andwinterfell
i will be the Narrator, and you'll be the Hero
A place to dump fic for my TTRPG and forum RPG OCs.
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it's just you and me against me
prompts: occult & cryptid
characters included: cordelia navarre, edna nodl, some dude
warnings: kidnapping, murder, blackmail, toxic / obsessive relationships, abusive relationships
694 words
make no mistake I don't do anything for free
I keep my enemies closer than my mirror ever gets to me
and if you think that there is shelter in this attitude
wait til you feel the warmth of my gratitude
---
In the cold night air, a body flings its way into the darkness, door slamming open as it goes. The house it comes from is warm and bright and smells sweet like sugar, and the woods ahead are decrepit and curl over one’s head like a cage. Still, this body barrels towards those woods like that is where safety lies, far away from the colorful window panes and sugar glass.
“Wait!” a voice ripped into the night. It’s furious and desperate all at once. “You’re going to die out there! Come back! You promised!
You made a pact!”
Riches and your wildest dreams, any wish could be granted if you could find a witch willing to do so. However, it was a monkey’s paw scenario in the end, for everything came with a price, and the more selfish your wish, the more selfish the witch you had to find.
That body would die soon, but it was the witch left in the doorway who looks the most distraught.
She sinks to the wooden floorboards of her deck and stares off into the night, suddenly lost. I did it all right, this time. The bigger your wish, the bigger the cost, and this one’s wish was massive and just about as selfish as they came. Money and power and a bigger name than the king himself, the power to compel others into doing his bidding. It was something she gave him, in exchange for his heart. I gave him all of that, all he had to do was take me with him. No, not just a promise, but his literal heart - a contingency plan. He could compel everyone except for her, she who replaced the organ with crystalline sugar and made sure he knew if he betrayed her it would crack in two.
And then she’d gone and bragged to everyone else around, anyone who could hear - she was leaving this place. She’d go to the human realm and…
“... hm, you don’t look like you’re living better than a queen,” a dry, high pitched, mocking voice seems to blow like breeze in her ear. Spindly arms seem to wrap around her shoulders. “And… it looks like you lost your prey…”
How did she get so close?
“You… bitch! Don’t make fun of me!” the witch screams, flailing all her anger out against the creature in the dark, only to turn and find nothing was there. She scrambles to her feet, glaring out into the dark. “Where the fuck did you go!” It doesn’t take long before she gets a response - far into the woods there’s the sound of a crack in the night and the sharp scream of a man. And then, outlined in the light of the moon against the trees, a long shadow, limbs shifting in length so that the body only vaguely resembled something human. A wraith.
“You asked me… long ago… and I told you… happiness would not come for you.”
“Because you sabotage me. He might have come back, once he realized there was nowhere else to go!”
There is no face to see in the shadows, but the witch knows the wraith is smiling.
This time, when it disappears into the dark, she can feel its approach, and draws a line with the salt she keeps in her pocket for this very purpose. The wraith hisses as she hits a wall, and then screams when the witch takes what’s left in her hands and chucks it into her face. It drives a furious, angry laugh from the witch…
But, after a few minutes of watching the wraith flutter on the ground, she kicks the salt aside, smiling as she crawls her way up the steps. She always does.
The wraith laughs back, a mad cackle. “After I went through all the trouble to bring him back to you…”
“Shut up and drop him.”
“Poor lonely pet, you act like I need to do anything at all…” and swirls around her, surrounding her, cold and clammy and disgusting. The witch merely holds out a hand.
Over her head, little sugar crystals rain
flecks of blood still wet on the grains.
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prompt: space
rp: will to live (space au)
characters: leonor de la cruz, jonah lemieux, & elwood nodl
warnings: cheating (kinda?), obsessive / possessive relationships, violence?, jealousy, a relationship based on some mixture of this and all parties are kind of into it a little
He tugs at it, just a little, once when he and Nor are together. Just to see if she noticed, to see if she wouldn’t notice even if he slipped it off entirely and threw it out an airlock the next time he was alone.
She notices. It doesn’t surprise him that she does, it does surprise him how disappointed he is to see the look on her face when he tries it.
“Elwood,” she starts, with that pressed tone of voice that sounds a little like concern. Instead of talking, he smooths back her hair, draws his hands over her face, and then leaves to goad Jonah into smashing his face into the floor, to fucking and fighting and cracking open his skull to release those thoughts inside. It doesn’t work, which fucks him up because it always works. Nor’s inspecting hands or Jonah’s angry ones, at least one of them has always worked since they started all of this.
Until they hit a groove, a pattern, a routine
and Elwood started noticing where the space between him and them existed.
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characters: urschel duskryn, beanbird, the grove keepers, thoughts of others
warnings: depression / suicidal ideation / suicide / apathy / self harm, talk of murder and apocalypse
lyrics from “hated by life itself” english cover as sung by oktavia
1783 words
BeanBird looks so tangible at first glance, and yet when Urschel’s fingers go to brush over the soft looking feathers he can only find empty air. There is… something… beneath all of that, a kidney shaped black space the size of a fingernail, but that too does not have much of a feeling to it. Too many dimensions, something like him walking in only four of them can’t possibly perceive whatever else may be going on. Just like with those things - the very thought of them makes him wince.
Grove Keepers. Ihwari’s description of them should have been enough, but to see them himself was near-paralyzing. The eye isn’t sitting in the void of the bean right now, but still he speaks -
“You weren’t just hyping yourselves up in my head, were you?”
After a beat of nothingness, he sighs and looks away, only to feel his mind pressed at again as another image of those creatures smashing into the crust of Ture assaults it. It freezes him again, his hands paused over the wooden table he sits at. Right, that was answer enough. Whether they were hyping themselves up or not, what mattered was that they could do exactly as they promised.
They could destroy a people easy as breathing.
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BreathScribe ; Type - Crow
Lethe Omega
Official File From The Crossings of Limbo
This Authority has been watching over BreathScribe Lethe Omega since the start of their training with BreathScribe Charon. Though this BreathScribe is the blood sibling of the Saintess and Seer of our Goddess of Death, Gaea Alpha, this Authority will take a non-biased stance through this report.
To the Earth Mother with our flesh, to the River with our souls where the Great Ocean of Death breaks off into the sky.
Recording:
Lethe Omega is still young, a river spirit just barely enough millennia to gain a physical body for the world below. They were assigned to the role of BreathScribe by the Oracle, and have trained under BreathScribe Charon for several thousand years. As such, like BreathScribe Charon, Lethe Omega specializes in taking souls just between the moments of life and death - and so have been assigned to shunt spirits towards the Crossings just as their mentor. Like BreathScribe Charon, Lethe Omega specializes in the use of a scythe to cut their way into a dying body. Currently, they have ferried more than ten-thousand cases and earned their mask some time ago.
And yet, her future here concerns this Authority. While quick to slip into the minds of those dying souls and pulling them from their Grief, we find they still struggle with coming out of the dream worlds made up by the dead, and also struggle with the sacred rites of the Last Words Record. While their teacher Charon has assured the Authority this is nothing too devestating, Lethe Omega does not seem to be getting better with practice. On the contrary, it seems the more Authority figures around him point out these flaws, the worse Lethe Omega becomes. Charon states they may need more time than most students, but some are concerned with the child causing an imbalance between the living and the dead. What shall we do if they are unable to gather those who will not come? What shall we do if too many Words remain blank or hastily scribbled down?
As of now, the Saintess and Seer does not See this in our future - so the Authority will simply watch over this Lethe Omega. This file contains the names and Last Words of those BreathScribe Omega has taken, as well as his own reports. Breathscribe Charon’s assessments will be copied over soon.
To the Earth Mother with our flesh, to the River with our souls where the Great Ocean of Death breaks off into the sky. This Authority signs off for now with thanks to the Goddess.
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characters: urschel duskryn, river, drizza dream, the rest of the stormbreaker crew
warnings: kidapping and murder
5457 words
It had been a while. He’d almost thought himself safe, free of all harm. Years, really, where even trips to Gyth had ended without much threat to his personal safety… or, rather, that specific part of him, at the very least. As a spy, a pirate, a drow, a member of Thula’s crew, some threats (from Gyth, more than anywhere else) had to be faced, but not one of them came with that name he dared never to utter aloud.
(Ihwari.
By your will, keep it so.)
It was, of course, a thought too good to be true. A prayer he imagines reaching her ears, being taken tenderly in her hands, and then dropped back. Return to sender.
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characters included: Urschel Duskryn and friends
warnings: gore, body horror, PTSD, death / grief / general trauma
2997 word
“Urschel? Urschel?”
He hates opening his eyes to the light like this, especially after those dreams of laying in the night sky.
“Ursch -”
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AU prompts: masterlist of lists
Okay so if you’re anything like me you see those lists of au ideas floating around and you like them but when it comes time to write something and you need an idea you have no idea what you tagged them as or if they’re buried somewhere in your likes so….have a list of some of the ones I’ve come across! This is updated with new lists and fixed links fairly frequently so check back here if you’d like more!
also: there are a few lists that people have requested that i have not been able to find so if you know of one/write one, please send it to me. my messages/ask/submit are all open. WANTED: expectant parents/parents with newborns aus, historical aus
(updated on november 6th, 2016)
(current count: ~163 lists + 39 individual prompts)
themed:
super long list of college aus
more college aus
even more college aus
autumn aus
it’s really cold outside aus
meet-ugly
art school aus
femslash aus
they know each other but don’t know that they know each other aus
awkward first meeting aus
MORE college aus
airport related aus
fake married/dating trope
pub aus (here for halloween season)
royal aus
assassin aus
opposites attract
lots more under the cut, the post was getting unwieldy
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#65 - the dead shall remain dead
from 100 fairy tale prompts
From Urschel Duskryn’s Little Black Book
warnings: talk of death
A take on the Curtal Sonnet form, with a variation on the last stanza. Ten syllables a line except for the last (since I can’t make a proper piece with iambic pentameter yet).
Sing of fate, for she needs a loving word,
hard at work, crying over her old loom.
No breaks, no rest, and nothing deterred, she’s
laboring over our lives, birth to tomb.
To her distress, we break so easily,
with such frayed thread, used over and over
again. Still, she breathes us life ceaselessly.
Would that I could bury her in clover.
Would that I could rest her head in my lap,
and dry her tears, speaking words of comfort.
But I’ve nothing, and I fear to unwrap,
unravel. Still, I want her not to suffer.
Though life is little but a breaking thread,
keep spinning. Though the dead shall remain dead,
don’t cry.
Notes:
A Sing of fate, for she needs a lov-ing word,
X_X,_X_X_X_
B hard at work, cry-ing ov-er her old loom.
X_X,X_X_X_X.
A No breaks, no rest, and no-thing de-terred, she’s
X_,X_, _X_X_, _
B lab-o-ring ov-er our lives, birth to tomb.
X_ _X_ _ _, X_X.
C To her dis-tress, we break so ea-si-ly,
X_X_X_ _X_X,
D with such frayed thread, used ov-er and ov-er
_XX_,_X_ _X_
C again. Still, she breathes us life cease-less-ly.
_X_X_XX_ _.
D Would that I could bur-y her in clo-ver.
X_X_X_X_X_.
E Would that I could rest her head in my lap,
X_X_X_X_X_,
F and dry her tears, speak-ing words of com-fort.
_X_X, X_X_X_.
E But I’ve no-thing, and I fear to un-wrap,
X_X_, _ _X_X_
F un-ravel. Still, I want her not to su-ffer.
X_. X, _X_X_X_.
G Though life is lit-tle but a brea-king thread,
_X_X_X_X_ _,
G keep spin-ning. Though the dead shall re-main dead,
XX_. _ _X_X_X,
H don’t cry.
XX
#ch: urschel duskryn#source: dnd campaign#prompts: fairy tale#ic: urschel's little black book#more myth than fairy tale but whatever
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#24 - ropes / wires
from goretober 2020 prompts
characters included: Cher Michaels (+ Angelique Michaels)
warnings: child abuse, mind/body control, occult shit
547 words
Tug and drop, tuner’s knot, string the wire.
He passes on a chance to follow Father to a board meeting in favor of literally anything else. Though he knows Father wants to force his hand, he also knows that Father isn’t the one with that sort of power.
They thought with enough exposure to it, it would become nothing to him. He tries to ignore it. Tug and drop, tuner’s knot, string the wire, that’s what he had decided to do today, fix a few snapped wires in his piano just this morning. Maybe later find a private place to call one of his sisters to complain. He thinks he should have known better, considering how unnatural the breaking of the strings was. With enough exposure, well, if he wouldn’t be downstairs, Maman would come up with her sigil and dim the lights with a smile on her face. “Really? Do you have to do it here?”
Of course she does. It bothers him, after all. And provides exposure.
After a moment, the only other light is the soft glow of the sigil where his mother sat, and he has to balance his cell phone flashlight on his shoulder to work properly. Pull these old pieces up, string the wire, tighten, test - the first string plays a note wildly out of tune, one that sounds more like an ancient, ceremonial, inhuman hum than a piano wire. He whips around to glare at his mother.
“Cherie,” she calls, and he imagines her drawing a line over these five strings and watching them snap. (Piano wires don’t break in the middle naturally like that.) “How kind of you to open the gate for us. Don’t tell Papa, but I don’t disapprove of your hobbies. It’s always your songs that work best for the rituals, though the girls work very hard.” She presses a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell them either, I don’t want them to think I play favorites. Come here, now, help Maman read off the list of names.”
She really does sound the part of the doting, overbearing mother, doesn’t she? He knows that’s why no one takes them seriously. Teenagers were rebellious, don’t you know?
“No.”
He bends a wire with the pliar, biting back a sound when his hand twitches and slips, leaving a shallow cut across his wrist, just under his glove. The smallest amount of blood oozed from the skin. He turns away, and wonders what she was like before she became what she was.
“Don’t be rude to your mother.”
(Frannie said she was bad in a different way. An indifferent way.)
“I see you already have fresh blood ready,” she says in a voice that makes him shake and shiver. “Come on now, it’ll be over with much quicker if you help out, Cherie. If you didn’t want to be here, you should have gone with your father.” There’s a piece of her in him, and it means she has control if she demands it. She loves to remind him of it in times like these. He pulls off his glove to wrap his other hand around his wrist, willing the cut to clot faster, and willing his muscles to keep control.
They’re tight as a piano wire (properly strung).
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#28 - underwater
from goretober 2020 prompts
characters included: Thalassa Morgan & George Corcoran
warnings: drowning and murder stuff
635 words
Watch for the siren’s song. Don’t ever let it catch you unaware.
Those soulless creatures, they’ll snatch you up and drag you down into the deep
(all of that, all of that, your very soul for a kiss).
Watch for the siren’s song, it will be the most beautiful thing you’ll hear. The most enchanting voice in the entire world, sweet like honey, clear as a bell, warm as slipping into the tub and feeling your muscles unwind. Cut off your ears, break your arms and legs, nail your body into the floorboards, slit your own throat if you must. Or else, those soulless creatures, they’ll ask for your hand and you’ll give it, you’ll give it
they’ll ask for your lips and you’ll give it, you’ll give it
(they’ll ask for your life and you’ll give it, you’ll give it)
All of that, all of that, your very soul for a kiss.
Good children know not to be caught too far into the ocean. Good children know: you go out as far as you need to feed your family’s bellies with fish, but not an inch further. Past that belongs to the wild, with rough waves and cold rain and those voices as welcoming as a hearth. But just in case, just in case you’re led astray, you can always save yourself. Here is a knife, with which to deafen yourself, with which to blind yourself,
with which to slit the throat of that soulless creature so she can never sing again. (If she loses her voice, she loses her power
and melts into seafoam in your hands.)
“Is that what they told you?”
There’s a line in the water that can’t be seen, but everything before it has been labelled man and everything after it has been named beast. There’s a line that you cannot see, but you can feel like a cold spray, like pressing your fingers through an egg, like entering a new world altogether where the siren’s songs ring over every wave in the air. They each sit on one side - their own sides - and it’s barely a second into meeting them that George realizes the stories were true, should this creature reach out she would reach back. She has the knife in hand, and the creature doesn’t even stop her -
“- go ahead, do it -” and those words alone cause it to slip from her hands and drop into the bottom of the sea.
She realizes the stories were true and her mother was right: this was the wrong job for her, her soul was malleable, her flesh was weak, and no matter how hard she tried there was always something in her that made her feel wrong in the world of man. Something that made her want the sea so badly she would risk it all.
Should this creature reach out she would melt into her touch, melt into her kiss, melt into the water itself and open her lungs for it to become her (body and
soul?)
The creature’s skin starts to melt off, not showing muscle and bone but instead a turquoise sea foam that fizzes and pops and then merges with the sea once more.
“Wait-!”
It wasn’t what she was expecting.
She feels disappointment, tries to crush it down. And then the sea whispers “don’t tell me, did you want to drown?”
and then: “here’s what they told me”
Watch out for man. Don’t ever let them catch you unaware.
Those cruel creatures, they’ll wrench you up from the deep and slit your throat on their ugly little boats with their cruel little knives
(you’ll melt to seafoam, all of that, your very self for a kiss).
“But, if you ask nicely, I’ll give it back. I’ll take you with me. I’ll take you home.”
#ch: thalassa morgan#ch: george corcoran#shr: stormtide#source: wtl#prompts: goretober 2020#prompts: goretober
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#22 - arrows
from goretober 2020 prompts
characters included: Urschel Duskryn
warnings: death of a family member, paranoia, some guts n stuff
a bastardized mostly prose thing based on some poetry types (i started with a villanelle?) but actually just a bastardization
Pull the string, child, nock the arrow,
and break the wings of the little sparrow.
Pull the string, child - papa taught him how to shoot as soon as he could hold a bow, you need to know you need to know how to protect yourself and - nock the arrow.
Break the wings of the - you need to know how to find food, how to protect yourself, and he holds you and calls you his - little sparrow.
Pull the string, child - mama knows how to make a body new, a few words and a few needles in the right potion to brew, a prayer to a goddess they cannot name lest there be ears in the forest waiting to - nock the arrow.
Break the wings of the - she shows you how to set a bone when you’re exhausted and crying and out of magic, when there’s no such thing as rest, only endless days running and running, mama, papa, and the - little sparrow.
Pull the string, child - watch for gold, watch for scales, be quick and lay hidden, be silent until bidden to - nock the arrow.
Break the wings of the - ones who we fear, those ones can’t come near, we’ve no time and no chances to take our dear - little sparrow.
Pull the string, child - the sounds of arrows whooshing by don’t hit their mark, there is fire and then there is dark that even he and mama can’t see through, we have to we have to - nock the arrow.
Break the wings of the - run, again, run, until you fall to this which swallows everything in its path, and he will later see it had no purpose for killing except to create death, but for now he is breathing and heaving and even under his parents it can see you - little sparrow.
He can’t see. He can’t see it. But he feels it breathing, he feels himself breathing, it’s so close he can smell the heat.
It’s so close, he knows it can taste him. He tries, he tries to reach for father’s bow, but his hands slip instead into his abdomen, split and leaking wet meat.
Pull the string, child, nock the arrow,
and break the wings of the little sparrow.
It goes with a ravaging scream, and leaves only harrow
and one little bird with a broken crossbow and arrow.
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“bring me to the blind man who lost you in his house of blue”
song: dear johnny by POE
characters: Lot Adachi & Cam Pyun
warnings: implications of child abuse, occult shit
1199 words
prologue to (x)
Cam Pyun is more observant than people often give him credit for.
More curious too, less cautious.
The twins misread him when they first met him. But then, everyone does. He’s learned to keep his head down, keep quiet to avoid notice. Being seen is more trouble than it's worth most of the time, and so he lets people look over him, shove him aside, sneer in his face. There’s no use in choosing trouble when it gets you nowhere - especially in school, where they can call your mother and have her come in and have her find out about the clothes you shove into the back of your locker that she would never approve of.
A haunted house, however, is a different story altogether.
The twins seek to scare him, seek to make him believe they know every nook and cranny of their home. That they’re in control of it all. Cam knows it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Still, they’re likely the first friends he’s had in a while, and a strange haunted house with more rooms than it could realistically fit feels far less dangerous - and far more satisfying - than his own house where his only private space was four walls and a room decorated in a way meant to make him hate himself.
“Oh, shit. She’ll be pretty interested to see that. No one’s ever gotten this far in making a map.”
It’s to the point that sometimes he’ll come over just because. The Sterlings open their doors, and the twins’ mothers invite him in for snacks and drinks. Sometimes he doesn’t even stick close to the twins, he’ll go off exploring on his own, strange door to strange door armed with nothing but a flashlight, a notebook, and a pencil. He swears something follows him sometimes, but that only makes things all the more interesting. A reason to move forward and map out the maze of this house.
“You know, no one’s ever been everywhere in here. Even the ones who live here. I think she might be the only one.”
This room resembles that of a classroom, unpolished with a large mirror taking the place of a blackboard. Some of the words on it are legible, some wiped or scratched out. “Are you the one who’s been following me?”
“Today, yeah. Maybe a few other days. Not all the time, though.” The answer from an odd, disembodied voice. He’d never heard them speak before today.
“Who’s she?”
“Oh, shit, are we gonna play 20 questions? Didn’t you kids do a seance like, last week? Wasn’t that enough answers for you? They really tried to answer everything. She’s the house, duh.”
Cam looks around, “okay, then my only other question is: who are you? No, two questions, why are you talking to me now?”
“I’m bored I guess? Lot.”
“Alright, where are you?”
“I’m here.”
“Where?” but Cam feels his arm twitch, causing a shudder all down his body. It swings without him telling it to.
“Here.”
Cam jumps back, waving the hand around as if trying to shake something off. “What? Get off of me then!”
“Nah. Besides, you’re way deeper in here than you should be. Rules of the house say I should knock you out and walk you back to where it’s safe.”
“Uh. Then why am I still here? And awake.”
“I don’t follow rules super well. Sucks, since I’m one of the only ones here who can possess human bodies well enough to walk them out without ripping someone’s soul apart.” The creature’s laugh can be felt throughout Cam’s body, like a shiver up his spine, though he knew for certain he wasn’t afraid of this creature in the least. He wonders if that’s what all shivers of fear were, something trying to slip in and possess your mind, make you leave. It seems just as valid as anything else in places like these. “Besides, you’re just getting to the fun part. It’s been a while since anyone’s gotten to this level - the creepy twins got pretty close though. Aiko’s the one who’s been tailing them, though, and she’s… uh -”
it’s strange, how Cam can almost feel the thoughts of the creature inside of him turn. A lurch in his stomach that he can’t quite place.
“Yeah, alright, she’s a serial killer. She’s got a pretty suffocating presence, even if she tries to move you forward a lot of the times the force is way more than someone can handle. That’s when Kat has to come down, make her stop, she’s the most powerful thing here - besides the house itself.”
“All these people, are they ghosts? Monsters? And you -”
“Mostly ghosts. Ex-humans. Monsters? Maybe, depends on your opinion. Even when she was human, people called Aiko one. As for me? I just, I dunno, exist.”
“You’re -?”
“- not human. Or ex-human, as it is or whatever. Anyway, what are you trying to do? You’re here a lot.”
“It’s interesting here. I want to see where the center of it all is, I want to reach the end of the maze. It…” Cam hesitates.
“It… ?” Lot prompts.
“It keeps me busy. And it’s… better than being home. It’s better the longer I stay here.”
“Hoo, shit, shut your mouth there. There’s plenty of spirits who’d see that the wrong way. I’m one of a few who can possess bodies, but the others aren’t super nice and understanding.”
Cam doesn’t say: I’d prefer it. He could easily see the various rooms in this place being a better space to live in - or die in - than his own home. Certainly, his mother couldn’t touch him here. He knew her well enough to know that while she advanced at the sight of a challenge to her authority, she could be pushed back. It just took more time and effort than he cared to push, and it wasn’t exactly the best idea for a teenage boy to undermine someone who could claim ownership to him, who could guilt and blackmail him with the loss of shelter and food. A ghost? A serial killer? Even this weird, casual creature who seemed to make his skin feel colder every second would make her balk.
Instead he says: “Would they leave me alone if you were with me?” Because Lot was still inside of him, so casually it felt like his body was some sort of private hideout. He didn’t think this one would do anything too cruel.
“Dunno. Deeper we go, the older the souls. The older the souls, the less human they are. It’s hard to reason with them, and - hm? oh, you like the idea of that, huh? Well, I guess I can -”
“Cam?” Gardenia’s voice cut through their conversation. In a second, the cold is gone and it feels like he’s burning from how fast the blood rushes through his body. He moves his arm again.
“Lot?” he whispers.
“Cam, where did you go? I think Yarrow and I found a graveyard… of sorts.”
In his ear he hears the soft puff of wind, “if you can find this place again tomorrow, I’ll take you to the center of it. Just don’t tell.”
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#18 - possession
from goretober 2020 prompts
characters included: Lot Adachi & Cam Pyun
warnings: body sharing / possession, body dysphoria, occult shit, implied child abuse, implied child death / grief, mild mention of cannibalism
1050 words
Sharing a body felt strange, but Cam couldn’t say he didn’t feel somewhat more comfortable hovering off to the side of his own. Not having to control it, feel it, perceive it because Lot was doing the walking, Lot was doing the feeling, Lot moved the muscles, and he could ignore it all in a way that was hard otherwise. “Did you know about the graveyard?” he asks breezily.
“Yeah, duh. I won’t say I know everything about the house, but I know more than you and they’ve figured out just yet.”
“So, is part of this an excuse to find it?”
For once, Lot remains silent on that, and Cam chuckles. “There shouldn’t have even been an outside there. Or… the outside there shouldn’t have looked like that.”
“Yeah, that’s another outside.”
“Write that down in my notebook.”
“Yeah, no.”
“Then give me -” and he reaches out, Lot easily lets go of his arms for Cam to use, pulling out his notebook and scribbling something down. It probably looked messy, Lot kept control of his head, neck, and eyes which wandered the walls and didn’t look down. He kept the legs too, and Cam wasn’t used to the cocky way Lot bounced the body just yet - too used to shuffling, trying to be as quiet as possible. “What do you think is at the center?”
“I know what’s at the center. It’s a tree.”
“How do you know if you’ve never been there.”
“The house told me. She’s a tree, mostly wood, right? Any ghosts who settles here, that’s pretty much the first thing they find out. She’s pretty open about it.”
“What -?”
“Listen, time and space is some weird shit, and somehow there’s a tree that was cut down and it’s wood was used to make this house, and somehow the house found a way to bypass, you know, normal human dimensions. Normal ghost dimensions too. That graveyard used to be in that spot, you and the twins dig over there on your side, I’m sure you’ll find a couple bones. The room the twins keep ending up in? The bathroom with that porcelain bath all filled with blood? And it, like, sounds like there’s a heart beating in there? That was Aiko’s favorite memory here. She ate some dude’s heart in that bathroom.” Lot laughs at the thought. “So fucking weird.”
“Mhm -” Cam doesn’t comment any further on it. He feels like to laugh about how ridiculous that place sounded would be to insult this Aiko. To question further would mean getting details he didn’t really care to know or record. Gardenia and Yarrow could have the weird occult murder shit, it seemed to be something they were into. Cam was interested in something else. The end, this tree at the center of it all. They wander down a dark corridor, decorated with peeling wallpaper and decorative trim. Behind a door, he hears someone wailing.
“So the deeper I get, the more likely a malevolent spirit would try to possess me?”
“Or a desperate one. Or one who hasn’t accepted they’re dead. Or a just-plain-sad one. They’re not always trying to do bad shit, they just don’t remember what being human’s like anymore. Sometimes they think they do, and that makes it worse.”
“Has any human ever gotten this far ever?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“All dead. Or, something.”
“Something?”
“Something like ‘puppet of ghost’.” He pauses, looking up at the door. “You scared?”
“No.”
“I can feel you lying.”
“It’s only half a lie,” he hesitates, they’ve stopped at the door. “Should we kno- ?”
But Lot has already taken his hands and pushed through the door, hands waving. “Hey-y, we’re a little los -”
They’re met with another wail, shadows of stuffed animals and broken toys screaming, spreading over the room, leaving behind a liquid on the walls thick as blood - though it’s so dark it’s nearly black. “Cliché,” Lot mumbles. When he reaches to touch the liquid, it snaps at them, burns Cam’s wrist so they fall backwards. Cam hears himself groan. “So cliché. Kat plays scarier shit than this.” The shadows surge then, trying to twist around their very souls as if trying to displace him and Lot completely.
They scramble back, stand up. Lot grabs a hairbrush from a vanity in the room, holding it out like a sword. They feel oddly calm, with Cam’s acceptance and Lot’s carefree attitude. Still, Cam has to ask, “hey, will you being in here mean they can’t get in?”
Lot laughs, and Cam is surprised when the noise comes from his own mouth. He’s never laughed that way before, and the sound and feel are foreign. “Oh, fuck no. I can get shoved out if someone tries hard enough, or we just straight up get jumped by more than one spirit - like these guys. I’ve got a pretty strong presence, if I do say so myself, but nobody’s perfect. You scared now?”
A little. His skin feels like it’s being peeling off, and it’s not a very comfortable feeling. Certainly uncanny, certainly unnerving, but -
but he realizes in a second that they’re trying to be gentle about it. Like children shaking your pantleg for a piece of candy. Like they’re asking, though they’re not quite sure how to be polite just yet. They’re hollow voices, all echoing each other like they’re running around an empty theatre.
(if you don’t want it, then please, i never even had a chance to live, stuck here stuck here locked here we were all locked here trapped here trapped here please, please, carry us too, i want to see the outside, i want to see the sun, i want to see the ocean, i want -)
Cam freezes their body still. Yeah, he gets that. Being trapped by someone who dressed you like a doll. It makes him stop. Makes him think. “If we get displaced here, and they take my body, will we still make it to the center?”
“Dunno. Depends on how easy you stick to a room.” Lot twirls the hairbrush in their hand, and then allows Cam to take back control.
He takes a deep breath.
“If I promise to come back for you,” he’s not talking to Lot anymore. “If I promise, will you let us go for now?”
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#20 - mirror
from goretober 2020 prompts
characters included: Aria / Zelda Hagin-dora
warnings: death of a child / grief
707 words
Once upon a time, a mine caved in. A Nuit-caste girl was buried alive, died.
Nobody cared. Nobody looked twice.
No.
Aria’s “mother” does her hair over and over in the mirror. (She didn’t have a mother before this, had no one to do her hair. She didn’t realize it was such an important thing, when your bellies are full and you don’t have to dig your fingers into dirt and break your nails to the root pulling pieces of gem from the smallest spaces.) “Zelda, my darling, you seem to be losing too much weight, what happened?”
(She didn’t realize how much she needed such a loving touch, instead of the hands that would push her into rock or slap her hands for trying to take too much food. She didn’t realize it until now,
when she doesn’t deserve it.)
Once upon a time, the princess met a pauper who looked exactly like her. A twin. A doppleganger. They decided to trade places, just for a few days. Just a few.
Beside her “mother”, Aria sees her. Sees the real Zelda, head bashed in from the stone and mineral, broken bones she’s seen a thousand times before - just never in a body that would be mistaken for her. Aria sees Zelda, over the mirror, crying and wailing and screaming like a canary underground as her mother touches an imposter’s hair and dresses it with ruby and gold from the mines that killed her. “Did you see what happened in town?” she asks finally, quietly, feeling like her voice would go out.
“No, dear, we were too focused on finding you. You really scared us,” Zelda’s mother pauses, and Aria sees her at the end of the street again, sobbing and screaming as she ran towards Aria and scooped her up in her arms. “You shouldn’t go off like that alone, those streets are so dangerous, what if you were kidnapped? -” Aria looks down at her hands, ones she used to pull on Zelda’s dress, ones she used to open the doors to this giant home and slip right into place “- you could have been killed -” behind them, Zelda wails and wails and wails, and Aria pitches forward, ripping her hair from her “mother’s” hands and falling forward so hard she almost knocked herself out on the rich stone vanity. “Zelda!” “mother” said, holding her again.
“Did you see what happened in town?” she’d asked again, choking back a sob, backing up and up to the wall as she watched Zelda’s broken little form reach for her mother’s hands.
“Zelda, what -?”
“A little girl died, she was killed in the mines. Did you see it?”
(tell the truth tell the truth tell the truth no matter what, Zelda seems to beg, let my mother mourn. let us change back.)
“Oh, oh, darling did you see that happen? I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have to see those things. It’s okay now,” “mother” reaches out. “You’re safe here. You’re home.”
Aria opens her mouth. No I’m not. Zelda’s not coming back. My name is Aria.
I don’t have a home.
I don’t have a mother to do my hair.
I don’t -
“Mother” holds her so tight in a hug, and she imagines the mine caving in on her as well. She wonders how that would feel, already knowing that love could come from a single touch. “I’m…” she starts
she can’t finish the sentence.
Once upon a time, a mine caved in. A Nuit-caste girl was buried alive, died.
And now she stands in a fancy home, with fancy gold and red trim, and a fancy new name to call her own. She stares into the mirror and says it like a prayer, like a curse
“Zelda. Zelda. Zelda.”
Just so she doesn’t forget. There was a girl who looked just like her once
and Aria wants to be haunted.
Zelda, come back. I’ll take your place. I won’t let you be forgotten. I’ll let mother mourn.
(I mean... your mother)
In a way, she’s a thief. In a way, she’s a murderer.
Because she stole a life and couldn’t even give it back, and “Aria” is dead now, and no one remembers her name
and no one cares.
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#16 - bitten
from goretober 2020 prompts
characters included: "nag”
warnings: mention of blood / murder / dead bodies, occult shit
387 words
They are quiet, shifting souls in the air silently to conceal their presence.
(strange) they think
There’s only one man there, one man and the corpse of a woman broken and ripped apart, sternum down. Cracked ribs, cracked pieces. He’s carving something into the wall, leaving blood as he went.
(he see us, can’t hurt you anymore, and yet we feel -)
That’s not his blood. Mine. One piece of the collection shifts out, reaches out, becomes cold fear dripping down his shoulders, becomes a whisper in his ear, hopes to drag him down. This one is still conscious, a part of the deal that was made.
(… there’s something in the air) there’s cold fear, bleeding throughout every piece of the shifting souls, nine hundred ninety nine all starting to moan, some starting to scream, in a fear that they cannot name. They tighten up, trying to pull back and suck her in, digest her into this state of them so that they can collapse in on themselves like a star and be born anew somewhere else. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe.
Too long, too long, and with her blood they could see what this man was making. They knew what would come from it. Knew what was breathing cold onto their shoulders. Too long, too long, come back. It’s time, it’s time!
She’s stronger than they imagined, holding out this long, holding them here just to watch the destruction of the man in front of them.
(they feel sick, they need to regurgitate her onto the floor in front of them and go, but -
but -)
She’s stronger than they imagined.
You made another deal!?
One for the child’s safety. One for his destruction, self made.
And the wall splits, wood breaks into splintered pieces like a mouth slowly opening up. The inside looks pink and drips green pus onto the floor in front of them. And then it snaps closed, around a man too shocked to scream.
scatter scatter scatter
And then the mouth opens, dropping half a body in front of it. Little blood was left behind, the edges of his abdomen somehow melted together.
It lunges forward.
The floor breaks.
scatter scatter scatter
Too late.
The splinters close around them and rip nine hundred ninety nine screaming souls to pieces.
Little blood was left behind.
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#13 - knives
from goretober 2020 prompts
characters included: nor de la cruz, kat de la cruz
warnings: grief / death of a loved one, murder, institutionalization implied, suicide implied
802 words
To find a specific person, you need something that belonged to them.
Nor de la Cruz has never broken into anything, anywhere in her entire life. She’s always been the one who stiffly follows every rule in the book. Rules helped her define herself, gave her a few solid lines within which she could fit, and in return she respected those she believed in and followed them to the letter. Rules were supposed to keep people safe, and when they were broken it was only natural that bad things would fall upon someone, somewhere. Traffic signals and speed limits prevented accidents - had they been followed she believes with one hundred percent certainty her parents would still be alive today.
Don’t kill people was another one. A very important one to keep society going. Probably the most important next to treat others with kindness. When it was broken, the one who broke it was supposed to face consequences.
She’s never so much as jaywalked, not really, and yet here she was in the police office where she constantly found herself these days. Asking and asking and asking. She’d mapped out their security easily, had a perfect plan within hours. And then spent the remaining week convincing herself to go through with it. There has to be an exception sometimes. And when murderers were still loose in the world when older sisters were grave deep and little sisters were just being released from mental institutions, well, that had to be where it was. There has to be an exception sometimes, right?
She holds a flashlight over the knife (no fingerprints, nothing else, just her blood - dried black on the blade, whoever it was only stabbed once and ran, leaving Katrina to bleed out alone until morning
when it was too late).
She stares at it for a long time. The rules say killers get caught, killers get punished, not killer kills the only family left to teenage girl, and then eh we can’t find them, let it go.
So she writes them down. The rules, the laws she knows. Thou shalt not -
“try and get in the way of murder cases when she’s a teenage girl, even if she is teaching herself scrying magic” (but after months no one else is doing anything, is it even a murder case anymore when you refuse to do anything about it?)
“kill herself” (but why? shouldn’t it be okay when you had no one to care about you? wasn’t there an exception to that one? couldn’t she be it? the people at the hospital the police bring her to seem to disagree - she spends a month there while a murderer was free to go wherever they pleased.)
“break into a police station in order to get the murder weapon and use it to scry for the murderer” (yet here she was, a week from being released, wearing all black in the dead of night and playing with a few charms that make her footsteps quieter, holding in her shaking hands the knife that they found hilt deep in her sister’s chest, justifying it… right?)
She turns the bag in her hands. It’s lighter than she thought it would be, and not especially sharp. It must have taken a lot of force, it certainly had to come with intent. How easy was it for them? How did they justify this? what sweet lies did they believe to think that they could take someone’s life, that her sister - always kind, always kind, always willing to give someone a chance - deserved to die? Was it over one of the dumb horror games Kat had critiqued while playing? the ones that spanned months of hateful DMs that made Nor so nervous that Kat stopped letting her see - that she didn’t see until the police sifted through them.
She didn’t have enemies. She didn’t do anything wrong.
So, what lie did they tell themself?
And, if she met them, alone and angry and holding this knife, would she do the same as them? No, no no. She shoves the knife back into it’s drawer and leaves it. I don’t want to meet them. I don’t want to meet them like this. I don’t want to be that person. Doing that wouldn’t even do anything, meeting them wouldn’t bring Kat back, and neither would their death nor imprisonment. It was too late for that.
If she wants to do this, if she really wants to do this, she wants it to matter. She wants it to do something. She wants to help, she wants her family back, she wants -
Thou shalt not… “bring the dead back to life”.
The books say: ghosts have existed since man has existed. The books say:
You just need
a little bit of DNA.
Easier, she thinks. Better.
#ch: nor de la cruz#ch: kat de la cruz#source: wtl#prompts: goretober 2020#prompts: goretober#shp: norkat
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