vii

i also no longer post on ao3 or wattpad, only quotev!

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what i plan to post here: -creepypasta (mainly) -occasional fandom content (feel free to give requests; i am familiar with a wide range of fandoms) -random thoughts -writing excerpts and additional work -wip posts

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asks and requests: my inbox is open for both! ~though i will take days, if not weeks, to answer

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masterlist coming soon

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tags: #vii writes - random writings #vii asks - used when answering questions or requests #vii hns - everything about hide and seek #vii art - self-explanatory #vii stuff - mostly used for info or nav, like this one

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Characteristics: ~He has no understanding of personal space. His idea of being near someone is standing directly behind them without making a sound. You would turn around and nearly walk into his chest constantly. ~His medical knowledge is real, though he occasionally says things that remind you how differently he sees the human body now. You have to ask him to stop identifying ways you could die. ~He may follow/stalk you without telling you. When confronted, he sees no reason to deny it. He understands attachment as attention. ~His responses depend entirely on what kind of mood you are in. If you are spiraling or anxious, he picks up on the sudden spike in your heart rate and breathing instantly. Because he doesn't know how to offer gentle, comforting words, his version of helping is brutally direct: he will either track down whatever is stressing you out and try to kill it, or he will simply stand around until you finally snap and vent at him. On the other hand, if you are feeling quiet and contemplative, he adapts to that too. You can sit in absolute silence with him for hours without any pressure to speak, or you can just talk at him—venting, rambling, or hashing out your thoughts while he sits motionless, listening to every word without interrupting. In the case your personality leans being more decisive, hotheaded, or stubbornly proactive, he is entirely content ceding everything and being in a passive role. You can drag him out, tell him what to do, or make every decision for the both of you, and he will go along with it without a single word of complaint (selfish plug because i personally enjoy irrationally angry x docile ej). He is also entirely comfortable holing up in a room with you for days if you’re feeling up to it. Whatever you want to do, he agrees to, provided you manage to keep a low enough profile that you don't accidentally draw the cops or the wrong kind of attention around. ~Being eyeless does not make Jack unaware of you. If anything, he notices far more than most people do. He knows when you are smiling because your voice changes slightly, but he cannot explain exactly how. He recognizes you by the rhythm of your footsteps before you enter a room, when you're approaching even in a crowded place, the way you breathe when you are tired, and the subtle changes in your heartbeat when something is wrong. ~Eventually, he begins associating those certain rhythms with specific emotions because he cannot always identify those emotions within himself anymore. Likewise, he initially assumes your heartbeat is a more reliable measure of emotion than your words; if you say you are fine while your pulse is racing, he believes your body instead. It takes him time to understand that people can be physically anxious without being afraid, or that excitement and fear can sound nearly identical. Even then, he becomes especially confused when your heart rate changes around him. He can tell that you are reacting to his presence, but he cannot immediately determine whether the reaction is fear, attraction, anticipation, or all three.   ~He also knows your scent well enough to tell when you have been somewhere unfamiliar. Smoke, rain, dust, another person's perfume, blood, unfamiliar detergent—he notices all of it. He's wired to it, and the longer he lingers in your space, the more intoxicated he becomes by it. Your skin, the fabric of your clothes, the subtle salt of your sweat...it all acts as a slow-acting fixative that drives him insane, a craving that intensifies tenfold when he's running on empty and hasn't eaten in days.

Sleep:  ~Unlike humans, he doesn't experience normal nightly rest. Most of the time, he just sits in the dark, motionless and awake, watching you and tracking the neighborhood sounds. But once every few days, his body undergoes a total systemic crash—a dead, terrifyingly deep sleep where his breathing stops or slows to an imperceptible crawl, leaving him entirely unresponsive. He cannot be woken from it. It is the only time he is truly defenseless, which is precisely why he prefers to slip back to your apartment to weather it, using your home as a place where he can drop his guard into that absolute, unawakenable slumber, trusting (in whatever twisted way he manages attachment) that you will still be there when he finally wakes up later.

Physicality: ~Jack is enormous. Not merely tall, but dense. His body is built (or molted) like something designed to overpower. Even when he is standing still, there is an uncomfortable sense that he could break you without much effort. He is conscious of the size difference; by contrast, he does not seem to understand that his size affects ordinary interactions. He will lean down until his face is directly in front of yours without realizing how intimidating it is. He also frequently forgets that you cannot simply reach things the way he can. ~His claws are not decorative. They are quite dangerous weapons, and he uses them efficiently. He keeps them clean because dried blood beneath them irritates him. Similarly, he is strangely meticulous about hygiene. Considering what he eats, you expect him to be filthy. Instead, he is almost obsessive about cleaning himself after feeding. The smell of blood bothers him once the hunger has passed.

Insecurity: ~Jack is unexpectedly self-conscious. He knows that people are afraid of him, and he expects disgust before anyone has a chance to express it. He is particularly aware of his appearance, although he would never openly admit it. If you stare at his face for too long, he becomes uncomfortable. Likewise, he goes still if you touch him first. Not that he dislikes it (he certainly likes it), but because he does not know what you are seeing. ~Compliments confuse him. It usually ends up going something like this: “You look nice.” “No.” “That…wasn’t a question? Hey, where are you going??” In truth, he doesn’t know how to respond to affection verbally, so he often just leaves. ~He is particularly uncomfortable with being seen while eating. It has never happened before and he intends to keep it that way. He doesn’t want you to see the parts of him that feel most obviously inhuman, and even if you reassure him that you are not afraid, he won’t believe you. After all, you would be lying; he has watched your body react to him too many times. And although he does not apologize for needing to eat, he may apologize for frightening you.

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hunting & feeding

~You reacted to his cannibalism like a normal person: with disgust, fear, anger, and the persistent question of whether associating with him makes you complicit. You do not find it quirky. The first time you see evidence of a feeding, you are sick afterward. You never get used to the smell, and you certainly never romanticize it. The copper tang of a fresh kill clings to him even after he washes, and the knowledge of what is under his fingernails turns your stomach. When he comes back from a hunt, there is just the horrifying, visceral reality of a serial killer returning to a safehouse, your house. You have screamed at him, thrown things at him, and spent entire nights dry-heaving in the bathroom, and he only watches your revulsion with a blank, heavy stare. He feels conflicted because hunger to him is mechanical, but he hates that it disgusts you, mostly because it reminds him of the gulf between what he is and what you need him to be. ~At least he isn’t constantly killing. At most, his hunger drives him out every other day during a bad stretch; at least, he can go a few weeks of relative quiet where he just sticks around. You know the cadence of it too well by now. You can track the shift in his posture days before he goes, the way his stillness becomes more rigid, the way he tracks you with a heavier, more intense focus. By then, you usually push him out to feed in case he decides to eat you. ~He knows you despise when he hunts. He knows the mere mention of what he does makes you sick, so he doesn't talk about it, and he actively tries to keep the aftermath away from your eyes. Purposefully, he times his absences around your vulnerability of sleep during the night, so that he can feed, clean himself meticulously, and slide back through your window just before you wake up at dawn. ~His interest in organs is not entirely hunger. There is also a clinical fascination behind it. He knows what they look like, how they function, and how quickly they fail. The kidney fixation is difficult to separate from the rest of him. He genuinely enjoys the taste, but he also fixates on their anatomy in detail. ~After one too many violent fights over his midnight hunts, you tried desperately to find a loophole. You started hauling home heavy butcher's paper wrapped in plastic from the supermarket: raw beef, bloody organ meats, anything with enough iron to satisfy the biological demand without him tearing someone apart in a back alley. It was a miserable experiment. He can technically sustain himself on animal protein, but to him, it tastes horribly distinct from his preferred palate. Through trial and error, you eventually mapped out the narrow overlap between what keeps him from going feral and what you can stomach feeding him. It's all itemized on a paper you stick to the fridge. ~He surprisingly doesn't mind raw fish, provided it has a very specific preparation: you have to sear only the outer layer over an open flame until it’s blackened and crisp, leaving the inside completely raw and cold. Standing in your kitchen at two in the morning, blowtorching the edges of a massive raw salmon fillet so a serial-killer urban legend can eat it off a paper plate, is a new low in domesticity you never anticipated. ~When he does tolerate other alternative foods, his preferences are deeply unsettling. He likes things intensely metallic or heavily salted, occasionally crunching down on raw ice cubes just for the jarring sensory distraction. He has zero appreciation for flavor profiles, but he is obsessed with temperature extremes, meaning either things that are ice-cold or scorched directly from the fire. You’ve occasionally caught him eating things that defy explanation, but you don't question it. Another weird sustenance, another safe human.

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First impressions:  ~When you first meet him, you do not know his face. You know the mask: the smooth blue surface, the black eyeholes, and the fact that he appears in places where there should be no one. For a while, you genuinely believe the mask is his face, and perhaps you would’ve preferred if that were the case. The first time you see him without it is not romantic. You walk in unexpectedly and catch him cleaning blood from his hands. His skin is ashen gray and uneven, stretched tightly in some places and peeling in others. The empty sockets are worse without the mask because there is nothing obscuring the fact that there should be eyes there. It was surely a…surreal experience. ~Your first impression otherwise was probably that he was stalking you, simply appearing nearby often with no explanation. You would notice him in places where no person should reasonably go, like crouched on a roof, sitting in a tree, or standing motionless, creepily, at the end of a hallway.

Names:  ~When he says your name, he almost always uses a shortened version or simply gets your attention physically. But he does like to say it at random times occasionally, particularly when he doesn't even want anything or if you aren’t even in danger; he just likes testing the sound of it in his throat, treating your name like a strange, foreign word he's trying to memorize so he doesn't forget it. ~On the other hand, he doesn't really consider himself "Jack" anymore, having long since detached from whatever humanity or identity that label belonged to, but he still answers to it out of sheer habit. Likewise, he doesn't care whether you say his name or not, and unlike the tropes on the internet, he thinks arguing over whether to call him "Jack" or "Eyeless Jack" is a completely pointless distinction. You could probably call him almost anything, and as long as you're intending it at him when you say it, he’ll react.

Fear: ~You never stopped being afraid of him, and he knows it. Even after all this time, the terror never entirely fades out of your system, and you live in a state of semi-vigilance, constantly bracing yourself because he is still too silent and unpredictable. When you get scared and shrink back, he notices every single reaction. He doesn't offer flowery reassurances, and he doesn't even try to soothe the panic. He knows it wouldn't make it better so he simply doesn't try at all. Maybe, eventually, you can learn how to live with it.

Conflicts: ~He understands your anger better than sadness. If you are angry, he stays nearby. If you are crying, then he becomes visibly uncertain. He learns that you sometimes need to be left alone, but he never goes far. Even when giving you space, he remains close enough to hear you. (He simply assumes that if you are his person, he should know where you are and whether you are safe) Some days it's endearing; on other days, it's simply aggravating. ~There is no emotional processing with him. If an argument gets too heated, or if you start screaming at him about his kills, the hypocrisy of his protection, or just the absolute horror, he doesn't shout back. A heavy, suffocating silence drops between you, and the next time you turn around, he is simply gone. He will vanish for days, sometimes a week, leaving you alone in the quiet house with your own nervous mind wondering if he left for good or if he’s just sitting on a dark roof somewhere letting your temper cool. ~He hates discussing his past, or really anything besides daily life and you. You likely won’t be able to pry anything out of him for a long time, and even then, you have to get the pieces from elsewhere. If you talk about any of it to him, he becomes instantly dangerous. The air goes dead. His jaw tightens, his claws instinctively flex against whatever surface is near, and the cold hatred bleeds into the room. ~His relationship with you would mainly be difficult partly because you know both versions of him exist. You know he can carefully stitch your wounds without causing unnecessary pain, but you also know those same hands have opened people apart. He does not know how to reconcile those things for you, so he generally does not try.

Affection:  ~Jack has to consciously remember that human bodies are fragile. His natural sense of pressure is completely overhauled. What feels like a light touch to him can leave a bruise, and you have to teach him through trial and error. ~He then becomes unusually attentive to injuries because pain is one of the few human experiences left he can understand in a direct way. He's careful around you in an awkward, overcorrecting way. At first, for example, after you complained that his grip hurt, he would hold your wrist with only two fingers or hover his hand near your back without actually touching you. After that, he became visibly careful around you, even if it was strange—after all, no one ever needed to be worried about hurting prey. ~Everything about whatever tangled dynamic existed between you was fundamentally abnormal, but he is naturally very physical. His version of spending time together is sitting nearby, no need for conversation or an activity; if you are in the same room, that is enough. His habits include resting his head against you, and because he is so large, this is often extremely inconvenient and not to mention, messy. ~Similarly, his first disastrous attempts at hugging are essentially restraining you. You have to explain that affection is not supposed to make breathing difficult, but he likes having you tucked against his side because he can keep track of where you are. ~He is constantly warm. Not necessarily in a comforting human way, but more like an animal with an unusually high body temperature. ~He would never say this, but he has a bizarrely heavy-handed fixation on size dynamics. He likes it when you have to physically climb over him or wedge yourself into his space just to get by, treating you almost like something small and warm in a comforting human way. He also likes to imagine that you're dependent on his restraint to stay alive because of some weird, fucked-up control fantasy in him wanting the stark contrast between his massive, slaughterhouse-built frame and your fragile humanity.  ~Beneath all of that, he does have a deeply physical, almost compulsive obsession with you that goes beyond just being in the same room. As mentioned earlier, he likes your natural scent, when you sweat, your bare skin against his ashen palms, the steady thrum of your heartbeat and the churn of your organs beneath your ribs, the texture of your flesh, all of it. If you get a small paper cut or a minor scrape, his attention instantly zeroes in on it with a strange laser-focused intensity; sometimes he might lean in and suck the drop away directly, entirely comforted by anything he can get his hands on, so long as he toes the line carefully enough to not make you too uncomfortable. ~The relationship is not soft, and there are too many arguments. He is protective in a way that can become invasive because his understanding of danger is much broader than yours. It borders on the territoriality of a predator securing a kill. He views you as his in the most literal unsettling sense, similar to how an apex predator regards the only thing in the wilderness it hasn't torn apart.

Domestic life: ~He doesn't knock, and he doesn't use the front door like a normal person. You might wake up at three in the morning to the heavy thud of a window sliding open or the floorboards groaning under a weight that shouldn't be inside your apartment. You’ve stopped locking the bedroom door at night because you know if he wants to get in, he will, and arguing about boundary lines with someone who can rip a deadbolt out of the frame is a waste of breath. ~Living with him means accepting a profound lack of normalcy. He doesn't contribute to rent, he doesn't eat human groceries, and his idea of "helping around the house" is physically removing things or people that irritate you or him. If you try to complain, he simply won't engage until you run out of breath. ~The surreal horror of your daily routine hits a peak whenever you turn on the evening news. While he sits across the room methodically cleaning his scalpels, the local anchor is talking about the ongoing panic over an organ-stealing serial killer operating in the suburbs, complete with descriptions of the blue-masked assailant and frantic warnings for residents to lock their doors. You look from the television screen to the towering, gray-skinned nightmare sitting in your living room, the blue mask laid off to the side. The whole situation always leaves you to deal with the constant grinding anxiety that his presence is going to bring the wrong kind of attention to your doorstep. You don't know whether you dislike it or enjoy it.

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extras

~On a more positive note, before you, his existence was an endless monotonous blur of survival, wandering, and the mechanical drive to feed. He didn't exactly keep his hobbies, schedules, or distractions, if there were any to begin with. After inserting himself into your life, however, he realizes how agonizingly dull eternity used to be. Suddenly, there are hours filled with strange, trivial human routines as he watches you pace around the apartment, dealing with your frustration, or simply sitting in the corner tracking your movements. It gives his endless time an entertainment he didn't know he was missing. ~He cannot see your expressions, so you eventually learn that facial reactions are useless unless you make a sound. You can roll your eyes directly at him, and he will not know, and you take advantage of this constantly. ~He never learned to read braille, and human text holds no visual appeal for him. Instead, he likes to sit completely still in the dark while you read out loud to him just to fill the dead air. He doesn't care about high literature, poetry, or whatever complex plot you're invested in; in fact, he finds most of it utterly baffling. He couldn't care less about art, music, or whatever ridiculous soap opera drama is playing on the screen, but he will listen if you’re the one speaking or if you liked something and wanted to discuss it with him. ~Because he explores places ordinary humans can't reach, he occasionally brings back weird trinkets from his excursions and leaves them on your kitchen counter without a word of explanation. A rusted brass gear from an old clocktower, a peculiar smooth stone from a riverbed, or a pristine vintage key he fished out of a storm drain. He never says why he picked them up or why he brought those particular things to you, but you try not to throw them away by accident.

You pressed your back harder against the stainless steel counter, phone clutched tightly in your grip, listening to the hurried whispers bleeding through the wood.

"I t-told you-fuck!" Toby’s voice hissed, pitched way too high for a conversation happening outside a victim's door. "Y-you know, at the-at the thing, T-tim! What the fuck-fuck- do you want me t-to d-d-d?—"

"Shut up," You heard Tim’s gruff, low voice. "If you hadn't spent the first twenty minutes trying to sniff the door like a goddamn stray dog, we wouldn't be in this—fuck, stop moving." A dull thud echoed right against your baseboards as whatever bundle they were carrying hit the carpet, heavy and lifeless.

Lifeless. A body. You shivered, a cold spike of dread hitting the base of your spine, listening to their argument while your thumb slammed down on the keypad, dialing three digits with shaking urgency, pressing the phone frantically to your ear, trying not to wonder which poor soul got wiped of their life. Come on. Ring, you piece of shit. The screen lit up, but instead of the cadence of an outgoing call, absolutely dead silence met your ear, and you tore the phone away from your ear and stared down at the display. The signal bars at the top were completely grayed out, replaced by an empty circle with a slash through it. No service. Not even an emergency call could push through.

What in the actual fuck.

You stared at it, panic tightening your chest. You rebooted the screen, hitting redial, even turned the fucker off while they were outside bickering like married couples, tapping the screen like it was broken. Nothing. Total, impenetrable static. How? A standard phone didn't just lose signal like that unless—

Before you could panic further, a light knock rattled at your door. Tim's muffled voice followed with a weary layer of faux-hospitality, though the rough, gravelly edge of a man used to violence still grated underneath.

"Y/N, was it?" Tim called out, his tone conversational. "Don't bother with the phone. Your landlines are cut and the cell towers are scrambled by a jammer." A pause stretched, before his voice dropped. "So save yourself the headache and open the door before we decide to take it off the hinges."

You didn’t answer. Your back was glued to the counter, listening to the heavy thumping of your own heart in your ears. It felt so overwhelmingly, depressingly sad that it was probably going to stop beating in the next five minutes. All those hours spent scrupulously over your splenetic work, all those early-morning inventory lists with Viv, your only other friend, all those late nights avoiding complaints about clogged toilets...reduced to a pathetic little statistical death in a shabby apartment complex. Worse, your own shabby apartment complex. What an embarrassing death.

Your brain, desperately seeking any lifeboat, drifted to your other otherwise sane tenants. One of them had to be awake. The old couple in 3C stayed up late watching QVC at full volume; the college kids in 5B practically lived on nocturnal schedules fueled by cheap energy drinks and bad video games. Surely, surely they heard the commotion. Why wasn't anyone calling the cops? Right, the jammer. Did no one care if you lived or died? Why the hell wasn’t the dog in 6A barking its head off? That mutt usually barked if a leaf brushed against the window, but tonight it was dead silent, as if even the animals knew better than to draw attention to themselves.

Fuck me sideways. What the hell were you even supposed to do now? You didn't want to be involved in this, not at all. Nothing ever. At all. Now that you really thought about it, and you really wished you hadn't, those stains on the carpet where they'd dragged the tarp weren't rust or mud. There had been dark, wet red smears. Bright, unmistakable crimson. All over your carpet.

Maybe it was roadkill? your brain helpfully supplied, grasping at the most ridiculous straw imaginable, without even trying to grapple with how much that would cost to clean. Yeah, just a really big deer or something. Fuck, maybe you're going to have to clean that off the hallway carpet later... that is not the thing to be worried about.

...And it definitely wasn't roadkill. There was zero denial left: they had killed someone. 

They murdered someone. But for what? What could anyone possibly have done to deserve getting shrink-wrapped in a tarp and dragged across cheap industrial carpeting? Looking at them, it was pretty obvious these guys weren't professional urban assassins used to operating in tight apartment buildings. Then again, they have a cellphone jammer.

Outside the door, a heavy sound shifted against the floorboards. "Y/N," Tim's voice said again, closer this time, right against the wood. "Last chance. Unlock the door, we just wanna talk."

You nearly laughed, pushing off the counter, taking a step toward the door, your voice shaking only a fraction as you threw it back at them, loud enough to ring clearly. "Discuss what, exactly?" you called out. "The chance that I could maybe keep my neck intact? Any other vital parts of my body? Because I'm kind of attached to them!"

You didn't want to die. You really, really didn't want to die. Outside, the shuffling paused.

"Please," you pleaded nonsensically. "Please, just... let me go out through the door, or the window, or anywhere else. I won't look, I swear  I won't look at anything. Just let me go."

"Open the door, Y/N," Tim’s voice rumbled back, losing whatever friendly veneer he had left. It was flat sounding, much like when you first met him.

"Let's not kid ourselves here!" you fired back, now rambling angrily. "No, obviously you're just gonna charge in and snap my neck or turn me into human sushi like you did to that poor...whatever was even in that tarp." The indignation was a surprisingly effective shield against the cold void of absolute panic.

"And so what?!" you were feeling yourself spit. "You had a body in the trunk the whole time or something? What, were you driving around looking for a place to ditch it and just decided my building looked good? What the fuck are you even doing?! I didn't even finish filing your paperwork!"

Complete silence.

Then a sigh. "No," he said through the door. "We weren't looking for somewhere to dump it."

You frowned. That meant they really had just killed it. Or him. Or her. Whatever could help you cope with this bullshit answer. What else could they even be doing, interior decorating with a corpse? Before you could dissect the lunacy of that statement, Toby popped back into the conversation, his voice pitching high and anxious.

"A-and look, don't worry!" Toby blurted out, the words tumbling over each other with their usual stuttering momentum. "We-fuck, we won't kill you! R-right, Tim? We're not gonna..."

Silence descended again, heavy and suffocating. You stared blankly at the deadbolt holding your life together. "I'm pretty sure you're the only one in that hallway who agrees with that, Toby."

Nobody corrected you.

You let out a slow, trembling breath, your mind involuntarily flashing back to all those past negotiations with terrible tenants, those nostalgic screaming matches, endless excuses, the exhaustingness of trying to reason with unreasonable people. Your heartbeat had yet to return to anything resembling normal, but years of property management had trained some deeply unhealthy part of your brain to start looking for compromise the second people started yelling. Not that anyone was yelling.

Alright, you thought grimly. Negotiation. This was just that, scaled up to an apocalyptic, homicidal degree, with your life on the line. You closed your eyes, rubbing your temples. 

"What... what do you guys want?"

Silence. 

For you to open the door so they can murder you and hide your body in a tarp, too. Okay, thanks, brain, very invaluable contribution. Your eyes darted around your cramped, flour-dusted little kitchen. If they were here to do their business... if this was just some horribly misguided pit stop...

"Look," you called out, forging ahead anyway, because if there was one thing terror had done, it was remove whatever filter normally stopped you from saying objectively ridiculous things that sounded pathetic even to your own ears. "...maybe I can still offer you the place to stay? I mean, look, you've already signed the lease. You've paid first month's rent."

Not a sound. This was, without question, the single worst tenant interview of your life.

"I don't exactly love the murder thing, obviously, homicide is a pretty significant downside in prospective neighbors, but technically speaking it's not listed anywhere as prohibited conduct in the rental agreement paperwork."

Dear god. You'd officially hit rock bottom. The words hung there in the silence, so profoundly absurd that even you struggled to believe you'd just said them out loud. If somebody had told you yesterday that your professional experience as a landlord would culminate in attempting to negotiate a rental agreement with what appeared to be three serial killers standing outside your apartment, you would've recommended they seek immediate psychiatric assistance. Then you decided that you did need therapy after this, if you survived. Maybe you could take them along. If you survived.

"I could..." You rubbed your forehead. "I don't know. I could overlook tonight? And we can just... pretend nothing happened?"

No I fucking couldn't. The second they walked away or gave you a single inch of breathing room, you were going to rip that signal jammer out and smash it, or run until you found a working landline, and dial 911 so fast your fingers would smoke.

"I just want to stay alive, please," you babbled on, the absurdity of the entire situation reaching critical mass. "I don't know if you can tell, but I'm still too young to die, and I need to make money. My parents would be really upset. If I disappear, it’s another nightmare you don't wanna be responsible for."

Still, absolute silence met your desperate pitch, not even the courtesy of an awkward cough.

You stared at the ceiling for a long, painful moment, wondering if this was genuinely the last conversation of your life, and if so, whether the official transcript would forever record your final plea to a group of killers as please don't murder me because I'm a little whiny shit.

Your ears caught another voice then, lower than the others and too muffled to make out through the wood, little more than a calm murmur exchanged somewhere, probably Tim-adjacent. Tim himself answered just as quietly, another sentence lost beneath the thickness of the door, followed by the scrape of boots shifting against carpet and the unmistakable sound of the tarp being dragged a few inches before stopping again. They weren't arguing anymore; they were deciding something, what for you would've gladly traded your soul to understand.

The tiny kitchen suddenly felt even smaller than it had an hour ago, every inch of it painfully familiar. Your eyes tore away from the door and swept across your apartment instead, searching desperately for something that resembled an exit, and there was one obvious answer. The same window that caused this entire shit. Brick wall on one side, empty air on the other. First floor. Civilization. Without thinking twice, you lunged toward it, nearly tripping over the chair in your haste, almost knocking it over in the process, fingers fumbling with the stubborn latch before finally wrenching it upward. Cold air rushed inside, carrying the stale smell of wet pavement.

You leaned halfway out, your heartbeat surging with a desperate flicker of hope, but the street was empty, like the last time you looked.  Completely, unnaturally empty. No passing cars. No late-night drunk stumbling home. No dog walker. No taxi. Even the traffic light across the intersection cycled dutifully between red and green for absolutely nobody. Not a fucking thing.

"...You've got to be kidding me."

You craned your neck farther, searching both ends of the block as if people might materialize out of sheer pity. Nothing. The nearby forest, normally incapable of shutting the hell up for more than thirty consecutive seconds, had gone eerily still, leaving only the sound of your own breathing. Every apartment across the narrow alley sat black and lifeless, curtains drawn, as though the entire building had collectively decided tonight was the perfect night to sleep through your impending murder. "Help!" you hissed experimentally into the darkness before immediately grimacing. If they hadn't heard the shouting already, whispering wasn't about to change that.

This time, the silence finally broke in front of your wall. "Open the door," Tim said, his voice as flat and unreadable as ever. "We'll talk."

You lowered the window with considerably less confidence than you'd opened it, gaze drifting toward the counter instead, almost as if you hadn't heard the words. Knives. You grabbed the largest one on instinct before immediately looking down at it. It was a bread knife. You looked at the serrated blade in your hand, imagined attempting to fend off three grown men with what amounted to an opinionated baguette cutter, and slowly set it back on the counter, reaching for the knife block instead, bypassing the paring knives and the dull utility blades until your fingers wrapped around the heavy handle of the eight-inch chef's knife. Now that was a knife. It had some weight to it, a solid, cold steel heft that made you feel approximately two percent less like a walking victim.

You swallowed hard before raising your voice toward the door. You gripped the knife tight, the rubber handle already slick against your sweaty palm.

"...Okay."

Dear Lord, you prayed, closing your eyes tight, despite not having set foot in a church since your mother dragged you to Easter mass a couple of years ago. If you're up there, please forgive me for every time I overcharged for late rent, even if it was their fault. Forgive me for wishing pestilence upon my loving tenants. I would like to stay alive to be more benevolent, receive more love, and be more deserving of another life than to die right now. I have never hurt a fly in my life, and if you get me out of this, I will learn how to roundhouse kick someone legally. Just give me good odds, or at least let my ghost haunt whoever kills me until they go bald. Thanks.

You took a deep, shaky breath, leveled the knife at the door like a complete lunatic, and called out, your voice cracking slightly. "You've got weapons? Throw them down the hallway."

Silence.

"And leave..." Your eyes squeezed shut as you forced yourself to acknowledge the thing they'd been dragging. "...leave the tarp where it is. Please."

The silence that followed stretched long enough for you to wonder if they'd simply walked away. Your grip tightened around the knife until your grip shook, the point wavering ever so slightly with every uneven breath you dragged into your lungs. It wasn't courage keeping your hand steady so much as instinct, the same stubborn instinct that made cornered animals bare their teeth despite knowing perfectly well they were hopelessly outmatched.

"We're leaving the tarp," Tim said at last. "The hallway's clear. Open the door."

"The weapons?" you managed.

Another pause followed, quieter this time, punctuated by the distinct metallic clatter of something heavy striking the hallway carpet. Then another. Then what sounded like a third object skidding several feet farther away.

"Happy?"

...Not even remotely. And you'll be damned if you actually believe them. Your eyes drifted toward the deadbolt, then to the chain lock above it, then to the second lock you'd installed after some guy tried drunkenly opening the wrong apartment three nights in a row. Funny. You'd spent years adding extra security to this place, convinced one day it'd save your life from burglars, break-ins, or one particularly determined ex-partner of a tenant. You hadn't anticipated serial killers.

Your fingers found the first lock. Click. Then the second. Click. The chain rattled loud enough to make you flinch. Mitch would be disappointed at how easy they came undone. Every instinct you possessed screamed at you to stop. Lock everything again. Drag the refrigerator in front of the door. Jump out the window. Start digging a tunnel through the floor if you had to. Instead, you swallowed around the lump in your throat and kept going.

The final lock came free beneath trembling fingers.

You kept one hand wrapped around the knife while the other settled on the doorknob. The thought of actually using a blade made your stomach twist. The thought of hurting anything didn't appeal to you at all. You've baked bread with these knives. You chopped herbs with them. The closest you'd ever come to violence was accidentally nicking your thumb while slicing onions, or maybe putting a fish out of its misery. You weren't a person who stabbed other people, and you desperately hoped they weren't about to force you to become one.

But the agonizing weight of the anticipation, the torturous inertia of waiting for the other shoe to drop, snapped something inside you. Fuck this. Instead of cautiously cracking the door open, you yanked it wide open in one explosive second of blind panic before you could lose your mind entirely. The door flew open far harder than you'd intended, rebounding against the stopper with a crack that echoed through the hallway, and before any of them could react, you stepped out. Your other hand came up instinctively, the knife gripped tight, pointing dead ahead, glinting under the light. It was glaringly obvious from the white-knuckled, trembling way you held it that you had never threatened a living soul in your life. The message wasn't I'm going to carve you up, but rather an instinctive Don't you fucking dare come any closer.

Tim stood closest, exactly where you'd expected him to be, and he jerked half a step forward out of sheer reflex, his boots scuffing the carpet. Toby lingered several feet behind him, eyes darting immediately, not toward the knife, but toward you. The third masked and hooded man, quieter than the others, hadn't moved at all. None of them looked especially alarmed. None of them looked amused, either.

Tim's gaze flicked briefly to the blade before returning to your face.

"Figured you'd bring one," he said evenly.

The complete lack of surprise somehow offended you on a deeply personal level. "Well, what was I supposed to come out with?" you shot back before your mouth could consult your brain. "A rolling pin? A welcome basket?"

Toby started laughing, borderline cackling in the awkward silence, breath hitching in weird intervals, before his shoulder jerking and immediately pretending he hadn't. You stared at them, the knife wavering between a threat and a kitchen utensil.

You were actually feeling a bit sleepy. The human brain is miraculous. "Okay," you breathed out, your grip loosening just a fraction on the rubber handle as the adrenaline began to crash exponentially, leaving behind a cold and nauseating wave of exhaustion. "Okay. Let's pretend I am not currently holding a knife. Let's pretend you didn't just kill someone. What do you want?"

Standing this close to them was somehow worse than shouting through a locked door had been. Up close, Tim's mask erased every tiny human thing your brain kept searching for without permission. A smooth white mask.Thick, painted black brows sat permanently angled into an expression somewhere between annoyance and indifference. Hollow eyeholes swallowed whatever expression lay behind them, and the painted mouth, little more than a black slash, never changed no matter who spoke. It was like trying to negotiate with a badly drawn warning sign. Nevertheless, a warning sign.

When he finally spoke, the voice that emerged from beneath it remained frustratingly ordinary. Human. "We have business to do here."

You blinked.

"You'll let us stay here. You'll keep quiet about what you see." His head tilted almost imperceptibly toward the bundled tarp lying several feet down the hallway. "In exchange, you keep breathing." It was delivered with the same practical tone you might use to explain rent was due on the first. You stared at him for several long seconds, and as you studied him, a weird realization began to creep through the haze of your exhaustion. Your knife remained raised out of habit more than conviction, though even you could feel your wrist beginning to ache from holding it there.

"...You don't actually like killing people," you heard yourself say before your survival instinct could tape your mouth shut.

They weren't gleeful psychopaths painting the walls for fun; they looked more like miserable bastards stuck executing some grim, tedious chore they probably hated doing as much as you hated doing inventory. As horrifying as the situation was, that specific detail was weirdly, comfortingously relatable. You could work with reluctance.

Tim regarded you through those empty eyeholes for several seconds before answering. "We do what we're sent to do."

There wasn't pride in it. There wasn't remorse, either, but maybe you just missed something. There was only an unsettling sort of certainty if you didn't pry too much.

"...Well," you muttered weakly, lowering the knife by perhaps an inch without even realizing it, "I personally would've picked literally any other career path." 

Nobody laughed. You winced slightly, a tiny, involuntary twitch of your nose at the stupidity of running your mouth when you were technically staring down the barrel of an executioner's gun. Still, you felt that strange, desperate spark of hope. They didn't want a bloodbath. If they wanted a bloodbath, you’d have been dead three minutes ago through the wall. You let out a slow breath, shifting the weight of the knife in your hand. 

"Fine," you whispered. "If we're doing this, we're setting ground rules. Right now."

Tim stayed quiet, longer than necessary, as if he was trying to understand whether you were brave, stupid, or simply incapable of realizing when a situation was beyond your control. To be fair, you were just begging/pleading with him to let you go earlier through the wall.

"Ground rules," you reiterated, holding up a finger to punctuate the point. "One: I don't call the police or tell anyone. And in exchange, because I'm assuming, and honestly praying to whatever gods are listening, that you don't actually want to add more innocents to your itinerary, you don't hurt me, you don't hurt my cat, or any animals in that regard, and you don't hurt a single soul in this building besides whatever specific, horrible 'business' brought you here tonight."

Tim stared at you silently. No one interrupted.

"Two," you pressed on. "We pretend nothing is wrong. You act like normal, deeply miserable tenants who are just really bad at moving large pieces of furniture at odd hours. No rampages in the common areas. No carrying around loose weapons or bloody tarps where anyone can see them."

"We normally hide it better," Tim said flatly.

"I want us all to pretend we're having a completely normal day so I don't have a heart attack," you said, narrowing your eyes. "In case you're wondering, it is in my genetics. And if you need to move anything, you wait until daylight like civilized criminals, or you do it quietly. You also have to clean my ruined hallway carpet later."

A heavy silence settled. For a long, agonizing moment, you wondered if you had pushed your luck too far, if your absurdly lease-bound bravado was about to get your throat slit.

Then, Tim gave a slow nod. "Fair enough."

"Right. Moving on. Three, you don't involve me in any of your... whatever this is if you get caught. If things go sideways for you, I am completely out of it. We do the absolute bare minimum to keep this arrangement from collapsing, and the day you finally break your lease and walk out that door, we've never met." You were very much looking forward to that.

Tim stared at you through those hollow eyeholes, his voice dropping slightly. "You don't need to worry about that."

The casually absolute certainty in his tone caught you completely off-guard, a cold knot tightening instantly in your stomach. Worry about what? Did they have an exit strategy, or did "not having to worry about it" mean something far more permanent for anyone who knew they were here? Your mouth opened to ask, to pry just an inch to clarify, but your eyes flicked back down to the dark, ominous bulk of the tarp a few feet away. Right. These were murderers, no matter how much they sounded like exhausted humans right now. Prying into that felt like a fantastic way to end up dead next. You clamped your mouth shut hard, swallowing the question entirely.

Indeed, tonight, the project is pastries. Flour dusting the countertops, the sound of kneading dough, and the sweet smell of rising yeast filling your room. You're baking croissants from scratch. Didn't see that one coming, did you?

The last batch was put in the oven, and the magnificent, buttery scent was a victory in itself. You sat back on a chair, leaning against the counter, and watched the dough puff and brown through the oven door. It had been hours of methodical, focused work of precise measurements, chilling, and rolling and folding. A labor of love that most people would never understand. You weren't even sure you understood it. You hated this type of measured work, yet, here you were, finding a strange peace.

But to be fair, for all the serene quiet, this wasn't your niche, gentle hobby. Your small confectionery company, a side hustle, depended on this strange peace. Every puff and browning moment was a step closer to a new batch of orders being fulfilled, to another stack of hastily wrapped boxes ready for market stalls or local cafes. To be completely fair, you only liked it because it brought in some extra cash paired with the building-renting business.

Then again, it gave you something to do with your restless hands and quieted the empty hours of the night, when absolutely no one was calling you. 

The phone rang.

Speak of the fucking devil.

The shrill, demanding ring tone shattered the cozy quiet instantly. You leaned forward and reached for your phone, a perfectly functional brick looking thing with a slightly scratched screen and a familiar plastic casing. Swiping to unlock, your thumb automatically traced the worn patch on the screen where you always put it. It's 3 am, not that you really care, because there were still five hours until the first tenant of the day got up and started to complain.

The caller ID flashed up, and your eyes lit up slightly. The name on the screen wasn't just a chore. It was Vivian from the trade. You tapped the green icon and brought the device to your ear. "Hey Viv," you said, your voice immediately shifting from slightly distracted to engaged. "What's up?"

Vivian’s voice came through, bright and borderline chirpy. "Hope I didn't wake you, boss," she said, clearly knowing full well she hadn't.

You snorted. "Viv, you know damn well I don't sleep."

She laughed, that familiar, airy kind of laugh that said she had, in fact, slept eight uninterrupted hours and maybe even stretched when she woke up. Must be nice.

“Yeah, yeah, just checking. One day you'll surprise me and answer with a yawn or something.”

"Sure," you said. "Right after I win the lottery and develop a normal circadian rhythm."

Vivian let the silence hang before diving into the real reason she was calling. "Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads-up. The fall desserts? The pumpkin cream puffs and those apple caramel whatevertheyweres? Total hit. We sold out by noon, and one cafe already asked if they can double their order next week."

You groaned softly and let your head thump back against the cabinet behind you. The oven gave a soft ding, obnoxiously cheerful. Perfect timing. "So I’m assuming this isn’t just a fun update and you're about to say I need to make more."

"Correct. A lot more. I know it's a pain, but hey, people actually liked them, can you believe it? Someone said they were better than the ones in Paris."

"Someone needs to actually go to Paris, then," you muttered, dragging yourself to your feet and cracking your neck. "Alright fine. I'll put in another supply order tomorrow. I'm running low on butter anyway, and I think I’m down to my last bag of flour."

"Oof. That’s bad. You want me to check with the supplier down in Red Hook? See if they can do a rush on ingredients?"

“Yeah,” you said, already thinking about the math. “I’ll do a proper inventory later, but start making calls. And let the cafe know not to expect anything until Wednesday, or maybe Thursday, depending on how fast I can laminate dough.”

"Got it. I’ll make sure no one promises anything dumb. Oh! And before I forget, you did label those boxes for the Saturday market, right?" There was a pause. You looked toward the pile of boxes stacked in the corner, still unlabeled, untouched.

"...No."

Vivian groaned. "Come on, boss."

“I was elbow deep in croissant dough for five hours, Viv. You want me to bleed butter onto the labels too?”

She laughed again. “Alright, I’ll stop bothering you. Just wanted you to know you're wildly successful."

"Fantastic. You can celebrate by ordering me forty pounds of flour."

“Okay. Now nighty night,” she said with a grin in her voice. You hung up, staring at your phone for a moment before tossing it onto the counter with a dull thunk. The smell of golden, flaking pastry was overwhelming the room. You sighed, opened the oven, and pulled out the tray. Another batch done, another batch to go. Steam rose in soft spirals as you slid the tray onto the cooling rack, and you really hoped the smoke alarm wouldn’t decide to go off again. You’d baked six full trays this week, and it had only gone off once. Statistically, you were overdue.

You grabbed a croissant and tore it open with your fingers, ignoring the burn of hot pastry against your skin. The layers flaked apart just right. Still too hot to eat, but you bit in anyway, because what's a little mouth burn between you and a couple more hours of nothing but work?

You eyes skim over your small apartment room. It was, for lack of a better term, a triumph of questionable life choices. A single stainless steel counter ran the length of one wall, bisecting the room neatly. One half was a perfectly functional, if not slightly dated, kitchen with off-white laminate cabinets, a butcher block counter, a half stove, and an oven. Maybe even— BANG. There was a sudden crash of something right outside your window. You froze with croissant in your mouth, fingers still sticky with butter. Then pushing yourself up, you slid off the chair and headed for the window. The frame groaned as you forced it up, and the streetlights outside illuminated the scene: some debris and a strong smell of exhaust.

But the debris was just a broken terracotta pot. And the exhaust smell was probably just a passing truck. There was nothing else. 

You let the window slide back down with a thud. The croissant sat on the plate, the moon crescent of flaked pastry now cold and unappetizing. You leaned your forehead against the cool glass, pressing your palms flat, willing something to appear. Maybe it was just your imagination from lack of sleep? 

You pulled back slowly, frowning. Your instincts were never wrong. Sleep-deprived, sure. Dramatic, occasionally. But wrong? Not usually. Wiping your fingers on a dishtowel and grabbing your phone just in case, you stepped over the mess of floured cloths and empty butter wrappers, and opened your apartment door. The hallway was quiet, like you'd expect. You leaned your head out, first to the left. Nothing but industrial gray carpet. Then to the—

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" Hair. A face. 

A messy mop of brown hair, practically in your mouth because someone was standing way too close to your door, and now you were nose to nose with them. You stumbled back, heart doing a full gymnastics routine against your ribs, hoping you don't accidentally throw a punch. "Toby?! What the hell?!"

Toby, who had his thick navy hoodie on backwards and shoelaces untied, was looking very unapologetic. “H-hey Y/N,” he said with a jerk, like he hadn’t just jumpscared you out of your skin. He also sounded like he hasn’t had water for days. “I was... about to k-knock.”

You gave him the flattest look humanly possible. “No, you were breathing on my door. What are you even doing here at—” you checked your phone—“3:23 AM?" You waited. He bounced once on his heels, rubbed the side of his face with his sleeve, then seemed to remember he was here for a reason. 

“Oh! Right....y-yeah, no, uh...can you—” he cleared his throat, eyes darting away and then back to you. “Can you come....with me? To the room? It’s some-something weird.” Then he grinned. He looked very much like someone who had done something they weren't ready to confess to.

You narrowed your eyes. “Weird how.”

Toby did not answer that question. Instead, he smiled again, grimacing against that bandage against his face. “Not like... bad weird. Just... um, h-haunted maybe? Or it’s maybe n-nothing, no, fuck, but also definitely something.” 

“That's not reassuring.”

“I know! I know, fuck, sorry, I just, it’s probably dumb. Probably could be-" He cut himself off, body jerking again. “Definitely-hah-a cat." You stared at him, more confused than ever. “What does that even-” “Will you j-just please, just, come look? ” His voice shot out suddenly as he gestured vaguely. “Y'know...you'll see..."

You crossed your arms, every cell in your body screaming this is a terrible idea. Not to mention, this guy was weird. And you’d known him for maybe twelve hours. “Look,” you said slowly. “No offense, Toby, but I’m not going into your apartment at 3 AM because there’s a… cat.”

Toby visibly deflated. “No, yeah, t-totally fair,” he said, nodding fast. “Completely understandable. Stranger danger, right...and uh, h-housemate caution?" Then he leaned sideways. “Are-are you baking?” asking suddenly, sniffing, moving close to your doorframe. “It smells really, fuck, really good...in here.”

“Yes,” you said flatly.

Toby craned his neck even more, trying to peek past your shoulder. “Like, wow, buttery. Smells… really g-good."

You instinctively stepped back, blocking the doorway with your body. "Don't change the subject, Toby.”

He twitched, jerking his sleeve up to scratch his arm. “Sorry. S-sorry. Um..." You raised an eyebrow, and he shuffled back a step, biting his lip, as strange as that movement could be. “Right. Yep...I’m go-gonna go now. B-back to...the room. Alone.”

"Where's Tim and Tim-adjacent?"

Toby snickered under his breath, but then seemed to catch himself, like he remembered he was trying to be convincing, not entertained. “H-Uh... restroom?” he said, with absolutely zero conviction. 

You glanced past him toward the hall, but it was still empty. The light was spilling out onto the carpet from the lit up stairway area. The air didn’t feel off, but Toby definitely was. His eyes kept flicking between you and the open space behind him, like he was waiting for something to crawl out of it, hands twitching nervously at his sleeves. You let out a heavy sigh, rubbing your temples. 

“Fine. I’ll go with you,” you muttered, looking him over and he managed to stop twitching for a few seconds. “But this better not be some cloy murder plot.”

Toby’s face lit up. “R-right... it’s not that.” How reassuring.

You sighed. “Lead the way, Gordon Ramsay.”

“F-fuckin’ love that guy,” he muttered, turning down the hall, still glancing back like he wanted one last whiff of pastry on the wind.

But whatever. You followed Toby down the hallway, making sure to lock your own door, mildly curious about why he was so determined to get you to a destination. You’d been pacing the halls enough times in your own head to know what it felt like to not want to be alone, and maybe that was why you indulged him for now, just to see what the hell was going on. Plus, you figured you could probably take him if things went sideways, and you had your phone in your pocket just in case. As you walked, your eyes flicked to the closed neighboring doors and faded signs of the tenants who lived here: old couples with a habit of keeping the hallway door open to air out the apartment (though they were all closed today), some who were probably still up binge watching shows, college students with peculiar decorations of their own, and the door with the halfhearted sign that read, “Please, No Loud Noises, I Have a Dog" from 6A. At least one of them was probably still awake.

Toby bounced along as though he had too many thoughts going through his head at once, or maybe he was just... twitching. A lot. His hands kept clenching and unclenching, and he kept shifting, like he wanted to make conversation but wasn’t quite sure how to do it without accidentally making things weird. Which, considering the circumstances, was already well underway. You weren’t used to having this much awkwardness in a hallway conversation. Usually, you weren’t opposed to small talk with the tenants, but Toby had this weird clinginess about him. You’d picked up on that fast, and it's making you keep your distance.

“So... you b-bake a lot, huh?” Toby managed finally.

“Technically," you answered.

“I had this cro-croissant once,” he said, stumbling on the word, “from a...um...never mind. It was real... g-good though. Not as good smelling as yours, but yeah. You should...t-teach me sometime.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Right.” He didn’t notice the pause, or the sarcasm, or that you had no intention of teaching him how to do anything in your kitchen.

“I mean, it’s...cool, r-right? Having a...skill like that? I tried to make s-something once and they came out, like, hard as a f-fuckin' brick. You could kill a man with them.....n-not that I, uh, ever did... kill someone...j-just to be clear.” Riiighhht.

Then, not even five seconds later: “M-man, Y/N’s s-such a...pretty name. Don’t hear it much...Y-you from around here?”

You tilted your head slightly. “Kind of.”

“K-kind of?”

“Vaguely east.”

“Like, E-East Coast east or...used to live in, fuck, a f-forest east?”

You were unsure if you should be impressed or alarmed by the speed and enthusiasm of the questioning. “That’s a lot of questions," you said, sidestepping a bit.

Toby gave a twitchy laugh and scratched the back of his neck, fingers disappearing into the sleeve of his hoodie. “Y-yeah, sorry... I just talk a lot when I’m...t-tired. Or nervous... I guess... or, um, b-b-bored. Not that I’m bored. This isn’t-uh, it’s not...y-you’re not boring...”

You blinked, slowing a step as he fumbled the last few words. Toby groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, like that would reboot him. “Fuck-fuck, why c-can’t I just f-fucking say things?—”

“Woah,” you cut in. “It’s okay.”

He looked at you, still caught in the middle of it, shoulders hunched like he was bracing for something worse. “Seriously. It’s fine,” you said. “Take your time.”

Toby nodded hard, breathing out through his nose, eyes darting away. “S-sorry. It’s not...not like I can’t think, it’s just, sometimes my mouth’s like..." He clenched his fists.

“I get it,” you said, glancing down the hall, where the dim lights buzzed faintly above the fraying carpet. Toby seemed to want to say more, but the words caught in his throat. He gave up with a frustrated sound and shoved his hands deep into his hoodie pockets, stretching the fabric that was originally bunched around his face. With the way the navy boxy hoodie was framed, it made him look a little like a squirrel with his cheeks full.

Then you both heard the scrape. It was sharp, unmistakable, like something heavy dragging against the hallway floor. You both froze. At the time that you were frozen in this moment, you had no idea this scrape would be the beginning of the end of your life as you knew it. 

Then they turned the corner. Two very fucking familiar figures in a flannel and a hoodie, the first in a white mask that glinted under the flickering hallway lights, the other with the hood up and a ski mask (with a frowny face? It was kind of cute; maybe you needed one for yourself) on, hands gripping the ends of a thick black tarp wrapped in a misshapen shape, making a low, shuddering shhhk noise across the cheap carpet.

Something dead-shaped.

You couldn’t breathe for a second. Your memory wasn't ass, and you weren't giving any benefit of the doubt for the hair, the posture. One of them, mask or not, was definitely Tim. The other, hood drawn low, you’d bet money was Tim-Adjacent. They hadn’t noticed you yet, but Toby, for fuck's sake, let out a tiny, involuntary hiccup, something like a “nnk” or a “fuck”.

They looked up. All four of you locked eyes (?).

Yeah, you recognized them, and they recognized you recognizing them. The second masked figure’s hands tightened on the bundle, knuckles probably paling through the gloves.

“Sh-shit, no, Y/N-fuck-” Toby turned toward you. “You....you weren’t-fuck-you weren’t s-supposed to see...that.”

You raised one hand, pointed vaguely at the bundle. “...Tell me that’s not a body.”

“They’re-they’re not-it's not-fuck!”

The two masked men started to move.

“I-I can explain-” Toby stammered more, face going red, arms stiff at his sides. “It’s not...it’s not mine...N-nor the-theirs!” Great, thank you, kind sir. That didn’t help.

“What the fuck,” you said evenly. “What the actual fuck.”

“I-I didn’t mean...look, j-just-don’t—”

You didn’t wait for him to finish. It didn’t really matter what he was going to say, in fact, and that was all it took for your brain to go: nope. You turned on your heel and bolted. Behind you, surprise surprise, came the sound of movement of boots against carpet, a muffled “shitfuck!” from Toby, and then more footsteps. Too many footsteps. They were all running. After you.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” you hissed, sprinting down the hallway. Your socks nearly slipped on the tile at the corner, shoulder clipping the wall. “I’m actually getting chased.”

You fumbled your phone out of your pocket as you ran, because thank your instincts you’d brought it. Your thumb slid across the screen, adrenaline shaking every joint in your hand. 911. Just hit 911. You could already hear Toby shouting something behind you, voice cracking mid-syllable, “Y/N, wait! j-just... don’t!—”

“Yeah, no, I think I’m good!” you yelled back, breath tearing out of your lungs.

Your apartment door came into view like salvation itself. You slammed into it, half-dropping the phone, scrabbling for the keys that suddenly decided to play hide and seek in your pocket. The footsteps were getting closer, echoing down the narrow corridor.

“Come on,” you hissed, jamming the key into the lock, hands slick with sweat. The knob turned just as the first heavy step hit the carpet behind you, and you shoved yourself inside, slammed the door, twisted the lock, threw the deadbolt for good measure. Then you backed up until your spine hit the counter as your heart beat weakly inside your chest. The phone buzzed weakly in your hand. You stared at the screen, thumb hovering over the call button. Finally, you weren’t being dramatic. You were actually about to call the cops, because apparently, your new tenants dragged bodies down hallways and chased people who noticed. What the hell was Toby even doing? Was he supposed to be distracting you? If so, he did a horrible fucking job.

"I’m done with this place!" tenant 4B shrieked, pointing a finger at you while her spit flew all over your face. "I’m breaking my lease! I'll tell everyone what a slumlord you are!" The threats were empty, but after a week of being pulled in a dozen different directions, they landed like a sucker punch. You pinched the bridge of your nose, the pounding in your head intensifying with each shouted word. You were so, so, so tired. 

"Fine. Leave. Get out. I don't care," you said, voice full of wondrous indifference. "Just make sure you take all your crap with you."

Her face went a mottled shade of red and her voice rose to a fresh crescendo. "You'll never rent this apartment again! A-And, I'll have my lawyers contact you!"

"Good. Tell them to send me the rent check you still owe this month," you shrugged. "Now get out of my apartment."

4B stomped her foot and stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. You let out a long, slow breath, a sense of relief washing over you. Finally, peace and quiet. This job was a revolving door of misery, and frankly, you're too tired to care about who's on the other side of it anymore. It's not like you ever needed to scour for new tenants, and to be fair, the thought of finding them is exhausting, especially since the meager pay doesn't justify the effort. You've learned that a rental is a business, not a charity, and showing empathy can lead to tenants living rent free and causing you more headaches. The constant stress of dealing with expenses—both expected maintenance and people like this—makes the low pay feel even more insulting. 

The muffled echoes of the lady's tantrum still ratting in your ears, your eyes lingered on the apartment door as you mentally went through the steps needed to send her packing for good—paperwork to file, notices to issue, keys to take, locks to change. You'd done this before, and you'd do it again. She would be evicted by sunset. With a sigh, you pulled your phone from your pocket, typing out a text to the locksmith, an action you'd repeated so many times you didn't even have to think about it. "Change locks on 4B," you wrote. "ASAP." You ran a tired hand over your face once the text delivered. 

How did I get here again?

About two hours ago, 4B had called and said "you have to get up here now." By the time you reached her floor, the door was already wide open, like she expected you to run through it the moment she snapped her fingers. “There’s mold under my sink,” she hissed, arms flailing as she led you inside. “And the water pressure in the shower is disgusting! And don’t get me started on the neighbors. Do you even vet these people?” She circled around you like a storm, ranting about cost, hallway lighting, the pigeons on the fire escape, the "disrespect" of being asked to stop smoking in a non-smoking unit. And then it came to this.

Right. 

Now the apartment was silent and still. While you might think that silence means peace, really, it's just the sound of a storm gathering speed while you're standing in the eye of the hurricane. Speaking of which, your gaze drifted to the apartment's interior. The living room was a disaster zone with crumpled boxes from her move-in an astounding amount of two days ago, forgotten pieces of cheap furniture, and a thin film of mess covering everything. Your shoe stuck to a half-dried spill on the linoleum. 

You exhaled deeply, and went to work.

-

The cardboard box started to give out halfway down the stairs. You felt it go in a sudden, traitorous wobble, and then the whole thing lurched, one end of the prism slipping, slamming into your thigh as you fought to keep it from spilling its guts down the stairwell. A clatter of cheap kitchenware rattled inside as something cracked. "Fucking box," you muttered, adjusting your grip, digging fingers under the box’s damp corner as the cardboard continued to sag. 

Outside, the afternoon was already fading, the sky bruising into that grimy city dusk. The moving truck idled at the curb, blinking hazards. Most of the tenant's crap was already gone, either shoved in the back or balanced dangerously close to falling out. She’d left without saying another word, which you were more than fine with. Less yelling, less delay.

You hefted the last box in and shut the door with a loud metallic thud. Another box done. Why you were the one carrying the boxes down for her, you weren't exactly sure, but you weren't complaining if it made things easier. Besides, you were quite sure you broke at least half her things on the way down the stairs, so you're even.

You leaned against the truck for a second, catching your breath. Your shirt clung to your back, damp with sweat and stress, and your fingers ached in a dull way that made you want to never lift anything again. You rolled your shoulder, wiped your hands on your jeans, and saw that the locksmith had just pulled up in a rusty blue van. It's the same guy as always, Mitch, who was balding, wearing a wife beater shirt despite the October chill, with toolbox in one hand, vape in the other. He gave you a nod like he’d seen you just yesterday. "4B?"

You nodded back. "Yup. She’s out, more or less."

Mitch grunted and started up the stairs without another word while you followed. “Same setup?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Please. Standard changeout. Just in case she’s got spares floating around.”

“You want both locks replaced or just the deadbolt?”

“Both.”

Upstairs, the hallway was dim, the motion sensor light clicking on two seconds too late as usual. Mitch kneeled in front of the apartment door, already digging through his kit. You leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, letting him do his thing. It was the same routine every time someone moved out or blew up, like 4B just had. People said they were leaving all the time, but the ones who left this fast usually had more keys than they admitted to. You weren’t risking her wandering back in after a bad night out and deciding to reclaim “her” apartment.

“You know,” Mitch said, “I don’t get how you do this shit.”

You smiled without humor. “I'd rather do this than change locks.”

Mitch barked a laugh. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “I know.”

Click. Click. The old lock slid out like a rotten tooth. Click, twist, done. Then onto the deadbolt. You let your eyes wander down the hallway, across the paint chipped walls, past the exit sign. Somewhere below, a dog barked, probably the one from 6A.

“You renting it again right away?” Mitch asked.

You shrugged. “Eventually.” It was a pointless lie. You weren't in a rush, and really, like you said, you didn't have the energy. Mitch said nothing, and you were grateful. He either knew better or he just didn't care, which was fair enough. You barely cared yourself. Then he straightened up, the old pieces of the lock clattering into a plastic bag before he handed you two new keys. “All set.”

You pocketed them. “Appreciate it.”

He nodded, already turning back toward the stairs. “Send the invoice over later?”

“You know the drill.”

You followed Mitch back down the stairs, the steps creaking under both your weight. He walked ahead, toolbox swinging at his side. At the second landing, he glanced over his shoulder. “So,” he started casually, “when can I take you for that drink?”

You gave a short laugh. “After everyone stops clogging the toilets.”

“So... never?”

“Correct.”

Mitch grinned, not pushing it, enjoying the back-and-forth. You didn’t mind either; at this point, it was more like a harmless inside joke and less like flirtation. At the front door, he paused to pull out his vape again. “You ever change your mind,” he said, exhaling smoke, “you know where to find me.”

You pulled open the door, letting the outside air hit your face. “Yeah, next time a tenant loses their keys and blames me for it.”

“That’s my favorite kind of date." Mitch laughs again and he leaves, bringing with him the cloud of blueberry-scented vapor that had plumed between you, sweet and cloying against the city air. After watching the blue van roll away, you looked up at your building. The windows were mostly dark, the life inside hidden away, like secrets in a locked box. The thought made a cold kind of satisfaction spread through your chest. You liked your secrets.

You were still congratulating yourself for a quiet night when a light gray sedan rolled up to the curb, one headlight slightly dimmer than the other. It looked well-worn, and the same could probably be said for the guy behind the wheel. He looked dead tired. Thirties, maybe. Long sideburns, red flannel, one arm slung over the wheel, the other out the cracked window. Two others sat in the back, faces half-lit, quiet.

The man's eyes met yours and nodded. “You the landlord?"

You thought, not without irony, how you really didn’t have to go looking for tenants after all. “Yeah,” you said. “That’s me.”

From the back seat, one of the men leaned forward a little. “W-We’ve been driving around this whole da-damn building looking for y—” A sharp movement in the back cut him off instantly. Awkward. The man up front didn’t even turn his head, but his fingers flexed on the steering wheel. The back seat went quiet again.

The driver gestured loosely to the building. “You got anything open?”

“Maybe.” You squinted at the car itself. No plates from out of state, but the tires looked like they’d been on the road awhile. “You guys passing through?” 

He scratched his jaw. “Something like that. Cash works?”

You looked at the other two in the back. No one else looked like they wanted to talk, and you didn’t feel like asking questions.

“Cash always works,” you said, tone even, turning back toward the door of the building. “And I have just the apartment.” 

-

You held the one singular key in your hand, its metallic jingle the only sound in the hallway. "Alright then," you said to the three new tenants. "Your place is 4B. Sorry that I only have one key, by the way."

"No problem," the man who had been driving said as he took the key, his gruff voice as flat and uninflected as his expression. Now that you look closer, he was clearly built, with dark brown hair cut short, close to his head. His physique definitely suggested that he was strong and capable, though he showed no sign of aggression.

Aside from that, the hand-off of the key was so simple it felt unreal. There was no haggling, no tedious walkthrough, no questions about the lease or the neighborhood. They didn’t complain at the $900 price tag, which was technically already a steal for the apartment. The man handed you a stack of crumpled, stained twenty-dollar bills that made a small alarm bell ring in your head, but you ignored it, stuffing the money into your pocket.

The other two men watched the exchange intently. The taller man was lean, with fluffy blonde hair that had a slight wave to it. He wore a casual expression, and his face was a practiced mask of neutrality that gave away nothing of his thoughts. He simply watched you,  posture seemingly relaxed but his attention focused. The third and youngest man had his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He had a head of curly brunette hair that was a little disheveled, as if he had just run his hands through it. There was a large bandage on the side of his mouth just beside his lip that looked out of place. Each individual carried only one piece of luggage, either a plain, black duffel bag or a travel-sized backpack.

“My office is on the first floor if you guys need anything,” you said, your voice a little too cheerful to fill the silence.

"Right. Office first floor. Got it," the first man stated. He and the second man started to turn towards the room, the younger man lingering just a bit behind.

"Hold on, hold on," you said, your voice a little louder. They all stopped and turned, three identical masks of uninterest now pointed at you in an uncomfortable way.

Right, this is what happens when you don't do background checks. You just have to know them the old-fashioned way with awkward and deeply uncomfortable conversation. "Before you go, I feel like we’ve missed a crucial step here. You know, that whole getting-to-know-you part of things." 

The man (and all) looked irked. "The lease is signed. The rent is paid. What else is there?"

"Well, for starters," you said, gesturing vaguely. "A name. A little something to go with the, uh, faces. Like a personal touch. You know, so when I'm walking past and I see a car on fire, I'll think, 'Oh, that's definitely the new tenants'.'" The younger man's mouth twitched, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement that was gone as soon as it appeared. The driver sighed and ran a hand over his face.

"Look," he said, "you can call me... Tim." 

"Tim! I'm Y/N." you said brightly, holding a hand out. He took it reluctantly. "And what about your... associates?"

They just stared at you. The younger man opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to answer, but when his other partner remained silent, his shoulders slumped and his gaze darted to the floor. 

"Okay, then. Tim it is," you said, clapping your hands together and pretending not to notice. "Tim, and the two other Tim-adjacent individuals. Come visit me anytime and don't be strangers!"

Definitely do. And keep to yourselves. Very, very much to yourselves. I don't need any more weird stories for my future children.

There was another awkward silence. Not hostile or anything, but it was that weird, quiet moment where you figured it was your cue to leave and let them do…whatever it was they were here to do. However, you were cut off by a sudden, jarring movement. Tim-adjacent 1's left shoulder jerked violently, his head snapping to the side with a sharp, involuntary movement. You flinched, hand flying somewhere. Tim and Tim-adjacent 2 didn't even react, their expressions remaining perfectly neutral.

"Sorry," Tim said. "He has... a medical condition." The brunet grimaced slightly at that, like he didn’t love that explanation.

"No problem at all! We've all got...medical conditions," you said, not entirely sure why you said it. But to your mild surprise, Tim-adjacent 1 perked up and beamed, clearly thrilled that you had just accepted his little tic without making a huge fuss. You were about to turn and leave when he suddenly lifted one hand and offered a wave, like a kid trying to be friendly at the wrong time.

“I’m Toby!” he said brightly. Great, you got another name. At the same moment, Tim-adjacent 2, who hadn’t spoken once, kicked Toby in the shin. You blinked, amused but also unsure what exactly you’d just witnessed. Some weird family dynamic? A cult thing? Roommates with a wildly unbalanced power structure?

It's fine. It's totally fine. I don't know what it was or what these people have, but it's fine. Toby's just... excited. And a little twitchy. And his friends are totally unfazed and mildly antisocial. That's fine.

Tim gave you a polite, unreadable nod at the encounter, and you offered a stiff smile in return.

“Well… again, let me know if you need anything," you said in a finality, already backing away. “You all must be tired, so I’ll leave you be!” You turned for the stairs, the need for your room and a closed door overriding any pretense of a calm walk. The moment your door was shut, you leaned against it, breathing out a sigh. The crumpled bills in your pocket felt heavy. You pulled them out and laid them flat on your desk, counting them for a third time. Nine hundred dollars, all in stained twenties. Your eyes fell on a faint, dark smudge on one of the bills. It looked... rusty. You shoved the money into a drawer and locked it, as if the drawer itself could contain the strangeness.

A flicker of light caught your eye. You glanced at the security monitor on the corner of your desk, the one that showed the camera feed of the apartment. You leaned closer, squinting at the screen with the second floor hallway. Had that always happened? You rewound the recording, watching the moments before the door closed. The tenants had all gone inside. Just as the door latched shut, a sudden flash. A camera glitch? It had never happened before.

Everything weird just starts to pile. You would consider calling the police or perhaps even a friend, but what would you say? "My new tenants are a little weird, and my security camera glitched"? You would sound like a lunatic. You probably are being a lunatic.

Caked head-to-toe in black mud, dripping with stagnant swamp water, and smelling of rotting leaves and wet earth, you sat in the middle of the dark safehouse, frantically pressing a now-bloody, makeshift compress against your side, wincing hard as a deep gash leaked a thick, warm red stream down your ribs. Your shirt was torn half off, hanging in shredded strips that unfortunately exposed your skin, webbed with angry red welts and countless tiny, stinging scratches from tearing straight through the briar patch to shake whatever had been hunting you through the swamp. 

The blood was still deafening in your ears from that chase, a hot rush of adrenaline that left your customary fury simmering. To top it all off, the first drops of rain had started when you were still outside, turning into a relentless downpour—because of course it did—and you loathed every second of it when you were already half-dead, soaked, and miserable.

“Fine, maybe not stare. But I know you can at least hear me, piece of shit. You could at least pretend to have some fucking manners.”

Nothing.

“Fuck you.”

He was almost invisible in the dark. The hood swallowed most of him, shoulders folded in on themselves with the strange stillness of something that wasn’t really resting, only waiting. One leg hung over the sill, tapping against the brick outside every few seconds. Tap. Tap. Tap. Driving you right out of your fucking mind.

A few minutes passed in silence.

“…Done?”

The low, vibrating rumble tore up from his chest, heavy like an animal growling deep in its throat, yet resembling something like patience. You knew he wasn’t exactly asking whether you were finished with the emergency medicare.

“Yeah.”

He didn’t move.

“…Well?”

There’s another wet plop as liquid drips slowly down the windowsill.

“What?” you sighed.

A low purr-growl in the dark, dragging out the syllables. “…Hungry.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Your heart skipped a beat out of sheer instinct. “Don’t say that.” 

You’re suddenly hyper-aware of the shredded, barely covered ex-skin-tight top hanging off your shoulder, the expanse of bleeding skin mapped across your chest, and the way the shadows clung to him. 

Outside, thunder rolled somewhere over the trees.

Then, without warning, he was in front of you. The old springs of the couch groaned and dipped beneath his weight.

Instinct slammed you backward into the cushions, while every single survival lesson entrenched in your bones screamed threat, weapon, strike, your hand violently twitching for a weapon before your brain managed to slam the brakes.

Your thighs were pinned hard between his legs, trapping you beneath him. Up close, the stench finally hits you: the heavy smell of dried blood clung to him, even though you knew, with a bizarre flash of irritation, that he usually hated being messy and tried to keep himself sanitary.

Your mind violently shoved away the sudden, nauseating thought of where that smell of blood came from.

He leaned over your body. Unmasked tonight, his face dipped down with terrifying weight, pressing in close until his cheek hovered inches from your jaw. You knew how his features look exposed—taut, ashy skin, jaw clenched tight, and the hollow sockets where his eyes should’ve been. That had been a particularly nasty uncovery at the beginning.

A thick viscous drop of ink-black fluid leaked from the empty sockets. It fell, landing straight onto your blood-smeared collarbone, the black instantly smearing and bleeding into the red wetness of your skin. He stayed there, completely poised right above you, his face inches away from the crook of your neck as he inhaled, long and deep, drinking in the scent of open wounds and mud. There was an unnatural, suffocating heat radiating off him.

“…Blood,” he rasped, the sound low and vibrating with an ugly coiled bloodlust that made your stomach twist.

“Get off,” you breathed out, your hands shoving hard against his chest, though your fingers just sank uselessly into his unyielding chest. “I mean it. Get the fuck off.”

He didn’t budge an inch, pinning you deeper into the cushions. 

“…Don’t,” you muttered automatically, your voice dropping shakily as you breathed harder.

“…Heart.”

“I know it’s my heart.”

“…Fast.” That was an understatement. Your heart was pumping blood at a breakneck speed up through your throat and ears in a desperate bid to keep you conscious and alive. A freak like him could probably hear the exact rush of it singing through your veins, smelling the hot and iron-rich panic sweating right out of your pores. 

“I said don’t.”

Another pause, thick and heavy with the sound of your own breathing.

“…Sorry.”

You exhaled through your nose as he settled back an inch, the feral tension humming just beneath the surface without truly easing up entirely. Per usual. Tiny, shivery tremors rippled straight down your spine; it’s the electric flutter in your gut that usually felt like the hot rush right before a kill, the sickeningly familiar high of adrenaline when a blade met your hands. 

But your hands were empty, your hunting knife discarded on the floorboards, and this wasn't a fight. You were entirely unsure whether your body was screaming to strike, if it was too cold, or was shivering from something else entirely.

He was still just sitting there.

The immediate threat had receded into that strange stillness, but he didn't actually get off you. He just stayed planted squarely across your legs, a heavy weight keeping you trapped in the cushions. The petty irritation flared up again in your chest, replacing the panic with a buzzing annoyance.

What is he doing? Just sitting there like an obedient dog?

It was utterly absurd. You exhaled another huffed breath, your gaze sweeping up to meet his—or where it was supposed to be. Making direct eye contact was always a deeply unsettling, surreal experience when there were literally no eyes to meet, just those indented hollows dripping that dark pitch down his jaw.

With a scowl, you yanked your arms tight across your chest, folding them self-consciously over your torso to shield the skin and bleeding gashes from plain view.

“What?” you snapped again, your voice thick with exhaustion. “Like I said, don’t tell me if you’re planning on going hunting today or drag me along lest I lose my job, I swear to god.”

He managed to look—against all laws of nature and anatomy—almost rueful. That stupid, seven-foot-tall, skin-crawling thing actually looked almost rueful.

Somehow, that recognition made you tremble even harder, even more pathetically, the residual adrenaline turning into a cold sinking feeling in your gut.

Your voice slipped down, suddenly small and thin against the drumming rain outside.

“…Don’t tell me you’re thinking of… eating me or something.” It was a stupid statement. The terrifying part was that you actually thought about it—you always thought about it whenever you were stuck this close to him. 

Monsters had been plaguing your town and its outskirts for decades, killings its people and leaving strange mutilated “sacrifices” everywhere, and you’d trained your whole life, clawing your way into the hunter corps just to put an end to it. You wanted to be the one who stopped them. To stop generations fed to things that crawled out of the sinkholes, bleeding the local bloodlines dry until families just learned to leave an empty chair at Sunday dinner for whoever didn't make it back from the woodline.

But no, instead, based on some fucked up luck and circumstance, you were stuck in a cramped safehouse with this particular nightmare in the dark. 

It was a weird and complicated story how you two got tangled up to begin with, the kind of annoying improbable collision of bad fortune and worse timing that no training could ever prepare you for. Words forced things into neat little boxes—monster, human, ally, enemy, friend?—drawing blurred lines where nothing made sense anymore. After countless silent intersections, a weary familiarity had somehow woven itself into your life. It had taken a long, agonizingly slow time for the distinction to shift in your own head—from it, to him, to Jack. He had told you his name somewhere a few months ago, but you never actually called him that. It was as if giving him a real name would somehow solidify it, make the impossibly strange reality of what you were doing a little too real to outrun. And he never said your name, either. You both just circled the fire that was burning you both to ash. You most certain of all.

He knew your irritable temper as well as you knew his shadow trailing you during a patrol. He started leaving before dawn every single night just because he knew you hated waking up to find someone watching you sleep. If you ever looked up at him and whispered, “you’re still a monster,” he would just quietly leave. And if he ever looked back down at you and said, “you should just kill me,” it would instantly make you furious, because the statement was just too damn easy. And sometimes you’d cross a freshly butchered carcass rotting in the bracken and realize with a sickening jolt exactly where he’d been, tracing the invisible lines of his path. 

The attraction wasn't rational; hell, it was like leaning your bare throat into the bloody jaws of a rabid timber wolf. It was that fucking awful, fluttering feeling of butterflies, the tremor that’s the rush before a kill. Every time he approached, your body still whispered run. Every time he left, the silence felt infinitely worse. And yet, sitting there with him, that dark, morbid curiosity clawed at the back of your mind again. 

What if this is the time? What if tonight is when he finally stops playing along? What if he just... snaps? Like a monster? The monster he is so-called to be? You just stared up into those black hollows, wondering how long this fragile wire act could possibly hold. 

What a pathetic tangled mess you'd made of an otherwise simple life.

The air between you felt stretched to a thread, belied by the steady, miserable drumbeat of the rain outside. You were waiting for him to move, waiting for him to answer, or at least break the suffocating weight of his not-gaze.

Really, the fact that he wasn't answering was the most worrying of all.

His grip, where his hands rested against the cushions on either side of your hips, suddenly tightened, and you felt the curving pressure of his claws sink just a fraction deeper, nudging agonizingly close to your skin. It wasn't enough to pierce—not yet—but it was a sharp, distinct reminder of what he actually was. An apex predator casually flexing its weight.

Your chest rose and fell in a rapid, shallow panic, your gaze locked onto the dark tears weeping down his gray jawline.

“When's the last time you fed?” you asked tentatively, as much as you could muster to mutter the words.

He didn't move a muscle. He just tilted his head down at you, completely silent. 

“Are you broken or just being annoying?” you said, your hands shoving uselessly against his chest again, your voice sharp and slightly irritated. “Stop being silent, damn it. Answer me.”

Right as you opened your mouth to snap at him again—

“…You…” he started, stopping awkwardly. “…make me nervous.”

Hearing this flesh-eating eldritch creature essentially admit that you made him nervous was so profoundly ridiculous that you almost laughed. And despite yourself, a tiny pathetic fraction of your human soul felt a bizarrely twisted pang of sympathy for him, even as you realized how completely unhinged that made you.

The blunt pressure of his claws immediately eased off your skin, the tension in his massive frame retracting just enough to let you breathe. You winced slightly as the phantom sting left your hips, your shoulders slumping a fraction against the cushions.

“…Almost two weeks,” he finally murmured lowly.

You let out a long, pained groan, throwing your head back. “Yeah. Definitely too long, you fucking idiot.”

That made sense. Looking back, he had been acting entirely cagey lately. If you didn’t know him better, you'd think he was tracking you—lurking around the edges of your shifts, showing up whenever you got hurt, even in obscure, out-of-the-way places. It had been happening for a while. 

Then again, you remembered why. You thought about the explosive, one-sided shouting match you had a while back, when you finally snapped and gone off on him about killing civilians, laying down the law and forcing some unsaid twisted compromise out of him, spitting out reasons for why he couldn't touch humans, who were your family and friends. 

Well, you hadn't exactly told him to starve himself or sit in a dark corner wasting away.

And now he was just... lingering. Making his pathetic, half-assed excuses like showing up because he wanted to see you instead, hovering over you like a possessive, starved animal guarding its only kill.

He didn't move away, but his head tilted slightly as he added, “...Don't like the taste of animal.”

You knew damn well what he meant. He didn't want the deer or livestock rotting in the deep woods; he wanted red meat, warm and complex and human.

You squeezed your eyes shut for a second, a wave of bitter disgust washing over you—not just at him, but at yourself. Here you were, a sworn officer of the hunters, trading casually morbid banter with the exact kind of freak you’d dedicated your life to putting in the ground. Every syllable exchanged, every second you spent letting him stay this close, felt like another brick chipping away at whatever fragile moral code you had left. You were rotting from the inside out, especially when you knew about this and hid it willingly.

What is wrong with me?

The scorching self-beratement sucked. You were losing your mind. Absolutely, irrevocably losing it, all while lying bleeding out on a grimy safehouse couch, playing house with the cannibalistic abomination. What kind of monster hunter sits there negotiating meal preferences with the enemy? You were disgusting. Sick. Pathetic. Pathetic.

He leans in again and you stifle a breath, that massive frame blotting out the dim light. You have to violently squish your spine back against the cushions until the wood (the wood!) dug painfully into your back. Underneath your ribs, your heart went to a full-blown panic sprint, its rhythm accelerating instantly into a fast pit-pit-pit-pit sound, so loud you could even hear it echoing in the heavy silence between the drops of rain. 

Instantly, a low rumble vibrated through his chest, acknowledging the sudden spike in your terror.

“...Faster again,” he rumbled softly, tracking the acceleration of your pulse.

His head dipped lower again, right toward the torn gashes on your side where the blood was still sluggishly leaking through your wounds and its haphazard dressing. A wave of ice-cold dread and darkly sickening fascination crashed over you simultaneously; you were revolted, your stomach churning, but also... paralyzed, waiting to see what he would do if you gave him free reins.

“Will... will blood be able to sustain you for a bit?” you blurted out before your brain could stop it.

Stupid stupid stupid. Do you want to die right now? You’ve seen what he does with those weird preserved things he tore and harvested from his victims. Hell, you still vividly remembered that one grim night he’d tried to offer you a glistening strip of intestines like some grotesque romantic gesture, and you had nearly vomited right into the dirt. 

Another full-body shiver wracked your frame, your muscles locking up.

“...yours might,” he murmured right against your skin. Deep in his chest, a strange low vibration rattled outward.

Your head tilted back slightly, neck straining forward as your spine instinctively straightened your posture. You squinted up at the peeling paint of the ceiling while his weight pressed heavier into you, heart bouncing like a pinball inside your chest, and you could feel the blood rushing to your fingers as your fingernails clawed desperately into the upholstery. He was again completely ignoring any concept of human boundaries, but he was still. Maybe he was waiting. Maybe he was waiting for some sort of sliver of consent before he crossed the final line, except you knew better. Creatures like him didn't care.

“Fine,” you said. 

Fine. Just take it. Take whatever it takes to get you to shut up, to get you off my chest, to make you crawl back out into the swamp so I can stop living like a cornered animal. And if letting him have a taste of your blood kept him from ripping apart some helpless patrol or civilian, then fine.

Silence swallowed the room, save for the fucking maddening drumming of the entitled rain.

The last remaining scrap of his “restraint” snapped in a low snarl as he completely flattened himself over you, all dense muscle, blood-like smell, and radiating heat pressed down until every ounce of your weight was crushed into the cushions. You let out a choked gasp as he began to lick, the wet, forked slide of his tongue dragging directly across the torn edges of your wounds and blood-soaked bandages.

Oh good god.

It was the most revolting sensation imaginable. Your stomach heaved violently though that was maybe from the pain, your eyes squeezing shut so hard stars danced behind your eyelids as you let out a wheeze, trying desperately to suck in oxygen through your teeth. The abrasive friction of his tongue against your still raw, stinging skin sent a sharp jolt through your ribs. It hurt—it actually burned like acid—mixed with a nauseating, liquid heat that felt entirely too weird.

Can you get some kind of disease from this? Tetanus? Some necrotic swamp rot? What the hell is tetanus? You were a monster hunter, but you sure as hell weren't well-versed in the pathogen portfolio of a literal corpse-eater.

Where else has this tongue been…

His massive hands tightened around your waist until you again felt the threat of his claws pressing into your bare flesh, pressing you so hard against his frame that you couldn't move an inch even if you tried. Another violent shiver started racking your frame, sending a wave of electric goosebumps exploding across every square inch of your skin. Slowly, agonizingly, the points of the claws began to sink at where they held you, biting into your soft flesh. You could barely even notice the exact moment they broke the surface, just a sting swallowed whole by the overwhelmingness flooding your veins.

Little, breathless gasps started spilling past your lips as his tongue kept doing its work, moving past the minor scratches and tracing closer to the open edges of your deepest wound. The sting was bad enough to make your vision swim, but it was overshadowed by the feeling of teeth, brushing against your wounded skin.

The sharpness of his canines grazed right over the sensitive edge of the gash, a deliberate, suggestive friction that made your stomach drop straight into a freefall. You were scared—genuinely, frantically terrified of how easily he could tear you open right then and there—yet your back involuntarily arched up into the cushions, pushing your spine deeper into the couch as your legs twitched slightly against him, trapped beneath his weight in a desperate, confusing response your body refused to authorize.

When his mouth closed over the torn, pulsing skin—right where the deepest gash throbbed—a sharp, white-hot explosion of pain and agony lanced straight through your body.

“Ah—ah—shit—”

Your voice was trembling on the edge of a pathetically pained whine. The dangerous curve of his canines pressed directly against the bleeding nerve endings, cold and sharp and entirely too close to drawing more blood for real.

“Don’t—don’t bite, don’t bite—!” you whimpered, your hands flying up to blindly shove against him as he did exactly what you just said not to do. Panic was a live wire sizzling through your veins.

This is so fucking bad. What in the actual hell am I doing, shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Instead, a low growl rumbled deep in his throat, vibrating straight into your collarbone as he sucked harder at the wound, a pull that drew a loud groan that sounded entirely too much like something else. The wet, abrasive drag of his tongue scraped raw over the torn edges of the flesh, turning the open bleed into an absolute agony. It made your toes curl slightly, your back violently arching upward off the cushions.

The tearing feeling of teeth against your side pushed you past the absolute breaking point, finally overriding the paralyzed haze in your brain, and you shoved your palms flat against his face, pushing him away with every ounce of strength you had left. “Okay, enough, get off—”

Your hands plastered hard against his cold forehead, shoving him back as he tugged and worried at your flesh with his teeth, reluctant to let go. When your palms finally came away, your skin was slick and smeared with that thick, tar-like black fluid—whatever ungodly ichor ran through his veins, staining your hands in the dim light.

He finally drew away with a low, disgruntled growl rumbling deep in his chest, head pulling back just enough to break the seal, though he still loomed over you like a mountain. Jarring back to reality, you stared straight up into those terrifying, eyeless hollows. How did my life come to this? 

He was entirely silent, the heavy rain outside providing the only soundtrack to the suffocating quiet. Then, slowly, he parted his jaws. His mouth was completely coated in a thick, wet crimson, glistening under the shifting light. Your blood smeared across his gums, bright and sickeningly vibrant, framing his sharp, inhuman teeth as they peeked through the red.

Your blood.

The corners of his jaw stretched, maybe in a smile, one that wasn't quite human and wasn't quite beast—a slow unhinging grimace, the kind predators make when the taste lingers and the hunger hasn't been put to bed, the dripping crimson split across the lower half of his mask.

"...Not enough," he rasped wetly.

ahh sorry for the delayed response! i truly just saw the message and am still trying to figure out tumblr again ^^;

thank you so much for the thoughtful comment! as a cat owner, i particularly enjoyed your analogy. as for the story, i invested a ridiculous amount of time putting together the premise, the characterizations, and all the little bits of lore, so it is gratifying to hear that those were some of the things that stood out to you. this is also the first time i have written something with a cast this large, so making everyone feel distinct and believable was probably what i worried about most. constructing the links/secrets etc was quite an undertaking, particularly given my lack of technical expertise, but it was rewarding to pull together, and i’m glad it’s interesting!

hearing that the realism holds up semi-well and that the original characters landed is awesome. of course, a high-stakes survival story inherently involves a degree of unreality and plot armor, but i try my best to keep it grounded. and introducing ocs into an established cast is always a bit of a gamble, so hearing that you have already adopted finn/kenj is both reassuring and slightly concerning for your future. rest assured… i hope.

On your right, the grey void deepens into an absolute, abyssal velvet. It offers instant, permanent silence. You can simply let go. Surrender, let the parasite consume your memories at its leisure, and drift away into nothingness. No more fear. No more responsibility. No more breaking yourself into pieces to keep others alive.

It is entirely your decision, child, the parasite whispers, the chorus fading until it sounds entirely like your own mother's voice—soft, sweet, and infinitely weary. Choose to carry the weight, and you will suffer until your inevitable, agonizing end. Choose to surrender, and everyone you are trying to protect will be gone by morning.

Screw you, you spit back. Of course you were going to live. Did you really think some pathetic, head-invading leach was going to finish you off?

The heavy, suffocating pressure doesn't intensify. A vast, echoing blankness fills the grey expanse, as if the entity had already calculated this exact outburst before you even formed the thoughts.

Click.

Curious, isn't it? The shifting voices have unified into a single, level frequency, stripped of all malice and irony. You speak of survival with such fierce conviction now. Yet, a mere few weeks ago, you would have preferred to die. You welcomed the quiet. What changed?