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memoirsverse · 5 years

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Dresden Files/The Authors of Paradise: Dark Days

This is a crossover fan novel featuring my own characters and world of The Authors of Paradise, blended with those of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files. This derivative crossover work is being written for the sheer fun of it, with no financial gain. Jim Butcher owns Harry Dresden, The Dresden Files, and all associated characters. I own Evelyn Alvar, Arabella Thorne, Thornebridge Manor, The Authors of Paradise, and all associated characters. I’ve taken the two worlds, mashed them together, and whipped up this meandering thingamabob. Mmm, tasty.

This novel is rated M for Mature, because it’ll get bloody. This chapter isn’t bloody, though; just dreadful.

i. Evelyn

I emerged in a room that shifted and warped, always in motion, always changing, and turned my attention to the figure standing at the far end. A softly glowing, color-changing mist curled around my ankles as I walked past impossible staircases and other Mobius-like structures, approaching the figure. It stood dispassionate, sexless, an endless void that glimmered with distant stars. Its name was Thornebridge, and this was the form it took in this place.

If I looked too deeply into that void, I would be drawn in, tumbling helplessly for eons as every potentiality, every reality, every actuality, every universe seared itself indelibly onto my conscious mind. I would know the truth about myself if I did that. I didn’t want to know. I most certainly did not want to know. I was confident it would drive me mad.

My bare feet settled into place, concealed by the mist, as I stopped directly in front of Thornebridge. I was wearing the filmy white thing that I always wore when I Traveled, and hair the color of moonlight tumbled over my marble-toned shoulders. I’d seen my reflection before in this form. I looked like a marble statue with intensely purple-jewel eyes, inhuman and profoundly alien. I had grown accustomed to it, but I still didn’t understand the why of it.

“You have something to tell me?” I ventured finally. I would never be entirely comfortable talking with Thornebridge-- if talking was the right word. The entity had its own language, one that didn’t often translate well into English, or any other language with actual words.

The response was instantaneous. From out of the mist, a great tower pushed its way out of the hidden ground, rumbling like thunder as it grew to a great height. Dust and debris rained down from it as it stretched higher and higher like some kind of monolithic tree, until its top vanished into the star-studded, nebula-swirled darkness above. A pair of winged figures circled the tower, armed with swords, their wings beating the air into a whirlwind as they flew around and around and around it.

A low, animalistic growl surged behind me, and I turned to see a man dressed in robes and expensive finery, crowned by four inverted pentacles that spun around his head. The man looked like a photograph in negative exposure, black and white, light where he should be dark and dark where he should be light. He ran at the tower and leaped on it, clawing at its base, digging to its foundations, tearing off huge chunks of stone and dropping them into a large canvas bag he carried slung over one shoulder. The two angels didn’t seem to see him, continuing their high-altitude patrol.

I sighed. The overall message was obvious, but the details were still obscured. “Who’s attacking you?” I asked.

The robed man vanished from his place by the tower and appeared before me so suddenly that I took a couple of steps backwards. I took a breath to steady myself and turned my eyes to Thornebridge. “But who is he?”

The human-shaped starry void said nothing. Of course. It stood still, its head turned towards me.

I could look into its void and See...

Shaking my head, I motioned with my hand to the diorama. “If you want our help, you’re going to have to be a bit more clear than that. Okay?”

Thornebridge just watched me. This was apparently the entirety of the message; I wasn’t going to get any more unless I Looked.

I ran my hands through my hair and sighed again. “All right, fine. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

Thornebridge nodded, and the scene vanished, replaced once again with the Escher-like environment. Closing my eyes, I let myself phase through the layers of reality, back to whatever dimension my Traveling form was held in. I felt the threads of silken energy close around me like a cocoon, and my conscious awareness faded to gentle black before becoming aware of the weight and solid mass of my everyday form.

I lay there for a minute, eyes closed, letting my consciousness re-align with physical reality. Slowly, my senses re-connected and began to filter information back to me: the lingering scent of incense, the soothing flow of the meditative music that I had set to play in a loop, the spongy feel of the mat between my body and the hardwood floor, the slight chill in the room that raised gooseflesh over my arms. It was September, and morning, and my stomach informed me that I had not yet eaten breakfast.

Opening my eyes, I stretched, then rose to my feet. The room my housemate Arabella and I had designated for communication sessions with Thornebridge was sparsely decorated with a couple of small tables, a bowl for incense, a scattering of candles, a few carefully placed crystals, some calming prints framed on the walls, a small rock garden, and an iPod set up with a meditation playlist. It was simple and zen, intended to cultivate the kind of relaxation needed to put one’s self into a deep trance.

I turned off the iPod, blew out the candles and the incense, and left the room in the heart of the house, winding my way through corridors that never seemed to follow the same path. I had gotten lost on multiple occasions while trying to find my way through the less stable portions of the house, until I had learned to open my senses enough to navigate my way to the space Arabella and I lived day-to-day.

I saw the door, and my senses told me it was the one that led to the mundane part of the house. It was always a different door, sometimes massive and intricately carved, sometimes simple and rustic. Today, it was narrow, arterial red, and half my height, sporting an ornate silver knob. I turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped out of the dizzying instability of Thornebridge Manor and into the dimensionally stable, comforting warmth of the house’s living space.

The difference in energy always takes a moment or two to adjust to. It’s a little bit like waking up from a dream, as reality re-establishes itself around you, solid and fixed. After taking a few slow breaths and doing a little grounding exercise by placing my palm flat against a wall and feeling its solidity, I moved on, making my way to the kitchen.

_________________________________________

The coffee tasted hot and sweet as I sipped it from my favorite old coffee mug, which depicted a calico cat similar in appearance to my own Nimue, batting playfully at a Victorian-style fairy. The house was strangely quiet and felt vast and empty; Arabella had left town to attend some sort of bookseller’s conference. Slowly, I ate a breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and fruit, as I held my battered, leatherbound notebook in my left hand and read over the notes I had written on this morning’s communication with Thornebridge. A well-worn deck of tarot cards, its colors faded and its edges tattered, rested beside the notebook.

I took a bite of scrambled eggs, set my fork down, and flipped through the cards, withdrawing the Tower, the Emperor, Temperance, and the Four of Pentacles, laying them out on the table beside my plate. Chewing thoughtfully, I studied the cards, static images embodying the living diorama I had seen in the communication room, but I came no closer to achieving clarity. The only thing I knew for certain was that someone was attacking Thornebridge, someone Arabella and I-- the Guardians of Thornebridge Manor-- had not yet seen or encountered.

That... was not good. There was an endless list of reasons why that was not good. But I still had precious little to go on. It would be nice, I thought, if the damn house would learn to speak English.

An alarm sounded on my phone, alerting me that it was time to get ready for work, so I put my plate in the dishwasher, returned to my bedroom to dress, made sure my cat and Arabella’s dog Ghost had plenty of fresh water, checked on Virgil the ferret in his little house, and hurried out the door to drive to the shop. There wasn’t a lot I could do until I had more information, and I certainly wasn’t going to figure out the puzzle sitting here all day.

_________________________________________

I own a little shop called Boreas Curios, Antiques, and Odditites. It’s a quaint little place, sharing a storefront with a pizza parlor and a jewelry store, and is situated directly across the street from Arabella’s place of business, an antique bookstore that she inherited from its former owner when he retired. It was something akin to kismet that the two of us spent years working in these places, across the street from one another, before we met for the first time through completely unrelated events. And it wasn’t for a lack of browsing each others’ shops either-- I love books, and Arabella is a bona fide pack rat and loves to collect all sorts of strange and wonderful things. And vice versa. We just always managed to visit when neither of us was in our respective shop.

The shop was slow throughout the morning, giving me time to sort through inventory and clean a little bit as I tried to shake the lingering feeling that something wasn’t quite right. I chalked it up to the vagaries of my communication session with Thornebridge and carried on. A few minutes to eleven, Violet breezed in through the front door, smiling brightly at me with her black-lipsticked lips as we greeted each other. Her hair was short and spiky, black tipped with blue, and she wore black-and-white striped stockings on her arms and legs, a green corset, a knee-length black tulle skirt, and a pair of worn old army boots. She waved at me with a black-fingernailed hand and disappeared into the back of the shop, re-emerging a short time later wearing a blue apron that absolutely clashed with her getup.

I didn’t mind her eccentric way of dressing; in fact, I felt it fit the atmosphere of the shop perfectly. She cashed in to her register, and then set about helping me sort through a box of mini-Furbies that had been programmed to say diabolical things. The store rang out with sinister phrases such as, “I am Lord Beelzebub, hear me rooooar!” and “Sacrifice your virgins on the altar of the Goat King!” for several minutes as we inserted batteries, cataloged everything in the system, and put the Furbies in a wire bin near the register. The Diabolical Furby Collection was Violet’s idea, and I thought it fit nicely in with the theme of Strange and Bizarre I had cultivated in the shop. After all, I kept a constant supply of haunted dolls on a shelf situated on the back wall. People loved creepy things. They always sold well.

Right around 1:45, just as the lunch rush had mostly dissipated, the sky went dark, not gradually, but in a quick fade, as if somebody had used a dimmer switch to turn off the sun, cloaking the world in night.

Violet, looking up from where she was ringing up one of the last customers in the store, frowned. “Um. Evelyn?” She paused, then added, “Did somebody forget to pay the sunlight bill?” The joke fell flat as her voice trembled a bit.

I was busy staring through the glass door, blinking in confusion. The slight uneasiness I had felt earlier amplified itself, evolving into the kind of dread that speeds up the heart rate and sends butterflies swarming through the stomach. Violet clearly felt the same, but it was probably just from the inexplicable celestial event. Right?

“What in the blazes...” I murmured. Casting a glance at Violet and her equally confused and anxious customer, I strode across the shop and out the door, peering up at the sky, searching for the sun. Violet joined me a minute or two later, after shooing the customers out and locking the door.

“Is... is it an eclipse?” she asked, doubt slowing her words. I shook my head, but pulled my phone from my apron and began pulling up an online almanac to be sure.

“Probably not,” I said. “Wouldn’t have gone dark that quickly.” I scanned the almanac long enough to determine that there had been no eclipses predicted for the day, and then my phone went dark.

So did the rest of the block. All around us, the lights illuminating the buildings flickered out, plunging the world into heavy darkness. Even the cars on the street died, rolling to a stop. I heard the metallic clatter of a car wreck somewhere in the near distance, and somebody screamed.

The creeping dread flared into visceral, heart-pounding terror, and for a moment, I was lost in it. I wanted to fall to my knees, pull at my hair, and moan with it. I wanted to dig into the ground and hide from the darkness, to curl into myself, to lose myself to the fear, to be consumed by it. It coiled around me, a primal, atavistic horror that threatened to strangle the life from me. I was barely aware of Violet next to me, frozen and trembling with the same terror.

A long moment passed, and the dread eased of its own accord. It still lingered, pulsing softly on a psychic wavelength, but it no longer threatened to drive us mad. I found I had indeed fallen to the ground, and slowly got to my hands and knees, reaching out to help Violet to her feet. The girl was still shaking, her blue eyes wide in the gloom, but she let me stand her up and steady her.

“What was that?” she cried, but then seemed to realize how near to panic she was edging, and took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. She leveled her gaze on me and said, “I’m going to guess you’ll be leaving the shop to me for a bit.”

I hadn’t ever told Violet about my other job, the one where I worked for the sentient spirit of a dimensionally transcendent and unstable house, but the girl wasn’t stupid. She’d picked up on the fact that I had a tendency to deal with the out-of-the-ordinary things that seemed so often to happen around me. I sighed and ran my hand through my short, wavy hair, a deep chestnut with hints of red and a stark contrast to the flowing silver locks of my Traveling form.

I turned on my heels and strode around to my car, a 90s-era silver Accord parked in the employee-designated spaces in the parking lot. Violet followed. Unlocking the trunk with the key set I had in my jeans pocket, I removed the emergency bag I kept packed and ready. “Close the shop,” I told her, then frowned. I had been about to tell her to pack up and go home, but she lived several miles away and it seemed as if the cars had all died too. “Stay indoors, keep the doors locked, and watch for looters.”

“That baseball bat still under the counter?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said, and paused. If that feeling of dread had been city-wide, it meant we’d be dealing with mass panic, and panicked people can be violent. “But don’t try to be heroic, okay? If anybody gets violent, just get on out of there. Find somewhere safe. There will probably be some sort of organizational effort to keep things under control, maybe a place for people to gather for shelter, a church or something. Try to find it if you can’t stay in the shop.”

“Gotcha.”

From the bag I removed a pair of silver rods, slender, about the length of my forearm, and etched with runes, then slung the bag over my shoulder.

Then, taking a deep breath, I stepped into the darkness.

#not roleplay #ok to reblog but don't try to roleplay with it please!#so this is the first in what will hopefully turn into a series #in which i'll explore other tAoP characters as well #this chapter is a doozy at over 2600 words #other chapters will probably be shorter #maybe #next chapter will be from Harry's POV.#fic #Dark Days

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authorsofparadiseroleplay · 4 years

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Dark Days, Chapter One

This novel is rated M for Mature, because it’ll get bloody. This chapter isn’t bloody, though; just dreadful.

i. Evelyn

I sighed. The overall message was obvious, but the details were still obscured. “Who’s attacking you?” I asked.

The human-shaped starry void said nothing. Of course. It stood still, its head turned towards me.

I could look into its void and See...

Shaking my head, I motioned with my hand to the diorama. “If you want our help, you’re going to have to be a bit more clear than that. Okay?”

Thornebridge just watched me. This was apparently the entirety of the message; I wasn’t going to get any more unless I Looked.

I ran my hands through my hair and sighed again. “All right, fine. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

“Is... is it an eclipse?” she asked, doubt slowing her words. I shook my head, but pulled my phone from my apron and began pulling up an online almanac to be sure.

“That baseball bat still under the counter?” she asked.

“Gotcha.”

From the bag I removed a pair of silver rods, slender, about the length of my forearm, and etched with runes, then slung the bag over my shoulder.

Then, taking a deep breath, I stepped into the darkness.

#Dresden Files #The Dresden Files #dresden files fic #crossover with original universe #Dark Days #not RP

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missfear13 · 7 years

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Snippets of “Puppets”

Believe me, this current original story of mine is not dead. It’s being slowly written. Now, in the eleventh chapter (yet to be finished), there are some very intense happenings so crazy, that I just can’t wait to show people.

I will give a snippet of what happened in chapter 10 so that you, the reader, will understand the second snippet from chapter 11.

I will warn you, this will contain some very graphic situations (with absolutely no sexual content). It’s meant to also trick and confuse you with what’s reality, a dream, a memory, or simply another world conjoining to ours.

I give you an un-revised look of what’s yet to come in Puppets.

****

Terra Mark was quite unnerved, but unusually calm the day her close friend returned to school. She felt that this shouldn't have been a surprise to her. After all, she knew of such horrific things before. She's experienced them before. During lunch that day, Terra kept her dry lips pressed shut as she ever so lightly tapped her unopened applesauce cup with her white plastic spoon in deep thought. These thoughts swallowed her vision of the present whole, for she witnessed different things. Her thought process rewound her back to when she mingled with that demonic puppet at Nately's house. She was pulled back further to when she was practically ditched by Josh, when she stood there in the middle of the street on her bike. Ah, yes, the cat. That twisted, mangled black cat that appeared behind her as she stood parked there in the middle of the street. (Has it come for me?) The way it hissed at her. That sour, gut-wrenching presence was all too familiar for Terra Mark. Those eyes. She absolutely recognized them. Spiders. "This way! I think the lake is back here," Spencer exclaimed, one of Terra's older cousins. It was Easter. It was horribly wet outside. Terra's family got together at her uncle's place that day. Everyone dressed their best, including the very young Terra (who hated that baby pink dress and white tennis shoes that sunk into the mud and got her cotton socks wet). She loved her cousins, especially the three (Spencer, Connor, and Nicky) that she chose to follow into Scar Woods that day. Being the youngest, Terra always wanted to be apart of the big kids and go with them to do cool things. She thought of them as grownups, anyhow. On that particular day, her older cousins decided to quickly pay a visit to Scarlet Lake. Terra's heard the ghost stories of that place involving shipwrecks. Her cousin Spencer spoke about it and tried to prove it to the others this time. He brought them through Scar Woods. Terra's small feet kept sinking into the mud as the bitter wind nipped at her fragile soft cheeks when she chased after them. Looking back at it now, her cousins didn't seem to care when she followed them, nor when she fell those few times into the mud, nor when she cried out their names to wait for her. They chattered on as they got further and further through the woods. Terra fell behind. She fell once again, her mud-stained knees scraped against a rock. Now that fucking hurt that time, and the tears filled her glossy eyes. She cried out her cousins' names again. They either didn't give two shits, or they didn't hear her. Too far. Terra's mouth stretched into a painful grin as the tears trickled down the side of her face, her wet and muddied hand rising to her chin. It started to rain. A giggle. Bright and cheerful. Little Terra lifted her head up, her lips pressed back together before they seized into a quivering fit. Her tears slowly ceased. The giggle echoed around her. Her little pig-tailed head darted in different directions of alarm as she tried to pinpoint where the giggle originated. The tears from the darkening sky thudded and tapped the wet ground; hitting the long-dead leaves, making an orchestra of a million people clapping at once. But the giggle was louder. There! Young Terra's eyes went big like a doll's once she saw it. Another girl. She seemed a little bit older than Terra, for she seemed a bit taller. Her dress was beautiful- the purest and brightest of all whites. It quickly reminded Terra of those toothpaste commercials on TV with those perfect people with the absolute most perfect white teeth. Pearly white. In fact, there was this sort of misty glow that outlined this other girl. The rain didn't seem to touch her perfection. The girl had long, flowing hazel hair that young Terra had always wanted. She wanted it to be perfect like her porcelain dolls that she kept oh-so-neatly aligned on her shelf at home. Terra wondered for a moment if her face matched her dolls' faces. Terra struggled to get up and succeeded. It was then she ignored all the mud soaked into her shoes and socks, stained into her despised Easter gown- she wandered forward towards this other girl. The other girl giggled once more. Terra indeed chose to follow her. Once she got closer, the other ran farther; deeper into the woods, they got. "Hiya!" Terra called as she scrambled after this new playmate. "Wait for meeee!" The other girl paused, seeming to stare off into the distance. The rain was intense. Terra paused in her tracks, the mud splashing over her toes. "What's your name?" Terra asked, her voice a bubbly tone. After all, she was nearly five years old. This other girl. . .her head twisted to the left as she peered over her shoulder. Yes, Terra did see her face. She was sure of it this time. There was no threat engraved in the other brunette's face. No. It was almost like how Terra imagined it to be, how she wanted it to be: perfect like her porcelain dolls' faces were crafted. The girl's button-nose glimmered with her misty appearance. She was dreadfully pale. Her eyes, well, Terra couldn't quite picture them correctly. "Eli-JAH," she responded. Her voice was a few octaves higher than Terra's. Which was unusual to little Terra, since she assumed that the other girl was older than she. Elijah, did she say? Then, as if she read Terra's mind, she said: "Yes, indeed, sweet Terra." "Hey," Joshua Silver said as he nudged Terra's shoulder. "Bell's gonna ring."

*****

"Elijah," Terra muttered. Her shoes dragged along the sidewalk as she walked slowly down the street with her backpack slung over her shoulder. Cousin Nicky was supposed to pick her up from Josh's place. An hour ago. Cousin Nicky lived nearby. Terra's mother worked late. She didn't want to bother her. She couldn't remember exactly why she left her friends so late, too early. A blur. Somebody called. Wanted her home. Forgotten chores. Angry. But it's . . . almost midnight . . . Isn't it? A blur. Tired, maybe. The lights that partially extended over the street flickered. So blurry. An hour ago. Nicky didn't care about Terra. She never did. What did Terra expect? (Eli-JAH) Terra rubbed her eyes, exhaling. A mist blew past her dry lips. She pursed them, her upper lip tucking under the bottom against her teeth, which scraped and nibbled on the dry skin; pulling on the tiny, tiny scabs. She gazed down the street. Her eyes rolled up, and the surprising blinding light of the street lamp stunned her. She grimaced and blinked several times, shaking her head and looking down. She picked her head up, the blobs of colorful, metallic light danced across her field of vision. But as these anomalies were seeming to be dragged away from her at different rates and speeds, there was a darker shape in the distance. A figure. Terra rubbed her eyes and squinted. Her gut felt as though it tightened after the thought of (Eli-JAH) the almost angelic little girl she encountered in her younger years flashed in her mind. But it was not. No; but a boy. He stood under another light down the street. He slouched horribly; bending forward some with his head drooping downward. His chin seemed to unusually touch his chest. His hair of strange lengths fell before his face- his hair of twists and curls and straightness. His hair of a greasy, greasy brown that almost blended into a tarry black. His spine seemed to poke from his back under a grotesquely thin layer of dirty, bruised, and rash-like skin. Terra from afar could see his shoulders. His attire, she could not make out much. It was horribly tattered. It was darker than his tarry black hair, and had a similar greasy look to it. The boy suddenly inhaled, and the sickly sound jumpstarted Terra's fear. The sickly sound- a morbidly low, animalistic, and demonic growl that came from Hell itself. And it belonged to the boy. He sucked it in, and his shoulders raised. Terra's eyes were nearly as wide as her mouth, which formed into an O; aghast. Before she could realize it, there was no boy standing under the light down the street. There was a snake. The biggest snake Terra has ever saw. Another animalistic growl which thundered from the trees. Yes, this horrific being touched the trees. All time painfully slowed down in Terra's view. A petrifying pressure and weight was absorbed within her. This had to be a nightmare, then! Terra suddenly felt sure of it. But then- "HAGH-" Terra yelped. She instantly straightened her back and raised her shoulders as she suddenly felt something tickle her- something was crawling on her. IN MY SKIN! IN MY CLOTHES! A foul stench filled her nose as it breathed over her. Her screams were rising in her throat, yet a shrill yelp only managed to escape it. Her wide eyes rolled up to see. . . to see the- hhhhhhhhhhhhhh A tickle again- this time on her pale, quivering cheeks. Her eyes dropped down to meet the other thing- Those were hands! Touching her face! Hands made of hairy, twisted, severed spider legs that tickled her face! Connected to dozens of the pitch black, beady spider eyes for wrists. They made this grotesque, indescribable sound as they rolled over to look at the petrified mortal girl. The dismembered parts of different spiders were joined with seemingly normal arms of a milky pale color. Terra's eyes followed up these arms to see the torn sleeves of a pearly white dress- Something wet dripped atop Terra's head. Then a hiss from above that gurgled into a familiar demonic growl. And a shrill, girlish giggle brought sickly pain to Terra's suddenly sensitive ears. She winced before the spider-leg-hands twisted and grabbed the side of her face, the hairy "fingers" dug behind her ears and inside them. A tear managed to slowly roll down the side of Terra's face- a product of silenced fear. A face- Terra couldn't see a face of the being in front of her, the being that was touching her with such morbid limbs. It violated her. There was no face. No face. No face. It has no face. But it must have a face. Don't want to see its face. But I did. I did. I did. I did. And it knows (knew) my name. (You) Then I am (are) her (my) puppet (precious dolly) through the rest of (your) my (life) and for all (eternity) "Yes, Terra, just like I know your cousin's name and your mommy's name and your daddy's name," the angelic little girl in the pearly white dress chanted with a widening grin. "I remember your name cause it reminds me of the word terr-AIN, and, you know, to tear apart." "But you can't do that!" confused Terra blurted out. Her hands quickly covered her mouth as she gasped. Was it the memory? A dream? Was she older or was she a naive little Terra that went off the trail in the woods that one Easter day? This Elijah girl continued to give a wide-eyed stare towards Terra. Her grin didn't seem to match with her face anymore. There was no warmth in her expression, nor her presence. There was the ice-cold stare and the psychotic grin. That was until she slowly leaned down closer to Terra, closer to her face. Terra kept her hands over her mouth, her feet sinking a little in the mud as she stapled herself in place. "I tore you away from the big kids, didn't I?" said the other girl. "They don't care, and they'll never find you; never find your body, never find your sanity, never find me. I'll only greet them as soon as they go into their permanent sleep. But then they'll still keep trying to run away." Tears filled Terra's eyes. Her face reddened as she wheezed behind her hands. Her terror leaked down the sides of her face. The twisted girl that graced the name Elijah leaned closer, and both Terra's and her own nose touched. "I know," Elijah piped up, her breath ice-cold, and her shoulders raising as her hands locked together in front of her by her knees, "let's play a game." "N-NO!" Terra cried, her voice wavering. Her eyes squeezed shut as she slightly curled up before Elijah with her hands now hiding her face. Terra turned her head and looked away. "I-I DON'T WANT YOUR GAMES!" "Oh, well," Elijah inhaled and stood up straight with her hands laced together in front of her, "where are my manners? I can't make you do what you've already been doing. Why, that won't make any sense. . ." Her petite, almost shrill voice trailed off as her eyes rolled to her left. "But a game to make this. . ." her eyes rolled upward and to her right, "pitiful place fun. . ." She gritted her teeth as her unsettling grin grew wider now with her bottom row of teeth emerging. Terra's torso moved backward, yet her feet were still planted in place. She continued to shield her face from this sinister girl. Terra's face scrunched up as she bit her tongue to prevent herself from sobbing. "OH, I LIKE THAT!" Elijah exclaimed, which seemed almost like a scream considering her fucking shrillness. She stood on her toes as she shouted that. "LET'S PLAY HIDE AND GO SEEK! OH YES, SWEET TERRA, LET'S DO THAT!" And in that second, her horrific face was not but an inch away from Terra's shielding arms now. Terra sniffled, her eyes still squeezed shut. "H-How about you s-start c-counting, uh-and I go h-hide?" she stammered. There was a sudden crack as Elijah quickly stood up and straightened her torso. "Okie-dokie, sweet Terra," she said, nodding vigorously. "But I have to warn you. . ." Terra finally glanced up from her shielding arms. "Nobody knows what's out in the woods. Nobody knows about the spiders and the snakes." Her sinister eyes rolled down to stare at Terra. "They're bigger than you think." Help. Help ME. She took off. The psychological weights tightened around her ankles. Or are they chains- (The chains of many, sweet Terra) Droplets of mud flew up from the ground and splattered her white tights as she ran. Run and hide. . . HIDE! She nearly tumbled head-first into the trunk of a tree when she slipped once again on the mud. She quickly put her hands out in front of her and stopped her fall against the tree. The pressure in her chest intensified when she stopped. She cautiously glanced over her shoulder with her hands still on the trunk. Her nails scraped against the bark as her fingers curled back to the palm. Trembling.

"Have you any idea how. . .precious this is, sweet Ter-RAH?" shrieked Elijah. Her piercing voice seemed so close- "You have such nice friends- nice friends, indeed! Now. . .who was it. . .N-N. . ."

Terra's eyes widened as she winced. She shook her head, clenching her teeth together.

"You leave Gnatty a-alone," she wheezed. "Don't scare her like you've done to me-"

All these years.

"Oh, that's RIGHT! Nately. Her daddy died just recently."

"LEAVE her BE!" Terra cried. She weakly hit her knuckles against the tree.

"He's really been wanting to talk to her, you know? He keeps SCREAMING N SCREAMING-"

"STOP IT!"

"And I saw you locking my favorite dolly away! You know, his mommy is very, very maaaad."

Terra inched her way around the tree, trying to ignore the demon-girl as best as she could. She felt something tickle her fingers as they brushed themselves along the bark. Spiders. She yelped and flicked it away.

"Not mad at you, not at Nately, but mad at me, 'cause I kinda foiled her plans. I really think they weren't working in the first place."

Terra continued to run further away, but the voice remained at the same volume everywhere she ran.

"I think I might use that cute puppet boy for something. I'm not letting such soul go to waste-"

Terra ran her clammy fingers through her hair in distress. She managed to let out a growl.

"And that Nately girl has been suffering quite enough, don't ya think?"

"NO!" Terra yelled. "I WON'T LET YOU! SHE WILL MOVE ON! HER BROTHER WILL MOVE ON! AND I WILL MAKE SURE SHE KNOWS WHAT WE'RE AGAINST, AND SHE CAN LEARN TO BE STRONGER THAN YOU! AND YOU WILL WEAKEN! YOU WON'T HARM HER!"

It hissed.

"I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

It snarled.

Terra began to chant: "I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

Leaves began to crunch around her. Branches cracked and twigs snapped.

Terra's fingernails dug into her scalp as she screamed: "I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

Something tickled the back of her neck.

And under her clothes.

"I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

Spiders emerged from under her sleeves, from her pants, from her shirt. She yelped and began swatting and aggressively brushing them off and stomping on them as they fell. But they seemed to disappear in thin air. More of these spiders appeared from such place and attempted crawled to her face and in her hair as she chanted.

"I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

Terra screamed as the arachnids continued to appear and increase in numbers all over her, but she kept declaring that single line. The footsteps got louder.

It growled.

"I WILL LIVE AND YOU WILL DIE!"

REPEAT.

"I-"

"QUIET!"

"WILL LIVE-"

"I'LL CUT YOUR TONGUE OUT!"

"AND YOU-"

"SILENCE!"

"WILL-"

Terra gathered the final word in her throat. She opened her mouth wide and prepared to scream it out-