#31doh

The world outside was not the Detroit he knew. There was no living soul except himself, hell, even one of those fucking androids was nowhere to be seen. Gavin hated those fuckin' things, but maybe they would make better company than complete silence.

It looked like those liminal space tiktok videos. Everything was colorful yet dull at the same time. Gavin checked his phone. No signal.

He looked up again. The entire street was empty. The air felt heavy and metallic, almost like blood-- a scent that he was unfortunate to be familiar with, being a homicide detective.

He began to search the street, just that command, echoing:

Find. Him.

The detective hurried. He felt as if something was chasing him.

And then Gavin suddenly felt a sharp pain, like his head was being pounded repeatedly.

"What the fuck??" he grimaced, bending down from the ache.

More commands echoed, pushing him to run despite his head feeling like it might explode.

Faster.

In here.

Not there.

Down the block.

He is waiting.

Inside.

My head.

Then a flicker of movement caught his eye.

At the end of the street, a boy-- blond and small.

"Hey!" Gavin shouted, his own voice startling him.

The boy turned and bolted.

Gavin ran after him, the urge pounding harder.

Find him. Find him. Find him.

He chased through alleys and across empty roads. He ran and ran, his legs feeling numb but somehow not tired. The silver clouds seemed to be closing in, as if threatening to swallow him whole if he stopped for a second.

Finally, he chased the boy to a dead end.

Still panting, Gavin grabbed the boy's arm. The boy whipped around.

He had no face.

Gavin froze, his heart jolting at the sight. Then the boy thrashed violently, nails slashing across Gavin's skin.

The detective wanted to run, but his feet felt like glue.

"Stop it!" he choked out, but his voice was a whisper.

He thought this was it. His life was at the hands of this creature.

Until--

"Detective Reed?"

Gavin sat up violently, heart hammering in his chest. One of his earbuds had fallen to the table, while the other was still playing the fucking dreamcore playlist in his other ear.

Connor stood over him, half-annoyed but also concerned.

"I know you're tired, but please refrain from sleeping at work."

Asshole, Gavin thought. But for once, it was a welcomed intrusion.

The detective exhaled shakily. "The fuck do you want?"

"Your part of the case report, please. I have messaged you but you didn't reply."

"Yeah, yeah," Gavin replied lazily.

Connor suddenly noticed something, and his eyes widened in alarm. "You're injured, Gavin. I'll get the first-aid box."

Gavin's eyebrows furrowed, staring at the android who hurriedly went away. Then he felt the pain.

He looked down.

There were scratches all over his arms.

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adapted from one of my nightmares.

Bob laughed nervously. "Come on, Dad. I thought you believe in scientific things."

"I do," Mr. Andrews chuckled. "Science is based on evidence. Maybe we just haven't found the right methodology to neither prove nor disprove such presence. Some scientific facts were believed to be myths until proven otherwise, like the existence of giant pandas, how meteorites fall from outer space, and so on."

"Neither prove or disprove, huh…" Bob sank himself to the couch.

"Come to think of it, I recently interviewed a professor from a university in LA. He taught anthropology, but his research focuses on myths and religious practices that shape civilizations. Some of these beliefs include the concept of 'liminal space', where spirits go before they go to heaven or hell. Or where these souls stay due to some unfinished business. Apparently sometimes spirits residing here can cross over at times."

"Like the limbo?" asked Bob.

"Something like that. He also said sometimes living people could accidentally end up here too if they're caught in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Mr. Andrews took a puff of his cigar. "I think you all did the right thing," he sighed, "to research it, I mean. Just don't do anything dangerous."

"We'll be careful, Dad," Bob said innocently, knowing how close had the three of them been to real fatal outcomes in their previous cases, saved only by sheer luck.

.

.

.

__

That night, after a nice warm bath to ease his mind, Bob settled comfortably under his duvet.

He was no coward, in fact he was often the most courageous among the three boys in the face of danger despite being the smallest, but he couldn't help feeling nervous remembering what happened to Pete and Jupe.

He turned on a night light that he had gotten a few days ago. Satisfied, he took off his glasses and laid back, staring at the warm glow of the light on his ceiling.

Doppelgänger, shadowy presence, light flickering…

He almost fell asleep before he noticed something.

The shadow in the corner of his room was shifting weirdly.

He sat up and put his glasses back on. That was weird. He stared at his night light. It wouldn't produce such movements.

So what was--?

He caught a glimpse of the shadow again and his blood ran cold. It had shifted to form a face, mouth twisting into a smile too wide.

Bob bolted out of his bed, down the hallway, and felt like the shadow was chasing him.

He ran out the front door, not really having any plan except to keep running. It didn't occur to him to wake his parents up, but it seemed that the shadow was focused on him.

But instead of the familiar quiet of his neighborhood, he found himself surrounded by towering concrete buildings, colors across giant screens, and car models he didn't recognize-- almost like something out of those sci-fi films. Everything looked like it had been tinted silver, pale and lacking in color. And there was no human around.

Where was he? Why was he here? How was all this possible?

He looked back, and the shadow had morphed into a hideous form, something barely human, its limbs twisting at the wrong places. He saw that creature bend down, as if its head was in pain.

Then the creature caught sight of him, and let out a sharp screech.

Bob turned and bolted.

The creature ran after him, and Bob couldn't think of anything else except run.

Don't get caught. Don't get caught. Don't get caught.

Bob ran through alleys, empty roads, all the while wondering how he even ended up in this situation, and how the hauntings weren't only affecting the Headquarters, but even outside of it.

He remembered what his father had said. Had he been transported to a liminal space?

He looked up and saw the clouds moving in a weird way, as if they were chasing him as well.

He turned into another alley.

A dead end.

Still breathing heavily, he could feel the creature approaching.

Bob made up his mind. He wouldn't go out without a fight.

The creature grabbed his arm. He turned around.

With all his might, he moved violently, throwing punches that had missed the creature, slashing his flesh with his bare hands, anything so the creature would let him go.

The creature was shrieking, its voice was hurting his ears, but he didn't care. He needed to survive.

"Go away!" he screamed.

Another pair of hands held his arms.

"I said go away!!"

"Robert! Robert, you're having a nightmare! Wake up!"

His eyes shot open. He saw both his parents, his father holding his arms, and his mother stood nearby with worry. The overhead light had been turned on. His room looked normal.

Bob was still heaving like he'd been running for miles.

Mr. Andrews sighed and let go of his arms. "Good grief, son. You nearly clawed me half to death. You were screaming and thrashing around like a madman."

"You even slept with your glasses on," his mother approached, gently taking off his glasses and putting them safely on the bedside table.

Bob swallowed hard. He wanted to explain, but he couldn't. He thought he saw that shadow again, but it was just his night light flickering. He turned it off.

He thought of every possibility he could think of on why the three of them had encountered an unexplainable creature on the same day, and why two of them experienced it in the Headquarters while it happened to him outside of it. Bob was sure that what he experienced was no regular dream. But he couldn't find the answer now.

Instead Bob took a deep breath.

"…Hey Dad?"

"Yes?"

He gave a sheepish grin.

"Can I sleep with you and Mom tonight?"

Mr. Andrews stared at his teenage son. Mrs. Andrews pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Good night, Robert," his father said dryly.

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A soft glow encases the room in a warm dull light, it flickers causing shadows to dance around in the corners of darkness.

This wasn't the first time she studied by this light and this wont be the last.

Long nails trailed over spells and forbidden words as she searches through the tome, her whispers causes the flame to flicker ferther as she dives deeper into the madness.

The leather pouch that contains the tin of honey for my own burns swings at my side when I turn away from the wreck of my old job. I will need to find some place safe and quiet until dawn breaks across the horizon. Then I can leave this town.

Most of my things are currently burning up in the attic of the apothecary but I can get some things early in the morning. Or steal them from a clothesline when I go to fetch a horse. It is not stealing when they owe me money anyways.

Slowly and then all at once the streets fill with townsfolk. I keep my head down and walk backwards against the stream to avoid the attention. I can hear someone calling my boss's name above the ruckus.

"Monsieur Gourmanvi! Can you hear us?" It's the wife of the baker. She always had a penchant for dramatics, and for sleeping in other people's beds.

With a shake of my head I sidestep into an alley and make a break for it. The fire will start catching soon unless someone goes to the river and that is at the other side of town. I would go there but there’s too much of a risk for anyone to recognise me. Let the town think me dead. I am better off that way. 

Above the screaming, the fire, my blood rushing in my own ears, I miss something important. The difference between my life and the death I just tried to put in scene. 

Several sharp splinters dig into my arm and I bite my tongue on a screech as I’m slammed into the alley wall. Unnatural eyes that reflect the moonlight like a cat’s. They’re familiar, even when his face isn’t. 

“You– you’re one of them.” I scramble through the folds of my skirt in search of my pocket but I fear I put it on backwards when I left the house. With his tight grip on my left wrist and my pocket on the same side there’s no way I can reach it without him noticing. I’m also not sure whether my knife will even be able to cut through his skin. 

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes as his face morphs like he’s smelling something disgusting. “With the way you are fleeing the fire I am surprised that you are not.” He slams me against the wall a second time and I groan when my head bounces off the mortar. “Then what did you do there? Are you part of Constantine’s plan?” 

“Who is Constantine? Who are you?” I don’t resort to begging even if please, please, please, sticks at the back of my throat like cough syrup. He thinks someone else set the fire and I ought to let him believe it if I want to keep my life. 

“I don’t know. I work near the apothecary but my boss’ husband, he is a violent thing. Let me leave in this commotion.” I don’t pull at his grasp. It is a futile pursuit that won’t endear me to him. Instead I make my dark eyes as big as they go. “I just want to live a safe life with a good man.”

The man in front of me doesn’t smile. His nose is still scrunched up and his fingernails dig even deeper into the fleshy part of my forearm. One burned, one punctured. I will need clothes with long sleeves. 

“Even if I did believe you I would not let you go.” With a quick flick of his arms he wraps my cloak around me until I can no longer move. “You are fleeing the fire which means you are part of his plans. From now until your death you will serve to repay the grief that choice cost me.”

“Cost you? I am the one fleeing all I’ve ever known.”

“And now you will be the prisoner in my home.” He picks me up in his arms and starts to walk. Away from the streaming water, away from the fire and the crowd. Even if I screamed nobody would be paying enough attention to notice. “I am Lord Sanguine and you will behave if you wish to keep breathing.”

I struggle in his hold. “Lord blood, my leech? Truly?”

The glare he gives me tells me he didn’t miss my joke, he didn’t enjoy it either. His grip tightens and his eyes soften as they pierce mine. The stars above him suddenly shine brighter. “Yes, Ottilie, Lord Sanguine, you will sleep now.”

“But I am,” a yawn breaks through my sentence, “not at all tired. I was not.” I swear. 

Her patience was rewarded a few minutes later when the door nearest the thrall opened with a creak. A little more light crept in, and with it the hunched forms of two more Nosferatu. Getting a better look at them, Evarcha saw their long, spiralling tongues and winglike ears. Erebina’s lot, then. Butterfly vampires, as some liked to call them. Sure enough, fluttering over the thralls came a swarm of the red insects, wings beating in a silent cacophony. A few settled on Evarcha, and she tried unsuccessfully to shake them off.

“I’m almost disappointed, hunter. I was promised better than this. Waiting for you to get drunk and then sending a few peons to bring you in was terribly simple.” 

The voice coming from the corridor was imperial, curt and patronising. In short, nothing special for a vampire, and especially not an Erebine.

“And I’m disappointed that your ‘peons’ could keep from panting on guard duty. You do know you have to feed them?”

“Then we can all be disappointed.” The vampire said as she walked in. She looked fairly typical for an Erebine, her skin was unnaturally smooth, and in the light seemed almost ebon white. Her hair was elaborate and impractical, complementing a wide dress already soiled by a thin trickle of blood. Most unsettling, however, were her eyes, which were flat and opaque, made from the same material as her skin. They stared hollowly at her. As with most Erebine Vampires, Evarcha’s host didn’t move her face as she talked, her voice simply projecting out from her body.

“I, however, will at least have the solace of being alive at sunrise.” The vampire finished.

“We’ll see.”

A cobweb drifted between the two of them. Evarcha stared up at the impassive face of the vampire before her. Nothing too impressive. Probably would’ve been an easy kill, were it not for her current predicament. She had gotten quite drunk, admittedly. But she hadn’t been hunting for whoever-the-hell this was. 

“Would you believe me if I said this was all a big misunderstanding?”

“Not particularly. And even if it was, we all have our roles to fill. Despite your best efforts, your kinds’ is quite clear.” The vampire stepped closer, her lips parting slightly.

“So that's it? Drink my blood, throw the rest to you lapdogs here and then move onto the next poor sod to pass by your- where are we, precisely?”

“My home. You haven’t been here long, have you? My bloodline has claimed these lands for centuries.”

“As I was trying to say, I was just passing through.”

“How unlucky for you. You seemed quite well equipped, however.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t on a hunt. Just not for you, I’m afraid. By the way, what is your name? If you’re going to tear my throat out you could at least do me the kindness of telling me who will have felled me.”

“Amelyn Castarich VeLeshte Erebina. First of my name.”

“Named for your progenitor. How incestuously charming.”

“I had most of those names before I ascended, thank you.”

“A real self-made monster then. Wonderful.”

Evarcha watched as one of the butterflies drifted past, fluttering into one corner before trapping itself in a cobweb. Evarcha’s eyes widened, then she forced herself to relax.

“Something the matter?”

“Oh, just my life flashing before my eyes.”

The vampire turned her head, mouth widening into the sort of grin that can only be achieved by something not wholly used to using its face.

“It must be very exciting.”

Was that- curiosity? 

“Still sore about losing my quarry, honestly.” If she could keep talking, she might have a chance here.

Amelyn stepped closer, seemingly starting to enjoy herself. Vampires tend to when they think they’re in the upper hand. She leaned in close, heavy perfume almost masking the scent of decay.

“And what, pray tell, was your quarry?”

Evarcha looked back to the corner with the cobweb. The butterfly was gone. Good.

“An astral predator. Its feeding habits made it difficult to track, but I believed its venom could have served as a powerful tool if I’d gotten to it in time.”

“The sort of thing that might have saved you from me?” 

Amelyn was closer now, close enough for Evarcha to see the tiny ridges and scales across her skin that were unsurprisingly reminiscent of the wings of the butterflies that followed her. Her grin had widened well past her lips, revealing a dark redness beneath.

“Perhaps.”

“I doubt it. Your incompetence would be almost endearing. But your vagueness is tiring. What precisely were you hunting?”

Evarcha shot another glance at the corner. The web had definitely expanded.

“It was an arthropod, like an insect. Native to a demi-realm of the Astral Sea, it was a sort of super-predator of mortals. It rarely fed on them directly, instead devouring those who predated mortals themselves. Creatures like you, actually.”

“Ah. What a sad attempt at intimidation. You are starting to bore me, hunter. A pity for you.”

Evarcha looked to the wall one last time. The web now covered most of the corner. The Nosferatu that stood there, once bound by its mistress’s orders, was now gaining a fine layer of web over it as well.

Suddenly, Amelyn grabbed her shoulder, talons extending from her fingertips. 

“I do hope you’ve gotten most of the beer out of your system,” she said, her grin widening as her false face peeled back, “it just ruins your taste otherwise.” 

With a wet tear Amelyn revealed her true face, a fanged maw covered in congealed gore. Her eyes glimmered now as well, pupils dilating as she took in her prey properly. In the corner, the Nosferatu let out a strangled hiss. Its mistress seemed not to notice.

“Wait- I can tell you a little more- This creature- it fed on vampires just after they themselves had- “ 

Evarcha let out a breath as Amelyn’s fangs pierced her throat. You never screamed when a vampire bit you. Your throat tried, then the coagulants and anaesthetics in their venom kicked in. She’d built up a bit of a tolerance, but honestly that just made the bite hurt more.

The Nosferatu who’d accompanied Amelyn looked on hungrily for a moment, then turned its head. Evarcha tried to see where it gazed, being foiled by Amelyn, who tipped the chair over as she lapped at Evarcha’s throat. She let out a grunt as the wood snapped under her. Evarcha tried to wriggle out from the suddenly-slacker ropes, but the vampire’s talons sliced into her shoulder. Evarcha let out a hiss.

“I tried to- warn you- actually. Too late now- thank you.”

The vampire paused.

“Thank you?”

Behind them the Nosferatu hissed and leapt towards the wall. A black blur caught it mid-air and dragged it into the cobweb, which now covered it and the adjoining one. The first thrall had disappeared completely.

“What is this?” Amelyn hissed, blood dripping from her distended maw.

“My- quarry.” Evarcha said, kicking at the distracted vampire as she half slid, half pushed herself out of the wreckage of the chair. She clutched her bleeding throat. “I warned you..”

From the web, a leg extended. Long and many-jointed, as thick as a human head and covered in long barbs and bristles. Another followed. Then another and another, pushing and scrabbling against the wall in a grotesque parody of a-

“Spider.” The vampire breathed.

“Culicivora Astralensis. A second-hand bloodsucker.” Evarcha murmured. 

The hunter, the vampire and the ‘spider’ stood for a moment. Then Amelyn charged the beast, it raised its front legs in readiness, and Evarcha dived for the door.

Amelyn charged into the beast as it hauled itself from the web, dozens of legs tearing its fat abdomen and dripping, many-fanged maw from whatever extraplanar space it waited in and into reality. She grabbed one of its legs and ripped it clean off, but as she did so another clouted her across the gore-covered head. She hissed, glistening wings extending from her back and hips as her clothing and skin unfolded into their true, horrific form.

Evarcha stumbled out of the room, clutching her neck. Nearby she saw her gear lying neatly on a low table. Amelyn had taken the trouble of sorting it. Finding a cauterising rune, she scrabbled for it and spoke the minor incantation. She was no mage, but this sort of thing came with the trade. She pressed the rune to her neck and gritted her teeth as pain flared across it. It wasn’t a good fix, but it would do. 

Behind her, she heard Amelyn shriek in triumph, then horror, then silence. She grabbed her hammer and stumbled back to the room she’d been held in.

It was filled with cobwebs when she arrived, a few butterflies struggling weakly in their silken bonds. In the centre of the room was the body of Amelyn, stained by black ichor and clutched between the fangs of the not-spider that filled half the room. A thousand beady eyes fixed on Evarcha. She gripped her hammer a little tighter.