[Jeepher97]

username : Jeepher97
name : Perox - (pear/ox)
pronouns : he/him

prompt :
Was I always like this? I wasn’t. In fact, a lot has changed me into what I am.

"Footsteps thunder down from all around, the trees swish and the sounds of children and young keldines laughing together in harmony.
The moon shimmered above lighting up the night sky with bliss and glory.
Halloween.
"The one night a year I am..
Safe.
Hello.
My name?
Perox.
I see you seem curious.. No need to speak I can hear your thoughts as you can hear mine.
Telepathy at its finest.
Was I always like this?
No my dear, contrary to popular belief I wasn't. But here we are, I hide my face to keep from scaring the normies.
Ah apologizes. The normies I refer to I consider normals, or casual every day keldines and people.
I've been screamed at and run from to many times to bare, my poor heart cant take the rejection.
So here I am wearing a mask, oh.. Thats not what you meant? You like my appearance?
Well much obliged there human, I appreciate your kindness and companion ship.
Might I interest you in a journey? The walk of my life?
I shall gladly show you, follow me won't you?"
--

"My past. What was I like before?
I started out just like any other keldine, I was loved by my parents.
I only had 4 legs and I was smart, ahead of my pack at that.
I was a lead hunter, my speciality was always hunting down birds with my quickness and speed.
One thing that always made me stand out, was my wings, just when I was younger they were alot smaller and all purple compared to what they are now.




Present day - What Am I Like Now?
"I can tell you're very confused, where are Ostin and Anne? You ask.
They are at home, this is the night I like to come out alone. No one can judge me. I hear " Cool outfit!" all night long.
No one judges me, I have clouded vision. it isn't the best. Maybe if we get close enough, I'll reveal my face to you.

I’ve been told so many different things, and not to worry about my face because I’m handsome no matter what.. but I’m afraid. I’m afraid to see if I’m some monster, or if I’m a beautiful being.. truly I don’t know.. so maybe... maybe one day you could show me? If I show you and you stay by my side.. maybe you could show me?.. your nodding head and pleasant tears make me assume that’s a yes. Thank you..


Ah but back to the story, yes yes, for Ostin and Anne, They never judged my wings, or extra legs, nothing scared them about me.. And I felt so loved.. and
some days I don't go back to them, I'm trying to keep them as safe as they kept me. They protected me and gave me a new life, I adore them and I may even so much as love them. But I? I cant risk their lives. Most nights I go out on my own, Ostin is big now, he's going to high school soon. I'm happy to have them, but I leave mostly looking for a companion to travel the world and go on adventures, I'll go back some day, but for now,



Fin

[Griff]

username : Griff
name : Beloved
pronouns : They
prompt :

They had all tried so hard to contain it, to fight it, to keep it from spreading. But the truth was, this was more powerful than any of their fighters or their shamans. The small keldine tribe was out of luck, and would be taken out at this rate. But one of their number had a plan. Every dark power surely had their weakness right? This 'Dark Priest' was no different.

Rose was a beauty, Keldines came from miles around to visit with her. She had many admirers, always received presents, was loved by her people and loved them in turn. There were none with brighter scales, kinder eyes, or a softer heart. Without hesitation, she offered herself as a centerpiece to a plan: distract the Dark Priest and try to let their resolution waver. It was a solid plan. She would take him down when he was weak, close to her. Nothing could go wrong with this plan.

Only... she had not expected to fall in love. It was doomed from the start, it was not a part of the plan. And soon enough her own allies and his own side both found them to be repulsive traitors. As such, Rose and the Priest were backed into a final stand, back to back. Legend has it they dove off a cliff together and were never seen again. But, that was not the true case.

Or rather, it was only partly true.

As they dived down together, each in the other's arms, a strange change began to take shape. As though some ancient god was taking pity on them the pair began to change, to join together. Where there had once been two ill-fated keldines there was now one. The new keldine was strange, a creature of duality. Two pairs of pupils, two pairs of mouths, two sets of limbs... two minds made one. This new creature, Beloved, contained both keldines in equal amounts. Touch, seeing, even hearing was new and strange. It all was hazy, difficult to focus. Even simple things like breathing was hard, as it came from two pairs of mouths. A mask then, was given to them. A mask which made the dual functions unify, act together.

And as they finally landed, Beloved looked around them. Looked at themselves. Listened. The keldines they had run from... they would stay away from. They would never be accepted. No, instead, they would live and fight, protect other lovers, and try to prevent romantic hopefuls from sharing a similar fate. They did not hate their new existence, but they also knew that they would never lead a normal life Perhaps, with their help, for others it could be different.

[reze]

mark

[Dia.]

username : rem sleep

name : rory

pronouns : he / him / himself

prompt :

Before all of this happened, who was I? That’s a question that’s… difficult to answer, to say the least. Now it’s difficult to think about. It seems so far away, like a first memory, or a hazy dream. It’s right on the edges of my mind, lingering like a fog, but whenever I try to think about it, to bring it into the focus of my mind’s eye, it darts away again and hides in the shadows. I think the easiest way to coax the memories of my past self out are to relive what happened to me, to tell the story. I’ve been… hesitant, to say the least, to delve into that part of my mind again, but so much time has passed that it, too, is far away. I don’t believe that remembering can hurt me anymore, so now… it’s time for me to come to terms. To explore that old memory, and to perhaps shed some light on who I was before I entered my current predicament.

I believe this all happened a few years ago. I was still friends with David, Miranda and Aberdeen. We went way back, having been in the same courses since we were young. Aberdeen was a childhood friend of mine, an eccentric girl with an alternative music kick and a horror genre obsession. We often went to her house as kids and waited for her folks to go to sleep for the night so we could rifle through their DVD collection and pop on some of the forbidden discs, the horror movies whose ratings prohibited our young eyes from viewing under normal circumstances. She always attracted a lot of attention, because she was never afraid to be herself… and that attention was sometimes good, sometimes bad, but through all of it we remained friends. I recall people often called me her shadow, since I was often quietly tailing along behind her, just happy to be in her presence because of how awesome I thought she was then. I really admired her courage, her bravery… I was personally scared of those movies, but I didn’t want to seem timid in front of my cool best friend, so I watched them anyway and tried not to shriek, because whenever I did, her parents thundered down the hall and the party was officially over.

Miranda, we met in middle school. She was drawn in by Aberdeen’s luster, another eccentric like herself. Miranda though was more embracing of her femininity than Aberdeen. Her favorite color was pink, she’d wear fluffy socks and purses to school every day, and she took great pride in being the best make-up artist in the entire school… which, wasn’t saying much, considering the only people who thought so were Miranda, Aberdeen and I, and furthermore that we weren’t very old or experienced. We hung out as a group together and could finally play all the board games we’d wanted to as kids but didn’t have enough players for. Miranda wasn’t a fan of the horror movies, so that remained a personal solace for only Aberdeen and I, a sacred space only we could inhabit.

Soon we had a fourth player for our board game sessions, and his name was David. I think David got involved with us because he’d had eyes for Miranda, but he didn’t seem to mind Aberdeen and I, and slowly he warmed up to us. He always tried to be a tough guy, and Aberdeen’s loud personality probably rubbed him the wrong way at first. They were often butting heads, challenging one another to silly dares to see who was, once and for all, the best. Their rivalry started off heated but dissolved into a sort of friendly banter over time. Having those two titans at our board game sessions definitely made life more interesting, and David had gaming consoles he could bring over so we could play more games we didn’t have access to before. Overall, even though he was a bit dense at times, David was a nice enough guy and he too found his place in our group of oddballs.

Now that I’m remembering their faces, the pieces are starting to come back into place… One day after school, David approached the group and said something about a strange abandoned house he’d been exploring recently after school. He invited us to come with him, thinking it’d be a fun adventure, and promising an interesting surprise if we chose to come along. Miranda was hesitant at first, gloating about her new white shoes and demanding David consider the sanctity of her clothing before making such proposals. David relented, offering everyone a chance to head home and change. He said we could meet up at his house when the sun was fading and then head over to the house when it was getting darker, for ambiance, he said. I shuffled behind Aberdeen, who grinned at the challenge. She was never one to back down from a contest of bravery, especially not with her arch-rival, David. She agreed, and Miranda too relented. And so, we all went our separate ways to prepare ourselves for whatever ridiculous adventure David had planned.

Aberdeen and I were there earliest, followed by Miranda who arrived a bit behind schedule, which wasn’t abnormal for her. She was a meticulous sort who’d agonize over every detail of her appearance and purse contents before heading out, so we’d always allow a bit of extra time before worrying whether she’d stood us up. David escorted us into his car and drove out of town a way in order to find the abandoned house. It was located in a part of the town often unvisited, a neighborhood which had become long deserted. Very few people still lived in the area, and there had been news recently of orders to tear down the old couple blocks that it inhabited. David pulled up into a circle drive at the top of a sloped hill, gesturing to a tall, proud house situated at the very center.

“Here we are!” He declared, parking the car on the street and gesturing to the mighty, three-story behemoth. It looked like it had once been a very inviting home, but now it’s chipping paint and dilapidated blinds left a lot to be desired. Remarkably, all the walls and window panes were intact, which was a lot more than could be said of the surrounding homes. “Shall we head in?”

“I don’t know…” Miranda muttered, lingering awhile in the car while Aberdeen and I hopped out, “Are you sure about this David? It looks… unsafe.”

“Of course, I’m sure,” he gloated, “I have my phone and some emergency supplies, if anything goes wrong, I’ll just call 911 and we’ll be out of here in no time, don’t you even worry.”

“I you’re absolutely one-hundred percent sure...” Miranda grumbled, stepping out of the car and joining the group, which stood marveling at the house’s splendor, rotted as it was. David spared everyone the trouble of asking who’d go first, he approached the door and opened it was a slow creak, heading into the house. Aberdeen was hot on his heels, and I followed after. I remember glancing behind my shoulder to see Miranda hesitating, but under my gaze she followed too.

This is where things start to get foggy again. I remember we explored the house, and it was sprawling in its interior. I don’t remember the specifics of what we saw, just generic, unnerving emptiness. It looked like the people who’d once lived there had, more or less, put their things away for the night only to head to sleep and never wake up. There were still clothes in the wardrobes, dishes in the cupboards and food long expired in the pantry. There were bugs, which Miranda did not care for, and which David valiantly slew in her honor. We wandered for a while before someone finally asked.

“Hey, so why is this house so abandoned anyway?” Aberdeen asked, her voice sounding much louder in the abandoned house, no doubt causing some unseen bugs to scuttle into better hiding spaces upon hearing the reverberations.

“You’ve never heard?” David asked, his voice heavy with doubt, “If you want to chicken out, you can just say so. No need to feign ignorance.”

“As if,” Aberdeen scoffed, “I just don’t know literally everything about the town I grew up in. Is that a federal crime David? Yeah, didn’t think so.”

“I mean…” Miranda almost whispered, “I don’t really know either. I just know this neighborhood is spooky and abandoned… I didn’t ever hear anyone say why.”

“For real?” David sounded stunned but relented now that his crush had weighed in with her desire to hear more, “Well… okay then, I’ll explain. This house was once owned by a doctor and his twin daughters. Their mother passed away in child birth, leaving the one doctor to take care of his little girls alone. He hired a housekeeper, and mad with grief, isolated himself to his studies, determined to find a way to bring his wife back, or at least, to go wherever it was she went. Rumor has it that he was experimenting on corpses, messing around with all sorts of things to bring someone back. People also say that because of his methods, whether they were radioactive or necromancy, he started to lose his marbles.”

“So what?” Aberdeen interjected, “Where’s the guy now then? And where’s all this freaky research stuff? This place seems like a pretty normal house to me. Normal for a doctor, anyway.”

“If you’d just let me finish my story,” David folded his arms, raising an eyebrow in her direction, “You’d hear that part.” Aberdeen mirrored him but remained silent all the same. “Rumor has it that when this neighborhood was starting to fall apart, someone broke into the home and murdered the two daughters, as well as their nanny. The doctor, who was partially mad by now besides, desperately tried to resurrect them, even though he wasn’t ready with his alleged cure for death. This resulted in the girls being brought back… but only partially. Their animate bodies began to roam the house, but their souls were not with them. At first, things seemed normal enough, but their bodies… they still decayed, and the stench of death soon emanated through the entire house. The neighbors grew more worried by the day as the doctor was falling further into his own mind, and slowly… people moved away. The neighborhood was already unsafe due to the murderer on the loose, but people were fleeing more from the doctor than from the killer. They tried to talk to the doctor, to get any sort of sense from him, but nothing worked. When police went in to question him, no one could find him, or anyone else for that matter, the house merely appeared to be abandoned. With no answer to the problem in sight, people just… left. They say that this property is cursed by the doctor and his efforts to meddle with the natural order of things, so nobody comes here for fear of being cursed, mutated, or worse.”

“Or worse…?” Miranda croaked, her voice breaking.

“Oh, Miranda don’t worry about it, it’s all just a silly ghost story anyway. It’s not like anyone actually died here. It’s just a rumor people have been spreading around,” David offered a smile and took her hand in his, “Plus, even if there was something amiss, I would protect you.”

“Gag,” Aberdeen said, breaking the moment, “Let’s get on with our exploring, you guys. I do not want to spend a night here.”

Another fog rolls in for a while. I know we wandered a bit longer, finding bedrooms for who must have been two young girls, and a bedroom that looked to belong to a married couple. We explored the different levels of the house, finding nothing truly unusual. Right as we were about to head out, Aberdeen noticed a door that we hadn’t opened, one with boards nailed over its frame.

“What about this door?” Aberdeen asked, turning her head to David, “How ‘bout we check down here?”

“I thought you didn’t want to be here all night,” He scoffed, “It’s already really late.”

“But this door looks like it’s possibly the most interesting thing in this entire house, other than your stupid made-up story. Everything else was a bit spooky, yeah, but you promised us something cool if we came out here with you, and I, for one, demand my “something cool”.”

“Alright, fine, we’ll get into that room, then we’re calling it a night and heading home, okay?” David spoke, already rifling around in a closet to find a tool to hack the boards away.

“You got it, chief,” Aberdeen smirked, “Just don’t chicken out on me, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” David smirked in retaliation, revealing a hatchet he’d discovered, “Just stand back so I can get the door.”

It only took a couple swings. The boards were already weak in places, likely with age, and they gave way under the weight of David’s hatched with relative ease. David gestured for Aberdeen to open it, and she stuck her tongue out at him, mocking, but did so regardless. The room was pitch black on the other side. David shone his flashlight in, but nothing reflected back at us. Aberdeen rolled her eyes.

“What’re you doing, chicken?” She barked at David, “Let’s go in already!” And with that, she took the first step in, and seconds later, she was gone.

“Wait up!” David called after her, and he too proceeded into the darkness.

Miranda froze, and I waited with her a moment. It only occurs to me now that we didn’t hear their footsteps anymore once they had passed the threshold. We did not hear their breathing, their voices, or any indicator that they were there at all. Hesitantly, I approached the door, and now Miranda followed as my shadow. I gripped her hand and proceeded into the darkness.

I was immediately hit with a full-body chill, a freezing sensation that shot down my spine and covered my entire self. I was fully covered, and yet it felt like biting air was gnawing at my flesh. I still felt Miranda’s hand in mine and noticed acutely that it was trembling. I grasped a bit tighter, and walked with a purpose, hurrying to get to the other side of wherever it was that we were. I called out to Aberdeen and David but couldn’t hear myself. I felt the reverberations within my throat but couldn’t hear the sound. I remember that soon my prompt walk escalated into a run, that my calls turned into shrieks and yells, that soon my feet were sore, and my throat was raw, but the darkness was everywhere, and I could not penetrate it. The only certain thing was Miranda’s hand in mine. I was not alone, and for that I was immeasurably thankful. I was nearing the edge of my ability to run when the floor gave out from under us, and I fell with a crash into a lower level. A basement? Miranda crashed down as well, landing on top of me with a force I hadn’t expected, but absorbed without major injury. We could see one another again, and I could see that she was crying.

“Miranda…” My voice croaked out of my sore throat, and without thinking I wrapped my arms around her into an embrace, “Miranda we’re okay, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay…!” She whined, her voice also hoarse from screaming, “I don’t know how long we were in there, Rory! It felt like forever, it felt like years...! Where are we? David said there wouldn’t be anything paranormal but…! But I can’t explain what just happened! We have to leave, Rory, we have to get out of here!” She grasped me with her trembling hands, and I held her for a while, rubbing her back in small circles to calm her nerves.

“We’ll get out of here,” I said after a long silence, “I promise.” I broke our embrace to check my phone. With relief I noticed I still had the tiniest bit of service, and I put in a hurried call to 911, telling them where we were, who I was with, and that we needed to be rescued because we’d been trapped. Not wanting to tell them of the supernatural for fear of being discredited, I merely said we were urban explorers and the floor had collapsed, stranding us in the basement, which was partially true. Considering David and Aberdeen had been walking ahead of us, I figured they’d have fallen through the floor as well at some point or another. I hung up, and Miranda and I rose to our feet shakily.

“Help is coming,” I said certainly, but my voice still trembled from the stress of the screaming on my body, “We just have to hold out until then, okay? Maybe we can search around a bit, find Aberdeen and David, then we can all get out of here together. Okay?”

“Okay,” Miranda nodded, and so the next leg of our endeavor began. For the first time, we observed the room we had plummeted into. It was dark, but there were some candles lit around the room that illuminated it. It occurs to me now that they’d have to have been lit recently, otherwise there’d have been no wax to burn. There were a couple paintings on the wall of beautiful women, perhaps the same woman, I couldn’t say. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like a modest home office. Miranda and I searched the doors, finding some scattered paperwork which detailed bizarre experiments. Neither Miranda nor I understood the jargon, but the diagrams alone told us enough about what was going on. She held my hand again and stifled a sob as her eyes fell on a spell circle inscribed on the floor’s surface where we had fallen. Not wanting to loiter in this place any longer than we had to, I put the papers away in as orderly a fashion as my shaking hands could manage and took one of the candles to light our way. We began slowly, quietly, inching our way through the basement, observing more of the same dull-light rooms with various paintings, some of famous mythological perishing, some of beautiful angels, but all surrounded by the same dark atmosphere, the same unnerving sensation and the same cold darkness.

This part is very difficult to remember. I apologize. I know I’ve been missing details, but it’s… just uneasy for me to think of. Particularly the parts to come. Forgive me if anything is odd, or vague, it is merely a product of a damaged mind and an injured heart.

We stopped when we heard movement in a room ahead of us, nervous because of the bizarre findings. I peeked around the corner. Inside the room were tapestries hanging from the ceiling and lit candles burning around the perimeter of every wall. In the center of the room was a spell circle, and in its center was the knelt form of a man in a white lab coat holding a large leather-bound tome. Beside him was a lighter, and a glass of purple liquid. He drank the glass of water in a single swig and then read an incantation from the book, his voice deep and the language foreign, and the room began to shake. The spell circle beneath him lit up, the edges dancing with sparks of what was undeniably magic, and as the spell was brought to its crescendo, the doctor froze and slumped over, his breathing stopped. I was frozen in place. Miranda was trying to peek around the corner, but I blocked her eyes. My breathing had stopped, too, hitched in my throat. That is, until he rose again. The circle was suddenly hit with a blast of red light, and the doctor’s body rose again, shifting and changing. When the doctor’s new body was fully formed, his monstrous shape heaving as he struggled to breathe, his eyes met mine. I did not need to be told to run.

Miranda and I ran as fast as we could from the beast that was now tailing behind us, its footsteps rumbling the floor as it undoubtedly struggled to become comfortable with its new monstrous body. I gripped her hand tighter than ever. We reeled into a closet and slammed the door shut silently, holding our breath. There was no slit to watch through, we were both too horrified by what we had seen to take that chance, so the only thing we had to go by was the raspy sounds of the beast’s breathing as it crept towards us. It lingered in front of the door, taking a couple long inhales of the air, sweet with the aroma of Miranda’s lavender perfume. It gently scraped its long claws along the surface of the closet, and I realized with rising anxiety that I couldn’t hold my breath much longer. Miranda and I shared a moment of breathless resolve, and as the creature finally passed after an agonizing couple minutes, when we were sure the coast was clear, we exhaled with gasping breaths and drank in the same gift of air.

It took us a few long minutes to become comfortable with the idea of leaving the wardrobe, but eventually we forced ourselves to under the pretense that it could come back at any moment. No one wanted to speak about what we had just seen, because to talk about it was to admit that it was real. We continued on quietly, quieter than before, as if we were tiptoeing through a glass floor covered with a generous number of landmines and splintering cracks. But we moved all the same, if anything to avoid detection from the predator we now knew was in the basement with us.

When we encountered another door that we heard movement behind, both of us froze. I gently pushed Miranda back, peering in myself, knowing that if this door hid one of my friends from me and I selfishly ignored them, leaving them to a bad end with the monster as a result, I would never forgive myself. So, I peeked, and unbeknownst to me, Miranda did too. Inside this room was, what looked to be, a children’s play room, very reminiscent of the children’s bedroom we had seen upstairs what felt like decades ago. There were dolls and plush toys strewn about the room, and seated, playing, were two small girls. They had long draping ebony hair which cascaded at first to cover their faces, which quickly turned to us,

It was this time that Miranda’s hand slipped from mine, and I kept running. It’s something I agonize over, torturing myself late at night. How would things have been different, if only I had been more careful? But one can torment oneself forever with “if only”s. Believe me, I know. I may just be the most tortured person on the earth in that regard. I ran for what felt like forever, only realizing when I caught my breath that Miranda was gone. At that point I’d gone through so many twists and turns that I didn’t know where to find her any longer, and I didn’t want to proceed back towards those awful little girls, and so I wandered without purpose or aim for a while, the shock preventing me from clarity of thought, my mind only fixated on the fact that I had let this happen and that I had done then the only thing I had never wished to do, I had harmed my friend and perhaps worse. I was empty. I remember then that I holed within myself more than ever. I believe at that point I stopped caring about whether I would escape.

When there was movement behind another door, I merely entered, my recklessness fueled by self-loathing for the damage I had caused. In the room before I saw anything else, I saw David. He was lying on the floor, his leg badly broken, looking like he had just seen a ghost. I rushed to him, shaking him and trying to get him to speak with me, but he only repeated Aberdeen’s name in an empty, trembling voice. I found David’s emergency pack and rifled around inside to find a splint, and for once thanked his neurotic nature for being over-prepared. I went to work fixing up his leg, working fast because I knew we didn’t have too much time to be seated still in one place. It occurs to me now that the ceiling was broken above him, that he’d probably fallen down a different hole than us and that Aberdeen had likely toppled with him. Unluckily, though, he had broken his leg, and Aberdeen had not. Where she was now was anyone’s guess. Right then, though, David was my capital concern. Eventually I eased him down into communicating.

“She’s gone…” He muttered, his voice still hollow, “She’s…”

“I know, David,” I tried to keep my voice steady, to sound strong like David always had, “We have to keep moving, okay? I was with Miranda before, but we got separated a while back. If we move fast, maybe we can still find her.”

“Miranda…?” David’s voice peaked, if only for a moment, with hope, “She’s okay…?”

“If we hurry, she might be,” I pleaded, wanting to hurry to find her now, inspired by locating David I remembered what I had wanted to do, how I’d been determined to get everyone out of here safe, how I had promised Miranda that I would get her away from this miserable place and all the wretched things inside it. I offered David a hand. He took it. I supported his weight with my shoulder, alternating from left to right sometimes when it became a bit difficult to bear, but persisting, nonetheless. The silence between us told me that we both had a lot to say, but that we had both seen things which prompted us to remain quiet. We communicated mostly with our eyes. David told me in his own subtle way that he was terrified. I tried to tell him in mine that it would be okay.

Emboldened now by David’s presence and trying desperately to ignore the idea that Aberdeen was no longer with us, I set my mind steadfast to finding Miranda. We moved slowly and struggled more than ever to keep our footsteps undetected. I recall David whispered an apology to me. I don’t believe I responded. That’s another “if only” that I kick myself over. If only I had just said, “forget about it”. Anything would have been kinder than the silence I offered him. We walked for a while in that silence, back in the direction of the play room and hopefully, of Miranda.

As we walked, though, I thought the house was shifting. I felt like I wasn’t going the right way, or perhaps I was remembering wrong, because the ground never looked familiar. I couldn’t recall which rooms were which anymore, and had David not been leaning on my shoulder, depending on my memory and resolve, I’m sure I’d have broken down right there because of the frustration, confusion and fear which blended into a noxious cocktail of anxiety in the pit of my soul. I persisted, peeking behind each door, progressively losing hope that I would ever find what I was searching for.

We passed by a closet and I froze. David looked at me inquisitively as I sniffed the air, taking in a couple long sniffs of what was, undeniably, lavender perfume. I gently knocked on the closet door, and after a long minute, a reply came. I creaked open the door and found Miranda, shivering and small, curled up inside.

“I thought you’d died,” Miranda whimpered, “Oh my God, and David…! David I’m so glad…!” She stood shakily and gave us both a hug, stifling sobs as she did. We wrapped our arms around her as best we could. The moment, brief as it was, was an oasis in an otherwise troubling desert surrounding us. Reluctantly, we broke away, but it was behind everyone’s eyes that they’d rather have stayed that way forever until all the problems just melted away. If only it were that simple.

“We have to keep moving,” I said, “There are monsters roaming around the halls that are sure to get us if we stay in any one place too long. Help should be on the way soon. If we could get back to the first story, that might help them to find us.”

“I haven’t seen any stairs though…” Miranda whispered, “Have you?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any around, we just have to keep looking. Now we have three pairs of eyes, so we’re sure to make better progress as a team,” I offered a warm smile that crept onto my friends’ faces. I didn’t mention Aberdeen. Another if only. I wondered what happened, what David had seen, but I didn’t want Miranda to worry any more than she already was. I kept these worries to myself and again we proceeded.

After an indiscernible amount of time, we found a hatch in the ceiling. I let Miranda climb up onto my shoulders to open it, and we found there was a ladder inside. After a bit of fishing around, Miranda was able to lower it. She almost fell off my back, and I stumbled to right myself, brushing my foot against something on the floor that, at the moment, I hadn’t yet seen, disrupting one fine line of chalk that would have more consequences than I knew at the time.

“Yes!” Miranda cried triumphantly, “Let’s get out of here!”

I helped David up first, seeing as he was still struggling due to his injury. It took a couple attempts, but we managed to get him up the wooden ladder just fine. Next was Miranda, who began ascending only to be interrupted by a roar down the hallway. We all froze for a moment.

“Go!” I hissed urgently, “Miranda, you have to go!”

“But-!” She retorted.

“Now!”

She relented when the door split in half with a deafening smash, scurrying up the ladder.
“Rory, come on!” She called down.

There wasn’t any time to reply, I shoved the ladder up into the hatch with all the remaining strength in my body. If I climbed up, that thing was sure to follow, and then their ascent wouldn’t save them from whatever fate had likely taken my best friend away without even letting me say so much as goodbye. I wouldn’t let that happen. Even at the cost of myself, I wouldn’t dare let this place take anyone else. The hatch slammed shut with the force of the ladder being shoved back in, and like that, I was alone with the beast that was once the doctor.

“Well… aren’t we selfless…?” A distorted voice emitted from the rotting thing as it watched me. There were no other doors. We both knew it had me cornered. “What good will that self-sacrificing heroism do you, though, I wonder… Now that you’ve no friends here to save you?”

“It doesn’t need to do me any good,” I heard my voice, but I didn’t remember saying anything, astonished internally by my own surge of sudden bravery, “What matters is that my friends are safe.”

“It’s that sort of attitude that I hate…” The doctor muttered, “It’s that sort of attitude which my wife had, as well, when she was fading… that her daughters were safe, that she could go… She stopped fighting then, and for what?” The doctor sneered, gesturing with one uncomfortably long arm around the basement room, dark and cold and full of flickering candles, “It didn’t matter. Once she was gone, there was no safety. You see? Sacrificing yourself only hurts the people you were trying to protect… but those words are lost on you, anyway, I’m sure.” The doctor spat, pacing a bit in place, eyeing me with a ferocity I hadn’t seen, even in the eyes of his monstrous daughters.

“So, what…? Why does my mind set matter to you, anyway?” My voice again betrayed me, shattering a silence which might have given me time to think of a way to dodge past him, to get out of this impossible predicament somehow.

-removed-

The doctor grinned, pulling out the leather-bound tome from behind his back. “This experiment, right here.” He gestured to the circle on the floor beneath me, scrawled in grey chalk lines that I hadn’t seen due to the darkness, and he began his incantation. The circle sparked to life with magic energy and I felt my body become suddenly heavy, forcing me down to my knees, the doctor’s incantation was indecipherable, and to this day I remember the cadence of his voice, but not whatsoever the words he spoke. The room shook, and from my point of view reality itself was collapsing, breaking and falling apart, forming anew from the broken pieces. I faded into blackness.

Who I am now is a much easier question to answer. I am the person who woke up and found my body permanently deformed, who struggled to breathe the clean air and who was imperfectly transformed into a monster by a circle that I myself disfigured. I found only later that the partially destroyed circle is what saved my mind and what allowed me to stay even remotely normal in my shape… but my face, I found, was horribly disfigured. I am the one who woke up alone in the doctor’s basement, who against all odds remembered the hatch I found David underneath, who located it and escaped with wings given to them by their captor.

I am the one who saw the ambulances outside, who saw my friends get taken away to safety.

I am also the one who burned that entire neighborhood to the ground.

I am the one who destroyed that book and made sure the doctor and his ways were no more, so that no one else could be harmed by his malice and misplaced grief.

I did not always have to hide my face, but I started to after that day. It allows me to, at the very least, go outside sometimes underneath baggy clothes that hide the other deformities I’ve incurred.

I’m not someone who goes out much anymore, but then… I never was. I’m no longer just a shadow, though it might be better if I was. Over the course of my agonizing journey, I found a courage buried within myself, an ability to stand in the light on my own. That is one good thing to come out of all this suffering. I finally received the push I needed to emerge from my shell, though… it was more as if my shell itself was destroyed, leaving only the animal inside with no protection. I feel now like I keep to myself more than ever, and that I am more suspicious of everything in this world. But… for what it is worth, I am also independent.

I have found myself a small place to call my home where I tend to a small garden. It is not much, but it gives me a sense of happiness. I do not work in any public place, but I do sell novels that I write… I find that writing often helps me to express my feelings and to understand those feelings, which is what led me to write this today. I often pass my “less creative” days finding writing prompts online, you see, and forcing myself to write on them. Most of them are centered around the writer, “if you were a pagan deity, what would your domain be?” “where do you see yourself in ten years?” “if you found an injured bird by the side of the road, what would you do?” That sort of thing. This prompt in particular though… I’ve neglected to answer for some time, even though I intend to publish it nowhere and share it with no one. It was difficult and kept me up many late nights trying to piece the words together. Do you ever lie in bed, trying to rest, but the words for a story begin to assemble themselves in your mind, rearranging themselves and flowing despite your best efforts to sleep, until you simply must get out of bed and write? That was my experience with this.

And… I do feel as though I’ve gained something from all of this recounting. It is important, I believe, for us to remember the past even as we proceed into a brighter future, and that is something I have been struggling to do. I think… I will send reach out to those friends of mine. It has been too long, and I’ve been too scared to show them my face, but I realize it was cruel of me to hide, to leave them in the suspense of wondering whether I too had perished. And I do miss them so terribly… that’s another thing that remembering this all has made me realize. In my anguish I tried to forget them, but… now that I’ve remembered, I see them everywhere in everything I do. I still watch those tacky horror films late at night, even though I’ve no companion, and I still play checkers even though it’s only myself. When I write my works in every character, I see pieces of Aberdeen, of Miranda and David… and of myself.

I think that this was the closure that I needed in order to move on. Things are different now… but that does not mean that they are over. I am thankful, immeasurably thankful, that I am alive to this day, and I should not let my regrets, or my insecurities prevent me from enjoying that.

So, I thank you, person who writes these prompts, though you will never see this, you should know that I appreciate you and what you have inadvertently done for me. Perhaps one day we will meet, and I could take you to my favorite tea shop. We could talk about nothing, and watch the birds, and maybe I will, by that point, be comfortable enough to take my mask off once in a while. Wouldn’t that be nice?

See you in the future.

[Gadgetrocks]

BORDER HERE HIHSBJS H

"Something is very, very wrong."

Lazlo
Male

You limp through the thick, unwielding fog, wheezing and tired, something seems to be off, everything is so, so deathly silent. You were sent here to check for life, but now, it seems like nothing here is alive anymore. A rustle in the dead, dried up stalks of corn. Your ears perk up, spooked. Then a keldine comes out of the fog. A keldine with a patched pelt of two different purples, with ripped wings and a old looking gas mask strapped to it's face.
"What are you doing out here? Are you crazy?" It says.
"Who are you? I thought this was dead zone."
"Me too actually. Come with me, get out of the fog, it's dangerous."
You follow the keldine back to old farmhouse, the keldine unsealing a door before leading you inside and resealing it.
"Welcome to our little home. I'm Lazlo."
"Hello Lazlo, since you seem to be the only one alive here, would you mind if I ask a few questions?"
"No, not at all. It's actually nice to be able to talk to a new person."
"Ok, well why do you wear the mask?"

A long, long time ago, everything was normal. I was a normal keldine, living a normal life. I lived on a small farm with my little brother, Jericho, and the rest of my family. We lived in the poorest section of the kingdoms, but that was fine. We were happy. My brother and I were always close, when not helping out around our farm, we’d play together in fields, sword fight with sticks and play hide and seek, which Jericho always won by flying into the trees. That was when the kingdoms turned to war. The king of one had died, creating a void of power, so many kelds fighting to become the next ruler. One had clawed his way to the top, a blood soaked throne becoming his, all the other competitors dead or having given up on their conquest. Though he now owned the throne, he wan the d more. He sparked war with the neighboring kingdom, hoping to kill its leader and take it over. This didn’t effect us too much, besides us having to work harder, provide the soldiers with more food and supplies, the farm working overtime. There was less playing in the fields, less staying up all night to watch the sunrise, less of all the things that had brought me and my brother so close together in the first place. Time would not have mercy though, as life was destined to get worse.

I was in the fields, collecting corn with Jericho, when he spotted something on the horizon.
“Uhhh, Lazlo? What’s that?”
I looked up, seeing a thin green blur of fog on the horizon.
“It’s nothing Jericho, probably just dust or fog.”
“Dust and fog typically arn’t green though.”
"We don't have to worry about it unless it gets closer Jericho. We really need to keep working, the soldiers are coming back to collect the crops again tonight." I tried to ignore it, and the growing sense of dread, but it was hard, and now knowing what was about to occur, I wish I'd rushed us both home. The fog kept creeping in, until it was only about 20 feet from the both of us.
"Lazlo, should we run now? The fog smells funny."
"Yeah, I think we should run now." We both turned, trying to escape the encroaching fog, dashing for the farm house. Jericho started slipping behind falling to the fog. I turned around, I couldn't just abandon my brother to whatever was happening. The fog strung my eyes, my throat, my lungs, but I leaped over to Jericho, wrapping my body around his, trying to protect him from the fog. It hurt, green fog covering everything, the only things visible were Jericho's small body and a few stalks of corn around me. My head spun and hurt, my vision flickering and darkening before everything went black. When I woke up, Jericho was gone. I looked around, confused and hurting all over. The fog was still thick around me, so I slowly limped my way to the barn house, collapsing into a exhausted pile on the wooden floor. I slammed the doors and windows, trying to prevent any more fog from getting inside the farm house. I didn't know where anyone was, and I wasn't even sure what was wrong with me. That's when I had collapsed. Next thing I knew, I was sitting at the table, a note in front of me, pen in paw, "WHAT IS HAPPENING" scrolled at the top. I was so confused, but I wrote back, "I don't know." The fog was still thick outside, covering the windows with a thick green. I itched my shoulders, the fur on my shoulders, back, and head itching. It was horrible. I still didn't know where anyone had gone. For the next few days, I blacked out often, waking up to be in the middle of something, my fur continued to itch, my eyes stung. Then came the day. I rolled out of my bed, going down to eat a little bit of my small amount of remaining food, which I had been trying to ration. I started down the creaky wooden stairs when I caught my reflection in a dusty mirror. Something was very wrong. I yelped, falling to the floor in shock. Patches of my fur had turned darker purple, almost the color of Jericho's pelt. My eyes had split into two iris's, more small horns sprouting from my head, extra arms sprouting from the shoulders and wings from my back. I had an extra mouth, my tail had become elongated, all these patches Jericho's dark purple. It all seemed to click. These new traits, the blackouts, all of it. The fog had somehow merged us together, into some sort of keldine conglomeration.
"Lazlo? Are you there?"
Jericho's voice seemed to echo in my head.
"Yeah Jericho, I'm here."
"What happened to us?"
"I-I don't know."

We tried our best to co-exist. We made decisions together, though I did most of the actual controlling of our body. We eventually ran out of food, and I had no idea how we were going to go out into the fog without something worse happening to us.
"Lazlo, isn't there a gas mask in the garage, from when the first war happened?"
"Yeah, I'll go check."
We crept down into the garage, digging through one of the trunks of old clothing and trinkets from our grandparents until I found it, an old but intact gas mask, hopefully suitable from keeping the fog from screwing us up more. I slipped it on, and that's the moment the full reality of what had happened came clear. We were the only ones last, through I still don't know why, and the fog wasn't going to go away, we were going to have to live like this. That was the first time since the beginning I came out of the house. The fog was thick and cool, and swirled around my legs, though none of the sharp stinging fog got through the mask, making me take a sigh of relief. The crops had died, due to no one being able to take care of them, but after walking far enough through the deep fog, we found another abandoned farmhouse, with food still left on the shelves, us able to scavenge the non perishables from a few homes. Since then we restarted a small farm, having aired out one of the barns and fog proofed it, regrowing some crops. The mask though, I keep it on, though I claim this house to be safe. I'm just being careful. My body is already so far gone, there is no fixing that, but my mind, or our minds, they're fine, for now, and though we've lost our bodies, we don't want to lose our minds. The mask protects us from the fog, and thus protects our mind from it, so I keep it on. You can never be too careful anymore. Not with the state this kingdom is in. So that's our story, but now I have a question for you. What's yours?

1,378 words

[hypersomnia.]

mark

[Ucanthandleme]

username : Ucanthandleme
name : Neo
pronouns : He/Him

prompt :
It's grey, and I see no colour.

Perhaps its start was predestined, the end of another civilization to go down in the annals of history, another blip in time. Every great civilization fell, through war, strife, natural disaster, one way or another you would be wiped out to start a new era with a blank slate. One of the survivors, the storytellers of the old, bards to the past. Neo was of the old world, one before the disaster ladened landscape we breathed in now, one before the end.

Born in a world where you were not wanted. Neo knew this all too well. Worthless children, inferior products born naturally, ladened with issues from birth. The world he was born into was one of artificial biological evolution, the perfect child, perfect person, perfect world. All could be made, resistant to disease, unwanted mutations, even the lifespan was longer. A world of creation and he was born naturally. Natural children were unwanted, a mistake in the eyes of society, very rarely a child would be born naturally as they were seen as inferior. A child that was not perfect, even his mother looked at him in scorn, he was reminded everyday, he was a mistake.

Neo was born with a defect one common with natural born children, it was called the grey defect. The world was made grey, from the moment he first saw, the world was grey. An empty bleakness that was only amplified by the rejection of the others in the world. Despite this, Neo had no feelings towards life, existing was merely existing. His feelings were grey too, monotone, lifeless, empty, he had no colour to his world. But you cannot miss what you never had, he felt no difference between him and the other children.

Despite his flaws and the inherent advantage of synthetic children, Neo was unimaginably intelligent. No synthetic child could match him, this was the only reason he was accepted by this society. His intelligence gave birth to wonderful creations furthering the goal of having the most perfect synthetic children. He created weapons, cities, creations that the scientists of the time could only marvel. But he found nothing in this life.

Everything was grey.

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

Then the end came.

It truly was spectacular, a brilliant flash, a bang that was so loud, yet was followed by a never ending silence. Neo saw colour for the first time. A frog that had been removed from it’s well. The pure breath of astonishment as the world lit up before his eyes. Just like a child who was discovering their favourite toy for the first time. He truly could not express what he felt at the end, because for him it was the beginning.

They called it the fall, meteors from space crashing down to the earth. No matter how perfectly synthesised you were, you could not escape death. Every single synthesised person perished. A single flaw in their biological code, that before was negligible, now was magnified to show it’s true devastation. Only the naturals survived. The ones who had been forgotten, abandoned were the new world makers.

Mutation of the earth came quickly, animals, plants, humans alike, Neo evolved into a different creature. Most of his body changed, however some things didn’t. After seeing the world in colour, just a moment made him long for more. Yet everything was only brief, the colour was gone once again. But not only that, even though most of his body changed, his face was still the same, he could not stand the face of the past. So he abandoned it.

His face became a mask, a mask of the new world, his new world. He wore this mask as a face as he travelled the new world. He thought perhaps the further he searched, the further he walked the more likely he was to once again see the colour. Or perhaps he could make the colour, the colour that he longed for all his life.

The colour of destruction, the colour of the new.

(675/---)

[chaotic creativity]

♫ when your dreams all fail ♫

(( username ;; sharpiesandhamilton ))

♫ and the ones we hail ♫

(( keldine name ;; russell ))

♫ are the worst of all ♫

(( keldine pronouns ;; he/him ))

♫ and the blood's run stale ♫

(( have they always been like this? ;; russell smiled sweetly as he stood beside alyssa and they stared down at their two lovely pups playing on the foam block floor mat. russell turned to alyssa and cupped her face gently in his paws as he brushed a light kiss across her forehead. as he pulled back, he could see alyssa's eyes were wide, sparkling with love. as russell stared into her eyes, he absentmindedly reached up and brushed away a tear was was rolling down alyssa's right cheek. "now, dear," he whispered, "why are you crying?" alyssa swallowed and laughed, wiping the back of her paw across her cheeks, which only smeared the tears through her fur.
"it's beautiful, russell," she whispered, her voice as watery as her eyes. "i never thought i would be here, with two pups and a loving husband. it almost seems too good to be true," she dropped her eyes, but russell slid his paw beneath her chin and lifted her eyes to his. "i know it seems silly, my love, but i just can't stop thinking that i don't deserve the complete happiness," she sighed, leaning into russell's touch. he chuckled and pulled alyssa close, burying his nose into her fur and hugging her tightly. alyssa pushed him away and then looked down at their sons, timothy and neil. "come on, russell. it's time we take these two little troublemakers to the lake," she said, leaning down over them and cooing. russell watched his little family and smiled, wishing nothing would ever happen. ))

♫ i want to hide the truth ♫

(( have they always had to hide their face? ;; the roar of the flames reached russell's ears as his eyes snapped open, paws on the floor within the next second. the smoke alarm blared in his ears, screeching the warning that he could already smell and feel. "the boys!" alyssa screamed, eyes wide enough that the whites were visible. russell spun towards their sons' shared room just in time to watch the ceiling collapse in front of him and smash through the floor. flames ate hungrily at the wood, devouring it faster and faster as each second ticked by. russell's heartbeat drowned out any other noise as he calculated the jump in his head, as he thought of his chance pf survival. alyssa grabbed at his arm but he pulled away, tensing up before bolting forward. she screamed, sinking to her knees in horror as russell realized he wasn't going to make it.
his paw connected with the edge of the hole, and his back paws scrabbled uselessly at the empty air beneath him. he gasped for air, coughing as the acrid smoke stung his lungs. he could feel his strength failing, his arms shaking worse than a leaf in a windstorm. he could hear alyssa's loud cries as she tried to figure out a way to get over to him, but he was beginning to see black creep at the edge of his vision. he coughed weakly, feeling his lungs screech at him for breathing in the toxic air. letting out one last feeble cough, he felt the wood beneath his paws crumble and then there was nothing but the sound of his heartbeat, the rush of air, and the somehow slowed fall as he felt himself plummet farther and farther from his family. ))

♫ i want to shelter you ♫

(( what were they like before? ;; russell's life flashed before his eyes as he fell, twisting uselessly through the air. he remembered the first time he laid eyes on alyssa, stunned by her beauty. he'd stumbled awkwardly over his words, blushing until she pressed her phone number into his paw. their first date was less than a week later, a walk around the park at sunset. he'd gotten her ice cream but dropped it when his paws trembled from nervousness. then, years later, he was on one knee with a ring in a box held out towards alyssa. she was crying and hugging him, russell spinning her in circle as she whispered the one word he wanted to hear more than anything in the world over and over again. then she was walking down the aisle, surrounded by their family and friends as many cried in the audience.
then came timothy and neil, two tiny perfect bundles of joy. they spent many sleepless nights at first, but it slowly got easier as the two young pups grew. alyssa carried neil on her hip a lot while timothy loved to ride around on russell's shoulders. timothy and neil were bigger now, leaving for their first day of school. alyssa was crying on russell's shoulder as he tried to keep a smile and not cry about his two little boys not needing him anymore. the good times and the bad rushed through russell's mind, and he raised a paw to realize he was crying. as he twisted, he saw a large mat slowly coming towards him. he let out a sigh as he slammed into the black material, cushioned harshly as it rushed up and engulfed him. ))

♫ but with the beast inside

(( what are they like now? ;; russell pushed the dark curtain aside, squinting as unfamiliar sunlight pouring through the gap and lit up the untidy room. everything was everywhere, plates in the bed and discarded forks on the tv. he let out a soft sigh and cradled the slice of pizza before taking a slow bite from it. his tail lashed, the prickly vine catching on his leg and causing him pain. gasping, he dropped his pizza and glared weakly at his tail. ever since that night three years ago, sharp vines had grown on his legs, tail, and horns. the television spoke loudly, replaying an old western movie that he used to love watching. as he remembered who he loved watching it with, he picked up the dropped pizza and slung it at the wall. it collided with the paint with a slurp, leaving another grease stain.
russell collapsed onto the bed and pulled the covers up around his shoulders, eyes closed and mind blank. someone knocked on the door, and he lifted his head. "leave the box by the door. your payment and tip should be under the chair cushion," he called, but the knocking continued. as he shuffled across the floor and cracked the door open, a dark green keldine with black antlers pushed the door aside and let two others in behind him. "apollo, orion, arcus, please leave," russell whispered, a growl entering his voice as he grew annoyed. orion shook his head and sat down on the sofa, scooting a plastic cup into the floor to open up the other cushions for apollo and arcus. "please, you know i don't want guests," russell pleaded, gesturing towards the door.
"it's been three years, russell. it's time you forgive yourself," apollo whispered, reaching out and resting a paw on russell's shoulder. he pushed her away and growled, returning to his bedroom. the three keldines following him and tapping their paws impatiently. "russell, we miss you. we gave you your time, but you need to return to the real world. you can't sulk in this disgusting apartment all day," apollo murmured, curling her lip as she noticed the new grease stain from russell's fit of anger. "you were never like this before, but we can't hold that against you. We just want our friend back," she reached out again, but russell pulled away.
"i can't forgive myself. please leave," he asked quietly, opening the door once more. sighing, apollo led the other two out before waving goodbye to russell. as he shut the door, he turned and pressed his back against it and slid down to the ground. he dropped his head into his paws and let out a sob, shaking his head. "what happened to the happy keldine i used to be?" he whispered shakily, eyes spilling over with tears. "i don't deserve to show my face when i failed," he whispered, and the knocking returned behind him, arcus pushed the door open, and apollo dropped to the floor and wrapped her arms around russell. she was crying, almost as hard as russell, and orion and arcus stood over her.
"oh, russell, you haven't failed. you can show your face," she whispered, smiling through the tears. russell couldn't speak, the tears blocking his throat as he shook his head. "it wasn't your fault, russell. don't ever let yourself believe that," apollo whispered before pulling russell close. orion quickly joined the hug, and then arcus a little less willingly.
"i think i can try sitting outside today," he whispered, and apollo nodded excitedly. she helped him to his paws, and he stepped outside of his room for the first time in months. he shielded the sun from his face, his mask he'd used to hide his face any time he stepped outside abandoned inside. he collapsed into a small patio chair, apollo at his side and grasping his paw to assure him she was still there. orion rested a paw on the back of russell's chair, and arcus stood awkwardly to the side. "i forgot how beautiful the sunset could be," he whispered as the sun painted the sky in purples, pinks, oranges, and corals. tears were still flowing, but they were slowing as russell took deep breaths until they stopped completely. ))

♫ there's nowhere we can hide ♫

ALSO FEATURED IN THIS STORY !!! apollo || orion || arcus

[Vaninova]

username : Vaninova
name : Phage
pronouns : He/Him

prompt :

"It is well known the limits of this world cannot be pushed. Should not be pushed. No matter how much we hope, how much we wish, we can't fix this. Even if we could try, It wouldn't be worth the risk. We can't let the mistakes of those before us hurt us any more than they already have."

He wondered what it was like. The world before those who brought him into it destroyed it all. Was it beautiful? Those who managed to survive tell tales of a land of color, where one could live and breathe without fear. He wished so desperately for a place like that, for him and those he crosses. But it couldn't. Not with him around. Even if it did, he knows he would be unwelcome. It isn't their fault, he knows, for not wanting him anywhere near them. In a way, everything was because of him, and he hadn't exactly made any good impressions at first. They called him a disease, a bringer of death and misfortune, and if anything went wrong, he was to blame.
It angered him at first. What right did they have to take their despair out on him? It was his creators who bathed the land in darkness and pain, not him! It could not be helped that all the land he walked turned to rot and dust, or that the vines that sucked life from the ground would grow from him and any region he rested in too long. Survivors wouldn't help him, and settlements turned him away. He cursed them, and his creators who released this blight onto the world, and onto him. Soon enough, his resentment turned into a thirst for revenge...

For years, the inhabitants of the corrupted lands passed fearful stories of the Demon of the Wastes, who would descend in the darkest hours of night to bring terror to all in it's sight. They said this... beast had wings the color of bone, a tail tipped in spikes, and a crown of curved horns. It was commonly told that it wore a sort of mask, but there were rumors of the terrifying face hidden beneath. Below it's feet the ground would wither and crack, sucked dry
of any life left. Trailed by invasive vines, structured would fall to the overgrowth while creatures would succumb to the thick and poisoned air. Rarely would the demon even need to so much as touch or even glance at something to take it down, almost acting unknowing. Despite this, any who escaped it's destruction would say they could feel it's flaming anger and hate for other creatures.

But he was tired now. While he was unnatural in physical appearance, he still had the same feelings as any other. His rampage had died down, and the old communities were slowly rebuilding. It made him sad, the destruction he had caused. As the lad before him decayed, so did he. His scales had dulled, his wings became ripped. Perhaps, he thought, he should go. To leave the only barren land he knew to heal. He no longer had any want or need to be the monster they had made him. Maybe it would be better for him too. And so, he turned.


And the wanderer trailed on.




(576 Words)

[rem sleep]

good luck everyone! n v n