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ninja-knox-ur-sox-off · 7 months

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Day 6: Show/Fear

Prompt List

Pt. 5 of The Empire of Samadhi AU

Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 (you are here) | Pt. 6

(This is day 6 of the Monkie Destiny Challenge Prompt Month October 2023)

Wordcount: 2k

Summary: Red Son is the son of an old empire, Mei is the daughter of a new one. Red Son, consumed by fire, was put into an induced stasis sleep to stop the world from burning until his family can find a way to safely remove the fire. They find a way but he never wakes up. Hundreds of years later he awakes to discover his power resides within another as she stares at him with wide eyes on fire.

Welcome to the Show.

(This one’s a bit of a spookier one in light of this festive All Hallows’ Eve month. So warning for some mild body horror and creepy description. Please check the tags if you want more detail)

Their landing was awkward.

Red Son ended up at the bottom of the pile with his face pressed into the floor with the other two on top of him. He knew immediately the destination was wrong when he felt wooden floorboards rather than dusty ash against his cheek.

They had landed somewhere they weren’t supposed to.

“Get off.” Red Son attempted to throw the two mortals off him and was kicked in the face twice by Mk before he managed to shove them both off onto the floor. “Idiots.”

He lifted his head to look around and found they’d landed in a theatre of some kind. It was empty but the lights were on, bringing a warm sort of atmosphere.��

“Uh,” said Mei, with Mk draped over her lap like a limp rag-doll. “Hey, Samadhi Sifu… I think you took a wrong turn.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Red Son spat. “Some idiot hijacked my portal.” He pushed himself to his feet, cursing under his breath. “They never would have been able to do so if I was at my full strength.” He straightened up after brushing small bits of gold dust from that shattered plate off his hanfu. It didn’t matter much due to the fact it was already covered in soot, but that couldn’t be helped. Merciful Buddha, he wanted a bath.

“Ow,” said Mk, like he was the one who had gotten kicked in the face. Mei patted his back.

Red Son glanced around the theatre. It was mostly built from wood. At first glance it appeared to be new, but the closer he looked the more blemishes and broken things there were. It was an old theatre. The curtains were threadbare. There were chips in the wood. The lanterns only lit the space dimly, just bright enough to create shadows without really lighting all that much. All the seats faced a massive white screen at the head of the room. It reminded Red Son of a shadow puppet screen, only much, much bigger.

“We’ve got another thirty minutes here until my spell kicks back in,” Red Son said, glancing around for the doors or at least some sort of exit. He heard shuffling behind him and turned to see Mk falling off of Mei’s lap and face down onto the floor before popping back up, sitting cross-legged next to her.

“Well, at least there’s no spooky monkey here,” Mei said.

Upon being reminded of what exactly they’d been, not running, but retreating from, Red Son’s ire at whoever had portal-jacked him was washed over and drowned out by a very different sort of feeling.

Mk and Mei seemed content to stay on the ground as Red Son started to pace in front of them. He muttered under his breath.

Mk looked pale. Red Son had no doubt he’d be looking even paler if he’d known just who had been reaching for him.

Red Son feared nothing. Not death, not life, and no living being.

But his hands were shaking.

From the cold, he hissed to himself through gritted teeth. He would never have been shaking if he had his fire. He wouldn’t be so vulnerable if he had it. The white lady hadn’t seemed like a threat at first. She seemed a mild annoyance at best. He couldn’t sense any massive power coming from her, so how did she manage to get to him? He needed to rethink. Reevaluate. He needed to think. He needed to get his fire back or they were going to die.

“Well, well! That was quite a show!”

Red Son’s head snapped back to look where the voice was coming from. It seemed to bounce and echo over the walls, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. Shadows seemed to tilt, getting darker, stretching further.

Mei was on her feet in an instance, Mk scrambling up close behind her, staggering a lot more.

The shadows seemed to converge on the stage, onto the screen rising up like ink until a shape was painted across it and then received form.

It was a shadow puppet.

A monkey. Merciful Buddha, Red Son had seen enough monkeys already today. Its mouth had been cut into a wide, unnerving smile, stretching over nearly half its face.

"I see you all met the Lady Bone Demon's puppet.” The puppet slumped sideways, limp, head tilting to almost upside down. It was strange. It moved in a way shadow puppets normally didn’t, to Red Son’s knowledge.

Red Son scoffed, folding his arms over his chest. “You look more like the puppet here.”

“Oho!” said the shadow puppet. “Good-” it flipped, revealing its other side, where the only difference was there was an slashed X in the place its eyes should have been, “--eye.” The puppet laughed. It doubled over with shrieking laughter at an awkward angle that didn’t look right.

Red Son found himself recoiling a bit. The thing sounded insane. Granted not as insane as him when he laughed, his cackle was much more impressive.

Out of the corner of his eye Red Son saw Mk grab Mei’s arm.

“Mei,” Mk said, his voice slightly shaky, urgent, “that sounds like-”

“I know,” Mei said, her voice grave, on edge.

“What are you two talking about?” Red Son snapped.

“Is that the Dragon Heir I see?” The puppet twisted itself as though it were hanging upside down from a branch. Sure enough the shadow of a tree rose up to assist the illusion. “And another puppet!” Its smile looked almost thrilled looking at Mk. “Isn't this all just so interesting? But who’s the third? I’ve never seen you before.” It dropped back down, into more of an animalistic, unnatural crawl. The shadow seemed to grow bigger as it crawled towards them, but it never moved off the screen.

“Who I am is none of the business of the likes of you,” Red Son said. “You know very well who you brought here. So cut the theatrics and state your business or we will burn your little theatre to the ground and you along with it.”

The puppet seemed to find that very funny, laughing and twisting. Red Son could feel something in the wood of this place. Something in the shadows growing thicker and moving.

“Oh, but the show is the best part!”

Mk cried out.

Red Son spun around to see shadows wrapping around his ankles and wrists. They lashed out around his arms binding him tightly and then pulled before any of them could react.

“Mk!” Mei yelled, reaching for him. She grabbed his wrist just before he was pulled into the shadows.

The rings lit. Mei practically spat out fire. “Let go of him.”

“There’s the famous fire!” The puppet seemed to smile wider, bigger, it sounded like it was a twisted form of excitement. “What a performance you gave that day!”

The strands of shadow snapped when Mei’s fire neared it and she caught Mk before pulling him to his feet.

“Mei,” said Mk, clinging to her.

“I know,” said Mei. “It's him.”

“What are you two peasants talking about-”

“You know,” said the puppet, drawing their attention, “really, it was rather impressive how you played right into her hands, bud.” It walked across the screen, but this time it continued off it, onto the wall. The laughter echoed.

For a moment Red Son thought the shadow was talking to Mei, but then Mei was stepping in front of Mk and shielding him with her arm, flames flickering dangerously above her.

“Mk had nothing to do with it,” Mei snapped.

The puppet laughed again, tumbling through shadows and bouncing from one place to the other around the room. It bent in unnatural directions. “Nothing? Nothing? He caused this.”

Red Son had to admit, he was curious. Curious as to how the man half-cowering behind Mei was responsible for… well, it was rather hard to understand what the puppet was referring to.

“I didn’t,” said Mk, but he didn't sound very confident about it.

“Do you think she would have gotten your precious friends if it weren’t for you? You think she would have gotten to your pathetic Sifu without your help?”

“He’s not pathetic!” Mk shouted at it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“All your second chances, all your do-good kindness lead to this. If it weren’t for you the Lady Bone Demon would have never gotten her hands on the rings.”

“But,” said Mk, his voice small, “I didn’t do anything…”

“And you think that’s a good thing?” The puppet laughed far too much in Red Son’s opinion. It lost its effectiveness after a while. At least on him. Mei and Mk just looked more and more unsettled and anxious. “You and your Master, so alike. Neither of you said anything to each other, did you?”

“What is he talking about?” Red Son asked, looking at Mk curiously.

Mk shrunk back from his gaze.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mei said. “Whatever happened doesn’t matter. So you better shut your mouth, Liú.”

The puppet stood for a moment, frozen still. Then it’s head snapped off the wall to look at Mei.

It became less of a shadow and more of a tangible thing. Its eyes were lifeless, its skin was more alive looking than a puppets should be. It had lace designs stretching across its skin in dark cracks across its skin. Its mouth stretched just as wide, but despite its upward tilting motion it didn’t look like it was smiling. It didn’t look completely like an object nor completely alive, some mix of both. Red Son could see both its eyes at once now, the slashed X over one of them looking like a gaping black hole. Its one eye was a pinprick amongst a pool, just as black, its pupil surrounded by a ring of purple.

“You’re cursed,” Red Son realized.

Its head snapped to look at him and Red Son felt frozen in place by it. The weight was nowhere near that of his fire contained in the rings above Mei’s head. But it was uncomfortable all the same. This thing in front of him was twisted and wrong and there was a lack of sanity in its one working eye that made it feel as though something would snap at any second. It looked as though it should be twitching but all it did was stay deathly still, not breathing but very clearly alive.

“Not our problem,” Red Son forced out, despite the way the words tried to lodge in his throat with the things one eye on him. “Dragon Girl, we’re leaving.”

“There’s no doors,” Mei muttered.

Red Son whipped his head around to check. And she was right. He hadn’t realized it at first, but there were no doors, no windows, no holes or cracks in the wall to slip through.

There was no way out.

It was a claustrophobic feeling. But Red Son wasn’t about to let a sealed room intimidate him.

“Very well then. Let us make one.”

“I can’t let you leave,” said the puppet that Mei called Liú. “They’ll come soon.”

“Elder Liú,” said Mk, “we can help you.”

“I can’t let you leave,” it said again, its mouth moving with the words unlike its shadow had when it spoke before. It was a horrifying sight. Shadows moved behind them, creeping closer. “I can’t let you leave. I can’t let you leave. I can’t let you leave-”

Red Son snorted. “You can’t stop us.”

It just kept repeating it over and over again, ignoring him. The shadows stretched higher. They curled over top of them. Red Son watched them creep out of the wall, wrapping around the puppet, over its mouth and face and dragging it back into the wall.

“Guys,” Mei said, glancing at her feet. “I think we’re in trouble here.”

“Then use my fire,” Red Son said through gritted teeth.

“Oh yeah,” Mei said, “right.” She shook off the shadows that had started to cling to her foot and the rings blazed brighter above her.

“Wait! Stop!” said Mk.

“What?” Mei said. Then yelped, because a shadow lashed out and wrapped around her arm.

One latched around Red Son’s leg and the shadows suddenly seemed a lot thicker and stronger than before.

“They’re shadows,” Mk said. “The more light you give them the stronger they’ll be.”

“How does that make sense?”

“Just look, the more light there is, the more shadow can be seen. Unless we could get enough light to get rid of every shadow, more light would just be making it worse.”

“Then what’s your suggestion,” Red Son snapped, clawing at the shadow that had attached itself to his wrist.

“Less light,” Mk said. “They can’t touch us if there’s no shadows to shape in the dark. We need to break the lanterns.”

“This is a terrible idea,” Red Son said.

“Do you think I have enough control over these rings to light up a whole room?” Mei asked.

Red Son did not think that.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Fine,” Red Son snapped. He snatched some fire away from Mei. The shadows had crept up to his hips now, wrapping and slowly sludging further up. He burnt some off his wrist so his hand was free. “Aim for the lanterns.”

Mei missed twice. Red Son’s feeble second-hand fire couldn’t reach very far but the sparks landed and managed to light the lantern.

“No,” the voice echoed, “what are you doing? Stop- stop I can’t exist without them-”

“It's okay, Elder Liú,” Mk said, “we’ll get you out of here.”

“Stop!”

“Ugh,” said Red Son, straining against the shadows that were now up to his shoulders. “You’re disgustingly reassuring, aren’t you.”

“I try,” Mk said. He was trying to hide it but Red Son could hear the panic in his voice.

The last lamp went out, burned to nothing, but light still remained.

“Dragon Girl, the rings.”

Mei cursed.

“Mei-” Mk’s voice was cut off as the shadows wrapped around his mouth and started dragging him down.

“Mk!”

“THE RINGS!” Red Son yelled at her.

“I GOT IT,” Mei roared back.

The shadows wrapped around Red Son’s mouth and started pulling.

The rings flickered.

“NO!” the puppet appeared in front of Mei’s face, reaching.

All at once the light went out.

Red Son fell flat on the floor, followed by two thumps.

“HA!” said Mk. “I told you! How can you get grabbed by something when you’re already in it! It's like swimming!”

“Water has currents that can grab you,” Red Son snapped at him.

“Shadows aren’t tangible like water.”

“You make less sense the more you talk.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Mk huffed.

“Woo! Mk!” Mei cheered. “I’m gonna see that last bit in my nightmares! Haha! Where’d Old Liú go anyway?”

“Um, I’m not sure,” Mk said. “Let me check.”

There was a moment of shuffling and silence in the pitch black. Then Mk’s bright voice came.

“Found him! He’s small now. Looks like a real shadow puppet.”

“What? How can you see?”

“Huh, I wonder if we could un-curse him like how we unpossessed Mk,” Mei said, ignoring Red Son’s question.

“He feels like he’s made out of dry stuff,” Mk said. “I don’t know if it's safe to try.”

“Just give him to me,” Red Son scoffed, blinding feeling around for Mk. “I’ll seal him in so he won’t jump back out the moment there’s shadows to jump from if you’re both so worried about it. You can figure out what to do with this thing later. We’re going to be pulled back any minute now.”

Red Son heard a sound that took him a moment to place as Mk’s muffled laughter.

“What? What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing,” Mk said. “Here, hold still, I'll hand him to you.”

Red Son sighed and held out his hand impatiently.

He could feel Mk standing in front of him, hesitating.

“What now?” he groaned.

“Just… be careful with him. Don’t hurt him okay?” Mk finally handed him over.

“Whatever,” said Red Son, casting the spell to seal the puppet in its current form. “He’s none of my concern, living or dead.”

Mk didn’t reply to that, but he could practically feel his worry.

“There,” Red Son said, shoving him back at him. “He won’t be any trouble for now.”

“Great,” said Mei. “So do we need to talk about why Liú looks like a monkey? Or…?”

The ground lit up underneath them.