#lepusvacui

Rules:

-Poses are interchangeable, as long as the art in question contains my OC Elliot and Danny Johnson. (You can use your own Design of Danny, too, if you want!)

-NO TRACING!

-NO AI. Fuck ai. Get that shit out of here.

-Preferred to be traditional or digital art.

-MAKE SURE TO TAG ME!! Use #KipsRandomDTIYS as well on your post <3

Prizes: (HALF BODY ONLY)

1st place: Full rendered half piece like the image provided.

2nd place: Half piece, flat colors only.

3rd place: Half piece, lineart only.

Ref:

Tracking down a victim was never difficult.

Tracking down a formerly incorporeal victim in a realm that was ever changing was slightly harder.

Regardless, it didn’t take long for Ghostface to pinpoint Elliot’s location—just follow the trail of panic and tears through the forest until he stumbled across them. Elliot was oblivious to his presence, of course they were; Ghostface did a damn good job of making his pursuit of them invisible, imperceptible.

From the looks of it, he had stopped his panicked fleeing to catch his breath. Sort of. What started off as a break from running had turned into full on panicked sobs, its tiny body shaking with each heave of their chest. Ghostface could see from where he stood the blood, finally dried, caked along their palm. The kid really wasn’t lying, he was living flesh and blood now. Living flesh and blood just begging, even if Elliot didn’t know it yet, to be slaughtered.

Ignoring their panicked state, Ghostface aimed to make his presence finally known by purposefully stepping on a twig. The snap reverberated through the eerily silent forest, almost louder than Elliot’s sobbing and whimpering.

The sound instantly put them on high alert, causing the former poltergeist to spin around rapidly, almost tripping over their own tail. His already wide panicked eyes grew six sizes larger when he saw Devil stalking closer to him through the distant trees. “How did you… find me?” He whispered, clawed hand clutching at its own chest to attempt to alleviate their rapidly beating heart.

Ghostface laughed, a genuine laugh, shoulders heaving and head thrown back. “C’mon Little Rabbit, don’t act so surprised now. Isn’t this what you wanted?” Devil gestures to himself as he takes a step closer. Elliot cowers.

“I didn’t think I’d actually-that this would actually—no! I don’t want this.” He squeaked, wringing his hands over his tail.

“No?” Ghostface echoes, tilting his head. A threat in both tone and body language. “Were you lying about being so enamored with us? With me?” Another step forward. Elliot looks two seconds away from crumbling into dust.

“No!” It quickly insists, throwing his hands up. “I would never! Not about you guys, I swear. This is just—“

“Good.” Devil interrupted without a care for whatever else the ghost had to say. “Come here, then.” He made a beckoning motion with one hand as he reached for his knife with the other. Elliot made a frightened little eep! sound and shrunk back so far he ran into a tree, slowly shaking their head and mouthing the word ‘no’.

Ghostface sighs, the sound coming out harsh through the vocal changer. “Elliot, Little Rabbit, I’m not going to ask you again. Come. Here.” Two more larger strides closer to them. “If I have to repeat myself, I’m not going to be nice about it.” One more step. “Unless you want to give me a good chase, I suggest you listen, yeah?”

He paused and waited for Elliot to do something other than shake like a leaf. To his surprise, they hesitantly, slowly, but surely, pushed off from the tree and began taking small, tentative steps towards the killer. Devil smirked under his mask. “Good.”

The moment Elliot was in grabbing range, Ghostface pounced, lunging forward to grab Elliot and putting the poor guy in a headlock. Of course, Elliot thrashed and struggled the whole time, clawed hands fruitlessly scratching at Devil’s arms and only really tearing at his sleeves. No real damage, not yet, and probably not ever. The sobs that wracked his body made the both of them shake, giving Devil genuine pause for a moment. He really was scared, and that was perfect.

“No!” Elliot wailed between pitiful hiccups. “Please, please, please Mister Devil, Ghostface, please!! I don’t wanna die!” His shrewd little legs kicked at Devil’s shins, but he barely felt it.

“Shhhhhh…” Ghostface murmured, using his free, non headlocking hand to gently caress over Elliot’s hair. Elliot’s physically present, fully tangible hair. Using the same hand he was coincidentally holding his knife, meaning that Elliot was one hundred percent getting a face full of blade millimeters from cutting into him every time Devil’s hand moved. Somehow, that actually began getting the kid to calm down. “It’s alright, don’t cry.” He whispered, moving his arms from a headlock to… a hug. “Nobody wants to die, y’know? So I don’t fault you for saying the same stuff they all do. But you wanna make me proud, yeah?” Using the hilt of his knife, Devil tilted Elliot’s chin up to look up at him, towering over the boy. With a trembling lip and rivulets of tears streaking down his cheeks, Elliot nodded.

“Good, good…” Ghostface crooned, going back to hugging Elliot the same way a python hugs its prey. “So, why not do that by letting me have this?” He asks, masked face getting uncomfortably close to the side of Elliot’s head. As he spoke, the killer snaked his arm around to position the point of the blade over Elliot’s chest.

“But what if I don’t come back?” Elliot whispered, voice small and hoarse. Devil paused, rubbing his thumb over his blade and making a low humming noise of contemplation.

“But what if you do? You’ve already done it once. Why else would we be here talking about it?” He patted Elliot’s shoulder, but in reality was using that as encouragement to push him to his knees. Elliot went down without a fuss, and as a reward, Ghostface patted the top of his head. Poor kid was still shaking and sniveling.

“You gonna stop crying for long enough to give me a good picture?” As mean as those words were, Devil’s tone was flat and non abrasive, and the way he sat behind them and wrapped himself around Elliot mirrored his speech. His knees caged Elliot’s sitting form against his chest, and Ghostface had one arm draped over their shoulder in a way where leaning forward would be tedious. No escape, not anymore.

“Really?” The ghost hiccuped, looking back at their would-be killer. “I get to be a photo?”

“Damn right you do, and I want it to look perfect. Don’t you want the same? Tears won’t be a good look on someone who calls themselves the number one fan of every Ghostface ever, will it? Give me a smile kid, I know you’ve got it in ya.” Devil pokes at one of Elliot’s cheeks with the hand still holding his weapon. His other hand was already turning on his camera; a Polaroid one this time. He came specially prepared for this design.

“Here, let’s do a practice one, so you can see how not scary it is, yeah?” He almost gagged with how nice he was forcing himself to sound, but it worked. Elliot leaned into Devil as he held the camera an arm’s length away, lens aimed and ready to take the perfect photo.

“Big smile, c’mon kid.”

The moment Devil saw that smile, the moment Elliot stopped wheezing out residual sobs and sniffles, the moment time froze for an eternal second for the both of them, that’s when he chose to strike.

It was fast—he was fast, he always was. As the camera flashed, Devil used the distraction of the light to plunge the sharp blade all the way to the hilt in Elliot’s sternum. It made the perfect hollow crack noise as he forced it through bone, and the accompanying squelch of the flesh beneath was music to his ears.

As Elliot gasped and sputtered, they began struggling. Ghostface held onto him tighter, leaning in once again and pressing the cold, uncaring plastic of his mask against their cheek.

“Oops. My hand slipped.”

Devil wrenched the knife back out, watching Elliot’s blood beginning to cascade from the wound. He didn’t stop there, taking a moment to flip the blade to a reverse grip so he’d have a much easier time gutting the former, now soon-to-be future, ghost. As soon as the plush flesh of their stomach was carved away and its guts lopped out from the newfound chest cavity, their struggles became much more lethargic, until ceasing altogether. He wasn’t dead though, not yet, Devil could still feel a pulse in him yet. There was still the faintest flicker of life in his eyes.

Ghostface smeared the bloody contents of Elliot’s insides up his sweater as his hand trailed up to grab their chin, tilting it up so they were forced to maintain eye contact for this next part.

“Goodbye, Little Rabbit.” He cooed, slitting Elliot’s throat and watching the spark fizzle out in their face. The instant Elliot became past tense, Devil stood, its body slumping pathetically off to the side. He paced around as his camera whirred, until finally, finally, it spat out the photo he was waiting for. He fanned out the picture until the dark splotchiness cleared up.

It came out better than he was hoping. Elliot had the biggest, most enthusiastic smile on his face as the blade was tearing into him. There was the faintest hint of a red glint behind one of the eyes of Devil’s mask; a red eye glare, not uncommon to see in photos, but a surprise that it showed up in a Polaroid image at that. Ghostface snorted in disbelief, chalking it up to the perfect storm of lighting coincidences as he moved to pocket the photo… but thought of a better use for it instead.

He knelt down to the corpse and moved it until it looked like it was posed to be in a coffin; hands clasped, laid flat out. He’d fanned out the spilled organs into an intricate web, a pattern only he found mesmerizing and beautiful. Instead of a funerary bouquet, Devil slipped the Polaroid, bloody smudges from his gloves coating parts of it, in between the body’s folded fingers. He crouched to get the right angle, and snap! Another photo was taken.

“It’d be a shame to not let you keep that one, yeah?” He whispered to the corpse. As he stood to leave, he felt… off. Like someone—something—else had just arrived. A cautious glance around almost didn’t yield him any results, but he saw the oddest flicker of movement a few yards back. He snickered as the next photo printed, and as he waltzed around waving it in the air, he called out, “You’re too late, Old Man! I got here first!”

And from the shadows, a second voice.