Mochie

A giddy smile tugs at your lips, and the exhaustion from the day evaporates.

“Hi!” you call out to the murder of crows circling above. Their midnight feathers gleam against the brilliant pink, orange, and purple hues of the winter sunset. You reach into the inside pocket of your weathered but ever-loyal overcoat and grab a handful of peanuts, tossing them onto the snow-free patches of ground.

The crows descend immediately, squabbling as they pick at the treats.

Moving carefully so you don’t spook them, you settle onto a nearby bench. A few of the bolder ones flutter down to join you, perching on the bench as their beady eyes lock on your face. Beaks held high, they wait expectantly, clearly hoping for more. You huff a soft laugh and oblige, tossing another handful.

Your peculiar friendship with these crows began a few years ago. The day of your family’s funeral.

A drunk twenty-year-old behind the wheel of his rich businessman father’s SUV, barreling down the highway at four times the speed limit. Your mother, father, and younger brother, on their way to your college graduation. A tragic case of wrong place, wrong time.

You don’t remember much after that. Everything that followed was all a blur. The driver didn’t really face any consequences, thanks to their family’s influence. Their lawyer presented you with a pitiful settlement offer (or, in hindsight, maybe you were more or less threatened into accepting it). Maybe it was the overwhelming sense of hopelessness at the time, or the suspicion that your lawyer might have been paid off by the driver’s family, but you ended up agreeing to settle.

It didn’t matter anyway. Your family was dead.

The funeral was a simple event. Some extended family came to offer their support and condolences. Once the day ended and everyone went home, however, you were left alone in your family’s house.

You don’t remember much, but you do remember standing in the middle of your living room, a growing tightness in your chest slowly overtaking you, as if your heart was being squeezed from the inside. The walls of the room seemed to close in around you, and suddenly it was impossible to breathe. Somehow, you ended up bolting out the door—leaving it wide open behind you—and ran. You didn’t know where you were going, but you eventually found yourself here, at this very park, sitting on this very bench.

A single crow had perched nearby, watching you silently. Your hand brushed against your coat pocket, and you found some leftover peanut shells from the funeral’s snack offerings. You absentmindedly tossed them toward the crow, and it hopped down to peck at them. There was something oddly comforting in the way it ate, its sharp black eyes darting back toward you as if to say thank you.

The next day, you returned. One crow turned into three, then six. Slowly, more joined, until it seemed like the entire murder looked forward to your daily visits and peanut offerings.

A sudden, loud thump behind you pulls you from your thoughts. You instinctively turn toward the sound, only to find… nothing. Frowning, you scan the area, glancing left and right, until your eyes land on a crow lying on the ground directly behind your bench.

You gasp and quickly stand, rushing over to it.

“Are you okay?” you whisper, crouching down and scanning it for signs of injury. It looks like it fell straight out of the sky.

The crow caws at you—loudly. Unlike the murder behind you, its caw is sharper, more jarring. It grates against your ears like nails on a chalkboard. Its eyes seem to gleam red when the light catches them at certain angles, similar to how a cat’s eyes flash in the dark.

Then your gaze drops to its left wing, which is bent unnaturally.

“Did you hurt yourself?” you murmur, leaning closer to examine it. The injury doesn’t look like a typical fracture. The way the wing bends reminds you more of a mechanical part with a screw loose than a broken bone.

It caws again, louder this time, as if trying to get your attention.

You glance up at the sky and realize it’s grown darker. Heavy clouds swirl above, signaling an impending snowfall. Behind you, the other crows begin to disperse, their farewell squawks echoing as they take flight.

Looking back down at the injured crow, you watch as it tries to take off, only to crash back onto the ground with its unusable wing.

“Um, would you like to stay with me until your wing feels better?” you ask hesitantly.

The crow tilts its head to the side, almost as if it understands you. You miss the subtle garnet glow in its eyes as you carefully scoop it into your arms, cradling it gently to avoid jostling its injured wing.

“I’ll help you out until you’re better,” you say softly, already walking toward home. “I don’t have much, but you can have the rest of the peanuts I bought earlier.”

The crow doesn’t resist, settling into your arms. Its body relaxes against you, and you tighten your hold to shield it from the cold winter air.

You know your groceries won’t stretch far for the rest of the month, but your conscience won’t let you leave an injured animal out in the snow. Hugging the crow a little closer, you feel a small smile tug at your lips when it starts to coo softly.

You don’t notice the faint whirring sound beneath its gentle cooing, like the hum of tiny mechanical gears.

Stalker Sylus who gets Mephisto to befriend crows near your campus. Suddenly you have a murder of crows who leave you little trinkets. Sylus also has Mephisto steal some of your things from your dorm room, mainly small things like little pens or notes. Sylus hoards these items in a locked safe in one of his weaponries.

Stalker Sylus who discovers your shared dorm room is an absolute mess and pays the college to kick our your dormmate out and replaces them with a maid who's entire job is to cook and clean for you (he's paying their tuition and funding meals, so at least the maid is getting something good out of this). You just think your new roommate is super sweet for always picking up after you and sharing the "extra" food she had made.

Stalker Sylus who keeps tabs on you with Mephisto every single day. He refuses to peer into your room while you're in there out of respect (his theory is if he ever sees you bare, it's going to be because you want him to). He does keep tabs on your normal routine while you're in college, as well as when you're graduating.

Stalker Sylus who loathes the idea of you being a hunter, but is still supportive. He knew you made it into Unicorns before anyone else did. When you got home that day there were already flowers and a 'congratulations' card waiting for you. It wasn't signed, but there was a wad of cash attached to it.

Stalker Sylus who notices one of your neighbors is noisy and you're losing sleep over it so he buys the entire apartment complex and kicks them out. He also lowers your rent so you're barely paying anything. He even lets that sweet maid from the college take the apartment next to you, and she often brings you food when she cooks extra, but this time it's because she actually took a liking to you while in college.

Stalker Sylus who meets and employs the twins and manages to keep you a secret from them for a solid week before they find out. They begin also keeping tabs on you, and are often sent out on 'missions' to take care of wanderers for you so you don't have to be so stressed at work (also less paperwork for you).

Stalker Sylus who realizes you're overworking yourself so he hacks into the system at work and puts in your schedule that you suddenly have four days off in a row. Nobody bats an eye because they assume the higher ups did it.

Stalker Sylus who sends vouchers to your house randomly saying you "won" a vacation, or you suddenly have "won" a full service at a luxury spa in Linkon. He pays for everything so you can take care of yourself.

Stalker Sylus who has the twins sometimes sneak into your apartment and has them dump out all your skin care products and hair products and replaces the the contents with higher end products that he chose specifically for your hair and skin type since he happens to know what would work best for you.

Stalker Sylus who is slowly replacing your clothes with replica items that are designer because he thinks they'd be better for your skin. He also has the twins sneak new items in, like nice jewelry. You don't recall every buying those items, but since they're in your closet, it must've been an impulse buy.

Stalker Sylus who always covers your bar tabs or restaurant tickets. The waiters always tell you that "Someone is very grateful for the work you do as a Deepspace Hunter and wanted to pay for your drinks/meal. You just think you're doing an amazing job as a Deepspace Hunter.

Stalker Sylus who gets the campus crows to sometimes drop off expensive and rare gem stones to you. You just think the crows are really good at finding nice rocks.

Stalker Sylus who knows your cycle, and whenever you're on your period will send your comfort foods. You think it's weird that they keep delivering food and snacks to the wrong address, but you feel too dog shit to care and take it anyway. There's no return label, after all, and you don't want it to go to waste.

Stalker Sylus who sees you got a speeding ticket and erases it from your record. You go to pay it, but they have never heard of you. The cop that pulled you over was also mysteriously demoted.

Stalker Sylus who is absolutely furious when Granny's house goes up in flames because it was almost you. He and the twins take a keen interest in finding out exactly who it was, because Sylus has no intention on letting any of them live. The twins are completely on board because they've technically been stalking you as well, and decided they like you.

Stalker Sylus who has the twins follow the car when you get taken to the N109 Zone so he could give you a proper introduction when he "saves" you.

Stalker Sylus who is genuinely surprised when you're hostile to him before he remembers...he knows everything about you and all your little quirks...but you haven't actually met yet.

Stalker Sylus who has no clue what to do about you not knowing him. When you shoot him he's more entertained, because he does know everything about you, so this truly caught him off guard.

Stalker Sylus who is told the reason you can't resonate is because you're disgusted by him, and he briefly wonders how much you'd hate him if you found out he's been stalking you for years.

Stalker Sylus who is thanking everything when the evol linkage kept you two together. It was like Christmas. Best day of his life knowing you legit couldn't get away from him. After the linkage lets up, this man is trying to find out how to trigger it again. He's spending more time with you when you'll allow it for small experiments. The moment he finds out the trigger it's over for you. This man will do it at least twice a week.

Stalker Sylus who's finally able to get you to date him after he pulls all the stops out. He does know you better than anyone else, so it wasn't hard for him really. He knew all your favorite meals, what gifts you liked, date locations, etc. You think he's just very attentive...which he is.

Stalker Sylus who will do everything he can to get you to stay with him in the N109 zone at every opportunity. When you can't stay there, you find him lounging around your apartment because he "needed a safe house"

So ya...Stalker Sylus...did I just accidentally make a basic plot for a fic series? Ah look at what I did now. I wrote this in a solid 30 minutes and now it could be a story. Too bad I ain't writing it (you can't see me but I just put on some sunglasses and gave a smug chad face)