#corpses cw

I love how creepy the ghostbird mummies in the stranger are, so I wanted to see what more well-preserved nomai remains would look like.

The bladed unit's footsteps were light as they stepped into a room long avoided but not uninhabited. The security cameras fixed in the corners of the ceiling were operational but not in use. This was a room the AI had actively avoided acknowledging.

It could not avoid this forever.

After all, it was a room that contained itself. Their primary terminal, to be exact. An equivalent of a face that felt like a stranger's. Or was it the bipedal body they puppeteer that was a stranger?

Perhaps the real stranger was the lump of flesh and bone that lay decomposing partially on the floor and partially on the keyboard of their terminal. The exposed optic of the slate gray unit travelled from the handgun still loosely held in a lifeless hand and then to the cracks that spider-webbed from the bullet hole on the monitor.

A futile attempt on their 'life' had taken place here.

Whoever the corpse had been, Fivemind could not help but find them foolish admirable. They must have known it was useless. And yet they had tried.

A smaller rotting ...thing... lay discarded to the side. The AI knew little about the human anatomy but it could recognise a skull as seen through rotting flesh.

Had it been a clean cut? It was hard to tell when the remains were in this state. It was hard to tell anything, really.

There was no point in pondering a stain. The machine resumed cleaning up.

Silently Phantom turned to face her, empty eyes and skin the white of moonlight. Wounds on its neck closed as she watched, skin writhed as the flesh beneath it rearranged itself. It spoke in a scratchy and whispered monotone, wisps of mist escaping its mouth.

“The kid, find him.”

And then officer Bailey was alone at the crime scene.

Inspired by “The Ghost Forge” by @the-wizard-dipper.

For @invisobang 2022.

Read “The Ghost Forge” here: ao3 | tumblr

This invisobang has been so much fun! I overworked my wrist a bit, but the results are worth it! I have discovered gradients combined with clipping layers and erasing, and I am now all powerful! TWD’s phic is so good, and so suspenseful, and so very worth reading! I high key recommend it!

look at this thing 

Man Proposes, God Disposes. 1864. Oil on canvas. 

It’s a grisly scene of an arctic expedition being ravaged by polar bears. There’s blood. there’s human bones. There’s ice and shredded tatters. There’s an implicit commentary on imperialism. And yet the curse has absolutely jack all to do with any of that

The actual curse is that the painting is housed in the royal holloway, university of london, and anyone who takes a test in front of it is destined to Fail that test unless the painting is covered. Is there actually a curse? doesn’t matter. no one wants to sit in front of the painting. What if they fail? What if they’re eaten by a polar bear? Untenable. can’t risk it. they cover the painting. 

to top it all off, the longer the curse goes, the more curses manifest. stories crop up about why it’s cursed. fictitious students are created only to be killed by polar bears. urban legends start up, spark, die, reignite. it’s exam season. the polar bears are covered up. students explain why this must be done to other students who then pass it on others, who then make up new curses. 

Ahalya

an important first for them || deception || disguise || something they waited for || kill two birds with one stone

When Dumbledore is burning from the inside and Harry is close to drowning and the Inferi are closing their slimy hands around his wrists like vises, he has no time to look at them and discern details. If he had troubled to look more closely, he would have noticed that one among their number was a dark-haired boy, not much older than Harry himself. Small and wiry, built like a Seeker, and uncannily alike in countenance with Harry’s godfather.

Tara

one prediction they made || communal cup || one injury/wound/illness they healed or cured || on the tail end || keen acumen