#trying to make these look less drab/dark was a delightful puzzle | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

keelywolfe · 5 years

Text

FIC: Aftershocks (baon)

Summary: Everyone is still dealing with the effects of the events in 'Any Other Tuesday'.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Depression/Therapy/Nightmares

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

Despite years of being above ground, Edge never lost the habit of sleeping lightly. Not that he’d ever tried; his trust in this world only extended so far and he often woke a time or two in the night, listening through the white noise of the fan before relaxing back into sleep.

It had its uses. For one, it made it very difficult for Stretch to hide that the nightmares had started again. Whether he was curled around Edge or sleeping in a sprawl, taking up far more than his fair share of the mattress, he couldn’t hide it when he woke with a jolt. Couldn’t disguise his trembling, the panicked tempo of his breathing, the sweat that slicked his bones and the sheets.

Those nights, Stretch said nothing, but if he saw the gleam of Edge’s eye lights through the darkness, he would shift into cradle of Edge’s arms. Grip at him with too-tight hands and lie awake, his own eye lights a bare pinprick through the dim.

He didn’t talk about it then or the next day, didn’t protest when Edge randomly Checked him, silently verifying his HP was holding steady. And Edge didn’t comment when Stretch started taking his sleeping medication again.

There was nothing to be said. Not when his own dreams held memories of blood, of Jeff laying dying on the ground, and the unsettled LV in his soul was a bloated, uncomfortable pressure when he woke.

Every day gave distance for Edge, every night he dreamed of it less and less. But Stretch’s nightmares seemed to be lingering despite the medicine. Still, Edge didn’t press Stretch to speak of it.

Not yet.

It was the morning after one such nightmare and Stretch was sitting in the kitchen with him far earlier than normal, watching Edge silently as he went through his morning routine. The sun was only barely creeping in through the window, a promise of the coming heat. There was a cup of coffee was in Stretch’s hands, swimming with his normal amounts of cream and sugar, but it was mostly untouched. The shadows beneath his sockets were only a little worrisome; more so was the way his eye lights flicked around the kitchen, focusing on anything but Edge. The way he fiddled with the muffin on his plate, tearing it to crumbs without eating a bite.

Even in the quiet kitchen Edge strained to hear him when Stretch finally spoke, “so, um, i scheduled an extra appointment to see my therapist tonight. think you can drive me?”

That uncomfortable mumble filled Edge with overwhelming relief that he quickly hid, answering with a bland, “Of course.”

Of course.

That evening, Edge sat alone in the waiting room with his laptop, working, deliberately sitting as far away from the door as he could. He ignored the lurch in his soul when Stretch emerged again with tear-stained cheekbones. Allowed Stretch to come to him, settling at his feet and the laptop was pushed carelessly aside to make room for Stretch’s skull to rest in his lap. He crooned soft, wordless comfort, gently stroking his skull until he was ready for a mostly silent drive home.

But there were no nightmares that night.

The next day, those shadows beneath his sockets were softened, Stretch’s smiles coming easier without the strain lurking beneath, and if he went back to seeing his therapist twice a week instead of once, then Edge was more than willing to go with him if that was what Stretch wanted.

Not perfect, not yet, but proof that things would get better, slowly, in drips and drabs. All Edge could offer was the comfort of his arms. He could, and would, be there, for whatever Stretch needed.

From those soft smiles that were re-emerging, Edge thought maybe it was enough.

~~*~~

In the time since his brother moved in with Edge, Blue had grown accustomed to living on his own.

Mostly accustomed, and honestly, even before Papy moved out, Blue had been spending quite a lot of time traveling, going to different cities and countries, meeting head of States, and spending his days discussing treaties and trade agreements.

It was all very exciting and enjoyable, though there were secret, guilty moments where he wondered if those frequent trips had been the start of his brother drifting away from him.

But no, surely not, because even when they were at home together, his brother could be frustratingly difficult. Insisting on doing things on his own when he should be resting, for example, and honestly when a person was sick, they should allow themselves to be sick rather than stubbornly insisting on getting their own glass of juice or sneaking a cigarette that would only hold back their recovery.

Blue loved his brother dearly, but Papy excelled in being exasperating. It was a wonder that Edge tolerated it with so much patience.

His Human friend, on the other hand…

“Could I have another glass of juice, please?”

“Of course!” Blue beamed at his house guest and bustled into the kitchen. Apple juice, with plenty of ice, and Jeff’s honest gratitude for it made Blue’s soul feel fluffy and light.

Jeff was settled in on the sofa, plenty of pillows surrounding him and extra blankets within reach. His breakfast dishes were all but licked clean, Blue noticed with delight. Even better, his manners were impeccable, he chewed with his mouth closed, always tucked a napkin into his lap, and happily accepted seconds.

Next movie night, Blue planned to slyly suggest his brother to spend even more time with his friend. Enough exposure and some of those manners might rub off.

It was worth a try!

Plus, Jeff was a delightful companion. He loved puzzles and games, was content to watch Mettaton specials, and with him here, Papy stopped by daily to check in, often staying for lunch.

It was enough to make Blue mourn that the days of bed rest were coming to an end. The doctors believed Jeff would be well enough to return to work next week, and Blue supposed he’d have to trust their expertise, even though he privately thought someone who’d been through such a traumatizing experience should take a little more time, honestly, he’d had surgery, surely a few more days was appropriate and—

Suddenly, Blue realized that his house guest was very quiet this morning. Requests for juice aside, Jeff hadn't made a single comment about the Good Morning with Mettaton show, not even to criticize the choice of outfits or guests, something both he and Blue did daily with shared enthusiasm.

“Is everything all right?” Blue asked, gently. He moved to sit on the end of the sofa, noting the way Jeff did not look at him. Ah, here was the hint of Papy’s nature in him. Keeping secrets that need not be kept, for reasons that Blue never understood. Papy always kept to his stubborn silence, but perhaps Jeff only needed a bit of prodding. “You can talk to me, you know. Maybe I can help!”

“It’s just—" Jeff sighed deeply and proved once again to be far more sensible than those he befriended by saying, “Antwan is acting weird.”

Weird? Blue wasn’t sure about that. He didn’t know Antwan well; his own work didn’t often involve the legal department. He seemed friendly enough. He came to visit daily after work, often bringing small gifts and treats with him. Nothing outrageous, but often adorably thoughtful. Now, his taste might be questionable; one day he’d brought a small plushie that resembled an angry tomato and Blue hadn’t a clue why Jeff found it so hilarious, but the toy was by his side wherever he was resting. Antwan always stayed for dinner, giving Blue another guest to fuss over, honestly, Antwan was growing on him as quickly as Jeff had.

“He seems all right to me?” Blue ventured, hesitantly. “How is he being weird?”

Jeff only shrugged and his downcast expression made Blue frown in concern. “He just is. He’s so quiet when he’s here, and he doesn’t even seem to mind sleeping on the sofa. I just…maybe he’s thinking about dumping me.”

The last was said in a rush, as though Jeff forced the words out. The little tomato was in his hands, the poor thing bulging with how hard Jeff was gripping him.

Blue could only blink at him, utterly bewildered. “Why would he do that?”

His experience in relationships was admittedly as an observer only; that was how Blue preferred it. But frankly, he rather thought Antwan seemed more distraught than distant. He looked similar to Edge whenever Papy was hurt or injured, concern leaking around the edges of control, and if nothing else, Blue knew that Edge adored his brother.

But Jeff only shrugged again, that downtrodden expression lingering.

Hm, that would never do, not for someone recovering. “Well, I don’t think you need to be worrying about that, but if it helps, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

That finally made Jeff look at Blue in hopeful surprise. “Really? The doctor said I should be back in my feet by next week.”

“That’s true,” Blue agreed. “But I have a spare room and aren’t you supposed to be moving to New New Home, anyway?”

Jeff nodded thoughtfully. “Edge and I talked about it once, but we didn’t decide anything.”

“I would be happy to help you decide,” Blue assured him. “And you’d be more than welcome. Now, tell me, what do you think of Mettaton’s shoes today?”

Immediately Jeff launched into a rant about Louboutin heels, and Blue listened peacefully, interjecting occasionally but mostly basking in Jeff’s chatter, his wild gestures, so very much like Papy when he was worked up. Shoes instead of science, but still much the same.

It would be rather nice to have someone stay with him a bit longer. If Papy stopped by for lunch today, perhaps they could discuss moving Jeff’s things.

Plan made, Blue focused on listening, absently planning out lunch and dinner in the back of his mind. There were guests to cook for and he wanted them to enjoy his best efforts.

~~*~~

The Embassy building had taken close to a year to plan and another to construct, with both Monsters and Humans involved in its completion. Everything from location to safety requirements to possible expansion and parking was taken into careful consideration and when it was finished, it was a fine, welcoming structure for Monsters to begin their integration into the society Aboveground.

Asgore for one appreciated the high ceilings.

His bulk still made passing through the hallways somewhat awkward. Other Monsters were often forced rather close to the wall, though no one ever seemed to mind. Asgore was always met with happy greetings and warm smiles from all, a welcome sign that despite any setbacks, his people were growing and flourishing.

The difference between this and those graying, last days Underground was enough to prove all his efforts were worth it. Someday, perhaps, his people would be well-established and no longer need him, and when that day came, his gardening would be more than a hobby to be dabbled in. It was a quiet hope he carried with him through his days.

Janice was at her desk when he went into the outer office, and her professional smile widened when she saw him. “Good morning!”

“Howdy!” Asgore boomed, jovially. “Is he in?” It was more than likely a rhetorical question. Edge was always in, usually eating his lunch at his desk and staying far later than he should.

Though to be fair, the days of staying late in his office had dwindled quite a bit since his relationship began with Stretch.

Stretch, ah, now there was a conundrum. Outwardly lazily cheerful, inwardly filled with strange depths and unspoken secrets.

The first time they’d met, these strange skeletons from unknown worlds, Asgore hadn’t known what to make of them. It challenged his understanding of the very Universe, but that knowledge had quickly been shuffled aside by the sudden appearance of a Human, of Frisk.

Even with all the time that had passed since then, Stretch was still the outlier, still the one who clung to his dislike. Not that Asgore didn’t understand, far from it. It was at that first meeting and of all of them, Asgore had seen the cold truth in Stretch’s expression. The flare in his eye lights was the same one that Sans wore on the very rare occasions he was pressed into his other, unspoken duties.

From the visible distaste that came afterward, he’d Seen far more than Asgore would ever willingly share. Stretch had seen the state of his soul and found it lacking, and that knowledge weighed heavily.

It wasn’t Asgore’s place to beg for forgiveness, he knew. What was done was done, apologies changed nothing. All he could do was try to better himself and perhaps someday, that Judgement would change. He’d seen such a thing before, with Edge.

That, too, gave him hope.

But that was a matter for another day. Janice shooed him readily on and Asgore went to the door of Edge’s office, knocking politely before he went in.

Edge was at his desk, still typing as Asgore sank into a large chair with a groan. If there was any stress hidden beneath his aura of cool competence, Asgore could not see it. The moment Asgore was settled, Edge’s full attention was on him, laser-sharp. His eye lights missed little and Asgore could almost feel them observing his carefully hidden exhaustion, taking in every minute detail. It made him excellent at his job, though there were days Asgore wished Edge saw a little less. At least the depth of his sight ended skin-deep.

“What can I do for you, Your Highness,” Edge asked crisply.

With an effort, Asgore resisted the urge to remind Edge yet again to simply call him by his name.

“I had a meeting with the Mayor today,” Asgore said. He no longer bothered to disguise his weariness, not in this office. He did not miss the faint irritation that crossed Edge’s face, but it was quickly gone.

His frustration that he wasn’t invited to these meetings was a point of friction between them. Asgore’s reasoning was twofold; Edge was excellent as a director, but struggled with politics. He wasn’t always good at reading intentions, especially Humans, his honesty was occasionally troublesome, and while his self-control was excellent, the ability to sit in stoic silence brought little to the negotiation table.

There was also the simple fact that Humans often found Edge’s appearance threatening. No fuzzy buns for him and never mind that Asgore’s LV was the higher of the two of them. Humans didn’t know that and despite his size, they generally found him warm and charming. His booming voice was jolly, not threatening, his fur-softened face reminiscent of childhood movies.

To be fair to the Humans, Asgore had found the Monsters from Underfell somewhat unsettling when they’d first arrived in this world.

Frankly, Red still unsettled him.

But that often meant Asgore was left to his own devices in these meetings with no one but his own guards. Easily handled, of course; his centuries as leader of his people gave him no little experience in politics, but it was wearisome.

Human laws and restrictions were like that.

If nothing else, commiseration softened some of Edge’s rigid formality. “What is it this time?”

“It seems someone on the City Council decided to introduce an idea for all Monsters to have their LV included in their ID.” He held up a hand as outrage flashed across Edge’s face. “He was only making me aware and I’m doing the same for you. The Mayor has already reminded them that not only does that violate the amnesty agreement, but unless they are prepared for the Humans of Ebott to list their criminal activities on their ID’s, it’s a prejudicial.”

Edge was already typing furiously and Asgore had no doubt that there were already several ideas on the cusp of being implemented with others being planned. Edge was a brilliant strategist, could see outcomes from multiple angles and the Embassy relied heavily on his skills.

Perhaps that was what made it easy for others to overlook or simply forget how young he was. Asgore couldn’t help feeling somewhat fatherly towards him, an urge he tried to suppress with limited success, knowing it would not be welcome. His own years pressed down on him all too often, centuries worth, and they might well need Edge’s skills for a long while yet. Fatherly urges or not, he wasn’t about to allow Edge to follow him down a path that only led to loneliness.

“I’ll have teams looking into it immediately,” Edge was saying, still typing furiously. “We’ll need to make sure there’s no motions we’ll need to file.”

That intensity was one of the things that made him so excellent at his job. A shame it was time to pull it out from under him.

“Good,” Asgore said heartily. “And how is Jeff doing?”

The non sequitur broke through that implacable focus, as it was meant to. Edge blinked, his attention refocusing on Asgore, “He’s fine as far as I know. He’s scheduled to start working next week in Public Relations. Half-days to begin with, until he’s fully recovered, but I think he’ll be invaluable to their team.”

Of course Edge would find a way to bring work back into it. But Asgore hadn’t been a King for centuries without knowing how to handle people. “I think so as well. And Stretch, he’s doing well?”

One of the quickest ways to throw Edge out of his working persona was to mention his husband. Merely saying his name was enough to bring a certain warmth to his expression. It made nostalgia twinge in Asgore’s soul, the memory of another hope, another person from whom he was still waiting on forgiveness

“He’s doing better.” No mention of Stretch’s upcoming appointment with Alphys, but that was no surprise. Edge was rather firm on his privacy and even so, if there was anything to be truly concerned about, Asgore would hear it from Alphys herself.

“That is good to hear. I’d say give him my well-wishes when you go home tonight but—" Asgore trailed off meaningfully.

Edge nodded somewhat wryly, well aware of Stretch’s dislike, but Asgore’s mission of subtly reminding Edge to go home instead of working all night was accomplished.

If it was less than successful, well, Edge wasn’t the only person who could strategize and there were plenty of people who would be willing to interrupt his work until he fled in a huff of self-defense, home to the person he cared for most.

That tug of fatherly affection niggled in his soul, and if Asgore allowed it to stay, well, there were few who could see it.

Perhaps it would raise him in their esteem. Perhaps not. There was time yet to earn it and until then, that little hope was set alongside his mental garden, where Toriel’s forgiveness lived.

Someday, all Monsters would be free and happy. Even him.

-finis-

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #by any other name

34 notes · View notes

seadeepywrites · 3 years

Text

the echo of heartbeats

Character: Nymothy “Nym” Jaziri Words: 1244 tw: death, graphic description of injury/gore/violence

His life as a tribute is so different — the new world he's stumbled into so strange and unfamiliar — that for a few days Nym thinks he's imagining it.

He knifes a desert bandit in the back, dropping the man to the ground to be claimed by the shifting sands. Nobody will recover the man's water, which seems like such a waste, but then again — it seems like the Haven has truly unfathomable amounts of water to spare. Nearly a week in and Nym is still choking with panic every time somebody casually mentions the concept of a shower.

Nym looks down at the crumpled body, colored drab and dull in the flat light of dawn, and imagines the months stripping flesh from its bones. Scouring the skeleton clean, lingering in the marrow until only memories cling to it, more stubborn than tendons and ligaments. A deformed skull, staring with empty sockets up at the dual moons of Zamin.

Nym imagines this, and in the silence after battle, he hears whispers.

He twitches, fingers finding the handle of one of his many, many knives, but there is no present danger. Nobody else seems to have heard a thing — Kili has stretched out again on the ground in front of Tallah’s tent, and Nym trusts Kili to notice any threat that he does.

Besides, there is something in the timbre of the whispers that reminds him of the same tragedy he conceals beneath his extensive wardrobe of scarves. If these whispers are anything like that second voice, the one that speaks from Nym's throat and bypasses his mouth entirely — then it is entirely possible Nym is the only one who can hear them. He wriggles back into his still-tent, unsettled, and resolves to forget the incident.

But then Nym kills a Deeper or two in the echoing gloom of the water center, and the whispers are exactly the same level of indistinct, hissing and murmuring just beyond the edge of comprehension. Which should be impossible, when the water from the block-house rushes in clamorous fury. Nym's party can't even hear each other when they shout, much less isolate the sibilant sounds that writhe in the corners here.

Nym busies himself with the heavy block-house door, delighted to find that Duli’s key cannot pry open its lock. It's a puzzle, of the kind he most enjoys, and it is a much more focused challenge than considering this disturbing idea.

Later that night, he wakes to a chemical cacophony. His limbs jerk, seizing beyond his control, and both his mouths froth and gibber. Adrenaline obliterates him, the stim pumps its potent mixture through his veins, and it isn't until he slithers back onto his own two feet that he realizes: to save him, MacGiver plunged the stim into the artery that runs along the column of his windpipe.

His neck, and the monstrous spectacle there, are on full display. In the fiery light of the magma fall, MacGiver’s two sets of eyes are very, very wide.

Nym straightens up and scrabbles for his scarf, winding it around the wound. McGiver's expressions are completely candid — one head's mouth moves in half-formed words, while the other only gapes in shock.

"Your neck!" she yelps. "You've been cut!”

"I'd noticed that," Nym says. He doesn't mean for the words to sound as sarcastic as they do. He knows how ugly his neck wound looks at first, ragged scar tissue forming ridged edges along the pulpy red chasm. It looks like a lethal cut across the meat of his throat, an injury he should not have survived, and that is because it was, and he shouldn't have.

McGiver babbles about it during their rest at the block-house, and after the stim's rejuvenating effects wear off, Nym doesn't have the energy to explain to her — or to the rest of the party, who are caught somewhere between confusion and concern.

"It happened a long time ago," is all he can manage, in his hoarse rasp of a voice.

McGiver wants to fix it — to fix him — like one of her tinkering projects. She suggests the infirmary at the Haven, but Nym knows by now that the wound defies medical science. She’s horrified by it, and further alarmed by Nym’s dismissal of her worrying.

Nym doesn't know how to express that it is a part of him that he could not give up even if it were possible. He's grown so used to breathing in air in a piecemeal wheeze, and burrowing into layers of fabric to keep the sand out of his exposed trachea.

And he hasn't told anyone here yet about the other gift it grants him. The small magic of speaking without sound, a talent that half this party already seems to possess. It's mildly irritating that they didn't have to get their throats slit to acquire it, but Nym already knew the world isn't fair — the cascading water fountains in the Haven would have made that clear to him, if he hadn't figured it out long ago.

Sitting outside the block-house, senses alert for more trouble, it comes to him: Nym and his two mouths are like MacGiver and her two heads. Nym smirks as he thinks of the metaphor, then files it away for future reference. The sudden hush and gurgle of water draining away from around where Nym sits causes him to twitch violently, going for a dagger, before he settles down again.

Even later, after wriggling through tiny passages to find ancient machinery and bring back a truly ridiculous amount of metal cogs, springs and bolts, Nym comes to an unpleasant conclusion about his worsening skittishness.

Try as he might, he simply can't shake the conviction there are more people in here, though his party has thoroughly investigated the tunnels winding downward into darkness and he is quite certain the little creature with the cats has retreated for the time being. He senses more souls present than belong to his party, when he knows they executed the Deepers and their familiars. As if shadowy, imperceptible spirits inhabit this place, perhaps.

Or perhaps as if the souls that the party separated from their mortal vessels have not passed on. Perhaps they remain, pursuing Nym to gabble and groan at him, until he can hardly keep them separate from the real words his party speaks out loud.

That night, the whispers reach a deafening pitch, and Nym is forced to admit that there is something at play here besides his usual macabre imagination. Among the scraps of voices and half-heard words of a language he does not speak, he catches glimpses of memories that are not his own. Fragments of lives lived in tunnels even darker and more dismal than the sietch, full of pain and bloodshed and hardship.

He wakes from these dreams wary, but not disturbed. The weirdest part of it all is how natural it is starting to seem. How easily his mind accepts the visions, and how mundane the whispers begin to sound to his ears. They murmur and mutter around him in snatches of silence, and it seems as logical as the heavy hilts of his blades in his hands. The dead, Nym thinks, feel just as close to him as the living do.

It makes a grim sort of sense, when he has walked the knife's edge between the two for years now.

#hello it is my first Nym story!#Zamin campaign #Nym #title is from 'Chasing the Sun' by Sara Bareilles

0 notes

stevenwhunt · 7 years

Text

Poofy Pops

There are a lot of dark secrets in my family's past, a lot of "skeletons in the closet", if you will, specifically on my mother's side. However, they are usually pretty "normal" things - drug use, armed robberies, malicious stalking - definitely nothing like murder or hidden rape dungeons, or at least not that I know of. However, the scariest thing that I ever faced wasn't a direct result of any of my family's history, but simply due to one of them being absent-minded.

My mother was a drug addict throughout her teens, but managed to clean up at the age of 20. My father knew this when he started dating her, and he never passed a chance to remind her of how proud he was that she had beaten such a toxic way of life. This didn't last, however; shortly after my fourth birthday, my uncle Ravi was released from prison, and he got her back into drugs. After finding out, my parents separated and my mother went "away" - where, I'm not certain; "away" was just what had been told and anybody who would know today has since passed on.

My father was in the army, and not too long after separation, he was deployed. My father had no remaining living family and most of my mother's family was either in jail or on the lam. The only other family member I had left was my Aunt Dee, who hadn't fallen into anything notorious like her siblings, but instead was immensely scatter-brained. This usually didn't cause too many problems, however, and even though my father didn't always get along with her, he trusted her enough to put me in her care while he was overseas.

I liked my Aunt Dee. She was still kind of a kid at heart, and had a lot of childish amenities that I wasn't allowed to have at home. She ate Sugar Shock cereal every morning and had lots of action figures and video games. After about a week, we'd run out of cereal, so on her way back from picking me up from school, she swung by a store that we happened to pass. It was one of those smaller, dollar store-type outfits, but not like a franchise; more of a family-owned business. I don't remember the name, but I do remember that their mascot was a happy-looking pelican.

This store didn't have Sugar Shock but they did have a cereal that was identical to it in every way. It was called Poofy Pops, my aunt told me, and the store's pelican mascot adorned the box. Looking back, I still have yet to figure out how a tiny operation like that store was able to have custom labels and boxes with their logo and mascot. Anyway, despite not being Sugar Shock proper, Aunt Dee figured it was close enough.

The next morning, Aunt Dee was running late for work and taking me to pre-school. One of the factors in favor of my father relenting to choosing to let me stay with Aunt Dee instead of, say, a family friend, is that my pre-school was on the way to her job, and she worked part-time at a high-end law firm, which meant she had enough income to support both of us, but also her hours took place during my class. As she was finishing up, she poured me a bowl of Poofy Pops. They tasted remarkably identical to Sugar Shock and I was delighted.

The morning after, she wasn't in as much of a hurry, but she still didn't stick around long enough to sit with me as she usually did. She took her bowl of Poofy Pops with her while I sat at the dining room table and looked at the box. I was a slow learner and didn't know how to read very much yet, but I enjoyed looking at the boxes of things while I ate, especially if it had fun imagery to occupy me. Sugar Shock had a lot of puzzles on the box, but I never could figure out how to play them since I couldn't read the instructions at the time; I still liked looking at them all the same. The boring cereals that my parents used to buy never had anything fun at all on them.

Poofy Pops were somewhere in the middle. They had a few comics strip on the back with their pelican mascot and a few other cartoony animal characters, but I didn't always get the punchline because sometimes it required reading the speech bubbles. Some of them, however, had little to no writing and the humor was physical, so I got those ones pretty clearly. Those ones were, obviously, my favorite.

On one of the sides were photos of two children. At first I thought this was weird, but one of the few things I remember my mother teaching me, was that when she was younger, they used to put photos of missing children on milk cartons in hopes that someone would recognize them and that they could be safely returned to their families. The thought of these children on the side distressed me a bit, because even at four years old, the idea of other children being in danger was scary. Eventually, though, as the days passed, I just found myself staring at the photos and imagining happier scenarios, like the kids picking up their own boxes of Poofy Pops and seeing themselves on the box, and being returned to where they belonged. Other times, I imagined the kids sitting next to me, eating Poofy Pops with me.

Within a few days the box was empty, and my aunt had said she was going to go back to Sugar Shock, but I told her that I wanted Poofy Pops again. Not only were they much cheaper (although I didn't know that at the time), but there was something that drew me to the boxes that I couldn't explain. Maybe it was the imaginary adventures I had with the children whose photos I'd seen, or maybe it was because the physical comedy comic strips frustrated me less than the puzzles with instructions I didn't understand. She relented and the next time we went to that store, she picked up three boxes.

It surprised me that all of the imagery on the boxes save for the front were different on each box. After years of the drab, identical boxes of whatever healthy nonsense my parents bought me, and then the two Sugar Shock boxes having the same things on both, I was delighted that every box brought something new. The comics were different on each one, and even the photos of the children were different.

Eventually, my father returned from deployment, and I was excited to see him again. I loved hanging out at Aunt Dee's, but I missed my father. The day he came to pick me up, I was still eating breakfast. I excitedly showed him the box of Poofy Pops. He looked over the box, no doubt trying to see how it stacked up against the "adult" cereals he bought that he forced me to partake in as well. However, all color drained from his face when he looked at the side. This was a man who had seen combat and for some reason, I got the feeling that this was the most scared he'd been in his life.

"Deepika," he called to my aunt softly, like he was trying to find his voice. He called her name a little louder after clearing his throat.

"What is it?" she asked, walking over to him.

"Where... where did you buy this?"

"Oh, that little store about three blocks from her pre-school. Why? What's wrong?"

My father coughed and cleared his throat again with a slight stumble, his face still pale. He looked back and fell into Aunt Dee's armchair. "D...d...did you even look at this? At these children?"

"Yeah, I guess that's the missing children alert? Like when we were kids?" My aunt frowned. "What is it?"

"That's not what this says. This calls them... ingredients."

I don't remember much after that. I don't think I even knew what an "ingredient" was at the time. I do remember a lot of phone calls and yelling. The police came to Aunt Dee's apartment and later to my house. Years later, after I finally realized what was going on, I began having nightmares of eating bowls of children's flesh and bones and had to attend a lot of counseling.

My father and Aunt Dee have since passed on, and I have no idea where my Uncle Ravi or mother are. I don't know precisely where that store was, but I imagine it was swiftly shut down. I haven't seen Sugar Shock since that time, either... I'm not sure if there was any connection with the manufacturers of Poofy Pops or if people just linked the two in their minds and they ended up discontinuing it. In my teens and adult life, since I'd become more proficient at using the internet and of course, at reading, I've done a lot of searching and I can't ever find any trace online of Poofy Pops, nor of a reason for Sugar Shock disappearing from shelves. The only mention I find of the latter is on Wikipedia where it gave the year I last saw them as the discontinuation date, with the words [citation needed] next to it.

I still haven't given up on my search to uncover the truth, but it also doesn't consume my life. I've got Google Alerts set up for a wide array of search terms, and even though I've long since moved out of Dearborn, every time I go back I ask around about the store; nobody seems to remember such a place. Being so young, and also since I could barely read at the time, it makes it pretty tough to have any concrete memories that I can use to aid me. Really the only vivid memory I have is of that pelican mascot, and how happy he was. The thought of the happy pelican actually makes me feel good until I remember what horrors he was associated with.

#short story #creepypasta #cereal #writing #poofy pops

8 notes · View notes