagerly and follow the clerk to the checkouts, where he watches me as I purchase the salmon. Despite my company, the woman behind the counter still serves with the usual level of professionality, but her smile wavers at the words the clerk mutters after I’m done.
“Be sure to wash your hands.”
A bright red glow on my face, I exit the store. I cross the parking lot without delay and keep going until I’ve reached the graveyard.
Red: “Well,
that’s one more place around town that I’m never going to feel comfortable going back to again.” >
///<
I sit on the bench and stare at the salmon in my hands.
I’ve never hallucinated from low blood sugar before, but maybe it’s a thing. Or maybe I fell halfway asleep. I don’t know. I just know that I better eat this now.
Even though I’ve completely lost my appetite.
That sounds like a recipe to wind up barfing up that salmon again sometime in the not-too-distant future, but okay there, Red.
"Hi!" rings Abe's greeting from the kitchen as soon as I open the front door. Unfortunately for him, I have neither the will nor the energy to answer.
I kick off my shoes for what I pray will be the last time today and shuffle towards the stairs. Hearing the omanyte's friend's voice from the living room further cements my plan to head directly for my bedroom and stay there for the remainder of the day. It'd seem very boring if it wasn't for the fact that I'm perfectly ready to already call it a night.
It’s not going to be the last time, is it?
"Oh, hey," Fonz speaks up despite my right foot already touching the third step. "Did you get what you wanted?"
I should probably answer.
"Yeah."
He says something, but as I hear no noises suggesting he's going to follow me, the exact words are irrelevant. All that matters now is that I can rest undisturbed.
I think that the middle paragraph here works better with some small changes along the above lines for emphasis.
Sixteen steps and what feels like an hour later, I bust through my room’s door and flop onto my bed face first. It's not as dark as I would've liked with the sun shining through the window, but it matters little as sleep already knocks at the back of my mind. I let it in, and reality blurs away…
Ah yes, it’s:
Where is it?
I glance left and right and back and forth, but all I see are trees. Pines, spruces, all swaying and creaking in the wind that howls with a houndour's voice. They spread out their branches as if waiting for an unsuspecting passerby to snatch away. Their needles wiggle like thousands of spider legs, eager to get their claws on me to do who knows what. Needless to say, I steer clear of them, sticking to the well-tread path of dirt and dead needles.
Ah yes, so we’re seeing Kantoan Trevenant in action. /s
Up above, in the few spots where the branches don't obscure it, the deep blue velvet of the sky peeks through, along with a few little stars. Their faint, cold light is the only illumination the forest receives. Thanks to this, I can barely see two meters in front of me, which makes my search no easier. I suppose I just have to keep going until I bump into it.
Wait… what is 'it'? What exactly am I looking for?
Apotheosis? Since you seem to be rather hung up on that in this story in general. ^^;
Clank. Clank. Clank.
What’s that? Sounds like a machine of some kind. A big one.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
It’s coming closer. Shit. I don’t know what it is, but I better go hide just in case. I jump off the path --
Shlorp.
Wait, wait, wait. Just what sort of machine makes a ‘shlorp’ noise?
And instantly regret it as the moss gives in under my feet and I find myself knee-deep in sludge. Oh Gods, my shoes are drenched… ugh, wading through this isn’t going to be anywhere near fast enough. I gotta return to the path and find some other option, fast.
Well, that would explain it there. Though yeah,
that’s gotta be ‘fun’ to dream about.
The suction is strong, but with great effort, I manage to pull my foot out of the muck and hop closer to the path. That's one step, I'll need a couple more. Come on… yes, shlorp, we get it. Hurry up, the clanking is getting louder! I don't wanna get in the way of a crazed tyranitar or whatever that is!
inb4 it’s Joanna as a Cofagrigus and she’s not as dead as initially advertised.
The ground's already shaking, oh Gods. What am I even gonna do when once I get out of the sludge? I glance around… hold on, over there! A lone pine growing right on the edge of the path. Maybe, just maybe, I can hide behind it.
Small superfluous word in this paragraph here.
I pull my foot out of the sludge one more time, focus on the solid ground just a meter away, bend my supporting leg - and leap.
The foot meets the path! I crouch right away, and to my great relief, I get to keep my balance. But there’s no time to celebrate. Light is shining from behind the trees, growing brighter each moment - it’s the machine. The rays burning my back, I run to the pine. Up close, it’s thinner than I’d hoped, but it’ll have to do. I slip behind it and try my best to fit in its shadow. Curse these wide, masculine shoulders…
I mean… are we
sure that it’s a machine, Red? Unless it’s that iron maiden or whatever it was that was in the nightmare involving Joanna’s funeral.
The clanking enters my stretch of the path. It’s here. But its rhythm isn’t changing -- it must not have spotted me… yet, at least. I hold my breath as it approaches, keeping a close eye on the light’s direction. As the shadow shifts, so do I. I tiptoe around the trunk at the same pace as the machine passes the tree. A cartoonish maneuver - but miraculously, it works.
The machine carries on at the same pace it arrived with. The clanking’s finally fading, and so is the light.
Wait, so did Red
see the machine at all there in his dream? Since it wasn’t described at all up to this point. Just its sound and its shadow.
I can sigh in peace. I’m safe.
“Thought we missed you, huh?”
What?
Clank-clank cla-clank cla-clank cla-clank clank clank clank --
It's coming here!
Yeah, I figured.
Thwack!
Something strikes the tree hard enough to make me jump back on instinct, forgetting all about my plan to hide. The ground that meets my feet is lumpier than expected and I tumble down backwards.
As the last resort of a cornered animal, my body freezes up, and all I can do is gawk at the terror that stands before me.
Eight spindly, golden legs carry the weight of a coffin-shaped body. On its face, a mask - that mask. Only instead of holes in her sockets, she has two gleaming pitch-black eyes along with two smaller pairs next to them.
Oh, so he really
hasn’t been able to get rid of Joanna for good.
And on the creature's back, wearing a headlamp that obscures her face but still leaves visible the dark clothing and the pink --
"Hi," greets Michi. She pushes up the headlamp, revealing a grin most infuriating.
Red: “What?!
No! You’re supposed to be dead! I
killed you-!” O.O
Even through my terror, my hands form fists. "Y-you're supposed to be dead," I manage through my teeth.
Yeah, I figured there.
"Well, I'm not, and doesn't that piss you off." She smirks, but soon frowns, leaning forwards onto the creature's head.
"Let's get to the point," she says and pats the monster's head. It raises its frontmost pair of limbs, flashing their unnervingly sharp tips, and plunges them into the dirt on my left and right. A dozen or so centimeters closer, they would have skewered my hands - ample reason to draw them to my chest and pay close attention to what the girl has to say.
She locks eyes with me - all innocence gone from those pale blues, replaced with only cold. She delivers her words without a waver.
Which is as good a sign as any that this is a nightmare and that’s not Michi there…
Maybe. I won’t rule out the possibility that this is a ghost of hers.
"You need to confess."
Confess…?
Right. Of course she'd want that. But I…
“Well?” she demands.
Red: “I literally just
said that I killed you-” >_>;
Michi: “
Canonically. To other people.
This is not an easy thing to say with a car-sized six-eyed spider monster staring at you with murderous intent, but I don’t see much of a choice.
“I can’t,” I breathe.
The monster hisses sharply, and Michi narrows her eyes. “Yes, you can,” she says. “And unless you want to die right here and now, you will.”
Red:
Shit. So it’s either gonna be rotting in jail for the rest of my life or getting the kebab treatment.
Or… I do have one trick up my sleeve. It’s worth a shot…
I search my heart for all the misery and despair I can find and channel it through my face.
“I… I’m sorry,” I crow, voice breaking. “I-I’m sorry, but I had to do it! You don’t understand --”
The monster splits its mask into a maw of curved, sharp fangs. An infernal screech claws at my ears.
I take it that Red’s not a very convincing actor with the whole sob story routine there.
“Save it!” spits Michi. “You really think we’d pity you? The child murderer?”
“Well, I, uhh…I mean…” I raise my hands and force a chuckle. “Listen, can we just pause for a moment and discuss this?”
She frowns, but to my great shock, doesn’t immediately order the monster to kill me. Instead, she leans forward again. “We’re listening.”
I kinda wonder if the underlined ought to be expanded a bit for Red’s thought process there.
I take a moment to catch my breath, but know my time is limited. “Alright, so...” I rub my hands together. “Since, um, I don’t want to die and you probably don’t want murder on your record, I’m thinking we could forgo that ‘killing me’ option...”
Lol. Lmao.
Red: “That… came out sounding really lame and pathetic, didn’t it?” >.<
Michi: “And
how.”
“So, you’ll confess?”
I glance away. “Well, about that… I was thinking that now that you’re clearly here and alive, that means no child murder was actually committed, and I… feel like it’d be quite annoying for both parties to deal with all the legal stuff that’s attached to these things, and so we could perhaps… just go our separate ways and forget all about this?”
Silence.
Is it a good silence?
Michi scowls. It’s not good.
Gee, Red. What on earth did you expect there?
“Kill him.”
A metal limb slams into my chest, squeezing out all air and knocking me onto my back. The monster pounces on me, lunging for my left arm with its maw wide and --
Fuck! Oh, Gods! That stings, stings! Screaming pain in my left forearm, it took its fangs and sunk them right in! Right between the bones! It’s like fire! She withdraws -- she withdraws, but the pain isn’t going away, no, it’s so bad, it’s so bad I can’t think of anything but my dissolving flesh.
Dissolving, it really is dissolving, the skin is caving in by gravity alone. Blood pours out of the puncture wounds. Blood and other matter. I hear sizzling. The pain spreads to my torso. My lungs are bubbling. I can’t breathe. The venom creeps up my neck. Oh Gods, I’m really gonna die. My brain is going to melt. It’s already doing so. Patches of my vision go black and spread, spread. But my skin, my skin is still intact, it seems, if limp with no structures beneath. Oh Gods, there it comes, I can feel it. My thoughts shattering.
Death.
I think that this third paragraph works better split into two since it’s a lot of content to take in all in one block.
Wait. It’s gone.
It’s dark, soft, wet…
Oh, great, I get it now. It was just another nightmare. It was just a dream, and now it’s over. I’m awake in my own bed, safe. Though I’m not a fan of the cold sweat. Especially with my day clothes still on. Ugh, looks like I’ll have to change for tomorrow.
I mean, could be worse, since at first when I read ‘dark, soft, wet’, I wasn’t thinking that was
sweat soaking your bed there.
“Do you understand now?”
Oh fuck! Who --
Against the back wall, standing in the dark, it’s her.
“You will confess, or it’ll get even worse,” Michi says. What is she doing in my room? How did she get in? Shouldn’t she be dead?
Oh, so Michi really
is a ghost. Either that or Red’s hallucinating again. Maybe both.
“It’s not a hard choice,” she continues, glaring at me with those frigid eyes. “Jail isn’t even as bad as you deserve. I’m letting you off easy.”
Jail… or death. But not death. Only nightmares. Nightmares in which I die, which I suffer - but this reality remains reality.
>implying Red hasn’t been having trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy since the very start of this fic
This reality…
No, this isn’t real. This is another dream. In reality, Michi is dead, and if she was alive, she’d be smarter than this. She wouldn’t break into my house to taunt me, she’d go to the cops like a sensible person. She’d stay there for protection. She knows I’m a killer, someone to fear.
This one should know that, too.
Bold of you to assume that given that I’m
pretty sure that she’s a ghost right now given that this story is called
Hunter, Haunted, Red.
At the sight of my determination, her expression wavers. “Is there really no convincing you?”
“No,” I say. “No, there is not.”
I get out of my bed and stand up straight. The clammy fabric of my shirt makes me shiver. I quickly unbutton it and throw it on the floor behind me. That’s better.
I lock eyes with Michi again and approach.
“What are you doing?” she asks, unnerved. “I can scream, you know. And then everyone will see us. I’ll tell them what you did.”
Red: “Well, you see, since this is all a dream,
I can control how things play out in it. And I say it’s about time that I kill you again.”
I hear steps. Hurried steps behind the door. A click, and the cracks light up - a shove of the door, and light floods in. In the frame stands Abe.
“What’s going on? What are you doing?” he shouts, but I’m not fooled. I lay my gaze on him and imagine him disintegrating into red dust.
It happens. I smile.
Ah yes, someone’s figuring out how to flip the script on his dreams right now.
The lights flicker out, and the door closes on the pile of powder. Michi looks at the door, then at me. Stupefied.
I walk towards her. “Nice try.”
She backs up only to bump into the wall. “What do you mean?”
“You had your fun, but now this dream...”
I study the wallpaper behind Michi. Then, in an instant, it shreds to wrap around the girl. A startled gasp leaves her poor little lungs.
“...is a lucid dream.” I grin. Finally, things are going my way. A lucid dream is just what I need after these terrible past few days.
Whelp, time to see another child murder. Somehow I doubt this one is going to be as restrained as the last one given that this is a dream sequence.
I’m going to get everything I can out of it.
I raise my right hand and bring it in front of the girl. She eyes it, expression quite alarmed.
“And that means...”
Shnk!
Blood spurts out the tips of my fingers, brought forth by the sharp, black talons that have shot out through the skin.
Oh, well. That’s…
lovely as a thing to dream about. Though I suppose that this really
is a dream given that Red isn’t in massive agony from this body horror transformation right now.
“We’re going to have my kind of dream.”
Yeah, I figured things were heading in this direction here.
I snap my new claws, and with the reverberation of the loud click, cracks form in the surrounding walls and ceiling. The scene quakes, raining down dust and small debris. With a flick of my hand, all the furniture of the room decay into ash.
Another flick, and the ceiling and walls shatter, their pieces flinging out into the darkness around us. A gust of wind catches the piles of powder that once formed my dull, gray bedroom, scattering them into the void. Soon enough, nothing remains except for the strips of wallpaper still coiled around Michi.
The blackness brightens just slightly, becoming a deep blue adorned by thousands of sparkling stars. It reveals a familiar setting around us - the forest. As a last touch, I raise the full moon high above. Its cold light falls upon the scene, illuminating each detail my mind has been able to create.
This is perfect.
Red:
I turn back to Michi. “There, the scenery’s ready. Now...”
I clasp her face with my hand. The talons prick her skin. She struggles - in vain, naturally. Boy, this makes me smile.
“If you think I’m going to give up killing just because of a few nightmares, you really don’t know me,” I murmur. “So let me set the record straight, once and for all.”
Whelp, I can tell that this dream sequence is about to go places in short order.
I focus and my body begins to change.
The bones lengthen, the muscles swell. They stretch my skin thinner and thinner, until -- rip, snap, rip. The limit is reached and broken. The futile tissue tears and peels off in bloody patches, exposing the beauty within. Fibers, tendons, ligaments, fasciae, all glistening from blood and plasma. And it so terrifies the girl!
Somewhere deep inside my neck, rows of sharp, conical teeth pierce the flesh. I cough out a bit of blood onto my lips. The taste is mouthwatering.
Wait, what on earth
does Red look like right now in this dream? A Xenomorph?
“It's time you see me for what I really am,” I rasp. She whimpers as she spots the new set of pearly whites peeking from my throat, forming into a predator’s jaws.
Above them, eyes begin to form. At first they see only darkness, but light shines in from my old mouth, brightening by the second as I push my new skull ahead - but the opening isn’t quite big enough. I’m stuck. Hm.
I let my left hand sprout claws of its own and bring both hands to the old human jaws. I shove in my talons and pull.
With an eruption of blood, the jaws pop apart. I tear away the remains of my previous head and cast them off to the side. My old eyes gone, the new eyes see clearly - and Michi sees them.
Boy, it’s quite a trip to see Red dreaming about body horror like this when he’s massively pain-averse in reality. I take it that this is basically a wish fulfillment exercise given that he’s dreaming of a him that can just take all this without flinching.
Glowing yellow eyes with little black pupils stare back at her terrified face. My torn up mouth pulls its corners into a toothy grin as I finish off my new form with a few more details: two curved, milky-white horns and a bony, whiplike tail with a spearheaded tip.
Here I am - the Houndoom.
Ah yes, that would explain the chapter title. And it’s definitely a solid choice of Pokémon for ruining a ghost’s day.
Michi’s nerves give out. She begins squirming, screaming like a zubat in a blender, desperate for someone to hear and come save her. But no one’s here but us. The tiny girl and the wide-eyed walking corpse, its wet crimson surface shimmering in the moonlight.
I stomp down a bloody foot to halt her wailing. “Well?” I growl. “Do you see now?”
“Yes! Yes!” she screams. “Whatever you say, you freak! Just let me go!”
Red:
I let the wallpaper turn limp. Drenched by the many sprays of my blood, it tears apart from the smallest motions of the girl. She stares at her freed self, puzzled by my sudden compliance.
“Well, go ahead,” I say. “Run. Maybe you can get away this time.”
Especially when Red is the one controlling the way the dream is playing out right now.
I step back and drop onto four limbs, preparing another wave of changes within my body. Michi blinks, then remembers her survival instinct and takes the chance I've provided her. Her pathetic little run is adorable to watch. It's like she only learned how to walk yesterday.
Now… to really live up to the title of Big and Bad.
I flex my talons in concentration, blood squeezing out of my hands. With a good, long stretch, I expand my bones even further. Tendons lengthen, muscle fibers duplicate. My heels rise off the ground for hind legs better built for running. My snout grows longer to fit even more teeth, more robust for an even stronger bite. I whip my tail with pride - I have become triple my size before. This should allow for the end I’ve planned for her. Now it’s time I make that happen.
Oh, so he’s going
all the way for that transformation into a Houndoom given that we’ve seen him shift into a quadrupedal stance on digitigrade legs.
With my mind’s eye, I locate a root crossing Michi’s trajectory and raise it. Well enough, it knocks into her shin and sends her face first into the ground.
I leap into a gallop, earth-quaking thumps heralding my approach, and reach her just as she’s managed to get back to her feet. Like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn, I swipe my paw at her, sending her rolling across the ground. She stops herself on her back, but freezes in horror before she can do much else.
“You’re not very good at this,” I sneer. “Now… you know what the Big Bad Houndoom likes to do, don’t you?”
Well, yes. Things tend to come easy when you’re in a wish fulfillment sequence, Red.
I lower my hand onto her, talons scraping the dirt around her shoulders, and grasp her as gently as a beast like this can. I can feel her shiver as I raise her up to my face.
The fear in her eyes as I slowly separate my jaws - priceless.
“No, don’t --”
She cuts herself off with a scream as I shove her legs into my mouth. The taste of dirt spreads across my tongue, but I’m not doing this for the taste. I’m doing this to finally sate my hunger.
I should be a lot less surprised that Red apparently has a thing for vore, really. It fits surprisingly well with the way his mind selectively filtered out experiences in past moments in this story such as his killing of Michi.
“Let me go, let me go, let me go!” she squeals and claws against my fleshy muzzle, but they’re like scratches of a beetle at best. I shove her in deeper. In her struggles, another flavor begins to seep through the dirt. It’s sweet, it’s gentle… it’s pecha.
And I can no longer control myself.
I push her into my throat and the primal reflex takes over. All the right muscles contract to press her further down, stretching the gullet to its limits. It hurts. It hurts, but I can’t stop grinning.
Silence reigns as the oversized lump makes its painful way through my neck and chest. My pulse is deafening. The back of my brain tingles with its growing lack of oxygen, but my windpipe is blocked. Only once the mass has reached the bottom of the ribcage can I draw in my first breath in seconds.
Red, have you turned into a
Houndoom, or some sort of lizard/snake here? Since wild canids in general are a lot more “shreddy” about their kills.
I’m a little surprised that Red
didn’t fantasize about ripping Michi apart with his jaws given how much he identifies with Houndoom and how that’s basically another day ending in ‘y’ compared to his average ritual murder, but I assume that might have been a meta choice to keep things from going too far into ‘dead dove’ territory in terms of a disturbing experience.
I breathe hard and fast to revitalize my brain. Multicolored sparks fizzle at the edge of my sight. Oh, Gods. Maybe that wasn’t smart. But the satiation more than makes up for it.
This sounds like a recipe to wind up barfing, just saying. Maybe it’s the salmon doing funky things to you right now.
On perhaps the seventh inhalation, I notice my breath is through a human mouth. I take a glance around, and while it’s blurry as hell, I can tell both my body and my room have returned to the way they were before. I suppose all good things must come to an end.
Too hot and too sweaty to sleep in, I remove my pants and throw them into the corner before crawling back into my bed. Finally, I can have a proper rest. A relieved smile forms onto my lips.
No more nightmares.
Well, for now, anyways. Color me doubtful that you’re out of the woods considering some of the titles on the chapter listing.
