.ambush
.oct.31.part+3. #blood, #gore
Monoma was in six places at once. That's what it felt like. The party was a daze, bustling around him, laughter loud and blissful and horribly, horrendously naive. It took all he had to remember how to breathe, and smile, and...
Someone complimented his costume. Their face was a blur. He looked down at himself, staring at the dark crimson smears emblazoned on the pearly white of his coat and nodded, smiled, drew in a breath and tried not to scream.
1.
Uraraka always looked crestfallen around him. She wore heartbreak on her sleeve. The way he was starting to loathe the way her gaze fell on him grew inside him rapidly, festering under the flutter in his chest as she got close. Being around her felt wrong, no matter how much he tried to fight that feeling, like something in the world had to rip itself open to allow it.
He wondered if she felt the same way. It was hard, trying to force an evil shadow over her visage. She was so sweet. Kind. Almost disgustingly so, reminiscent of a golden jar of honey that the most naive of bees had drowned inside. He hoped she wasn’t destroyed on the inside in the same way, but he wouldn’t have been surprised. They had to of wormed their way in somehow.
His thoughts were wandering. The files were in sight now. He grabbed hold of them, frowning, curious. What could be so important about them...? Why did they have to do this? Why?
Why?
2.
In the dark of the haunted house, he could hardly see the all-too familiar mist of Kurogiri’s power eat up the air as a void opened up against the wall. It made his heart stop to see, a flash of aching sparking up at the familiar sight that he’d dared to miss, all those nights.
The meeting was a brief one, one that made it for too easy to brush the entire incident off. He watched the files get passed off and disappear into the villainous black in front of him. He watched Uraraka nodding, face flushed yet pale, before ducking away into the shadowy hall away from them. He watched the void start to dissipate, then began to turn himself to follow, and then-- felt- a hand- grab onto the back of his collar and yank- a laugh, high-pitched and sharp and-
he watched, as the world around him suddenly disappeared as he was sucked into the black.
3.
His skin itched. Where he’d healed, his skin itched, stitching together until it was a clear canvas once more. Toga’s knife was sharp and quick through the demonstration, blood spilling fast before it was smothered away by new skin.
He felt like a freak, standing there, with all their eyes on him.
He could feel his eyes. And His eyes.
And, eventually, he lifted a hand, having seen enough.
...
4.
A white room.
5.
Bodies.
No.
4.
He was shoved into a white room. A strange room, half of the walls replaced with something glossy and reflective. He could see his own pale face, staring back at him.
He wasn’t alone.
5.
Blood.
No.
4.
This was supposed to teach him a lesson. He couldn’t remember what. It was all too fast, the instructions, the--
There was movement. All along the other side of the room there was movement.
5.
Monsters.
No.
Childish, so childish.
4.
The room was filled with the gnashing of teeth. Flesh tearing. Blood, splattering onto the floor. It was indescribable. A mass, writhing yet still, gathered in the opposite corner.
He’d never had the misfortune to see one up close, not like this. He’d seen them on the news, read about them in articles, wondered, shuddered at the thought, but never like this--
5.
...
4.
The Noumu were--
5.
...
4.
The Noumu that were still moving were devouring each other. The victors of a struggle, now leisurely chewing and chewing on the defeated souls below them. Monoma shook, staring at them, trembling, feeling all the blood drain and drain from him until he felt cold and weak.
3.
“I want to see... what he can do.”
4.
When he started to scream, it echoed. It alerted them of his presence but he didn’t care, couldn’t care, scrambled back and scrabbled at the walls, clawing and clawing and pleading and begging--
“Don’t do this, don’t, don’t--”
The beasts were misshapen, brain exposed, wet with gore and loud as they started to shift, dull moans falling from them as they started to prowl forward, slow, leisurely, knowing, knowing they’ve won.
His shrieks got louder. “Let me out! Fucking let me out! Shigaraki!!”
5.
...
Someone had to care. Someone had to notice.
...
4.
“Toga!!” he tried. “Kurogiri!!”
Every utterance fell on deaf ears. When the closest approached all the more, he was flailing again, squeezed against the corner and cowering before he was frantically crawling away, just barely dodging slow swipes of big, meaty hands. “No, no, no--”
He was hitting the floor before he even realized. A successful swipe, something had caught to his back, battering it, he could feel that awful itch, healing, he was a freak, he was going to die--
1.
Why?
4.
Dodging felt useless when there was more than one, interested now, hungry, stalking forward. What was left of them started to crowd in like a pack, mouths drooling as they opened, he was trapped- trapped- trapped-
5.
It seemed crazy. The image was stuck behind his eyelids, squeezed somewhere against his retinas. The way the mirrored walls, now smudged and smeared with bloody streaks of desperate nails, had just - opened. Parting, revealing the audience behind them. A panel had popped open in a way that was almost comical, a hand had reached out, he had just barely grasped it, desperate, needing--
The Noumu had reached him. Touched him. Grabbed him.
Contact.
And then, suddenly, it was dust.
Suddenly, he’d been overwhelmed.
So many quirks. So much power. It surged through his cells, violently vibrant, making them burn just as white as the walls. It drove everything in his mind to a sharp, icy peak.
It really only took five minutes to get rid of the rest of them. Barely that.
6.
The party. It continued on. He was in a daze, body still sodden and buzzing from leftover adrenaline. More lessons were needed, he’d been promised. He needed more control. He needed more. He needed...
...
... something that could get blood out of his coat.
