Chapter 1: First Fall
Chapter Text
Hot air whistles thinly in your ears. The humidity envelopes you like an uncomfortable blanket, pressing your limbs tight against your body as you hurtle down, down, down. Heart in your mouth, you don’t know where gravity is dragging you and you can’t see for yourself even if you wanted to; it’s nothing but an endless void around you for miles.
‘I’m going to die,’ you think numbly.
For some reason, the statement feels absurd.
After what feels like hours of free-falling (but is probably more like a few minutes), the darkness suddenly gives way to a violent crimson. You have just enough time to register the cracked concrete ground rushing to meet your face before it takes the brunt with a sickening WHACK, followed by the rest of your body. The impact sends jolts of unpleasant shudders through your whole being like a mini earthquake, but strangely, your face doesn’t feel a single pang of pain despite having basically ate concrete at deathly velocity.
It takes a few moments for the shock to wear off, and another few before you dare attempt to move. Sliding your elbows under you, you cautiously test each limb to confirm they hadn’t been smashed to pieces before giving yourself a push upright.
But something’s wrong.
Even though you don’t feel the slightest pain when you stand on unsteady feet, you just feel… wrong. Like there’s something fundamentally different about you, something changed, something-
You look down at yourself.
Oh. That’s why you feel so weird. Your skin turned into the colour of cotton candy.
With a budding sense of dread, you give yourself a hasty once-over. It’s not just your skin that has changed, it’s your everything. Your skin is mottled with muted swirls of orange, pink and yellow like you just took a dip in paint and it’s stained you permanently. Your fingers are tipped off into sharpened claws, and as you experimentally poke your arm, the sting it leaves behind convinces you that it’s not just for show. There’s a new weight attached to your back in the form of bloody wings- ‘Moth wings,’ your mind numbly supplies as you stare at your new appendages. They hang down at rest, the tips nearly brushing against the cracked concrete ground.
A new tuft of yellow-pink fuzz rings around your neck and fills out your chest area, while your hair seems to be replaced with the same fuzz that hangs behind your back in a wild mane, ending with the same muted shade of pink at the tips (from what little you can see by pulling your hair around anyway).
The only thing to remain unchanged is your body, lithe in frame, and your clothes, something you’re grateful for. Just a simple black tee and boxers, a sight of familiarity that brings you comforting memories of… of…
… What happened to you?
Your newly gained claws dig into your hair, tugging painfully as the weight of the situation gradually starts to set in. Remember… What can you remember?
Name? Nothing.
Age? Maybe early twenties, but you can’t pinpoint an exact number.
Last thing you did? You squeeze your eyes shut tight and try to recall, fuzzy and indecipherable images dancing right in front of you but refusing to make any sense, and you see a grey blur rising to your head level and-
burning pain
darkness
Your eyes fly wide open. Choking out a strangled gasp, you sink to your knees clutching your head. Sharp, blinding pain lances right through your brain as if someone had skewered a hot poker through it, leaving you a shivering lump even as the pain fades into nothing, sucking in deep breaths in a vain effort to calm your racing heart. “Wh-what was that?” you mumble to yourself. “It hurt so much. It feels like I…”
‘Died.’
The thought terrifies you, and you quickly shake your head. That’s not possible. If you die, you die. There’s no waking up from that, you’re meant to be gone. Permanently.
‘But my new body says otherwise.’
Yeah, there’s the matter that you look like the goddamn Mothman now too. None of this makes sense! Frustration blooming between your brows in the form of a headache, you reach up in hopes of soothing it… Until your claws suddenly clack against a smooth surface instead of skin.
“What the f…”
Swallowing down the aborted curse, you splay your whole hand over your face. Except you’re not touching your face, because whatever’s under your claws is smooth and cold and you’re unable to feel your own touch, which means…
“A mask,” you sigh. “It’s just one thing after another… How did I not notice until now?”
However, the longer you poke and prod at this mask, the more… off it makes you feel. You’re able to see through it like it’s not there to begin with, in a way that “you’re seeing out of eye holes” can’t explain. Even the most well-crafted mask would have the rims of a carved eye hole in your peripheral vision, but there’s no such thing here. Other minute details are cropping up to your awareness too; like how your breathing doesn’t feel obstructed or that it weighs practically nothing on your head, and the feeling of dread spreads further and further into your psyche until it drives you to frantically search the dark alleyway for a reflective surface.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…”
Bingo! You find an undisturbed puddle and stick your head above it, eager to see what you look like.
“Wagh!”
‘Fucking hell!’
Your nerves are instantly raised and alert like a fire is lit under your feet. It’s an instinctive emotion that sets your heart skipping several beats, and you’re unable to articulate why until it slows back down somewhat.
The face of the mask staring back at you is creepy.
It’s a simple design: two simplified human eyes and a flat smile are carved into the surface. Yet it sets you on edge, unease crawling under your skin as you examine every bit of your reflection (a pair of comb-like antennae you didn’t notice until now twitches, as if in tune with your emotions). It’s something in the eyes, their pupils abnormally large and empty. It’s… It’s…
‘It’s just fucking uncanny,’ you finally settle on. Very fucking uncanny. So uncanny that you should probably stop staring at the bloody thing if you want to retain the little dregs of sanity you have left. Yeah, that sounds like a grand idea.
You pull yourself away from the puddle. This is getting too much. The new Mothman body you’re stuck in, the strangely sulfuric air that feels coarse on your bare skin, the creepy mask… It’s so surreal that it has to be a dream. It has to be!
‘That’s not possible,’ her mind whispers traitorously. ‘It feels too real to be a simple dream. You know it.’
Your new wings flutter as if in agreement. You quickly push them flat against your side, trying not to shudder as you feel the smooth scales under your palm. “Calm down,” you tell yourself sternly, trying to ignore the tremor in your words. “One thing at a time. Find out wh-where the hell you are.”
Yeah, that seems like a good first step. Forcing your legs to move, you take tiny, hesitant steps towards the end of the alleyway until you’re finally free from its dreary darkness.
What you see makes you want to scurry back into the alleyway.
The sky is a startlingly bright hue of red, casting the jagged buildings and structures beneath it in an ominous glow stretching for miles beyond your line of sight. The source of the light seems to be the big fuck-off pentagram, an honest-to-god (Satan?) pentagram symbol carved into the sky, accompanied by another two floating celestial bodies that you can’t quite make out.
The atmosphere feels just as muggy as it does in the alleyway, with the added blazing rays of the sun(?) above. It takes you some time to get adjusted to breathing in this new air (the fact that you’re somehow breathing through your mask doesn’t make you feel any better).
The cityscape surrounding you is far from the hellish desolation you’d been expecting, quite the opposite: it is absolutely crawling with people.
Although calling them “people” is a fucking stretch. Creatures of all shapes and sizes are strolling down the streets like… like regular pedestrians, all of them standing on two feet as far as you can see. Thank goodness, you don’t know what you would have done if a giant spider suddenly came barreling down the road. Everyone seems to have some kind of deformity like you, ranging from stereotypical devil horns to jagged teeth to pupil-less eyes, but that’s not the thing that’s keeping you rooted to the spot, wary of approaching anyone.
No, it’s the naked hostility shared across every face you can see. It just screams “Approach and you will die”.
‘I still need to ask them for help.’
But what if they-
‘No ‘What ifs’!’ you tell yourself sternly. You’re not going to help yourself by second-guessing every step of the way, you just need to do it.
You take your first step towards the closest creature.
“Excuse me-”
“Get the fuck outta my way!”
“Can I ask you something real quick?”
“What the hell? I don’t have time to talk, fuck off!”
“Can you tell me where am I?”
“Does it look like I talk to homeless bums, bitch?!”
“Please-“
“What the fuck is up with that creepy-ass mask? Some kinda kink? Fucking freak…”
… Well.
This might be harder than you had initially expected.
You hastily back off from yet another irate stranger with murmured apologies, letting him pass by and take his pissy countenance with him. It’s like the collective city populace had rolled out the wrong side of the bed this morning; nothing but bitterness and insults from all directions, and no amount of demure words can help you.
It probably doesn’t help that your new body is woefully shorter than most of the people you’ve come across. Even without your memories, you don’t feel like you’ve heard such a… wide variety of midget jokes before.
As much as you try to let it roll off your back, the constant negativity is starting to settle beneath your skin like hot coals. Burning away your patience bit by bit until your own face is twisted into what you assume to be an ugly scowl.
For the first time that day, you could not be more grateful for the mask.
Your wings tuck close behind your back, reacting in tune with your thumping heart, as you do your best to follow the flow of the crowd before you get yelled at (or worse) again.
“I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere with the people,” you mutter to yourself. A shark-headed man gives you a brief look that goes unnoticed. “If I can get a map or something…”
[“Breaking news!”]
You nearly jump out of your skin at the sudden screeching to your right. Ignoring the outraged hiss in your ear, you duck into a gathering crowd clamouring in front of what looks like an electronic shop. Its display window shows TVs of all kinds, most of them being the flat screen sort, and they’re all showing an ongoing news broadcast with…
You blink behind the mask. What kind of hell did that news anchor crawl out of?
[“Breaking news in Hell today!”] the abomination of sickly white skin and stick-thin limbs announces with a grin full of yellowed teeth. The sight is so horrifying that you nearly miss the gas mask-wearing fellow sitting next to her. [“Anyone dumb enough to be in the Doomsday District right now will find themselves being blasted to shitty little pieces in the turf war currently going on…”]
As the thing is talking, a second window takes over the whole screen and shows off a catastrophic sight: a bloody battlefield filled with debris and catastrophe as far as the camera can see, rocking beneath the chain of continuous explosions as two blurs duke it out. You can barely make out a pink bomb here and an egg yolk(?) there.
‘Turf war? Doomsday District? Hell?’
The words swirl aimlessly in your numbing mind. They make sense, but at the same time, they don’t. Or rather, you don’t want them to make sense. If they did, then that would mean being forced to acknowledge the fact that…
Almost as if by compulsion, your gaze is drawn upwards to the massive pentagram hanging in the sky.
“I’m in Hell,” you breathe out.
“Ya just fucking realised?” a voice snarled into your ear.
You let out a yelp and scramble back, narrowly dodging a reaching hand by pure dumb luck. The owner of the voice is the same shark-headed guy that had passed by you earlier, his crimson eyes glaring down at you over his shades and his teeth bared into a sneer. “O-oh! You startled me,” you laugh nervously, tucking your hands around yourself before they can start fidgeting. “Did you need something?”
“‘Do I need something’? Damn right I fucking need something!” the shark growls. “Ya crashed into me and didn’t apologise! What’s the big idea, huh? Ya wanna pick a fight, bitch?!”
You give a furtive glance over your shoulder. Not many people (‘Demons,’ your mind corrects you) seem to care about the shark demon’s ranting - most of them are still glued to the news broadcast, cheering on whoever is duking it out onscreen - save for one or two snickers about “the little bitch crying over a boo-boo”, which is about the most unhelpful thing for you right now.
Judging by the shark demon’s soured scowl, he hears it too.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” you quickly say, holding your hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to bump into you, I wasn’t looking-“
“No fucking shit ya weren’t looking, or ya wouldn’t’ve crashed into me like a bumbling moron!” he spits at you.
Irritation flickers in the back of your mind.
‘Ignore it. It’s not worth it.’
Swallowing back your true feelings, you try to keep a level voice as you say, “Like I said, I’m sorry. There.”
The shark demon sneers down at you. “‘Sorry’ ain’t gonna pay my hospital bills, so cough up some dough!”
Irritation is worming into your heart.
“Excuse me?” you say sharply. “I know I might’ve ran into you but you look perfectly healthy to me. Sorry, but I need to go n-“
You’d barely taken a step around him before a calloused hand grabs you by the arm. Your breath catches in your throat.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Whatever anger you were feeling before is doused by an icy dash of fear. You only just realise how much he towers over you, the tip of your antennas not even reaching his shoulder, and a good length of your slender arm is practically swallowed in the clenched fist keeping you hostage. A bead of sweat trickles down your forehead.
“… Please let me go.”
You wish your voice didn’t tremble as much as it did just now.
The shark demon guffaws, raucous and ugly. You stifle a yelp as he yanks your arm, pulling you to your tiptoes. Pain stabs your shoulder joint. “Yeah fucking right! Only a stupid bastard would let a new sinner go scot-free.”
Your face drops behind the mask. How does he know that?
“What’re ya so surprised ‘bout? It’s damn obvious to anyone with working eyeballs,” he snorts, giving you a once-over. Shit, your clothes! Your other arm wraps around yourself automatically, as if that could hide the dead giveaway. “Ha! Don’t bother. Even if ya were buck naked, it’s so fuckin’ obvious ya have no idea how shit works down here, so listen up.”
Your heart crawls up your throat.
Shit. Shit.
The way his eyes roam all over your body and his snarl gains a… lecherous edge to it makes you want to crawl out of your skin and run far, far away. Every neuron in your brain is firing off blaring red alarms. “Speaking of which,” the shark demon drawls, “there’s more than one way to pay me back, sweetheart.”
The fear spreads to the far ends of your limbs, putting a mild tremor in your wings.
“Your fashion sense is dogshit, but what I have in mind won’t have ya needing clothes at all.” Another ugly laugh. “It’s not like ya have anywhere to go, so why don’t I take good care of ya?”
You feel your expression pull taut into a grimace. Terrified tears sting your eyes and your teeth are bared, but the shark demon doesn’t notice. It’s not like he can see through the mask.
Your worst fears are confirmed when one of the demons still glued to the TV hollers without looking, “Go get a room, fuckers!”
He sneers down at you. “Ya heard ‘im. Follow me quietly and I might treat ya nicely.”
No. No. NO.
“Could do without tha’ creepy ass mask, though. C’mon, let’s take that off, I wanna see the pretty lil’ face under it.”
You can’t pull yourself away. You can’t even bring yourself to scream. What’s the point? It’s not like anyone’s going to help you in this godforsaken place.
The thought pulses strongly in your chest. Something boiling with an unknown strength completely different from the terror keeping you rooted to the spot, something screaming at you to break the hand reaching for your mask, to rip away that smug grin off his face, to break him-
Multiple things happen all at once.
Beneath the shark demon’s hand, your skin glows with an aura so faint that it almost escapes your notice. The demon immediately turns several shades paler and collapses onto his knees with a raspy gasp, clasping the left side of his chest with one hand.
You, on the other hand. While he looks like he’s on death’s doorstep, a surge of rejuvenating energy courses through your body. Like sipping on warm honey tea, it melts through the trepidation like butter. You don’t even know what fear feels like anymore! The fog in your head is dispelled, you can… you can do anything! You can bench press a car! You can beat this stupid shark into a pulp. You can, you can…!
Your wings twitch, then unfurl to their full length, glaring down at the wheezing shark demon with a sickening kaleidoscope of orange-and-yellow streaks that twist and curl around to form glaring eyes. Maneuvering them feels like second nature to you. One powerful stroke easily tears your arm free from his slackened hand, and several more strokes of your wings propels you clear into the air, bringing forth powerful gales of wind that knocks down the unprepared shark demon as well as several other folks unfortunate enough to be standing in the radius.
“Fucking hell!”
“My drink!”
“What the-?!”
The furious exclamations don’t stop you one bit. Your gaze is fixed on the new horizons stretching all around you, mindless of the looks of confusion and anger beneath your feet. You don’t have a destination in mind - how can you when you’ve been in this hellhole for less than an hour? - but it doesn’t matter; euphoria is buzzing in the scales of your wings and it’s begging to be burnt.
With a graceful swish of your new appendages, you take off into the crimson skies.
It takes less than ten minutes for the burst of energy to wear off into nothingness.
Hot, humid air whips across your mask as you soar over unfamiliar cityscape. The last dregs of your elation lost in the winds, you’re left with a trepidation that you’re becoming oh so acquainted with brewing in your guts. ‘What the hell even happened? The guy fainted and… did my arm glow?’ The aforementioned hand clenches tightly. ‘Ugh, where even am I? I don’t know where to go… Does Hell have homeless shelters?’
Somehow, you doubt you’re that lucky.
On a whim, your gaze dips down, and you nearly choke on your own spit when you realise just how high up you are. You’d been too occupied with escaping your predicament to pay attention, but… did you really manage to fly up this high on your own? The pedestrians are just moving dust specks, for god’s sake! Doesn’t matter if it’s a human or demon, anything would be smashed to smithereens falling at this height! Instantly crushed into a pulp on the pavement, bones breaking, organs rupturing… blood soaking into the concrete cracks as… demons walk around your corpse like you don’t matter…
You only realise you have stopped breathing when you start hurtling towards the ground.
‘SHIT!’ Awareness hits you with the force of a truck as you inhale sharply. At this rate, your morbid imagination is going to turn into reality!
Your wings! They had turned limp when you got distracted, and forcing them to obey your wishes is a Herculean task compared to earlier. Heart thumping harder the closer you draw to the buildings, it takes several tries before you find the right way to command your wings. Flexing your flight muscles, you sweep down and-
Your entire world turns topsy-turvy as you’re sent careening through the air.
Turns out it’s possible to fly too hard. Oops.
You barely manage to brace yourself before crashing into the unforgiving concrete. Thank your lucky stars that you managed to steer yourself towards a rooftop in the nick of time, even if it doesn’t stop you from bouncing along like a soccer ball before skidding to an unceremonious stop.
“… Ow…”
Gritting your teeth against the bolts of pain shooting through your everywhere, you heave yourself up. Your knees waver slightly, but ultimately manage to hold you upright as you survey your surroundings.
The rooftop you’re stuck on is soaked with remnants of a recent rainfall. Limping forward, you cautiously stick your head over a puddle, and sure enough, the mask somehow stayed on throughout that whole kerfuffle. Not even a scuff to show for after you had eaten concrete during your fall. You suppose you should be grateful it had saved your face from turning into paste, but it’s hard to feel any semblance of gratitude when the mask’s dead eyes are staring listlessly right into your soul.
“Stupid thing’s more trouble than it’s worth,” you huff at your reflection. The fact that you can’t see your expression and are forced to contend with the stagnant face of the mask ticks you off even more.
Your stomach chooses this moment to give an insistent growl and you press your palm against it. Right, food. Something you hadn’t had a bite of since arriving here. You also notice how dry your throat is.
“Welp, guess finding food’s second on the agenda now,” you sigh, reaching up to pull the mask off your face. “S’not like I have any money, so maybe I can put on some puppy eyes and get some pity rice balls…”
The mask doesn’t come off.
You pause, then try again.
The mask doesn’t come off.
You pull again, harder and with more desperation.
The mask doesn’t come off.
You drop into a crouch, clawing at the edges of the mask and putting all your strength into peeling the damn thing off your face, even if it has to take some skin off along the way.
The. Mask. Doesn’t. Fucking. Come off.
You don’t know how long you spend trying to get it off, even going so far as to headbutt the ground in the hopes of smashing it, but you only stop once your arms get too tired. Panting, you wrap your arms around yourself in a desperate act of self-comfort. The skin beneath the rim of the mask stings deeply from the constant abuse.
‘It’s stuck. It’s stuck, it’s fucking stuck. Shitshitshitshit.’
You quickly press your hands against the “mouth” of the mask and open your jaw, hoping against everything that maybe the mask is actually a second face. It wouldn’t surprise you in this hell full of demonic entities. But alas, the mask remains unchanged even as you make your best goldfish impression. ‘If I can’t get this off, I can’t eat! And if I can’t eat, I’ll di-‘
“Shut up!”
The scream of rage makes you jump out of your skin. It takes you a moment to realise it came from you when you feel your already dry throat ache from the sudden abuse. You quickly take a deep, calming breath to soothe yourself. “I-I can’t think like that. Nope! I need to be positive, because no one else will do it for me,” you tell yourself with a hearty pump of your arm.
Scampering to the edge of the rooftop, you gaze at the bustling city life below, illuminated by flashy neon signs and extravagant billboard advertisements. “There has to be a way to get this off,” you whisper to yourself, already eyeing for any hardware stores. “This stupid mask has to come off some time soon.”
The mask doesn’t come off for the next week.
You only really notice once the undying need for fresh water starts to creep in.
Days spent sleeping in abandoned buildings and alleyways prove fruitless. No amount of sleep can chase away the thirst or hunger and at this point, you’re afraid that going to sleep will be the last thing you ever do.
You can’t sleep.
You have to ignore the hunger gnawing at your stomach.
You have to ignore the way your vision wavers when you turn a bit too fast.
You have to ignore the growing tremors in your legs-
WHAM!
You don’t bother moving from where you had collapsed against a grimy brick wall. Even in the humid air that seems to always cling to the hellscape, your skin feels oddly clammy to the touch.
You don’t expend the energy to try and pry the mask off anymore. The most you can do is weakly paw at it anyways.
The next time you bump into someone, you’re too weak to pull yourself away in a socially acceptable amount of time, ie. five seconds.
The fog that plagues your mind makes it hard to decipher the other demon’s words, but you can still hear the furious undertones. Can’t bring yourself to care much, though. ‘S not like he can do anything worse to you.
You don’t react when he roughly grabs your arm (thinner than you remember).
You don’t react. But something else inside you does.
It plays out exactly like when you were dealing with the shark demon. A tugging sensation in your chest, then a choked gasp the other demon releases at the same time a boost of energy floods your veins like warm honey. Your vision clears up for the first time in days to show a dog-like demon collapsed on the pavement before you. None of the passing demon pedestrians pay attention to either of you beyond a grumble about blocking foot traffic.
You inhale deeply, soaking in the joy of an unburdened breath of city air. Doesn’t matter if it’s contaminated with cigarette smoke or car exhaust; as long as it doesn’t feel like your lungs are going to collapse from the lack of food.
Oh, but it’s already fading fast… You quickly shuffle away before you yourself can drop like a rock in front of these predatory demons, melting into the crowd. You need more of this. You have no idea what exactly happened, but if touching people means you get more of these euphoria bursts to keep you going, then by god you will cling onto these demons like nobody’s business.
Cracked lips pursing into a thin line behind the mask, you trudge on with renewed determination.
The next demon to grab you drops harder than the last. Or it might be just your imagination.
You don’t wait for someone to approach the fourth time. When a random schmuck wanders into a deserted alleyway…
you pounce
A satisfied sigh slips past your bleeding lips when you feel the familiar warmth settle beneath your skin like a fleece blanket. Does it feel hotter than before? Or is it just the person beneath you that feels colder than usual?
doesn’t matter
The next person doesn’t seem to be breathing after you’re done with him.
What a shame, because you’re feeling better than ever.
The next one disappears from under you.
You’re not entirely sure what happened to him and you don’t care. You’re more occupied with soaking in the buzz of warmth radiating in your glowing palms. When did they start…
Something moves in your peripheral and your head snaps up.
Another one. You need more.
This is fine. This is better than fine. Even with hunger gnawing away at your guts and your parched throat complaining whether you try to talk or not, it’s all suppressed beneath the soothing weight of… hm. You’re still not sure what it is. But if this strange energy you’re leeching off demons keeps your stick-thin body out of skeevy hands, it doesn’t matter.
Oh?
Your drooping antennas twitch towards the north. Ever since you started doing this more regularly, you can feel an odd buzz on your new head appendages that never fail to lead you to a new demon. And right now, you feel a conglomerate straight ahead, teeming with life-saving energy all for you.
You let your instincts guide you forward.
If you happen to ask Rosie what’s currently in the gossip mill of Cannibal Town, she’d be more than delighted to lay out every detail down to the number of hairs on the cheating husband’s head.
However, today is a different story.
“Rosie dahling, did you hear about the serial killer going around in Pentagram City recently?”
Rosie tilts her head in a delicate slant. “There’s many serial killers running around, Honey. It’s not exactly the freshest news in the market,” she hums. “Can you be a tad more specific?”
The cannibal sinner, a lady dressed in a gray tea dress with puffy sleeves and a floral-patterned hand fan daintily clutched in her hands, huffs and slaps her hand on the counter. An uncouth action that Rosie has to hold herself back from chiding, or she’ll be here all day. “You know, the one that’s going around and sucking sinners dry of their souls!” Her voice lowers to a dramatic hush that Rosie has no problem hearing where she stands. “Rumour has it that it only strikes a sinner if they happen to wander into a deserted place, but no one knows when or how the killer does it. Their last sight will be a mysterious mask carved with a creepy face approaching them from the darkness…”
One word in particular stands out. “Their souls?” Rosie echoes. She taps a sharpened nail against her chin in thought. “I suppose that could be cause for worry, Honey dear, but it’s not the first time a sinner has the power to steal souls! Why, I have a dear friend who does that very thing.”
A familiarly dashing smile graces her mind. The only visible clue of bother is the slightest downward curl in Rosie’s smile, but it’s soon chased away when Honey starts again.
“Oh, I’m aware, but this is different! Why, my husband came stumbling home from a nearby district like he spent all night downing giggle water, so I of course had to drag the story out of him, and wouldn’t you like to know the tale he told me?” Honey says conspiratorially. “He claimed this tiny thing, looks like a moth, suddenly latched onto him and started feeding on him! But not his blood or meat, oh no. He said he felt like his soul was being consumed by it! Apparently he couldn’t so much as move until it was done, and it just left him there.”
Honey sniffs, expression turning into something akin to offense. “Honestly, what a waste of good meat! The least that killer could’ve done is… finish the job.”
“And I suppose that’s why I haven’t seen him this morning?” Rosie says mildly.
A row of sharp teeth is her answer.
“Thank you kindly for informing me, Honey.” She gives a shallow bow and dismisses the sinner, smile falling ever so slightly as she watches her back leave. “Stealing souls, hm? How curious…”
Truth be told, this isn’t the first time she’s hearing this little rumor. However, that tidbit about soul-snatching? It’s a piece of fresh meat in a slowly rotting corpse.
It is true that Alastor (wherever that boy is) has proven capable of devouring souls, but for the most part, owning souls is the most influence a demon can have. Stealing souls with one’s bare hand? Why, what a fearsome ability to fall to a wretched sinner…
Unfortunately, Rosie has no time to ponder over this with the line of cannibals still in her emporium. She turns her signature smile to the next lady in line, ready to hear her troubles when-
“HEY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”
“PIN ‘ER DOWN!”
… Well. It seems like another problem calls for her attention.
Excusing herself from the murmuring crowd, Rosie makes haste to exit the emporium and towards the source of the screams. In the middle of Cannibal Town, near the town gazebo, two of her fellow townsfolk have armed themselves with pitchforks and are putting them to good use, judging from the squirming, glowing body they have skewered on the other end.
Putting distance between them and the soul snatcher with long-ranged weapons? Quite a quick wit from them both.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen!” Rosie calls out to the two townsfolk, drawing their attention to her. “My my, whatever do you have there?”
“Hi, ma’am,” one of them greets back with a grin. William, if she remembers correctly. The other (Arthur) leans against the tool’s shaft, driving its tines even deeper into the trespasser. “Found this dumb Dora trying ta attack one o’ us. I reckon she’s the flighty lil’ thing everyone’s been flapping their gums about?”
The sinner raises a shaky arm towards Rosie. Whether it’s a plea for help or simply to sap her soul, it’s aborted when Arthur gives the pitchfork a violent twist.
“Settle down there!” he says sternly.
Rosie just manages to catch a pained wheeze from it. The faint glow that clings to its skin putters out into nothingness, and the body goes slack save for the stuttery heaving of its chest.
A thin crowd of sinners draws near for a better look, but they still keep their distance away from Rosie, allowing her to step closer. With the mysterious sinner unable to reach for anyone, she finds herself in the perfect position to examine it.
What immediately stands out is the wings, eye-watering streaks of oranges, yellows and pinks swirling around each other in a sickening whirlwind, and the twitching antennas. A fellow Overlord with a similar demon form immediately crops up in her mind, the one from the Entertainment District…
‘A sorry excuse of a man,’ Rosie thinks sourly.
She quickly shakes free that thought. William and Arthur have the sinner pinned on its stomach, making it difficult to discern its gender (what with the men’s attire it’s wearing) or its age (quite a petite thing). William had called it a “dumb Dora” earlier, so maybe a girl? The wheezing and gurgling it makes sound feminine enough.
Speaking of which… For someone spoken of in so many hushed whispers, the sinner doesn’t look like the most intimidating demon out there. With one wing pierced against her back and one arm skewered, she can only move her head and legs, yet she’s not making much of an effort to break free. Her hair lies in a wild mane, askew and matted with dirt. Her whole frame can be described with only one word: “starved”. Her limbs are painfully thin and Rosie can see the outline of bones of her wrist. Why, she’d bet her prized possessions that she’d be able to see the sinner’s ribs if she’s turned around. Rosie doesn’t quite remember this aspect in the rumors, but she supposes it’s a minute enough detail to put aside for now.
There’s only one more thing to confirm now.
Kneeling beside the sinner’s head, Rosie gingerly tilts it back with a sharpened nail for a better look.
A mask bearing an uncanny face.
“So it is! You are the little rascal causing all this ruckus. Were you trying to snatch my citizens’ souls, little bug?” Rosie crooned with a razor-edged smile. “Not a smart thing to do on your part! It’s a shame that you’re only skin and bones, or we would have had bug on the menu tonight.”
An appreciative laugh ripples through the crowd.
The little bug doesn’t answer her. How rude.
Her hand creeps away from the mask, nails tracing a direct line to the veins in her vulnerable neck. “But you did harm at least one of the fine folks here. I can’t just overlook that, you know? Apologies dear, but we’ll have to-“
The sinner shoves her head against Rosie’s palm.
Rosie stills. While the two cannibal men exchange a puzzled glance, the little moth is snuggling into her hand when any halfway competent demon would either run or strike back. No demon would approach an Overlord like this… No demon who’s lived in Hell for more than a month, at least.
“Oh. You just fell, didn’t you?”
Rosie feels the rumble of a wheeze, “Help.”
Help.
It would be simple to end her right now. One flick of her wrist and the little moth will be bleeding to death, leaving them free to discard the body.
However…
Rosie has to admit that going without hearing the little moth’s story would bother her for the rest of the week. At the very least, it won’t hurt to hear her out, and if the sinner tries anything… Well, they can always revert back to the old tried-and-true method of dealing with trespassers.
(Plus, she’d be a liar if she said the little whimper didn’t pull on her heartstrings just a tiny bit.)
“I supposed it’d be rash to toss you out, hm?” Rosie moves her hand to the top of her head and gives her a gentle pat. The sinner sags under her touch, her breathing evening out for a moment.
“But.”
Her nails dig into the sinner’s scalp, and Rosie feels her stiffen. “One wrong move, little moth, and you won’t like what happens next. Do you understand?” she whispers into her ear.
The sinner whimpers.
“I shall take that as an agreement!” Satisfied, Rosie releases her and goes back to gently petting her head. “As long as you behave yourself, you’ll do just fine, dear.”
She hears a faint cough that vaguely resembles a “‘Kay…”.
(Another heartstring pulled.)
With a clap of her hands, the pitchforks are pulled out of the sinner with a wet schlick. “Carry her over to the emporium and lay her on some towels,” Rosie instructs the two men. “William, be a darling and call for a doctor, will you?”
“Shouldn’t we bring ‘er directly to the hospital, ma’am?”
Rosie waves him off. “Perish the thought; what if she goes berserk when I’m not around? No, if I keep her in the emporium, then I can keep a close eye on her and make sure she doesn’t try any funny business.”
The two men still hold uncertainty in their expressions, but they hold their silence as they kneel down in preparation to haul the little moth. Most of the cannibals have already dispersed by then, with the exception of a few lingering behind in hopes to catch something juicy. Among those is… Susan. Rosie holds back a sigh.
“Why the hell are we keeping that thing?! It’s gonna infect the good meat!” she screeches, swinging her cane with more force than her withered form would suggest is possible.
“Aw shaddup, ya old hag,” Arthur bites back.
Susan continues to gripe, and Rosie tunes her out (it’s practically a required skill if one wants to stay in Cannibal Town). She removes her hand to allow William to take over and- oh? The mask comes loose.
The material is rather lightweight in her hands, which makes the fact that it’s the only article to remain unscathed a surprise.
The face it’s been hiding is unremarkable compared to the mask itself: gaunt with pronounced cheekbones and a tiny furrow between her brows. Rosie tucks the mask under one arm. She hasn’t the faintest clue as to why she hides her identity if she’s a newly fallen soul, but she supposes it can be slipped into the folder of questions she has for the sinner.
“Let’s hope you’re worth my time, little moth,” Rosie says in a gentle voice, finally stepping aside to allow the men to carry her. “For your own sake.”
Chapter 2: Hello, Rosie- what do you mean she's a cannibal?!
Summary:
In which You get questions answered and answers questioned.
Notes:
A/N: Oh gee oh golly, it's time for an update! I dunno why but I've been having trouble writing this chapter for a while, but now I believe everything is sorted and it's time to post this bad boy. I'll quickly explain some stuff that I forgot to last chapter:
1) Rosie is a sinner here! I didn't know there was some discourse about this before writing this pic so I'll just set the record straight now and say she's a sinner, NOT a hellborn.
2) I'll be taking some liberties with how Hell works here (like how sinners respawn after being killed) since I realise there's not exactly any concrete explanation for how the respawn mechanics work.
3) I forgot to mention: I can't draw what the mask is supposed to look like, but just imagine the eyes and mouth of any uncanny police sketch you can think of. Yeah, it's that kind of creepy
I believe that's about it! Without further ado, let's get to the warnings and the chapter.
⚠️ CONTENT WARNING ⚠️
Attempted cannibalism
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
An entire crowd of shimmering lights.
A brief flare of emotion from the lights, then two individual orbs break free from the crowd in a mad rush towards you.
You’re too slow to dodge. A sudden agony pierces you in the back, shoving you to the ground.
No escape.
No escape.
Something twists your organs with no mercy, making your failing vision briefly go white from the pure, unadulterated agony.
You go limp, the last dregs of that precious life fuel leaving your systems. You’re too tired to break free now.
Blood fills your mouth, spilling past your lips. Is it sad that you can only process relief from having your parched throat soothed?
Clamoring, then… a singular light shining brighter than the rest wades through the parting crowd. You can’t help but be captivated by it, even as something about it makes your dying nerves scream “Danger”.
It draws close to you. Words that you can’t comprehend fill your ears with meaningless noise. Terror pulses fiercely in your weakening heart, but it doesn’t grant you miraculous strength to break free from your prison. It only fills your mind with imagination, one more horrifying than the other, and it floods your mind and vision, drowning everything else in white noise…
Then your head is forced back.
You stiffen under their touch. Numerous scenarios fill your mind in an instant, but the owner of the hand fulfills none of them. Instead, the single pinprick holding your chin up morphs into a full-handed hold that ghosts over your cheek. Even then, they don’t take the opportunity to hurt you like all of the demons before, and the inviting warmth radiating from their skin claws your self-preservation instincts to shreds bit by bit until…
You push your head into the hand.
It brings a fresh wave of pain that nearly causes you to pass out but you don’t care. When the mystery person doesn’t retaliate for the affection, you even dare to whisper a plea for help.
You barely make out vague mumbling, so muffled that you can’t discern their gender, but your conscience is fading fast by then Unable to muster anything more than a weak mumble, you can only hope that’s the right thing to say as darkness finally drags you under.
The next time you wake, your head nearly collapses under the onslaught of nausea crashing over you like a tonne of bricks.
A moan slips past your lips, eyes squinting against the glaring lights all around you. Why is it so bright? Where is this foul smell coming from?
Where… where are you?
You try to shift. Something is covering you up to your neck. A blanket? You try to see what it is, but you find that it’s harder than you’d expected. Your limbs feel oddly leaden and your throat is lined with sandpaper, scratching horribly every time you try to clear it. You still try though, and you’re rewarded with a body-wracking coughing fit that leaves you gasping for breath. ‘Ow…’
A faint rattling sound draws your eyes upward. There’s a thin gray blob close to your head with a tube trailing down from a bag to your arm… An IV drip! Did someone find your unconscious body and carry you to a hospital?
Then your eyes trail a little to the left and that idea is squashed almost immediately. Face scrunching into a fierce squint, the blurry scenery of dull splotches is transformed into an old-fashioned vanity table with unfamiliar skincare products neatly organised to one side. The sight lasts for all but a second before the pounding ache in your head gets too much.
‘Not a hospital, then…’
The same sight meets you no matter where you turn your eyes: blurry. All you see are shades of gray, purple and maroon, and squinting doesn’t do much except exacerbate your headache. With a groan, you let your face relax, although there’s still a lingering twitch between your brows. Did someone find you unconscious on the streets and bring you into their home?
‘No, that can’t be.’ It’s almost embarrassing how quick you are to discard the notion, but it’s not like the hellish denizens give you much confidence in their capacity for communal kindness. Unfortunately, all that does is lead you right back to where you were before: with no idea where you are.
Gritting your teeth, you force your vocal cords to cooperate with you. All you can manage is a single, croaky “Hello…?”
Miraculously, someone hears you.
You hear the telltale squeak of a door opening and closing before a human-sized blur appears by your side. Her features are a little easier to make out in the close proximity between you two, but it’s no less fuzzy: the most you can tell is that she has a huge sun hat and sunglasses with abnormally large lenses. That is… moving and squishing in time with her words. Huh.
Maybe you’re still not completely awake yet.
“Oh my, awake again?” Again? What is she talking about…? “I’m sure you’re eager to get out of bed kicking and swinging, dear! But you still look like a stiff breeze could knock you over, so why don’t you take a quick snooze until you feel all better, hun?”
I don’t wanna go back to sleep, you want to argue. I want to get away from all this lunacy!
But it’s hard to fight the soothing pats this mystery lady gives you on your head, slow and rhythmic motions that scratch an itch in your brain you didn’t know you had. Unwittingly, your body loses all tension and sinks into the soft bedding beneath you.
You soon lose yourself to a cozy darkness.
The next time you wake up, your mind has thankfully been cleared of its persistent ache. The smell is still there, though. And you still can’t see shit.
“The hell happened to my eyes…” you croak. Your eyesight hadn’t been nearly this bad when you fell, right? Yeah, you’re pretty sure you were able to see things, like the news broadcast and… and that shark demon…
The memory of his touch makes you cringe. Swiftly shoving it out of mind, you try to focus on your surroundings instead. The immediate thing that stands out to you is the absence of the IV drip, leaving your right arm free to move. The next thing you notice is that you’re lying on what seems to be a couch rather than the bed you had assumed before.
Mustering what little dregs of strength you have, you force both hands under your back and give yourself a mighty heave upwards. What you don’t expect is for pain to suddenly flare up in your abdomen and right arm like hellfire is eating through your flesh, surprising a not-quite-suppressed scream from your tortured throat. “Ow…!”
Your eyes immediately fall to your torso. Your bare torso, because for whatever reason someone had taken your shirt and didn’t bother giving you a replacement to cover the swathe of bandages wrapped around your body, leaving you exposed to anyone that walked in right now. You let out a squeak of embarrassment, face burning. How long have you been like this?!
You squirm around more. Mercies upon mercies, at least this mysterious shirt-stealer had the grace to leave you with your boxer shorts. Cold air brushes against your bare skin, goosebumps rising and prickling across your back, and your wings instinctively press flat against your back to protect you from the elements.
Except.
Why do your wings feel so unbalanced?
Dread thumping against your chest, you twist your head around to check. It takes several attempts to find the right position that won’t disturb your wounds, and you can’t even see the wings beyond the fuzzy details, but it’s enough .
You drink in the sight in silent horror: on one side, a blurry curtain of oranges, yellows and pinks clinging to your back, cascading beyond your hips and on the couch in a crumpled heap.
The other side? The same canvas of colours, but it’s abruptly cut off in the middle of your back.
It’s cut off. One of your wings is cut off .
Before you can process it, a door behind you creaks open.
“Good evening, my little moth! I hope you had a restful nap for the last few days?” a teasing, feminine voice asks, pulling your attention away from the wings. The accent is similar to a New York accent but is lilted at a pitch that still makes it sound off, which doesn’t reassure you in the slightest.
The owner of the voice steps into your line of vision, and… you still can’t make out most of her features. Goddamnit. “What did you do to me?” you demand. Or try to, but your questions come out as hoarse wheezes as dry as a desert.
“Don’t strain yourself, dear. Here.” You tense as the blur draws closer, but instead of trying to claw your eyes out next, you’re taken aback by a sudden coolness pressing itself against your cracked lips. Liquid is tipped into your parted mouth. Your eyes widen; not in pain or surprise, but from a pure rush of relief. Before you can realise it, you’ve latched onto the rim of the glass with the fervor of a starving man. Woman. Demon?
You can’t hold back a small whine when the glass is pulled away. Your throat is soothed now, but you can’t bear the thought of losing even a drop of water ever again. Not after the hell of dry, mind-consuming aches that clawed away at your sanity for days and days and days -
“None of that now. It won’t do you any good if you throw up the little bit you’ve managed to keep down and ruin your progress now, would it?” the lady chides. You hear the clink of glass being set down.
You open your mouth to shoot back a retort when something clicks.
Sustenance.
Water.
You… you managed to consume something.
In quiet disbelief, you raise your left arm, your other still seized in too much pain to move, and feel around your face. Muscles weakened from disuse, your movements are more akin to facepalming yourself, but it works; you can feel the stinging prick of claws dragging across your face, that accursed barrier no longer standing in the way between you and glorious, blessed food.
“Is something the matter?” the lady asks with the airs of someone who very much knows what the matter is.
You gaze at the sun-hatted blur, jaw dropped. “Y-you… you managed to get that mask off,” you stammer. “ How? ”
Her head tilts to one side. “How? I didn’t do anything special if that’s what you’re curious about, little moth. It slipped right off, easy as pie,” she says casually, seemingly ignoring the way you inhale sharply.
“I- I-!”
A tidal wave of emotions washes over you. Tears welling up in your eyes alarmingly fast, your already crappy vision wavers into outright blindness as a sob threatens to break free, despite you desperately biting down your bottom lip to contain yourself. A tornado of relief, self-hatred, joy, shame, and so much more rages in your chest, pounding against your ribs with painful force, forcing you to sink your claws into the soft blanket in a useless attempt to stop the hot tears from falling and splattering on your clenched hand-
A hand delicately pats you between your shoulder blades, rubbing small circles that only make it all the harder to control yourself. “Don’t try to hold it in or you’ll spoil your face,” the lady murmurs into your ear. “Come on, let it out, that’s a good girl.”
The display of kindness is the final strike to your crumbling defenses.
You let out a sob. It’s like a dam breaking; one after another, tears stream down your face as the weight of your current reality finally sinks in, your body shuddering from the force of your bawling. You’re vaguely aware of someone gently pulling you into a hug, but you don’t attempt to stop her. You simply lean into the warmth, soaking it in, grateful for any sliver of softness you can find in this hellhole. You cling onto it like it will disappear at any second.
It feels like hours, but it must be realistically closer to a minute before the same hand taps you on the back to get your attention. “That’s enough now, dear. Calm yourself before you cry away all the water you just drank,” the lady says lightly.
“O-okay…”
You force yourself to take several gulps of air, nearly choking before the tears quiet down into soft sniffles. God, you must be such a mess right now. The lady gives you one last pat before putting some distance between you two.
“You managed to cry it all out, little moth?”
“Yeah…” Oh no, had you been crying on her? You want to check the mess you must’ve left on her, but damn your shitty eyesight , you can only see the solid maroon that makes up the lady’s whole body.
“Sorry, I… I didn’t mean to lose it like that.” You chuckle weakly, voice hitching with a hic. “A-and sorry ‘bout the mess. I, um, don’t have any money f-for dry-cleaning but-“
“Never mind that,” the lady cuts in, gently yet firmly. “Take this and clean your face up. We have much to talk about and so little time to do it.”
Ignoring the way your stomach flip-flops at that, you accept the silk handkerchief dropped into your hands and do your best to wipe away the drying tear tracks. Even though you can’t see this woman, like, at all , her accent and words paint an image of a refined lady dressed to the nines and wearing a smile curled just right to be called “charming”, so your clumsy scrubbing feels even more plebeian under steady gaze.
It feels like an eternity before your face is sufficiently clean. The moment you’re done, the handkerchief is plucked out of your hand by its rightful owner.
The first thing you ask is, “Do you have my shirt?”
“That grimy piece of rag? Of course not! I had it tossed out as soon as I could,” the lady says dismissively.
Your jaw drops. “Wh- You-!”
“Which is why I brought a spare shirt for you,” she continues, and you feel a presence walking behind you. Your shoulders tense.
“Oh. I… Um, thank you.” Anger dying a premature death, you settle back with a disgruntled huff. ‘She could’ve started with that, jeez…’
“Hold up your arms, dear.”
Doing as she says, you feel soft fabric sliding down your arms and over your head, giving you much needed cover from the cold. You can’t make out much details other than gray, much to your frustration, but it’s soon forgotten when an indistinct figure shuffles back around in your line of sight.
“How are you feeling? Are your wounds still hurting?”
You squint up at the face. The most you can make out is a wide smile. “… No, I-I’m fine. Um, miss? Do you know what happened? I don’t remember much…”
She leans closer.
“You were attacked.”
You perform a full-body cringe; partially because of the shocking news, but also because her breath is… it’s foul, no two ways about it.
Unfortunately, there's no easy way to lean away without making it very obvious, so the best thing you can do is quickly smother your reaction before she notices.
“Some of my people found you and brought you here, and I patched you up. You were in quite a dreadful state, but you young’uns are always a resilient bunch, aren’t you? Bouncing back from the state you were in just fine.” Her hand suddenly pats the space on your back where your torn wing is, making you jump. “It’s a shame about your wing, darlin’, but it had been torn up too severely to do anything less than a full amputation.”
“I-it’s okay!” you stammer, trying not to wince at the word “amputation”. “It’s not like I really use them anyway, so… I’m fine. I appreciate your help, really!”
You sense a gentler smile this time.
“What a sweet little moth you are. But as much as I’d like to chat, I believe we should start now,” the lady says, her indistinct figure sitting itself down on a box-like shape (probably a stool) right next to the couch.
“Start with…?” you ask hesitantly.
A beat of silence passes.
“ Introductions! We’ve gone on long enough without doing those, and I can’t have that at all, goodness no.” The lady makes a gesture towards her heart. “My name is Rosie, darlin’. I’m the mayor of this fine town you’re currently in!”
Mayor? Hell has mayors ?
… Well. On second thought, you think it makes sense for Hell of all places to have a social hierarchy. One more thing to make its demons suffer, right?
“ Ro -sie.” The word rolls off your tongue like melted butter. Even her name sounds all fancy-ladylike.
“What about you?”
Your brows knitting together in concentration, you try to recall just as you had on that fateful first day…
Nada.
Sheepishly, you shake your head and say, “Sorry, I don’t remember that either…”
“Oh, that’s quite alright! Perfectly normal to lose a small memory here and there, considering everyone arrives in Hell with a tumble,” Rosie laughs it off. She doesn’t seem mad, thankfully. “Then why don’t I give a name for the time being? It wouldn’t be proper callin’ you ‘little moth’ all the time, after all.”
“Um, sure?”
“Candy,” she says immediately like she’d been holding it in her back pocket for ages. “It goes well with all that colourful fuzz on you, don’t you think?”
… Candy? What are you, a cat?
Hoping to God that your misgivings aren’t obvious in your voice, you plaster on a wide smile. “Y-yeah! That’s… I like it. Thank you, Miss Rosie.” You execute a little bow too, just in case. And nearly faceplant right between your knees when a sudden bout of dizziness bitch slaps you.
“And so polite, too! Looks like ‘Candy’ suits you in more ways than one,” she titters, catching your head easily with a finger and flicking it back upright with surprising ease. Feeling the prick of her sharpened nail makes your heart skip a beat, but you manage to swallow down a squeak in time.
The moment passes when she leans away from you, clapping her hands together. “Now, let’s move on to the important matters, shall we? I’m sure you’d like to get to the refreshments sooner than later!”
“Refreshments” means food , and food sounds great to your empty stomach. You nod eagerly, earning another titter from her.
“Good girl.” The infantile term makes you frown a little, but you quickly brush it off. It’s better than being yanked around like a rag doll, you tell yourself. “Your arrival caused quite a buzz amongst the townsfolk. Rumours are flying here and there, and you know how gossip works! You have someone mutter the wrong words, say something that’s the tiniest bit scandalous and the next thing you know, you have a whole yarn of misunderstandings in your hands that you’ll have to spend who-knows-how-many weeks straightening out.”
In other words, it’s a small town and demons are just as gossipy as your average stay-at-home mom.
“But that’s nothing a few simple answers can’t solve.”
And it’s up to you to quell the fire.
You take a calming breath. As much as you appreciate being given a roof and having your wounds treated (although you still don’t know where those came from…), one rule of thumb still holds true: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. This Rosie lady’s definitely going to want something in return for helping you, and you’re afraid to admit that you might not have what she’s looking for.
But what choice do you have here?
Aching, starving and tired . The trifecta of ailments that makes it a chore to focus on making your mouth do sounds, much less keep yourself upright. You don’t want to test a demon when you’re in this state, no matter how genial she sounds. In fact, she’s probably more dangerous based on how friendly she sounds, right? “Wolves in sheep’s clothing” and all that…
“I suppose we should get the basic question out of the way first,” Rosie says, breaking you out of your thoughts. “Did you fall into Hell recently? Exact dates don’t matter, just give me a rough estimate, dear.”
You relax a little. An easy question! “Yeah, um… Maybe two, three days ago?” You frown in thought, tapping a claw against your knee. “Oh! There was a news broadcast about some, uh, turf war in a district? Does that help?”
“I can’t say it does, no. Turf wars are a staple around these parts,” Rosie explains with a small shrug. You feel yourself deflating. So much for that. “You might as well be asking me if I know a sinner in Hell!”
“I see… S-sorry, I really don’t remember much about that day. All I really remember is how I fell on my face in some dark alleyway.” The memory makes you grimace. Even if the mask had saved your face from becoming a permanent imprint on the concrete pavement, the impact that made your bones rattle like maracas is something you don’t wish to relive.
To your surprise, Rosie cackles instead. “Oho, did you now? I suppose there’s worse ways to fall down here, dear, but that doesn’t sound pleasant in the slightest! From the sound of it, I take it that your little mask was what let you walk away from it without a scratch?”
You almost shout in surprise, because you don’t remember uttering a single fucking word about it, but you manage to catch yourself in time. ‘Don’t show her you’re nervous, don’t show her you’re nervous, it’s like bleeding in a pool of sharks, keep your hands down-‘
You manage a hesitant nod instead.
“Oh, don’t be so tense, Candy! I don’t think you’re lying,” Rosie reassures. You grimace again for an entirely different reason; you don’t think you’ll ever get used to being called that. “It’s not common to arrive in Hell with magic-enhanced items but not impossible . Really, the fact that you’re spawned with one is…”
Rosie trails off, and you shift uncomfortably. “Is something wrong with it?” you prompt.
“Oh no, nothing at all! I simply worry that you don’t have much control over it, but it doesn’t matter much as long as it’s out of your hands.”
“But-“
The woman tuts and reaches out to pinch your cheek. It’s an affectionate gesture that a typical granny would do, but you sense an underlying warning beneath the sharp nails pinching your skin. “I’ll have none of that now! Objects like your mask are no joke, and even the nastiest of sinners can get themselves killed by overestimating their own ability to handle these enchanted pieces. I’ve seen folks like yourself go and swing these things around with no care in the world and let me tell you, it was a chore to clean up the mess.”
“Wait, hold on!”
You wince at your own outburst, but quickly push yourself to continue before you can lose your nerves. “What do you mean ‘folks like me’? Are you saying there are other people who…” Your voice dips into a hush. “… fell like me?”
“Of course!”
Her words are frightfully unconcerned compared to yours, like she’s used to humans turning into mothman-like freaks.
“Candy darlin’, did you think you’re the only one who took a tumble all the way down here?” Rosie laughs. “Far from it! Humans have been sinning since the First Man and Woman, like yours truly sitting in front of you.”
It takes you a second.
“Wait, you used to be human too?” you gasp.
Rosie makes an affirmative sound. “All of us sinners did once, before we made a mistake or ten that landed our keisters here!” Even when she says that, there’s not a trace of remorse in her words. “But that’s all in the past and some of the more crotchety folks would rather it stay in the past, so it’s best to keep any ‘human’ remarks to yourself in the future.”
Your eyes widen.
“Just a friendly piece of advice with no costs attached, Candy darlin’.” One side of her sunglasses(?) squint briefly.
“O-okay…”
It’s becoming increasingly obvious there’s some underlying culture in Hell that you aren’t aware of. Hell having a culture is already a mindfuck on its own, something you can spend all day contemplating. But you hold your tongue.
You want your “refreshments” as soon as possible, after all.
“That’s a good girl. I suppose it’s as good a time as any to bring it up.” Rosie tilts her head at you. “What landed you in this nasty place in the first place?”
You nearly choke. Your chest spasms for a few painful seconds before the fit peters out, and you realise only afterwards that there’s another hand thumping your back. “Why the sudden reaction, Candy?” Rosie asks, her words laced with a tremor made only from suppressed laughter. You cringe.
“I just… That question, it’s…”
You’re at a loss for words. Does she know what she’s asking you?
“Oh, don’t give me that look, dear! Nobody gets down here without doing some kind of sin,” she clucks. You can hear the reprimanding judgement even without seeing her face. “Go on, spill the tea! It’s not like you have anything to lose at this point.”
You screw up your face at that. She’s not wrong, but it still feels weird to be confronted about such a thing. Rosie might as well have asked you, “So have you killed anyone recently? Give me the juicy details!”
Still, she’s waiting for your response and you see no easy way out of her expectant gaze. You have to suck it up just this once. “What I did to end up in Hell? Um, lemme think…”
Your mind wanders back to that fateful day you fell, then a little further back before the rushing gales and the rapidly approaching sulfur. The familiarly mysterious pain pierces your temple, and you force yourself to push past it with a grimace, willing your mind to open the door to wherever your memories could be.
Rage blooms in your chest. Red hot and raw, it spreads its tendrils throughout your body, coiling around your veins and clouding your vision driving fists into soft flesh crunching breaking bleeding-
“…dy?”
-your own hands don’t feel right but you don’t care. You just need to break this sad pathetic lump beneath you-
“ Candy .”
-it’s saying something to you. Its eyes are blown wide, pleading, but whatever it says only feeds into the suffocating anger boiling in your chest-
“ Candy! ”
A sharp sting in your cheek yanks you back into reality. You let out a yelp, only just realising now that you’re panting lightly from an adrenaline rush. “Goodness, I was wondering when you’d return to me. You weren’t breathing for so long that I started to worry I’d have to clear a corpse out of my emporium!” The laughter that follows is worryingly light, but you can’t bring yourself to care about it when you’re still rattled by that odd memory. It’s not even a memory, it’s just a jumble of emotions and undefined flashes that don’t mean much to you.
A weird nightmare? Or is it something more…?
“I suppose I can take that to mean you don’t remember?” You quickly nod. “Hm! How odd… That’s usually the one thing sinners can recall with the utmost clarity, what with it being the reason for our ‘punishment’.”
Your antennas perk up with alarm. “I’m not lying!” you blurt out. “I swear I really don’t remember what I did!”
“Did I say you were lying? Please try to listen properly to your elders, Candy darlin’,” Rosie huffs.
… Oh. Right. You force your quivering antennas to lie flat (and god, is it a weird feeling to deliberately manipulate appendages attached to your head). “Sorry, I… panicked,” you mutter, plucking nervously at the blanket.
“No matter!” she says brightly. “I suppose it wasn’t a completely pointless outburst in any case. I learned quite a bit from it.”
“R-really?”
Instead of responding immediately, Rosie takes your hand in both of hers. The size disparity is unnervingly apparent even if you can’t see it; your thinning wrist feels like a twig in her grip, even if she’s not actually capable of breaking your bones.
Still, feeling her bare hands brush against yours brings back unpleasant memories of the shark demon and how he dropped the moment he made contact with your bare skin. “Ma’am, I don’t think you should touch me, it’s dangerous-“ you start to stammer, trying to pull your hand away. But she doesn’t seem to notice or care.
Her next words are a honey-sweet bombshell.
“Of course! My next question was going to be ‘why did you kill those sinner folks in the neighbouring districts’, but now that I know your head is full of holes, I doubt you’d be able to give me the answers I need.”
… Wha?
You still. Your mouth opens and closes without a sound, but the words aren’t computing in your brain. Did she say “kill”?
“Well, Candy?” Rosie prods you almost knowingly, as if she already knows your answer before you do. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Your tongue finally unglues from the roof of your mouth. “I… Me? K-kill? I d-don’t know what-“
Killing is abhorrent. That’s something you can say with your chest out, yet this lady is so gallantly accusing you of that very crime. Even though you don’t want to, you envision yourself trying to murder someone: shoving a blade into their throat, wrapping your hands around their neck, pushing them off a cliff-
Every scenario makes you curl tighter and tighter into yourself until your lungs are protesting for air. You’d never do that. Never .
‘But what about that time with the shark demon?’ your mind whispers traitorously. ‘You did something to him and he collapsed.’
But he didn’t die! You’re sure you had seen him react to you flying away.
‘But anything could have happened during then and now. You don’t remember your own name, why would you remember killing someone?’
Your breath hitches.
“Now now, don’t go whipping yourself up into another frenzy. Focus on me.” Snapping fingers under your nose breaks through your panic, and your next breath is a little easier to draw in. “There we go. There’s no need to answer anymore, it’s quite obvious what’s going on here.”
You feel your antennas curl inwards. Tremors of anxiety shake their frills. “I-it is?”
This poor girl isn’t going to last a second in Hell.
There are important rules that make up the construct of Hell, both spoken and unspoken, from the obvious “Don’t trust every friendly smile you see” to the more obscure “An Overlord mustn’t get chummy with a soul claimed by another Overlord”. Everyone has their own learning pace, but generally they learn at least one lesson by the end of their first day.
This girl doesn’t have a single clue as to what Hell even is , much less how it works.
“Of course, Candy. You’re not the first lost soul I’ve found in my humble little town, after all,” Rosie says, patting the moth demon’s hand. “I know you’re not lying.”
Her squinty-eyed apprehension lightens almost immediately. The little moth gazes up at Rosie, a wary hope shimmering in her pupiless eyes.
‘Instantly puts her trust in a sinner she doesn’t know. Strike one.’
“ But ,” Rosie adds, and the hope dims, “neither was I lying about your little killing spree.”
Watching her flip through expressions at rapid fire is quite fascinating. Befuddlement bleeds through the lines set in her scrunched face, then confusion blankets over it, followed by an odd sort of consideration that doesn’t gel with the rest of her emotions as her chapped lips pursed in a thin line, eyes squinting down at her lap. Honestly, if the girl thinks any louder, she’d be telepathically broadcasting her thoughts to everyone in Cannibal Town! It’s like reading an open book:
“Killing?! I’d never!”
“This woman is lying!”
“But she doesn’t seem like a liar?”
“She has to be! Liar!”
“But she saved me… Why would she lie?”
“To trick me! She’s a demon, that’s what demons do!”
“But she can’t be, she’s too nice!”
“Maybe she knows something? But I can’t ask her, what if she-“
‘The girl can’t lie to save her life. She’d be caught out in a fib by the lowest of sinners in less than a second. Strike two.’
Rosie eventually has to tear her eyes away before the incomprehensible influx of emotions overwhelms her. She hadn’t been fibbing when she told Candy that “it’s obvious” what had happened here.
Candy says she doesn’t recall killing anyone. True.
The rumors say this little moth had been ambushing sinners like an energy-sucking vampire. Also true, given how the girl somehow looks only mildly malnourished despite having been held prisoner in a mask for weeks. Something must have been keeping her wheels turning, so to speak.
Conclusion? Either Candy had been mentally manipulated into killing other sinners by someone and can’t remember the ordeal, or it had been pure instincts driving her to hunt them. Personally, Rosie is leaning towards the former if only because she’s seen how woefully terrible the girl is at keeping a stiff upper lip.
“That… doesn’t make sense,” she says slowly, although her furrowed brows suggest she’s trying to make sense of it anyway.
“Then allow me to shed some light on it. No interruptions now, okay?”
In response, Candy shuffles closer with her antennas standing at attention, seemingly having no qualms about being so close to Rosie, a sinner she barely knows.
Just like the previous moments when Candy had allowed her to get close with little consideration for a possible knife to the back. Rosie had counted fourteen separate opportunities that she could have sunk her claws into the girl’s soft neck - not that she would have attacked a guest without ample warning, how barbaric! But this little moth doesn’t know that.
‘Absolutely no sense of danger. Strike three.’
“Rumors are a funny thing. Individually, they aren’t terribly helpful when it comes to relaying accurate information. You tell one sinner that you’re visiting your mother during the weekend and the next thing you know, everyone’s paying you well wishes for a non-existent grandmother bedridden with scarlet fever,” Rosie says dryly. It’s not like she doesn’t care for the cozy little town she’s spent decades cultivating, but the rumor mill sometimes can get a bit… outlandish, to put it lightly. “But when all of them share the same particular detail or two, why, even a learned skeptic would have to start paying attention to them.”
The girl’s face is pinched with anticipation. Her cheeks puff slightly, as if she’s holding back a tornado of questions.
“Do you know what it is?” Rosie drawls, just to tease the little thing once more.
She scoots closer in response, nearly tipping herself off the couch if not for the hand Rosie places on her bandaged hip.
“Well, someone’s being an eager little buggy.” Candy glares at her a little, but doesn’t rebuke it. “Most of them talked about a dangerous serial killer prowling around Pentagram City- the main city in the Pride Ring,” Rosie explains upon seeing the girl’s puzzled squint. She looks no less confused, but visibly holds her tongue. “Serial killers aren’t a new concept in Hell by any means! It’s what everyone claims to have seen that caught my attention.”
Rosie taps a manicured nail against her cheek.
“A mask with an uncanny smile carved into it.”
Seeing the girl’s expression so readily drop like a rock is a refreshing change from the carefully crafted smiles of fellow sinners.
“A demon with wings and a touch that sucks demons dry of their energy. Someone that would have just recently popped up in Hell. Just to name a few.” Rosie watches her closely, noting the way her claws threaten to tear holes in her sheets with how hard she’s kneading them. “Why, just look at yourself! For someone who has been stuck behind a mask for more than a week, you don’t look nearly as thin and sickly as you should be. Don’t you agree that it’s rather strange?”
The girl swallows hard, her breathing becoming ragged once again. “A week…?”
“Well, perhaps not a week. Considering how long the rumors have been circulating around this side of the Pride Ring and that it takes some time for the gossip mill to start turning its blades, I would say it’d be closer to a month!”
The effect is instant: Candy rocks back like she’d been struck by lightning.
She flinches away and curls into herself, her eyes glazing with horror as if she’s forgotten Rosie’s presence entirely. “A month ?” she whispers, a watery tremor shaking her voice. “How…?”
That’s all the answer Rosie needs.
There is no chance in Hell that the girl had knowingly attacked those sinners. Her reactions are too authentic to be fake, and what kind of supposedly coldhearted killer would be scared of her own abilities?
Rosie supposes there’s a possibility it could be a case of mind control - Heaven knows there’s a bunch of unruly types with that nasty ability - but given the randomness of the reported attacks and lack of notoriety behind the victims, she doubts that it had been done on someone’s orders.
That leaves the most likely scenario: this little moth is simply a lost, scared sinner who got saddled with magical items and abilities beyond her own comprehension.
Candy is pitiful, there’s no denying that. However, it’d be foolish to think that is all she is; this little moth is a proverbial golden goose that fell right into Rosie’s lap.
Everyone has already seen the damage she’s capable of inflicting while unaware. Imagine if Candy had a mentor teaching her - not just how to wield her abilities; but Hell’s minefield of a social hierarchy, the laws, the rules - why, she’d be a force to be reckoned with!
All Candy needs is a guiding hand to keep her from straying. Someone whom she trusts enough to listen to their every word, and whom she wouldn’t dare leave their side…
A tiny smile curls her lips.
It’s just as well that Rosie is the perfect lady for the job, right?
“Miss Rosie?”
Oh dear. Rosie quickly smothers any mounting plans as she flashes the worried girl a smile. It wouldn’t do her any good to pursue potential too hastily at this point; after all, a possible ally is still only a possibility . There is no guarantee she’d be willing to join Rosie’s side.
And if the little moth turns on any of her souls… Well, she’ll have a very swift lesson in why even the dimmest sinner avoids Cannibal Town.
“Is something the matter, Candy dear?”
She jumps, her fur puffing up in shock. “Nothing! I just, um…” She glances briefly to the side, her expression making it clear that she is bursting at the seams with questions. But before she can get a word out, a loud grumble disturbs the silence first.
A bright red hue colours Candy’s face, and she wraps her arms around herself, eyes squinting self-consciously. “Ah, I see that our little chat has gone on longer than I anticipated. You must be feeling peckish, aren’t you?” Rosie hums.
“I-!”
“Of course you are,” Rosie cuts in, standing up before she can get a word in edgewise. “Now you stay right there and don’t move, or Heaven forbid, run . I’ll be back with our finest finger foods before you know it.”
Leaving the clueless moth alone with her swirling thoughts, Rosie locks the door behind her with a click. The emporium is thankfully closed for business and devoid of clients, which leaves her free to ponder aloud as she makes her way to the pantry, “That little moth still seems rather delicate. Perhaps I should start her off with the pinkies?”
A month. That’s how long you’ve been stuck down here?
Rosie’s blurry visage hurries out before you can even say as much as “What the fuck?”. You want nothing more than to march right out and drag her back while demanding answers, but something tells you that won’t end well for you.
‘Not that I can move OR see,’ you think bitterly. You give an experimental kick and your leg muscles barely respond, feeling like overcooked noodles at the moment. ‘Shitty legs, shitty eyes, shitty memory…’
Rosie called you “a dangerous serial killer” earlier, but you don’t feel particularly dangerous or serial killer-y. Maybe she got the wrong moth?
You snort. Yeah right, your luck isn’t that good. In fact, you probably also set an orphanage on fire and just can’t remember the fact now!
Groaning, you drop back against the pile of throw pillows, gritting your teeth against the ache pulsing from underneath the bandages. ‘I’ll freak out about it later. For now, I’ll just… close my eyes…’
A hand patting your face rouses you. Drowsiness still hanging from your eyelids, you squirm away from the unrelenting hand and push yourself up.
Rosie’s lithe figure is standing beside the couch, one arm balancing what seems to be a plate full of discoloured carrots. “Rise and shine, Candy! Let’s see if you can swallow a few of these before taking another snooze.” She pauses. “You know, it’s considered rude to stare at your food without so much as a ‘thank you’ ‘round these parts.”
It’s only then you realise you’ve been squinting at the plate all this time, and your face flushes heavily. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to stare, I just can’t see-“
Shit, why did you say that?! You can’t discern her expression but something in the room seems to shift, making you tense up.
“Hm?” You can vaguely make out Rosie setting down the mystery food at the vanity table before a dainty hand tilts your head back. “… Oh my. I suppose that explains why you look like you’ve been sucking on a lemon all this time.”
“Huh?”
With a sigh, she lets go of your baffled face. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Give me one moment, I believe I have a spare pair of spectacles here…”
“Huh?! Wait, you don’t need to do that!” you protest, futilely reaching out to stop her. “I-I can see just fine! It’s just a little fuzzy, no need for-“
Rosie simply shushes you. Much to your frustration, that one sound is enough to make your mouth snap shut.
Your frown breaks when a pair of glasses is slid on your face, and you blink rapidly as you feel the strain of your vision adjusting to the sudden clarity. God knows how it’s staying on because you’re pretty sure you don’t have physical ears.
“There we go. How does it feel, Candy darlin’?” Rosie’s voice asks over your head.
You don’t think you’ve ever worn glasses before but this pair doesn’t feel right at all. The round frame is too small for your eyes and the lens doesn’t match your vision’s acuity, giving your surroundings an odd fuzz around the edges that makes your brain hurt if you stare at it for too long. Not to mention that having it glued to your face by sheer willpower alone feels disconcertingly like the mask…
“… It’s fine,” you cough.
“ Mhm .” You hear Rosie huff, the brush of warm air tickling your antennas. “I’ll have to arrange an appointment with the optometrist to get you something more suitable, so you’ll have to bear with my spare pair for now, okay?”
An optometrist?
Consternation curls your antennas. The way she’s been acting - saving you, giving you food and water, and now talking about appointments - it’s almost as if Rosie is making plans to… to keep you.
No. No, that can’t be right.
Bracing yourself, you whip your gaze up ready to dissuade her from whatever plan she’s concocting, but the words turn into ash in your mouth as you mutely stare at Rosie’s smiling face.
She’s not wearing sunglasses over her eyes.
Those are her eyes.
“Is something the matter? You look rather faint right now,” Rosie says. Her eyes - black, bottomless pits that don’t shine no matter how the light hits them - squint under her mischievous smile stretching from ear to ear, as if she can hear your thoughts.
The funny thing is, the rest of her is not much better. She towers over you without having to try, her manicured nails looking more like she has knives embedded in her fingers with how they glint under the light. Her skin is a sickly gray. Her teeth are tinted with a shade of pale pink that you can’t explain. Strangely-coloured skulls of mysterious creatures accompanied by a small bloom of mysterious plum-coloured flowers decorate her sun hat, topped off with a shockingly red plume of feathers to complete the look of insanity.
Yet, it’s the eyes that steal your breath in a not-good way.
“Nothing!” you wheeze, hastily averting your eyes ( ‘Stop thinking about eyes!’ ). “Nothing’s wrong! I, uh… I’m hungry! Yeah, that’s it!” You do your best to force the hysteria down and turn to the plate she had set down, desperately eager to change topics.
Fingers.
There are. Fingers. Just fingers on the plate.
The hysteria crawls back up your throat, hot and sour. You can’t tear your eyes away from the grisly arrangement: fingers of various skin colours, widths and lengths have been manipulated to form a grotesque imitation of a bouquet, topped off with elaborate rings that gleam sharply under the lights.
Is it too late to return the glasses?
You swallow dryly. “Please tell me that’s just super realistic chocolate.”
“Oh heavens no!” With a hand delicately placed over where her heart should be is, Rosie gapes at you as if chocolate is a bigger sin than human fucking fingers. “You’re in no condition to be eating sugary treats, young lady! What you need is good, solid nutrients. I know you’ve been running on fumes for who-knows-how-long, so we’ll start you off small and hopefully work you up to a good arm or two.” As she speaks, she digs into the finger bouquet with a perfectly manicured nail and the sight makes you pale.
“Bu- Fingers?! ” you choke out, gesturing wildly with your good arm.
“ Yes , I’m aware they’re fingers,” Rosie says casually. “Ah, here we go!”
Her hand withdraws from the pile with a gray-skinned digit, perfectly preserved from the knuckle up and bedazzled with a sleek platinum ring, pinched within her grasp.
You cringe back when she proffers it your way. “I can’t…”
Rosie’s smile, full of greying teeth that you can see in uncomfortably close detail, falters. For the first time that day, she holds you in a gaze that makes your antennas freeze, the emptiness of her eyes sending your stomach in a free-fall as you dig your claws into the blanket for comfort.
“Little moth. I understand that this is your first time encountering a diet like mine-“ Your face twists into a grimace, “-but be honest with me: what’s so different between the deeds you and I have committed?”
Your jaw drops. “ What? ” you gasp with a mix of outrage and disbelief.
Undeterred, she holds up a hand and counts down her fingers one-by-one. “I kill sinners to feed myself and my people. You killed sinners to survive, whether you’ve done it intentionally or not ,” she adds with a sharp bite, as if reading your thoughts. You reluctantly settle back, jaw shutting with an audible click. “Do you think it matters what your intentions are?”
‘Of course not.’
The thought crosses your mind only for a fleeting moment, but whatever shows on your face is enough to soften her reproving gaze.
“I’ll tell you now, it doesn’t . Heaven doesn’t care and sinners certainly won’t,” Her shoulders slant in a small shrug, “so there’s no point in holding onto silly human morals now, is there?”
‘It’s not like you have anything to lose at this point.’
Her earlier words echo in your mind. Your stomach - empty, hungering, gnawing - twists into painful knots as you stare at the finger loosely held in her hand like it’s a cigar. You mull over the words, rolling them around in your mind until it sinks into the folds of your brain, taking root in your nerves.
‘Nobody will care.’
‘Got nothing left to lose.’
‘I’m hungry.’
As if sensing your wavering will, the corners of her mouth curls into a knowing smile as Rosie offers the finger once more.
Your hand trembles for a moment before you shove down all remaining doubt and snatch it up. You have to bite back a scream when you properly feel the dismembered finger in your palm for the first time. It’s ice cold and stiff like a… well, like a stiff , sending an involuntary shudder running up your arm. It takes you one, two, three deep breaths to work up the courage to examine the finger, which you do through squinted eyes, bitten lips and very deep breathing.
It must’ve belonged to a man once. The digit is thick and the skin calloused, and as you carefully turn it over in your hand, you see a hollow space ringed by dark red meat.
The sight roils your insides.
“You noticed that it’s deboned?” While you’re busy trying not to hurl, Rosie leans forward with an encouraging grin. “Folks around here normally prefer a little bone marrow, but I figured your first time would go down a bit easier without it, so I went through the stock I normally keep for the young’uns just for you!”
It feels like your brain just suffered the blue screen of death.
They have children here.
They have children in Hell .
They have children practising cannabilism -
You jam the finger in your mouth before it spouts anything you’ll regret.
Unfortunately, the violent motion upsets your gag reflex and sends you choking, making your teeth reflexively sink into the soft flesh. A squawk of surprise worms its way around the finger sticking out of your mouth. Your tongue, without waiting for your sputtering brain to catch up to reality, flicks against the exposed meat.
Somewhere next to you, it sounds like Rosie’s trying to give you words of encouragement, but you feel as though her words are circling around your mind in a fog of incomprehension. “How is it, darlin’? Don’t go overthinking it now! The first bite is always daunting, but I can promise that the flavour will change your life.”
Oh. Oh, it’s definitely changing something, alright.
Like how until now, you’ve never known that your body could reject something with this much vitriol .
With an unsightly lurch, the dismembered finger is spat out and lands into the folds of the blanket. But the damage is done and can’t be un done. You can still see the teeth marks clearly sunken into the flesh in between dry heaves. The taste of sinner flesh still lingers in your mouth, sharp yet sickeningly normal, as if you’ve just eaten a piece of chicken tenders.
The comparison only fuels the disgust clinging on the inner walls of your throat.
“Oh dear.”
Clarity hits you like cold water. You’ve forgotten that Rosie was sitting right next to you for a brief moment, and you’ve just gone and spat out her generous offering.
You’re fucked.
Your mouth is already working out feeble excuses when a slender hand plucks the bitten finger from the blanket. You find the tiny splotch of saliva left behind utterly fascinating, and if examining it means not having to look at Rosie’s surely furious expression, then all the better!
“Candy.”
One antenna perks up.
“Why are you cowering like that? Come on, sit up and keep that back straight, or your little stab wound isn’t going to heal properly.”
Your other antenna joins the first, and you finally dare to shoot Rosie a glance. “You’re not mad…?”
“Mad? Of course not!” the woman scoffs. “The important thing here is that you tried it.”
Rosie beams at you. You squint at her, scouring her face for a hint of deception. But no. By all signs and accounts, she seems genuinely pleased with the complete farce of a taste test you just did.
“Really?” you ask.
In response, Rosie wags the bitten finger in your face. It takes all your willpower not to lean away. “To be quite frank with you, I never expected you to take to my way of life that quickly. Sinners who have never acted in cannibalism before normally take a I was right, of course, but I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t feel a tiny smidge of disappointment when I saw you react like that!”
Even though the reaction mentioned here is towards an abhorrent act, you still feel yourself wince.
“But angry? I would never, Candy darlin’. Have you any idea how many sinners have rejected our offerings before you? With much more boorishness in a single sentence than you have in your entire body, mind you. The fact that you decided to give it a try at all is already a miracle!” Rosie chuckles. “But if you don’t like it, then it can’t be helped. I wouldn’t dream of forcing you to become
“I see…” ‘Was that all just some weird test?’
You watch Rosie wrap the finger in a fresh silk handkerchief with unease, already having half an idea as to where it’s going to end up later. “If you ever want to give it another try, do tell me! I’d be delighted ,” Her smile turns ever so slightly sharp, “to feed you our finest cuts.”
“Ahahahahokayi’llkeepthatinmind.”
Yeah, no way in Hell are you ever doing that again.
Rosie claps her hands together. “But now that I know you can’t have sinners, I’ll have to bring out food I know you’ll enjoy.”
A grisly image of eyeballs stacked on a leg like fish roe pops up unbidden in your mind, and you quickly shake it away.
“I know you have questions, but I must ask that you save them for later.” The woman aims a shrewd smile at you as if she can see the whirlwind in your mind threatening to break out. “Once you have some grub in you, then we can talk.”
Your stomach grumbles in agreement.
With a sweep of her maroon dress, Rosie leaves the room with the plate. All at once, you feel tension leave your body and you collapse against the couch in a boneless heap. You’re too tired to think about anything beyond “This lady’s probably not going to kill me, and that’s good enough for me”.
Time passes. There’s no clock that can help you keep track of it, but it’s enough time for you to start nodding off. You’re on the cusp of drifting back to sleep when something snaps in your antennas. It’s like a buildup of static rippling between the teeth-like frills and it makes you shoot up in alarm. The sudden movements jars your bandaged wounds, but that’s the last thing on your mind when Rosie emerges with another plate, this time filled with sliced fruit.
‘FOOD.’
Wearing a smile that you can’t discern, Rosie sets the plate on your lap. It barely touches your knees before you leap on it in a flurry of teeth and claws.
You don’t bother seeing what you’re shoving into your mouth. The only thing that matters to you is that it smells fresh, unlike the stagnant scent of rot hanging all around you. The crisp crunch between your teeth sounds heavenly, spilling sweet juice that washes away the remnants of your last “meal”, wetting your parched throat. Already the finger is a distant memory drowning in the pool of bliss you’re soaking in.
You only surface for breath once your stomach starts hurting. ‘I’m never taking food for granted again. Never ever ever,’ you think feverishly, your tongue flicking out to catch a stray droplet clinging to your bottom lip. ‘I’m eating every chance I get. I don’t care if I have to dig through dumpsters, I’m keeping a fucking granola bar on me all the time, no, ten bars.’
“My, someone’s enjoying herself.”
Rosie’s amused observation reminds you that you’re not alone in the room, and you freeze. A blush creeping up the back of your neck, you slowly lower the half-eaten melon slice clutched between your claws. “Sorry,” you squeak. “Didn’t mean to get carried away.”
“Apology accepted,” she says with a light titter. “I suppose I can excuse your lack of decorum since you’ve been buzzing around without food for nearly a month, but I won’t be so lenient next time, understand~?”
You nod carefully. Again, a reference to a “next time” as if she’s expecting you to stick around. You’re starting to see where this is going, and the contemplative look she gives you tells you she’s thinking the same thing.
Rosie sits herself on the padded stool. “Now that you’re properly settled,” she says as you nibble on the melon slice at a more suitable pace, “I believe it’s time to set the record straight.”
“That I need to pay back for the meal and stuff?” you guess, gesturing at the mostly empty plate.
“That’s a part of it, yes.”
You give her a half-shrug. “Yeeeaaah, I kinda expected that. I mean, nobody gives all this stuff away for free, right?” you ask.
“Right you are!” Rosie beams. “This makes things much simpler, then.”
She points at you.
“You, my little moth, are in dire need for food and shelter.”
“And water,” you quickly add.
“And water,” Rosie says with an indulgent smile. “As for me…”
You lean closer, anticipation forcing your brows to knit together.
“… I’m in search of fresh souls to join me!” Rosie declares. “Not that I’m hurting for new deals over here, but it never hurts to have more friendly faces to my name.”
“To your name…?”
The razor sharp grin doesn’t help to assuage your uneasiness in the slightest.
“Yes, dear. We have ways we can mutually benefit each other-“
‘I do?’ you think nervously.
“-so let’s cut to the chase.”
She holds out her hand as if asking for a handshake. You almost take it without thinking, but her next words make you freeze in place.
“What do you say about forming a soul deal with me, little moth?”
Notes:
A/N: And that's it! Everything I write seems to be turning to slow burn no matter what so goddamnit, I might as well start tagging all of my fics as "slow burn" lol.
Anyways, I hope y'all liked this! :')
Notes for this chapter:
1) If you caught the fact that there's a "rotting smell" in Cannibal Town, that's because I'm following the pretty-sure-it's-confirmed-as-canon tidbit that Alastor actually smells bad based off the fact he feeds on corpses, but I'm applying it to all cannibals. Like, c'mon, we've seen the man eat a literal rotting deer before, at some point no amount of hygiene can stop the rot from seeping in.
If it makes you feel better, think of it as a "rotting corpse" smell rather than a "Cheeto-fingered neckbeard" smell.2) I'll be honest... I wrote this BEFORE I found out that canon states all sinners "arrive in Hell without powers" and that they gain it by killing. So, uh... let's forget about that little factoid for the sake of this fic, 'kay? :<
Listening to: Only Paint in Red Now by Lydia the Bard & Tony
Making: Pattern #9 from BraceletBook
Reading: A Murder in Hell by hazbinclaire
Chapter 3: A Done Deal
Summary:
in which you sell your soul in exchange for a cozy bed and some food
Notes:
A/N: Hiiii, I'm baaaack
Got another chapter for y'all! Which I had to split into what's turning out into a 3-parter because I hella underestimated the final length, but hopefully it still turned out good! I'm lousy with responding to comments but I really appreciate it, every single one of them!
I just opened an account on Bluesky, you can find me under the handle: @midnightmorp.bsky.social
No warnings that I can think of for this chapter.
Come join our Hazbin/Helluva Fanfiction 18+ server!: Lucifer's Library
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Your hand zips back under the blanket faster than you can blink.
“A soul deal?” you repeat slowly. “Are you talking literally or…?”
Rosie’s smile broadens.
“… You’re talking literally,” you sigh in resignation.
“Of course I am! Really, I didn’t think you’d be balking at something as benign as souls after everything you’ve seen,” Rosie scoffs, but you quickly flap your hand in protest.
“That’s not it! It’s not that I don’t believe souls are real, it’s…”
You frown in thought for a moment, tongue sticking out a little between pursed lips.
“… it’s just that I didn’t think you could do anything with ‘em. You know, intangible stuff like astrology and, and spiritualism! They’re just things you hear about in fairytales-“
“That,” Rosie cuts in gently, “sounds like a long-winded way of saying ‘I don’t believe in souls’, Candy darlin’.”
“Well!” Your mouth opens and closes for several moments trying, and when you fail to find the right words, you give up with a huff. “… Can you blame me? You make ‘em sound like they’re trading cards you can swap around.”
Rosie sighs, the sound full of exasperation. “Tell me, what do you think is going to happen if you went up to any ol’ sinner while yapping like this?” she sniffs.
“Um-“
She answers for you anyway. “You make yourself look like easy pickings, that’s what happens! You haven’t met the more unsavoury types prowling around in the other districts, trust me.”
An image of the shark demon flashes before your eyes. You open your mouth.
“And before you go on and say that you have, I can tell you right now that it’s not true,” Rosie says almost immediately, lips quirked up in a shrewd smile. A tiny squeak of frustration escapes you.
“Gah! Stop reading my mind, you- Wait, are you reading my mind?” you ask, shooting her a wary look.
“Oh, now wouldn’t that be a delightful perk! Sadly I’m not capable of that,” Rosie says, and you sigh with relief. “You just have an awfully expressive face. It’s like you’re broadcasting every thought that crosses your mind!”
‘I do?’ You reach up to touch your face self-consciously.
“Yes, you do,” she says cheerily.
Damn it.
Soon enough though, her smile drops into a more serious expression. “That’s why I’m offering this deal, dear. If there’s one thing I take pride in, it’s decades’ worth of knowledge all stored up here.” She taps her temple with a particularly smug air. “I could teach you all you need to know to survive down here: the right words to say, which sinners to avoid…”
She reaches over and taps your mouth.
“… and perhaps how to keep a stiffer upper lip! Lying will be an essential tool under your belt if you want to even start thinking of talking to the ruffians out there, after all.”
The tip of your teeth catches your lip, right on the spot Rosie had touched. You can’t deny she’s wrong exactly, but something about this doesn’t sit right with you…
“I dunno if all that’s worth my soul, though. Like,” The tips of your antennas stand just a little straighter as you struggle to find the right words, “giving up my soul sounds permanent. Like a I-will-regret-it permanent. It is permanent, right?”
“Correct!”
You blink in disbelief. She’s not even going to try denying it?!
“Um. O-okay, then…” Your brain is scrabbling to regain its bearings. “Um… Well, maybe there’s something else I can give you? I can do work for you to pay back for everything! I’ll learn, and pick things up quick so ya don’t have to worry about handholding me all the time-“
A hand on your shoulder stops your rambling. “ Candy . I don’t mean this to be discourteous, but right now, your soul is the most valuable thing you have to offer,” Rosie says, sweet as can be. Her tone doesn’t sound like she means to offend either, but it still stings.
The most valuable thing…
You draw your knees to your chest, feeling the protests your weakened muscles make. It only makes you feel all the more vulnerable being stuck like this while a cannibal lady is quite literally asking for your goddamn soul .
‘She would’ve hurt me already if she wanted to, and she’s done nothing but help me since I woke up,’ you try to reason against the drumming anxiety rocking your heart. ‘She even fed me! … Even if it’s someone’s finger… Eurgh.’
… One more question, just to be sure.
“Well. Let’s say I agree to give you my soul, hypothetically ,” you add hastily, clutching the blanket tightly in your claws. “What’s going to happen to me…?”
Rosie hums, her head tilting as she thinks about her answer. At least, that’s what you think she’s doing; it’s near impossible to discern anything in the pair of empty pits that are her eyes. “Nothing beyond being under my employment, darlin’. You won’t even have an inkling that your soul is in my hands, you can think of it as a new, exciting job!”
You squint doubtfully at her. “A job with one entry qualification of my soul?”
The playful smile she’s sporting on her lips twitches, sobering up into a more serious gaze. “Believe it or not, Candy, I’m offering something mighty generous here. Think about it: do you think I’m the only sinner in the entirety of Hell to offer a soul contract? That no other demon will try and trap you in a shifty deal once they realise you’re a naive arrival?”
“But I can just avoid them , right? I just need to keep my head down, my mouth shut and… Oh!” Your antennas perk up with a new idea. “I can just lie about being under a, what did you call it, soul contract? Then I don’t have to sell my soul to anyone and keep my head down, nobody has to know…”
Your excited chatter trails off when you notice the look on her face. Quiet disappointment tugs the corners of her mouth downward as she quirks up one eyebrow. “What did I say now?” you ask slowly.
“This is why I say you make yourself appear like easy pickings,” she sighs. Rosie taps a nail on your forehead with enough force to leave a sting. “You don’t even know the basic mechanics of a soul deal, do you? That would be the first thing everyone down here learns.”
So she’s basically calling you stupid.
Frustration colours your face in a bright red flush. “Then why can’t you tell me?! You keep telling all these things but you’re not explaining anything!”
Rosie cocks her head to the side. “Am I not?” she asks sweetly. “I’ve already shared a lot with you, haven’t I? I was even kind enough to give you an early notice about soul contracts; something I can imagine not too many sinners would be terribly eager to share. But I simply can’t reveal all of my secrets now, can I? I wouldn’t have lived for as long as I have if I spilled my guts to any ol’ sinner with a sad story!”
“… You don’t look that old,” you grumble.
Rosie daintily fans herself with a controlled hand. “You flatter me, Candy! It’s nice to know that a lady still has her youthful glow.”
You purse your lips in a tight line. She’s not taking your seriously… The sight makes you want to hang on to your stubborn refusal for as long as possible, until she’s forced to throw a better solution onto your lap.
There’s an irritating gnat tugging at your conscience. Something small and insignificant, whispering to you that it’s a bad idea to keep pushing.
… But maybe one more question wouldn’t hurt. Just to be very sure.
“Why would you even want me? If it’s for my weird powers, then you can forget it ‘cause I don’t even know how to control it,” you prattle on through gritted teeth, keeping your eyes trained on a loose thread poking through the blanket. “I don’t even know what it does! But people keep collapsing when they touch me, so…”
An uneasy silence hangs between the both of you as you brace yourself for her answer, one of your claws twirling around a loose thread repeatedly.
Then her grin, brimming with sharp teeth, breaks out again at full force. “Oh goodness, what an honest little moth you are,” she coos. You don’t have time to duck her reaching fingers and your face very quickly falls victim to her pinching ministrations. “Don’t go stressing your little head over a silly issue like that now. I assure you, I’m much tougher than you think.”
You blink. That… oddly sounds like a threat.
But then again, hasn’t she been making casual contact with you all this time? petting your head, hugging you, holding your hand Yet that strange sensation that feeds you energy hasn’t reared its ugly head and sent Rosie collapsing…
You’d like to think it’s just a freaky one-off, but you already know that you’re not that lucky. What’s more likely is that you can’t control it, or she has a special way to negate its effects. You’re not sure which one is scarier.
‘Demons. Hell. Cannibals. Mask. A strange curse in my hands…’ The sheer amount of information makes your head throb, and Rosie isn’t even telling you the things you want to know. If you say no to this deal, how likely is it that you’ll get tossed out on your ass and left to fend for yourself? And remembering your first hour in Hell, you don’t think you’ll find someone half as nice as Rosie.
If you don’t take her hand, then…
‘It’s not like you have anything left to lose now.’
Before you can psych yourself out, you stick your hand out.
“FineI’lldoit.”
“Pardon?”
Blushing, you clear your throat. “Sorry. I-I meant to say, I’ll do it.”
Rosie’s resulting beam is so blinding that it makes you squint. “Oh, how wonderful!” Your hand is seized in a vice grip as she vigorously shakes your hand, nearly ripping it out of its socket. “I look forward to seeing how you’ll blossom, little moth!”
Bloody hell, this lady is strong . You wouldn’t have guessed based on her slim frame, but you suppose it comes with being a demon.
You stay stiff as a board until she relaxes her hold, afraid that any kind of opposition will result in your arm literally flying off. Now her hand is wrapped around yours in a firm standstill of a handshake, her palm pressed up against yours, trapping warmth that travels up your arm and in the back of your neck. Or is the sudden spike of warmth because of your palpitating heartbeat?
If Rosie notices your anxious fidgeting, she doesn’t show it. “Listen carefully, dear. I’ll lay out the terms of the deal, no tricks and no fibs, and all you need to do is agree to them. Simple, no?”
“That’s it?” you ask skeptically.
“Nothing more, nothing less.” Her eyes somehow soften, and she gives your sweaty hand a comforting squeeze. “Don’t go working yourself up over the tiny details now. One little ‘yes’ will be enough to seal the deal.”
You give a tense nod, and you receive a quick smile of approval before Rosie begins speaking.
“Candy.”
Hearing the stupid nickname at the peak of your stress nearly shocks a bark of a laugh out of you, but you manage to swallow it down in the nick of time.
“I will grant you safety within Cannibal Town, with all that you need within its borders. No one here shall lay a finger on you without reason. ” At this, her gaze narrows slightly at you, as if she’s silently saying that the same goes for you. “I, as the mayor of this fine town, will be responsible for teaching you all there is to know about Hell because Satan knows no one else will bother.”
Something peculiar happens as she speaks: you can feel something invisible coiling around you. Invisible, yet impossibly heavy. It’s somehow making contact with you while not being tangible, and the disparity sets you off-kilter for a moment. ‘Is it… touching my soul? Is that what I’m feeling?’
“In exchange, you will hand over your soul,” Your breath quickens, “and lend us your assistance whenever we require it.”
The sensation doesn’t stop. If anything, it’s growing more intense by the second, simmering under your skin like a bed of coals, and you finally see something: a sliver of pink, flickering in and out of existence like a candle flame. Your breathing stutters, hissing through your teeth as you try to bear the discomfort as best you can. You don’t dare move; for all you know, your soul could be torn asunder if you so much as breathe wrong.
“What do you mean by ‘assistance’?” you manage to get out through gritted teeth.
Unlike your trembling, sweating form, Rosie remains as prim and proper as she was five minutes ago. “Exactly as it sounds like, Candy. You won’t earn trust from the townsfolk with just pretty words and those sad puppy eyes of yours, you need to show that you’re raring to be one of them. You need to show action! ” she declares with a sharp flash of teeth. “I can show you the way, but only if you’ll let me.”
Your nerves feel like they’re on fire now, and you’re not sure if it’s because of the deal or your own gnawing anxiety.
“Do we have a deal?”
You can feel the finality behind that question. Once you open your mouth and give your word, your fate will be sealed…
“Yes.”
The room is doused in searing light the second it leaves your lips. An alarmed squawk catches in the back of your throat and you screw your eyes shut, only able to see through the tiniest slit between eyelids. The strange flickers of energy twist, manifest into a single chain shimmering a sickly shade of grayish pink, lashing around the intertwined hands like a vicious snake. You can feel it burning against your bare skin, but strangely, it doesn’t hurt even as it sinks under your skin, disappearing completely. You feel the simmering energy creep up, circle around your neck, biting into your skin like it’s a-
Then it ceases all at once.
Your ears ring from the sudden absence of noise. Cautiously opening your eyes, you peer around.
No more bright light. No more burning. No more pink chains that you can see when Rosie (who looks as merry as can be) relinquishes your hand. You don’t feel anything around your neck either when you reach up to rub it. You feel weirdly normal for someone who’s supposedly sold their soul.
… It’s rather anticlimactic, you think.
“It’s done?” you ask. “Do you have my… soul?”
“The short of it all? Yes,” Rosie says, then she smiles at you. “Would you like a demonstration?”
Doubt niggles at your mind, but nevertheless, you say “Yes”.
Rosie flicks her wrist in one smooth motion, holding her palm out as if asking for your hand. You watch a grayish pink chain manifest out of thin air with a sense of morbid fascination, the sound of its metallic clanking too real to be a figment of your imagination, and as it snakes words, you feel something warm and ungiving wrap snugly around the whole length of your neck.
Then its true nature hits you.
‘A leash!’
You suck in a sharp breath. The instinctive panic at having a vulnerable body part encased this way makes your heart rate spike and your hands reach up to rip it off, but it dissipates before your claws can do much as graze it, leaving you awkwardly clutching your own neck like you’d been choking.
“Is this demonstration to your satisfaction?”
Her teasing tone brings a scowl to your face. “A little warning would’ve been nice,” you mumbled, crossing your arms. You can still feel your rapidly thumping heart beneath your chest.
Rosie scoffs, lightly smacking your uninjured arm. “Oh, don’t go pouting over a little upset like this.”
“I’m not!” you protest, before wincing at how whiny your words come across. “I just… Well…”
You see her mouth quirk up into a sly grin, opening to no doubt deliver another jab at you, and you quickly move to change the subject. “So what’s gonna happen now?” you hastily ask.
“Now? Now it’s time to retire to our bedrooms lest we chit-chat until the sun rises. Come along now,” Rosie says.
You hurriedly scramble back when she reaches for your elbow, accidentally climbing up half the couch in your panic. “Our bedrooms? I don’t have a-!”
A mouth-splitting yawn disrupts your protests and gives her a chance to grab you in her impossibly strong grip, much to your annoyance.
“Did you think I’d dump you on the streets right after striking a deal with you? You’d be sorely disappointed if so,” Rosie says with a light titter. She loops her arm around yours and pulls you to your feet, plucking up the empty plate in one deft move at the same time. “How can you hope to leave all on your lonesome if you can’t even stay on your feet?”
The sound of irritation squeaks through your gritted teeth. You hate the way you’re forced to rely on her as a crutch as she helps you shuffle to a nearby sink with overcooked noodles as legs, and the fact that she managed to pick up on it before you’ve even begun to stand ticks you off even more. “I’m trying . Stupid legs…!”
“I can see you’re trying, yes, so why don’t you continue practising on your way to my abode?”
Ultimately, you’re forced to follow along with Rosie’s whims on wobbly knees as you wash your hands under the running tap, claws unsticking one-by-one as the sticky juices are washed down the drain. Once you’re done, you find yourself being pulled along by Rosie again, this time towards the door leading outside (wherever “outside” may be).
Outside… and to a home Rosie calls her own.
The idea makes your face screw up. It’s not like you have anywhere else to go, what with your homelessness and all, but the idea of spending a night in a cannibal lady’s house makes your insides flip unpleasantly. Your imagination is already running wild: what if Rosie gets a hankering for a midnight snack and takes a bite out of you while you’re sleeping? Or what if her true reasons for taking you in is as emergency rations? What if-
Rosie lightly thwacks you on the forehead with the edge of the ceramic plate, making you yelp. “Stop worrying about silly matters, Candy darlin’. If I wanted to eat you, do you think I would have given you time to get in a fluster over it?”
You take the hint and stop thinking about it.
The door swings open to reveal what looks like a store . For a second, you’re stunned by the sight beyond as Rosie places the dirty dish into a nearby sink, and it takes you a second to recognise why: everything’s so… organised .
Unlike the vandalism covering every square inch of alleyways and the glass shards decorating sidewalks more often than not, everything in the room has been kept tidy to a meticulous degree. The whole floor is splashed in bright shades of pinks and reds, so unlike the pale burgundy attire Rosie is wearing, and you spy articles of clothing that look like they’ve been spat out from an entirely different time period. Ranging from dresses to coats to suits that are folded and stacked away in neat piles, they surround display cases that are full of… body parts. Honest-to-god body parts (bones, fingers, eyeballs…) that are stuffed away in individual jars and plastic packs like candy . Body parts of which you can see every wrinkle as Rosie walks you to the front door, wiping away any doubt that it could be a replicate of the real thing.
You tear your gaze away when it makes the contents of your stomach roil. ‘Look at something else look at something else look at something else—’
The counter! You desperately train your eyes on it, practically drilling holes into the broad structure. It’s framed by twin curtains, and hanging off it is a plaque framing the words “Rosie’s Emporium” in golden cursive.
‘Oh, does she own this place?’ You feel a little silly for only just realising it now. ‘What the hell is an emporium, even? Is that a fancy word for a tourist trap?’
“Save your questions, dear.”
Goddamnit .
You bite your tongue and keep your head down as you’re led out into the streets of Cannibal Town.
It truly is nighttime now. If the regular daylight hours of Hell look dismal to you, then the night brings it to a whole new level by dousing everything around you in inky darkness, broken up only by the sparse lampposts lining the sidewalks. You can’t see any buildings in great detail, but you’re fine with that. The less you can see of a town of man-eaters, the better.
The one thing you can’t ignore though, is the hanging scent of rot.
It’s a trying task not to react to it. You pray that Rosie doesn’t have enhanced vision in her arsenal of oddities because she’d no doubt be able to guess your true thoughts about her beloved town, and you’re not sure if she’d appreciate it very much.
The walk to her home is a quiet one. Rosie keeps her silence (because she likely has nothing else to say to you) as do you (because you’re trying not to puke). The monotonous stroll is interrupted only by the occasional yawn from you, each subsequent one draining just a little more pep from your step. As much as being led around by the arm makes you feel like a little kid, you have to admit that you would’ve just slept right on the sidewalk if not for Rosie keeping you upright. ‘So tired… Is it because of the soul deal?’ Perhaps you had spoken too soon when you thought this would have no side effects…
On the plus side, you don’t feel stabbing pain from your wounds anymore. Yippee.
Thankfully, the trek doesn’t last for much longer. Rosie stops you in front of a house that stands just a bit taller than the rest, complete with two whole storeys. You suppose that being a mayor has its perks.
She guides you in, flicking a switch that lets light flood into what you assume to be the living room. Unfortunately, you don’t have the wherewithal to feel more than a vague sense of nostalgia emanating from the old-fashioned interior before Rosie walks you past it, leading you up a flight of stairs somewhere off to the right and down a hallway of pink lavender wallpaper, stopping in front of an unmarked door at the very end.
“You can stay in this guest room for the time being, Candy, until you find your footing,” she says, nudging you in. It’s nothing special with its bed and nightstand meeting the minimal requirements of a room, but after everything you’ve gone through? You’d be happy with the floorboards at this point.
You mumble your thanks as you shuffle into the room. But to your surprise, Rosie follows you in instead of leaving you be. “Don’t you go giving me that scowl now,” she says when seeing the look on your face, wagging her finger. “I bet you don’t even know how to use those claws of yours, hm?”
You glance down at your hands. Your clawed fingers stare back at you tauntingly.
“… I guess not,” you mutter reluctantly.
She nods in agreement, guiding you to sit on the edge of the bed. “I could have guessed as much myself, given the holes you left in the blanket I had so generously lent you,” Rosie says with the barest trace of reproach.
You freeze. ‘Oops.’
She pulls out a medical kit from the attached bathroom. “Shirt off, dear,” she instructs as she draws out a stool for herself.
To your credit, you spend only a second to bask in the embarrassment flooding your cheeks before doing as she says, shrugging off the borrowed shirt. Rosie doesn’t waste a second unwinding the bandages, perhaps sensing the mortification rolling off you in waves.
“Oh my.” The soft exclamation makes you twitch in surprise. Rosie is examining your torso with a closer eye than you’re comfortable with, tracing a finger across the wou—
Oh.
You now see why she’s nonplussed.
Where you’d previously felt the stab of pain, back when you had first woken up, there’s only now a scarred patch that’s a shade lighter than your lemon-coloured skin. It’s tender to the touch when you poke it, but it’s still a far cry from the agony that made you keel over earlier. When Rosie unwinds the bandages around your right arm, there’s a similarly yellow scar wrapped around like a ragged armband.
‘There’s no way an injury like that can heal this fast. Is this a demon thing? Magical creatures heal faster than normal humans?’ you wonder to yourself, slowly flapping your arm and reveling in the lack of pain. That doesn’t sound too out of the world…
On a whim, you twist your head around to check your back, but you’re still met with the sight of one whole and one torn wing.
You’re not sure if what you’re feeling is disappointment or not.
“What a fortunate turn of events for you! It seems like you don’t have to spend anymore time wrapped like a mummy,” Rosie hums happily. You quickly pull on your shirt again when she stands to gather the soiled bandages. “Do give me a holler if any of the appliances confound you.”
“No need. ‘M not that clueless,” you grumble.
Her hand darts down to pat your head too quickly to let you duck away. “Of course not,,” she says with an indulgent smile.
You’re not scowling. You’re not.
As the cannibal mayor makes her way out of the guest room, she stops just before the door frame and turns her head to face you. “Make sure to get an early rest, Candy darlin’, because you’ll be a busy bee starting tomorrow!”
With that comforting parting line, she leaves the room and more importantly, leaves you alone .
The noise that clutters your mind is easily a novella’s worth of information - sinners, turf wars, cannibals, souls, Hell, moth wings, claws - but as you carefully pluck the glasses off and place them on the nightstand, sinking into the bed beside it, all of that whirlwind crumbles under the weight of exhaustion.
‘God, I can barely keep my eyes open…’ You glance at the bathroom. It’s been a while since you’ve gotten a good scrub, has it? ‘Maybe I’ll close my eyes for a few minutes and then get up and take a bath. Yeah, that sounds good.’
Naturally, you’re out the moment your head hits the plush pillow.
When she reaches the bottom of the staircase landing, Rosie casts a glance behind her.
It doesn’t even take a minute before the telltale creak of the bed frame reaches her ears. ‘Already out like a nightlight, hm? I’m not surprised,’ she muses silently, continuing her near silent trek to the living room. Although there’s not exactly a need to keep her volume down - with how stooped the girl had been on the way here, Rosie doubts even an earthquake could rouse her now - she hadn’t been raised by her mama to cause a ruckus in the dead of night, goodness!
Her mind goes back to the moment that little moth had handed her soul over. For all the fuss she had kicked up before the exchange, she hadn’t felt Candy try to put up a fight at all. Had she given up? Had she no knowledge on how to resist, if she’d even known such a thing was possible?
‘I don’t think even Candy knows.’ Rosie thinks back to the tiny furrow in her forehead and the uncertain flicks her eyes performed during the short walk back to her abode. ‘I suppose it’s not a shock if she’s aware of Hell only for a week.’
The question now is: What is the best way to ease her into her new life?
Rosie mulls over it for a moment before the answer clicks. If the little moth is going to help her around the emporium, then what’s the one document new employees are always stuck with? A contract .
Contracts are one of the many ways a soul deal can manifest, amongst other methods like a chain, a locket with the owner’s likeness or her favourite, a simple handshake. She isn’t particularly fond of the contract method herself since there are far too many wrenches that can be thrown into the mix (starting from the sinner tearing the contract apart with their bare hands), but if it simply concerns the little moth’s employment? Why, it’s not an issue at all.
Mind already racing with potential rules and stipulations, Rosie pulls out paper and a fountain pen as she sits down on a sofa chair. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’
Phantom reverberations of clanking chains still echo in your skull when your eyes creak open.
‘A dream…?’
The idea seems more likely when a giant yawn breaks out. Rubbing your eyes with the heels of your hands, you slip out of bed. Apparently you hadn’t even bothered with the comforters, judging from the crumpled heap at the foot of the bed, and you have to rub some warmth back into your legs.
Still, it’s the best you’ve felt since falling into Hell.
‘Today’s going to be a good day,’ you think.
You grope around for your borrowed glasses ( ‘Why is it the same colour as the nightstand? Fuck meeee.’ ) until your hand bump into something hard. Then another challenge crops up when you try to put it on: your fucking claws.
You’ve lived your whole life picking things up with the flat tips of your fingers (or at least, that’s what you’re assuming given your spotty memories), so having to carefully balance the glasses on pointed appendages to shove onto your face is… certainly an annoying experience.
‘Could be worse. I think I can get used to it,’ you think.
With your vision marginally restored, you spot a piece of paper on the nightstand that you’re pretty sure hadn’t been there the night before. Gingerly picking it up between two claws, you squint at the writing scribbled across it.
You tilt your head left.
You tilt it right.
Squint.
… you tilt your head a little more to the left, just to be sure.
It takes you an embarrassingly long time to comprehend the extreme cursive on paper, but eventually you’re able to decipher it, you think.
It reads:
“Dear Candy, we have plenty of errands to run today, so kindly meet me in the dining room once you’re done freshening up! Do not worry if the clothes are ill-fitting as the tailor is our first stop today.”
A tailor? That means brand spanking new clothes cut to your exact measurements, which feels… awfully fancy for your tastes. Doesn’t Cannibal Town have a clothing store for you to pick out of the stacks?
You shake it off. You can worry about it after you wash up.
Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.
Your troubles begin the moment you enter the bathroom. Rosie had very generously left you a handful of basic toiletries on a shelf above the sink, and you pick up a toothbrush. At least, you attempt to, but your fingers being clawed at the ends means they have an extra inch in length that makes it difficult to hold anything smaller than a dictionary. That’s not getting into how everything seems just slightly too tall for you to use comfortably, or the enhanced strength you suddenly seem to have that drives your claws through the plastic tubing like it’s toilet paper and making a mess on your hands, and oh god, you don’t want to begin thinking about how you’d use toilet paper, why do you have claws—?!
By the time you emerge from the bathroom, you’re beginning to regret waking up.
“I’m clean . That’s all that matters,” you hiss to yourself, hands trembling by your side as they want to clench in irritation but even that will probably poke holes into yourself. “Just get dressed, and get out of here.”
You stalk to the wardrobe and fling the doors open. Sure enough, there’s a single outfit hung up on the rack. It’s a dusty pink, floor-length dress with a gray sash wrapped around the waist, and its straight-cut sleeves go just a little past the shoulders. No elaborate patterns like the one Rosie wore the day before, which makes you sigh with relief… until another problem hits you.
‘How the hell am I going to put this on?’
You stare at your claws blankly.
‘… This might take a while.’
It’s a good half hour before you’re stomping down the stairs, eyes narrowed and lips pinched into a thin line. The dress you’d thought was floor-length is actually “floor-length plus a few inches of floorboard”, causing the hem to pool around your ankles awkwardly, and you have to fold up the hem multiple times before you can make your way to the first floor. Your shoulders are hiked up to prevent the loose sleeves from slipping off entirely.
Beneath the dress, your one whole wing is diagonally wrapped around your body, curling down your hip and wrapping around your ankles in a light hold. If you had both wings intact, you suppose it could have served as a pseudo open-front skirt, but alas, you’ll never know.
It takes you a couple of laps around the room with your wing pressed against your body, the sensation of your thigh rubbing against the surprisingly sensitive scales, before you get somewhat used to it. Enough to let you make your way down the stairs without shuddering after every other step, at least.
“Ill-fitting’s one way to put it,” you grumble under your breath. “I’m not that small, bloody hell…”
When you turn around the corner to enter the kitchen, however, the person standing at the stove makes you falter.
Turns out that you are, in fact, that small.
The furniture in the kitchen - table, counters, stoves - stand just a bit taller than is comfortable just like the bathroom, with the dining table’s edge being around chin-height. Yet Rosie, who’s at the stove stirring something in a pan, looks perfectly normal next to the furniture. It’s especially noticeable now that she’s not wearing that huge-ass hat of hers (you see it hanging from a hat rack in the living room). Has she always been this tall? You don’t remember noticing it when she was walking you back the night before… although on second thought, that might be because you had been a tad out of sorts after selling your literal soul.
Your stompy entrance gets Rosie’s attention off the stove. “Hm? Oh, good morning, darlin’!” she says with a cheery smile. “Whatever is the matter? You look like you’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed! Did you have a rough night? If it’s nightmares plaguing your beauty sleep, I can tell you that it’s normal for the first couple of days, but if it doesn’t stop after the fifth night, then you might need to look into getting Sleepy Pillz.”
… Did she just say “sleeping pills” with a hard “Z”? No, you must have misheard her.
“‘M fine, Miss Rosie.”
Rosie flicks off the bed of fire dancing beneath and turns around to properly face you. When you make eye contact with her though, her expression ticks down by a fraction. “Candy darlin’, why do you look like you’ve lost a fight with a bobcat?”
“Huh?”
Upon seeing Rosie gesture at her head, realisation hits you and you groan. “I just… like my hair like this,” you mutter, more irritated at yourself than you are at her.
Or rather, it’s your hair that likes your hair like this. You’ve lost count of the hair ties that have met their demise by your too-strong hand, and not even the hairbrush was deemed a satisfactory compromise with how your pale yellow locks refuse to stay down after a session of vigorous brushing. So you’ve given up and let your hair be the wild mane it’s apparently meant to be.
“I see. Kitten’s having a little trouble with her claws, hm?” she chuckles, not buying your excuse at all. You flush with embarrassment.
“I tried my best!”
“I don’t doubt that, but perhaps you should sit down before you claw yourself to ribbons by mistake.” She waves you to the table with the spatula. “I’ll show you the proper way to wield those daggers after breakfast.”
Rosie thankfully turns back to the stove after saying that, lest she would have seen the reflexive gag your body performs at the word “breakfast”.
You do as she says. It’s easy to know where you’re meant to be seated; there are two sets of fancy cutlery set out on opposite sides with a tea set (porcelain with purple floral patterns) arranged right in the middle. Only one side has a plate, full of sliced unidentifiable fruit (again). You’re not complaining, though! ‘Anything's better than…’
You glance at the sliced meat she’s frying.
‘… that.’
You hoist yourself up on the seat, idly kicking your feet as you listen to the sounds of wood scraping against metal, food poured onto a plate, dishes placed into the sink with ceramic clinks. If you close your eyes, you could easily pretend that you’re still on Earth, waiting for him to finish making breakfast before you leave to meet someone. You’re not sure who. A wisp of a memory graces your mind, you’re almost able to see a face…
But the illusion crumbles when Rosie’s inky-eyed visage comes into view.
Her breakfast is surprisingly normal: instead of a puddle of gore and viscera, there are scrambled eggs and sliced meat with the appearance of bacon (even if you know deep down that’s not the case). You also see a tiny pile of bones , for whatever reason.
‘Maybe if I don’t look at it, I can pretend it’s chips. Bone-shaped chips. Yeah.’
Rosie levels an amused smile at you. “I haven’t poisoned your meal, you know.”
“Huh?” You blink, then realise she’s referring to the untouched plate in front of you. “I-I wasn’t thinking that! I was waiting for you to, um, join me?”
Rosie lets out a good-natured laugh. “You’re certainly an oddball, aren’t you? Youngsters these days come into Hell with absolutely no manners, yet here you are with your ‘ma’am’s and honorifics,” she says teasingly as she leans over the table to reach for the teapot.
When she pours for two cups, the brief flash of fear you feel dissipates when you see the stream pouring out of the spout is a regular earthy brown and not crimson. The floral scent wafting from the steaming cups is a welcome break from the constant rot in the air.
“Oh dear, were you expecting blood~?” Rosie asks in a sing-song voice.
“Course not! Um…” You hastily shove a piece of melon in your mouth before you can say anything dumb.
Besides a hum of amusement you catch, Rosie doesn’t bother you anymore besides sitting herself on the opposite side with her meal. She doesn’t start eating right away, though.
“I suppose this is a good time to discuss our plans for today,” Rosie begins. You feel your antennas perk up. “We will need to visit some facilities before stopping at my emporium-”
“F’c’wities?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she admonishes.
Blushing a little, you quickly swallow and repeat your question.
With a mischievous twinkle in her eye, Rosie says, “You will just have to wait and see-“
‘Then why ask if you’re not going to answer?’
“-but you need more things to your name than that raggedy men’s clothing you were wearing, Candy darlin’! You didn’t think you’d be living off borrowed clothing and food forever, were you?”
“No, but-“
“Of course not, no self-respecting demon depends on handouts around here. You’d be made a laughingstock faster than you can take a scratch at them.” Then she pauses for a moment before amending, “Or you’d be torn to pieces. It’s either-or, really. It’s up to you what you wish to do, but if you ask me…”
A shrewd smile curls the corners of her mouth.
“I think you’d be a lot more useful in one piece. Don’t you agree?” she asks with a quirked eyebrow.
You wince. An implied threat is still a threat and having an authority figure issue one is never a good thing.
In the end, you take the hint and meekly nod, antennas wilting a bit.
“Wonderful!” Rosie exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Now let us finish our breakfast before the sun rises too far, shall we? I’d like to make a stop at the butcher’s before he opens for business today; I heard he managed to get his hands on a particularly delectable cut of meat…”
‘Today’s… not going to be a good day, is it?’
Notes:
A/N: Next up? Candy's first outing in Cannibal Town! If you enjoyed this chapter, I'd appreciate a kudos and a comment! :)
This chapter was a bit of a bitch to write (specifically around the soul deal portion), but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out in the end! I've always wondered how much sinners who spawn with particularly unusual anatomy struggle with their new bodies, especially with hands (something people use without a second thought), so I had a little fun with it hehe
And to those who cried for Candy to not go through with the deal... Sorry haha. At least it was with a relatively fair overlord than someone like Valentino, eh?
Also a little headcanon I have about the cannibals: I don't think they eat just humans/sinners. In my mind, they are still capable of and will eat foods like fruits and veggies, but all sources of protein (like pork, chicken and beef) are completely replaced with bodies. It'll get boring if they just ate sinners all the time, right? Haha
Chapter 4: small town troubles
Summary:
In which you learn a small town isn't the most welcoming place
on Earthin Hell.
Notes:
A/N: Oh look who’s back, the comment gremlin plaguing people’s inboxes
Okay so this is gonna be a quickie, ‘cause I’m in major rush mode before my flight to China for a week-long holiday. Unfortunately I have to skip out on an image I wanted to insert, so that’ll have to wait until I get back.
Oh and by the way, “Candy” is now Maple because of a definitely very funny joke that flew over my head until now. I’ll edit Maple in the previous chapters when I get back.
I’ll give you a hint as to why it’s Maple now: what is the name of a moth that’s coloured primarily pink and yellow?
I don’t think there’s any warnings to be had here? I won’t be able to add any during my holiday anyways, so apologies in advance if I missed anything.
Anyways, on with the chapter!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Before you and Rosie depart from her home, she makes you stand still while she fusses over your appearance. Apparently your attempts to clean yourself up leaves a lot to be desired, based on the muttered comments you manage to catch.
“Wrinkled sleeves… Barely combed… wouldn’t do at all, I’ll have to show you how it’s done when we return…”
Every second of prodding and tugging makes you want to sink into the ground. ‘I need this,’ you desperately tell yourself, lips pinched in a tight line as you try to will away the red blush blooming on your face. You wish you didn’t need this, but until the day comes when you’re not threatened by your own fingers, you’re forced to accept Rosie’s gentle fussing.
Doesn’t make the experience any less mortifying, though.
You feel fingers suddenly ghost over your waist, and you flinch. “Dear, I’d appreciate it if you stop squirming,” Rosie huffs behind you.
“I’m tryING!” Your voice peaks in a squawk when her hand brushes too close to the nape of your neck. “H-how long more are y- Eek! How long more?!”
“It will be over much quicker if you stay still .”
The sash suddenly pulls tight around your waist, squeezing a squeak out of you, and Rosie ties it off in a neat bow. “You needn't to lose your head over this,” you hear Rosie say as she twists your hair with deft movements, weaving the pale mass of hair into a more visually pleasing style. Soon, you feel your braided hair hanging heavy behind your back.
“Every sinner has their own troubles figuring out how their body works, some more than others,” Rosie says as you absentmindedly run your hand over each groove in your new braid. “Think of it like swimming! Nobody pops out of the womb instantly knowing how to do a doggy paddle. All of them have to go through the same lessons before it becomes second nature to them.”
Her hand pats your arm. “See, you’ve managed to put my old dress on without turning it into Swiss cheese! Quite an improvement from last night, wouldn’t you say?”
“I guess?”
It feels like a lifetime before the whole ordeal is finally over, although realistically, it probably took only ten minutes at most. You breathe a sigh of relief and give yourself a quick once-over. The little… well, okay, many imperfections from your struggles with the dress has been sorted out, leaving it looking immaculate on your frame with not a single wrinkle to be seen. You also feel much better not having stray locks brushing over your eyeballs every five seconds.
You feel weirdly pretty for a walking art disaster of a moth demon.
“… Thank you, Miss Rosie,” you mumble reluctantly, looking everywhere but at Rosie’s knowing look. She doesn’t say anything, but the brief pat on your head expresses her feelings well enough.
“Shall we go?” Rosie makes a minute adjustment to her feathered sun hat before opening the front door for you, inviting you out to the world beyond.
The rotting scent washes over you the moment the door swings open.
Holding back a grimace, you nod carefully, not quite sure what to expect from a shopping trip in a cannibal’s town.
Your first stop is the local optometrist, a cannibal man wearing a pinstriped shirt and wide-legged trousers. The wire-framed glasses sitting on his face magnifies the dark pits of his eyes, causing them to nearly swallow the whole width of the lenses.
When you first enter, he gives you an odd look that quickly disappears when he sees Rosie next to you. What’s that about? “A hellish morning to you, Madam Rosie,” he says with a tip of his head.
Rosie returns the greeting with a brief inquiry about his day before getting right into business. You don’t recall ever having your eyes checked before, so you’ve surrendered to Rosie’s whims as she guides you through the process. You’re corraled into a seat before the optometrist - “Thomas Sullivan, dear,” Rosie whispers to you - begins performing an eye examination on you. Somehow, despite the literal eye decorations displayed with the spectacle frames (“Easy to show customers which frame suits their eye colour best,” according to Thomas, his soulless eyes blinking down at you), you’re more unnerved by the fact that you can easily see this shop being from Earth, sans body parts.
“Good lord! Your eyes are atrocious,” Thomas huffs in disgust, shaking his head. “Youngsters these days, always looking at their damn screens…”
“But I don’t even have a phone!”
Your protests are abruptly cut off when a hand firmly clasps over your mouth. “Maple darlin’,” Rosie says over your head, full of sweetness and thorns, “the only thing you need to open are your eyes.”
You slump in your seat, defeated.
Next stop: the tailor. Or rather, the seamstress as Rosie has informed you. Potato, po-tah-to.
You breathe a sigh of relief when you set foot into the specialty clothing store. It’s a homely little building stocked to the brim with old-timey fashion, from overly frilly dresses to snazzy suits to suspenders, all in varying styles and colours. Just standing in the store feels like a blast to a past you’ve never been a part of.
You reach up to adjust your new glasses: a thin, round-rimmed piece with a white gold metal bridge that lacks the arm pieces modern glasses have. It’s not like you need it (moth demons don’t have the privilege of visible ears), but you still have no idea how the hell it’s staying up, and at this point, you’re too afraid to ask.
Still, you can’t deny that it’s a relief to see things without feeling like a jackhammer is pounding away at your skull..
“Why hel- lo , Rosie!” A portly cannibal woman with a thick accent saunters out from a backroom, black pits twinkling with delight. A playful smile plays on her plump lips. Her pale purple tiered dress swishes with her excitement as she gives Rosie a quick hug, before turning to you with a more critical eye. “And who is this small fry?”
For a moment, recognition flashes in her eyes.
“The newest addition to Cannibal Town, Delilah!” Rosie nudges you closer to the woman, despite your misgivings. “She’ll be staying here from now on, so I’ll need a basic set to be fitted for her. I trust you’ll do a good job?”
The two women exchange a brief look that you can’t decipher, then Delilah nods with a little sigh. “If you’re sure.”
Before you can ask what the hell that’s all about, you’re ushered onto a stepping stool as Delilah stands next to you, armed with sewing needles and a length of measuring tape. She surveys you from top to bottom before clicking her tongue unhappily. “Off,” she orders, pulling you back down before you can move.
You’re about to ask why before you see her stack three more stools atop the first one.
Resolutely ignoring Rosie’s muffled giggles, you clamber onto your newly elevated platform and let the seamstress take your measurements with a scowl. You’re even more annoyed when you notice the extra stools allow Delilah to do her job better.
“Oh Rosie, you kept this old beaut’ in your closet all this time?” the seamstress laughs, plucking up the folded hem. You tense up, forcing yourself not to kick away the errant hand. “I thought you didn’t like anything ‘bove the knee?”
You blink.
This dress. This dress that sweeps the floor everywhere you go is supposed to be knee -length? Bloody fucking christ…
From the way Rosie’s grin widens upon locking eyes with you, she’s reading your thoughts loud and clear.
Maybe you should get some platform shoes with your new outfit…
The last stop, according to Rosie, is the local branch of the Pride Ring’s Postal Office (PRPS for short). It offers ring-wide delivery to every part of the pentagram, and “neither heat nor bullets nor sulphur rain nor the sweet embrace of death stays these couriers from completing their rounds or going postal, whichever comes first”. Also according to Rosie.
It doesn’t inspire much confidence in you, but you don’t exactly have much of a choice with her dragging you along. You don’t even know why she’s bringing you here. It’s not like you have anyone who would want to write to you…
So into the building you go, sulky and heel-less, where a bunch of cannibal people are running around in a muted frenzy, most of them wearing old-fashioned postal uniforms consisting of long-sleeved, collared shirts, earthy brown trousers and identical gray caps. On the cap is an oval-shaped badge with the silhouette of a serpent coiled around it.
Rosie pulls you out of the way before a postal worker can bowl you over. You stumble a little before catching yourself, the cotton sleeve of your new “day dress” rubbing against your arm uncomfortably. It’s a light gray piece that reaches down to your ankles, with thin white stripes lining the hem and a sewn-in sash of the same colour wrapped around your waist, and its collar hugs your body just beneath your prominent collarbone (“We’ll have to fatten you up a bit, dear,” Rosie had mused, seemingly oblivious to your sudden bout of nervous sweating).
The dress doesn’t come with back slits for your wings, the only thing you had specifically requested. What’s the point? It’s not like you’ll be taking flight even if your wing grows back overnight.
“Ello, Madame Rosie!” The cannibal behind the front counter starts waving her over before he catches sight of you, and his eyes narrow. “‘Ey, is tha’-“
“Hello, Noah!” Rosie greets back a tick louder than necessary. The hostile look in his eyes dim when he turns back to her. “How have you been, dearie?”
“Jus’ fine. You need somethin’?”
“This lovely young lady,” At this, you don’t even bother resisting as she puts you under the spotlight, “will need a weekly delivery of food from the neighbouring district, preferably with non-perishables.”
This Noah seems fairly younger than the other cannibals you’ve spoken to beforehand, maybe somewhere around your age, but you still feel a thrill of dread shooting up your spine when he narrows his eyes at you. “Dontcha know we have food in this town already? I’m sure Madame Rosie has the best cuts in her emporium,” he asks pointedly, leaning against the counter against propped elbows.
“I tried. I threw up.”
His expression visibly sours. The workflow around you stutters as you hear someone behind you gasp, and you feel the hand on your shoulder dig in slightly.
Oops. Maybe blurting that out wasn’t the best thing to do…
It feels like an eternity has passed before you’re finally stumbling out of the post office. Rosie had taken over discussions by then, but the damage was already done: until the door swung shut behind you, you could feel everyone’s eyes burning into your back.
Then again, that’s been true for the whole morning, hasn’t it?
In between stores, you can feel it. Eyes burning holes into your back, the whispers nipping at your heels as you trudge along by Rosie’s side like an obedient dog, gnawing away at your patience and confidence alike. You almost wish your hearing is as awful as your eyesight, only so that you’d be able to block everything out:
“That little pest is the one responsible for the attacks, right?”
“Look at that fierce scowl on its face…”
“It was wearing a mask, right? Where’s its mask?”
“Dora doesn’t look nearly as tough as the out-of-towners say. If she ever puts a toe over the line, well…”
The “sshhk” sound afterwards is unmistakable. You sidle closer to Rosie.
“But the mayor is allowing her refuge here, isn’t she?”
“Could just be for an afternoon snack.”
“Ha! She’s so small, she won’t even make for a good finger platter.”
Rosie glances down at you questioningly. “Is something the matter, Maple? That’s quite a nasty wrinkle between your brows.”
“Yes. I mean, no!” You force your face back into a neutral expression, although you can feel aggravation simmer beneath your pinched lips. “Nothing’s wrong. Where are we going next?”
Rosie silently observes you. For a moment, you’re afraid she’s going to call you out on the lie, but she simply says, “We have gotten all of the basic necessities for now, so it’s high time I opened the emporium up for business!” She taps your head, right between your antennas. The frilly appendages shiver. “Worry not about staying idle, for I have plenty of chores to keep you busy.”
“‘Cause I’m your slave now?” you grumble under your breath.
“ Maple.” Rosie glares at you. Oops. Guess you hadn’t been as quiet as you’d thought. “Don’t spout nonsense like that now, I would never do something so ghastly as slavery. ‘Indentured servitude’ would be a more appropriate term.”
“I! You! That’s…” You squint into the distance in confusion. “How’s that any different?”
A sigh. “Remind me to lend you a dictionary in the future. But that will have to wait. It’s time to open the emporium.”
With a start, you realise you’ve reached the emporium’s front doors without noticing. Rosie fishes a bone-white key from her dress pocket and unlocks it. “You don’t have much meat on your bones yet, so maybe I should start you with the broom…?”
Whatever else she has to say about the broom is suddenly cut off by the most horrible sound you’ve heard.
“What is that thing doing here?!”
Heart jumping to your throat, you whirl around with your fists half-raised to face a… an elderly lady?
You quickly hide your hands behind your back, eyes wide with horror. ‘Holy shit I nearly punched a little old lady.’
Although you suppose “little” is an overstatement because she still has about half a head in height over you. She dresses and sounds like a granny you’d find in any ol’ suburban area (if they existed in the 20s) - she is wearing an actual floor-length rusty red dress tied with a pale bow around her waist, and a frilly hat topped off with lavish peacock feathers - but if the literal dead fox wrapped around her neck as a scarf isn’t already a good indicator she’s bad news, then the mean mug she’s sporting certainly is.
As the old lady continues ranting and waving her cane at you like a bat, you barely catch Rosie sighing out a “ Susan ” under her breath before she mutters to you, “Maple, go to the dressing room and find the contract I’ve written up for you. Don’t come out until I say so. Let me handle her.”
‘Contract?’
You don’t get a chance to ask before she abruptly shoves through the front doors. The shrill voice reaches a fever pitch before it gets muffled by the entrance doors slamming shut, the frosted panes rattling under the ensuing shouting match going on outside-
You know what? It’s probably best to do as Rosie says.
You scramble to the plain door you remember from last night, slamming it shut behind you to cut off the ungodly sound for good. The ringing silence that comes after settles around you like a layer of dust.
You shoot a wary glance behind you - almost expecting the strange lady to come bursting through the doors ala Kool-Aid Man - but when that doesn’t happen, you let yourself let your guard down a little and begin searching the room.
You pass by a full-length mirror— and pause. Backing up a few feet, you stare at the reflection looking back at you. This is your first time seeing your whole form in startling clarity, with no fuzzy edges or bloodied bandages in the way, and it’s…
Holy shit, you’re an eyesore .
With your remaining wing tucked out of sight, your scrawny body is thrown into unwanted focus, mostly splashed in pale yellow from the tips of your claws to your unnaturally round head. The only parts of you deviating from this are your eyes (a solid block of dull orange with no visible pupils or iris) and your antennas (a rich, orange-yellow shade). The seamstress cannibal had picked the light gray fabric for your dress to match your skin tone, but it only makes you shine brighter somehow. The dress still somewhat hangs off your frame; something that Rosie had asked for so that you could “grow into it” when you eventually gain back your weight.
A single, tightly woven braid swings when you twist your head to look at it. It shares the same colour as the giant puff of chest fur straining against your new dress - an even paler yellow that borders on outright white - and hangs just past the middle of your back.
You twist your expression in the mirror, feeling the hair roots on the top of your head being tugged stingingly at the motion. That won’t do. Wiggling a claw under your tied hair, it takes you one, two, three sharp pulls before you’re satisfied with the level of laxness.
You’ve also accidentally dislodged a couple locks of hair which fall over your right eye with a bouncy curl. Oops. You can’t say you hate the new look, though. ‘Hopefully Rosie doesn’t mind,’ you think, admiring yourself in the mirror.
Your feet have no individual toes like a human would. They’re just huge, one-toed appendages stuck to your legs that make walking an odd experience, and you shudder to think what the X-ray will look like.
Your antennas twitch in time with your thoughts. They’re… not exactly your favourite thing in the world, as cute as they look with their comb-like frills. In fact, you feel safe saying it’s your least favourite body part: too sensitive, capable of sensing something as minute as a faint breeze, and way, way, way too susceptible to the gentlest graze.
You’d learned that the hard way when the seamstress had tried to force a hat on you. The moment your antennas had been squashed flat against your skull, the effect is instant: your head is flooded with cotton balls, muffling your ability to do . The closest experience you can compare this to is getting punched square in the face, except there had been no pain even as your knees were buckling, dropping you to the hard wooden floor. Even the kerfuffle that had erupted around you was barely above a muffled roar until Rosie yanked the hat off.
‘What if someone tried to rip them off?’
The thought sends your antennas standing at attention, shivering slightly with fear..
You swiftly shake it away. You’ve already wasted too much time staring at yourself, you need to find that contract before Rosie walks in on you in front of the mirror…
It takes you only a few seconds to find this so-called contract: it’s a single piece of paper with the same cursive handwriting ( ‘Oh no.’ ) sprawling throughout it. With resignation in your sigh, you pick it up and begin the arduous task of deciphering Rosie’s handwriting.
It opens up on the deal you had made with Rosie last night: your soul in exchange for shelter, food (water is added in parentheses, that cheeky… lady) and other forms of aid that Rosie deems fit in the moment. Last part’s a little concerning but hey , that still more or less lines up with what she had said the day before.
Below that follows a list of what will apparently be your responsibility: helping Rosie tend to the emporium and… residents of Cannibal Town should they request it? Uh-oh. Judging by the vicious whispers you had overheard earlier, there’s no chance anyone would willingly walk up to you to ask for help… or worse, they will ask you for help and then take the opportunity to stab you in some dark alleyway where Rosie can’t find you.
( You can’t decide which one is worse )
Beneath that, you make out a tiny footnote stating you’ll be granted safety in the town as long as you follow the rules she sets for you. The only stated penalty for failure to adhere to the terms is “termination”.
‘That doesn’t sound too bad,’ you think with a bit of relief. Having your soul owned by someone sucks, but having the terms laid out in plain black-and-white softens the blow a little. ‘Being fired for my first offense is a little weird though. Are there no warnings before that?’
The contract doesn’t answer your question, though. It simply follows up with a list of stipulations. Some are not surprising, like “Do not leave Cannibal Town without notice”, while the others are… Uh…
‘What the heck is a Greed City and why shouldn’t I make deals with tourists from there?’ You squint harder at it, hoping you’ve just misread it. Nope, the letters are still there. ‘And why am I not allowed to watch television?’
Come to think of it, you haven’t seen a single television all day. Maybe this town is just particularly old-fashioned and dislikes any forms of technology?
God knows what “Greed City” is, though.
The further your eyes rove downwards, the less it makes sense, until they hit a metaphorical brick wall:
“Under no circumstances is the named soul of this contract allowed to form deals with either hellborns or sinners.”
You blink.
‘Is that it?’ You quickly flip the paper over and are met with a blank page. ‘That’s it. What the hell? There’s no explanation, not even fine print!’
But before you can question it further, a series of knocks rattle the door.
You nearly jump out of your skin, holding up the contract against your chest like a shield. “I’m coming in, Maple dear,” comes Rosie’s voice from the other side, and she steps into the room.
Her expression stops you from asking the questions you have. This is the first time you’ve seen her wear anything but a smile. As your heart rate gradually slows down, you manage to unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth, enough to squeak out, “Are you okay?”
“Just fine. It’s nothing for you to worry about.” In a flash, her annoyed expression shifts to her regular smile. Sort of. You can still see a subtle strain in the corner of her mouth. “I just needed to speak with Susan for a little while, so she shouldn’t be bothering you anytime soon. But just to be on the safe side, it might be best for you to avoid her for the time being.”
You want to ask what an old lady could possibly do to you, but at the same time, perhaps you shouldn’t question the potential strength of cannibalistic elderly women. So you give her a silent thumbs-up instead.
“And what did you do with your hair? After I went through the trouble of doing it up so nicely,” Rosie sighs, and gestures you forward with a flick of her wrist. “Come here.”
Your hand reaches up to cover your curly locks defensively. “What’s wrong with it? I just thought it was a little tight and loosened- Whoa!”
Rosie suddenly grabs the back of your neck and forces your head to bow forward, the firm grip she has keeping you from wriggling away while she messes with your hair again. “ Hey! Miss Rosie, this isn’t really necessary!”
“On the contrary! You can’t honestly expect to work in my emporium with your hair askew?”
“It’s just a few strands- Ow!”
A few sharp pokes to your head later, Rosie lets you go with a satisfied smile. “There, that’s much better.”
A quick glance at the full-length mirror shows your hair is back to its original style. So, too tight.
“I see you’ve been busy with the contract,” she says like your hair isn’t about to be tugged free of its roots. She shoots a pointed look at the piece of paper clipped between your claws. “I trust that you have no issues with the written terms?”
Reluctantly, you drag your attention away from the mirror. You hold up the contract and tap the “overlord” line very carefully. “What the he- heck are overlords?”
At this, her expression brightens as she lets out an “ah”. “So you’ve caught that little tidbit, have you? Good job!”
‘I just read a piece of paper…’
Your ire dissipates when she continues speaking, though. “Overlords are considered amongst the most powerful sinners in the Pride Ring.”
That makes your back straighten. “The most powerful sinners?” When you echo her words, something about the phrasing catches your attention and you repeat in a more skeptical tone, “The most powerful sinners , and sinners are the ones that used to be humans . So you’re saying there’s demons more powerful than sinners?”
The older woman’s face brightens even more. The sight makes heat rush into your cheeks, and you jerk your gaze away. Honestly, with the way she’s acting like you’re some genius mathematician untangling complicated formulas, you can’t help but wonder if you really looked that much like a lost puppy when she first found you.
“That’s right, but you do not need to worry about them as they rarely wander into the Pride Ring,” Rosie says. You want to argue that on the contrary, it’s better if you do worry about these powerful demons if you accidentally bump into one of them, but she continues speaking before you can say anything. “As I was saying, overlords are amongst the most powerful of sinners, having risen to the height of their influence thanks to the millions of souls dealt to them.”
Your argumentative urge is immediately forgotten.
“Millions?” you whisper in awe.
“They command respect from hordes of demons, wielding their influence over thousands of territories, raking in unimaginable wealth.”
“ Thousands ,” you gasp under your breath.
Rosie delicately places a hand over her heart. “Or if you’re looking to someone like me as an example, an overlord may simply wish to cultivate a community suited to their taste and invite like-minded sinners to join them in a mutually beneficial deal.”
“ Someone like you- “ Only then do her words properly sink in. Your mouth falls open ungracefully. “Uh.”
Her head tilts to the side, gaining a glimmer of mischief in her eyes.
“… Does that mean being an overlord makes you a mayor of a town?” you ask dumbfoundedly at a normal volume.
Her shoulders shake with silent laughter. You can tell she’s making an effort to hide, but it still makes you flush.
“I suppose that’s true in a way,” Rosie says with a hint of a giggle lingering in her words. “But the title of ‘Overlord’ isn’t necessarily a prerequisite to mayorship, dear. It opens many, many more doors than that. Once you have attained that power, you can be anything you desire if you yearn for it enough.” Her voice dips in a hush, but you don’t dare let yourself lean into it again unless you want to be slapped by another bombshell. “You can be a voice everyone listens to, or a face nobody can bear to look at. Perhaps even a name everyone fears… or a mayor, as you had put it.”
You let out a quiet “huh”. These overlords… Rosie claims to be one of them. Sure, she’s pretty terrifying whenever she whips out a roasted leg, but if you happened to see her from across the street? You don’t think your first instinct would’ve been to stay away. What if the others are just as inconspicuous? If they aren’t as generous as Rosie and manage to trick you into making a deal…
‘Forget making deals with them, I don’t wanna be near them at all!’
A pointed fingernail suddenly taps the space between your antennas, startling them upright. “If your thoughts race any faster, they’re going to crack your skull wide open,” Rosie hums. “What are you thinking so hard about? All you have to concern yourself about is staying out of their greedy paws, right?”
You nearly whip your antennas into your glasses from how hard you nod. ‘No arguments there.’
“Then what are you waiting for? Go on and sign- ah, put your hand out, darlin’.” With a crisp snap of her fingers, a fountain pen materialises out of thin air and you barely manage to swipe it up before it drops.
‘Holy shit!’
You squeeze your fist, and sure enough, the very real metal clasp bites into your palm.
So Rosie has “pen manifestation” in her pocketbook of powers. Understood.
However, you have to snap out of your reverie when Rosie pointedly clears her throat. Right, contract.
You lay it flat on the vanity table, pen clenched in your fist as you position yourself over it, pen tip just shy of making contact with the paper…
“Miss Rosie?”
“Yes, Maple dear?”
“I dunno how to use this.”
You want to ignore the exasperated sigh you hear, but it still grates on your ears. Approaching your side, Rosie slips a hand around yours and adjusts your grip on the pen, until the writing instrument is precariously balanced between your claw tips. “Don’t apply pressure. Keep your hand light as a feather and keep the nib at a slant, like…” She pulls back your hand so forcefully that you swear you can hear a bone pop, “… so. There, that’s how you should hold a fountain pen, Maple.”
The way you’re holding the pen feels more like you’re going to elegantly stab someone to death, but you keep that to yourself.
“Have you used a pen before?” comes Rosie’s tickled words, disrupting the concentration you’ve so carefully put behind your first ink stroke.
Your “ yes ” is nearly drowned out by the accompanying hiss of air through your gritted teeth.
“Really! Then why are you practically sweating bullets over there?”
Frustration squeaks out of your mouth. Your claws tighten, threatening to crack the metal shell of the fountain pen. It’s not your fault nobody except snobby assholes use these stupid things! Besides, who uses pens anymore?! Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that using note apps is the way to go! Of all the bloody ass places to wind up, it had to be some ass-backwards, backwater part of Hell-!
As quickly as the rage boils, it dissipates.
You blink. ‘Whoa, what was that?’
Sure, it’s annoying that she’s standing over there needling you, but it’s nothing that warranted the sudden explosion of emotion in you. It’s just been a few hours of errands and unhappy looks sent your way, and yet, you had been ready to chuck the pen at the smiling woman behind you. Rosie, the cannibal who saved you from the streets without a second thought, tried to feed you someone’s finger, helped you take off that accursed mask, strong-armed you into selling your soul-
You hastily stop that train of conflicting thoughts when you notice a tumultuous storm of irritation brewing inside you again. ‘Best not to think about it,’ you think to yourself, painstakingly dragging the pen nib across the dotted line. ‘Can’t afford to lose my mind now. Haven’t even started work yet.’
After what feels like hours, you trace the final stroke in your on-the-spot signature.
You survey the scrawl with satisfaction you haven’t felt in a while. It turned out better than you had expected! Your hand’s cramped from the effort, but it’s still legible . You can’t believe it, but this fountain pen business might not actually turn out too bad.
A shadow is cast over you as Rosie leans over your shoulder. “Oh dear… Perhaps we should add penmanship to your to-do list.”
‘OH MY FUCKING GOD-‘
Once that bloody contract is signed, you’re immediately put to work.
You have little to complain about when Rosie shoves a broom into your hands. You don’t know how effective a stick with hay glued on one end is going to be, but humanity has relied on it for years so it should be fine. Probably.
Then she ruins the tentative confidence you have with, “I hope you know how to sweep up dust?”
“ Yes .”
(But now that she asks, the thought that the broom requires a particular way to hold it like the fountain pen worms into your brain.)
You don’t exactly have clear memories of you doing any sweeping in the world above, but after a couple of false starts, muscle memory takes hold of you and you let your mind sink into the rhythm.
Left, right, left, right.
Go around the sunglasses rack.
Left, right, left, right.
Sweep under the shelving unit holding jars of pickled… eyeballs…
Left, right, left, right.
Pretend you didn’t see that.
Left, right, left, right.
Work through your budding nausea.
Left, right, left, right…
The broom is doing a surprisingly good job of catching dust bunnies. You must be doing something right if Rosie doesn’t have anything to say about it like with your penmanship. In fact, you haven’t heard anything from her in a while.
The gentle tinkle of the front door’s bell answers your question. She’s opened up the emporium for the day, in preparation for… huh. Now that you think about it, you don’t know what she does for a living. But she’s opening up shop for something .
‘Doesn’t matter if it doesn’t involve me,’ you think, jamming the broom in a gap between the shelf and the wall to scrape out a lump of dust. If you pretend you hadn’t seen that bit about helping customers in the contract, then maybe you can claim ignorance when Rosie asks about it…
Although it’s a little difficult to ignore the stream of cannibals that comes in minutes later.
The wooden handle creaks under your tightening grip. “It’s fine,” you whisper to yourself.
Stares burn holes into your back.
“They won’t do anything to me.”
Whispers scratch at your eardrums.
“Not with Rosie close by.”
And yet, it feels like you’re an island away from her with a sea of ornery sharks separating you two.
By the time Rosie calls for you, your shoulders are twitching every few seconds from pure tension. Anticipation makes your heart skip a beat every time you think a cannibal is walking towards you, your neck is uncomfortably warm under the fluff and stress, and you’re hugging the broom more than you’re wielding it.
You try to forget all that when you make your way to the counter.
“Yes?”
“We’re running low on some stock, so can you be a dear and fetch more inventory to restock the shelves? The back room is over there.” Rosie points to a non-descript door to her right. “I would go get it myself, but as you can see, I’m a bit tied up at the moment.”
She makes a reserved gesture at a scowling cannibal man, and your antennas perk up. “‘Course,” you say with no small amount of relief. “I’ll go right now-”
“Ah, hold your horses! I wasn’t done talking.”
Irritation pulses in your chest as you skid to a halt. But you bite your tongue; maybe what she has to say is important. “ Yes? ”
“Try not to carry more than you can handle, alright?” Rosie says in a chaffed tone as if you can’t figure that out for yourself. Her patting your elbow is the unwanted cherry on top. “Your arms still need a bit of fattening before they can carry anything heavier than a finger platter.”
… Or not.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” you huff, already turning on your heel.
“Hold on, where are you off in such a rush?”
You suck in a deep breath, blowing it out of your nose only when your chest aches. Why the hell is Rosie still talking? Can’t she tell you don’t want to be around cannibals that hate your guts?
“You don’t even know where to find the appropriate items! If you give me one moment-“
Your throat starts to hurt from something threatening to burst out. “I said I got it!”
“Maple-“
“ What?! ” you snap, whirling around in an instant with your teeth baring with an outraged squeak, hands clenching by your side. Your antennas quiver with rage rapidly boiling over like a pot of water. “I already said I can do it, I have fucking eyes!”
“ Watch your mouth! ”
The sudden bellow makes you jump out of your skin, outrage evaporating in an instant. It rings out like a struck gong in the crowded emporium, bringing everyone to a dead silence, and the cannibal responsible for it pins you down with a nasty scowl accentuated by his neatly trimmed moustache. “That’s the mayor you’re mouthing off to, brat!” he snaps, the force of his indignance ruffling his moustache. His foul breath, no doubt from daily meals of corpses , make you cringe. “Be damn grateful she’s got a merciful bone in ‘er body, else you would’ve left this town in pieces! You’re not even worth drawing and quartering to eat, you filthy pest!”
You barely register Rosie placing a calming hand on his shoulder. His words echo in your skull like ringing bells, stirring in a growing whirlpool that drags the furious whispers into its vortex. His height suddenly seems massive - has he always been this tall? - and easily towers over you despite being a few feet away. An ominous twitch curls his fingers.
You should be scared.
So why is your heartbeat drumming to an angry tune instead?
“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Maple?”
Rosie’s face is painfully neutral. Crap, not good.
The weight of everyone’s glares plus one flat look from the only person who likes you here drags your hackles down. Flushing from a mixture of embarrassment and anger unceremoniously stuffed back into the closet, you beat a hasty retreat to the door Rosie had indicated, slamming the door behind you with more force than you intended. You hear something rattle worryingly. ‘Shit. Fuck, why did I say that? I didn’t mean to snap at Rosie!’
You drag the palm of your hands down your face. You can still feel a slight trembling in your claws.
“Why did I say that? I…” The brief moment of shame in your whisper dissipates in the gust of wind you huff out. You don’t want to think about how furious Rosie must be right now, or what she’ll do to you once you step outside. “Can’t believe I lost my temper. Shit.”
You didn’t just lose your temper at Rosie, you lost your temper in front of a bloodthirsty audience who love Rosie more than they despise you. The reminder sends an angry shiver through your antennas.
You narrow your eyes at the memory. “Pest . Who does he think he is? Asshole .” You take a deep breath to quell the boiling anger in your chest… then you immediately regret it when all you inhale is the taste of rot. It’s no wonder, considering the backroom is filled with chopped up body parts packaged in pretty pink plastic.
‘Right, I came here to work.’
Doing your best to put ideas of potentially bloody consequences out of mind, you bend over a random assortment of prettily-packaged body parts, picking through them according to your memory of the shelves outside.
And if you happen to be dragging your feet a little… Well, nobody’s around to notice.
“You needn’t speak on my behalf, Jeffrey.”
Jeffrey - a local bank teller who had been asking for advice for his romantic woes before the little moth came - at least has the grace to temper his stance. His eyes soften with a glimmer of sheepishness. “Apologies for that, ma’am,” he says with a tip of his hat. “I just got a bit heated when I heard that thing shooting its mouth at you. Didn’t mean to step on your toes, though.”
Rosie acknowledges it with a slight bow of her head. “Your apology is appreciated,” she says, her tone light, “but perhaps it would be more appropriate if you personally deliver it to Maple.”
He stares blankly at her. “Who?”
“The young lady you just yelled at, dear.”
“You named it?”
Her eyes narrow. This won’t do at all.
Smile stretching into a sharper curve with a hint of warning reflected in her bared teeth, Rosie tells him in a genial tone, “If your ears are that stuffed up, I suggest you make an appointment with a doctor because I remember referring to her as the young lady she so clearly is! Or heaven forbid, you’re suggesting that my taking her in is a lapse of judgment?”
The sinner’s greyed complexion pales in a sickly shade.
“Of course not, that would be unthinkable!” His hands start flapping about as excuses tumble out his babbling mouth, but Rosie isn’t paying as much attention when she spies a familiar lady rearing up behind him. “I’m just… concerned! Yes, concerned that the bug might attempt something-”
His head suddenly snaps forward as a folded parasol collides with the back of it, and he lets out a high-pitched yelp.
“Oh shush! ”
Honey marches around to force the bank teller away from the counter, waving her parasol like a cane. An ugly smile mars her delicate features. “How long are you going to hold up the line?! Unlike you, some of us aren’t lazy layabouts with a whole day to waste harassing the mayor,” she sneers at the increasingly flustered man.
Barring one or two disapproving gazes, agreement drifts from the line in front of her counter in a cloud of murmurs. Defeat carving his shoulders downwards, Jeffrey murmurs a half-hearted apology as he makes a hasty retreat out of the emporium. Honey glares at the swinging doors for a moment longer before beaming at Rosie.
“Dahling, it’s been a while since we’ve had a chat!” No traces of anger are left on her countenance. The woman twirls the parasol back around and lets the tip hit the floor with a solid thuck . “Poor thing, you look positively exhausted! Ah don’t blame you one bit, what with all the inconsiderate riff-raff bothering you like only they matter. Men , honestly… Why don’t we arrange a little tea date, just you and me? You’ll get to heave all of your troubles onto mah ears for a change.”
“While that’s a lovely offer, Honey, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”
Her bottom lip, coated in a layer of crimson lipstick, juts out in a playful pout. “Goodness, this is the first time I’ve seen you reject a cup of tea! Something must really be wrong, then.”
“Nothing of the sort,” Rosie scoffs, waving her off. “I simply have more responsibilities on my plate that I can’t afford to leave alone for a moment. Perhaps another time.”
Right on cue, “responsibilities” sidles out of the room with a hodgepodge of items cradled in her arms. Rosie briefly locks eyes with little Maple, who flinches at the eye contact and hurries away to the shelves.
Rosie hums in consideration, watching how the moth’s movements seem twitchier than usual and how she keeps her eyes trained on everywhere but her citizens. ‘Jeffrey must have frightened her more than I expected. That’s not the most ideal, but it wouldn’t do her any good if I try to coddle her in front of everyone. I will need to give her a gentle nudge in the right direction, but how…?’
“Is that the one from the rumours?” Honey asks, interrupting her thoughts. The woman isn’t bothering to hide her staring in the slightest. When Rosie gives an affirmative, a grin stretches across her face.
‘Ah. There’s the nudge.’
“Honey?”
“Hm?”
Rosie raises a warning eyebrow at her. “Whatever you’re planning, just don’t permanently scar the new girl, okay?”
Her grin grows wider.
You had been ready to be made into minced meat the moment you stepped outside the back room.
When nothing of the sort happens, you cast a glance over at Rosie… only to feel surprisingly hot shame pierce your heart when she meets your gaze. You quickly look away again before you can properly decipher her expression. ‘She has to be mad,’ you think in despair, ‘she has to be. She’s just waiting until everyone leaves before she jumps me.’
Because unlike you , Rosie seems like the type of prim-and-proper lady to verbally tear someone with class.
The thought curdles in your gut like sour milk, lingering in the back of your mind as you march across the length of the emporium to restock shelves. You try to push it away into the darkest recesses of your mind, but your tumultuous feelings still find a way to make themselves know, whether it’s through a sudden flex in your clawed fingers or a stilted footfall, as if your foot had wanted to stomp down but changed its mind at the last second.
The whispers grow worse. Voices rumble in the background like ambient white noise, if “vicious whispers about how long you’ll last before ending up as a Thanksgiving roast” could put anyone to sleep, and… unless your mind is being strangled by anxiety, you swear one or two of them moved closer with an unsettling glint in the inky darkness of their eyes.
You can’t quite keep the tremble out of your hands when Rosie calls you over.
But instead of the yelling you’d been expecting, she says something unexpected. “You should get yourself down to the post office and arrange your food deliveries with Mister Foster, unless you would rather leave your groceries up to a weekly game of chance. You remember your way to the post office, don’t you?”
The last thing you want to do is step into the town so soon after your little snit (god knows how fast gossip travels in a small town). But whatever feeble protest you had on the tip of your tongue dies when you look at her, and you can only nod numbly.
“Now, now, don’t give me that look now, Maple darlin’! You need to learn how to forge friendly relations with the townsfolk if you want to continue living here. It doesn’t have to be an hour-long conversation about politics or the intricacies of Orange Pekoe, just try and exchange a few friendly words, understand? Otherwise, I can’t guarantee you’d be able to bear living in my town for more than a week.”
“I guess,” you mumble, trying to keep the unhappiness out of your voice. You turn on your heel towards the entrance, but come to a swift halt when you notice a conspicuous absence behind you. “Um, Miss Rosie? Are you coming?”
Her eyebrows raise. “Heavens no! I still have my emporium to run. Besides, I’m sure you don’t need me to guide you by the hand and run your errands for you, right?”
You have no rebuttal for that, so it’s with a toothy grin that Rosie ushers you out into the streets to wander amongst the wolves.
You get it, you really do. You had yelled and acted like a kid throwing a tantrum to the only person willing to give you a chance in this horrifying town, and you should be taking your lumps gracefully.
But when you’re faced with a sea of frosty glares you have to skirt by on your way to the post office?
It’s hard not to feel the remnants of irritation rising again.
‘How am I supposed to make a small town warm up to me? Small towns don’t do that, that’s the one thing small towns are known NOT to do!’
When you get to the post office, you barely manage to wrangle paper and (goddamnit) a fountain pen from the cannibal named Noah. His attitude taking a sharp turn from his earlier respect for Rosie, Noah treats you like you’re Medusa and refuses to make eye contact as you struggle over a single piece of paper. It’s only when you finally manage to scribble down your list of desired foods that he fully acknowledges your presence via a disgusted look at your list. Your conspicuously non -cannibal food list.
‘I guess the fastest way to get them to like me is to eat a person. Feh. Like I’d actually do it.’
… Or he could also be glaring at the bad handwriting, cobbled together by your hamfisted attempt to write because you’d forgotten the proper grip Rosie had shown you.
Much of your trip back to the emporium, then eventually back to Rosie’s house is the same miasma of silent hostility. At least with Rosie present, no one seems to dare approach you, but… for some reason, that doesn’t make you happy. She’s still helping you in her own way after you’ve been such a dick to her, how can you possibly feel happy about that?
Thoughts buzz around in your head, many of them ranging from unhelpful to outrigh pessimistic. Only one line of though, meek and soft, sounds anywhere near optimistic. ‘I’ll just have to make myself useful! What can I do…’
You suppose the best way would be to make nice to the townsfolk. But how do you do that with people living in Hell? Beat ‘em up?
No, that doesn’t sound right. Rosie’s a fancy Victorian cannibal lady, she wouldn’t approve of you if you go around beating people up (even if you can in the first place). You need to ward off assholes in a non-violent, fancy way, but how?
Before you can dwell too much on it, a soft “ahem” breaks out of your thoughts. Rosie tilts her head at the ceramic plates sitting forgotten on the countertop with a pointed look, and you hastily jump back into action. Shit, right, you were supposed to set the table for dinner.
Rosie doesn’t say anything else until both of you are seated at the dinner table with your respective dinners: your fruits (the last bit of crispy sweet goodness before you’re stuck with whatever the post office gets you) and Rosie’s very… meaty assortment. “What has gotten you so spacey today?”
Your head jerks up, teeth closed around a stick of melon. “Eh?”
“I noticed you’ve been somewhat… sore today.”
“Sore? But I didn’t hurt myself though,” you utter, brows furrowed in confusion.
The faint sigh you hear suggests that it would’ve been accompanied by an eye-roll if Rosie had been anyone else. “I meant vexed , dear. You seemed rather vexed today. Is something bothering you?”
“Oh.”
Panic seizes you in your moment of embarrassment. How do you tell a cannibalistic mayor that you dislike her beloved citizens? “Um, I…”
‘Say something!’
“I’m sorry!” you blurt out. A slender eyebrow hitched up with a silent question, and heat flushes in your face. “About the, um, how I yelled at you earlier? Yeah, I… shouldn’t have done that in front of everyone. No, I mean I shouldn’t have done that at all! I was a little…” You spiral your hand for a word that’s just out of your reach, “… stressed? Kinda? My mind was all over the place and I just wanted to get it done and might’ve gotten a little irritated, b-but that’s not an excuse! So, um… sorry.”
You duck your head away from her gaze, fiddling with your antennas with one restless hand. The stabs of shivering in the sensitive appendages help ground you.
“Oh my.” Laughing lightly, you hear the grating squeak of metal against ceramic. “I appreciate the effort, dear, but perhaps you could do me the favour of looking me in the eye?”
Hesitantly, you lift your gaze.
“There you go. Do make it a habit to maintain eye contact when speaking, or else they might get the wrong impression of you. Understand?”
Your head nods jerkily. “Y-yeah. Does… Does that mean you’re not mad?”
“Mad? Over that little tiff? Hardly,” Rosie scoffs, already returning her attention to her meal. “If I lashed out over every minor social faux pas, I would be decimating at least half of Hell’s population.”
… Fair.
Feeling like a considerable weight has been lifted off your shoulders, you return to your own meal with a lighter mood. You’re well aware that you’ve barely scratched one percent of your problem pile, but that’s something for Tomorrow You to figure out.
For now, you just want to eat.
Present You would kindly like to deck Yesterday You for dumping her problems onto you, because goddamnit you’re nowhere close to figuring out the complexities of small town relations.
(Although granted, it’s not like you’re trying too hard.)
You do want to do as Rosie says. Really, you do! It’s just… You’re busy with sweeping and restocking and more sweeping and… tidying up the shelves of clothes? Point being, it’s all important work that requires all of your focus which unfortunately leaves you with barely any time, how unfortunate , to approach a single cannibal.
Unfortunately.
It’s gotten to the point that you can tell the specific type of tingling in the back of your neck that you’re getting The Look. You know the one: right eyebrow cocked ever so slightly, lips taking an uncharacteristically downward curl as her giant black eyes flatten into a dead stare drilling right into your back. Thankfully, Rosie seems weirdly reserved about calling you out in front of a crowd, so all you have to do is keep the queue of cannibals between you and her at all times while not having to talk to said cannibals because you’re oh so busy with work.
Win-win.
You keep your eyes on your work and just your work. Rosie gives you the same tasks as the day before: tidy, restock, and anything in-between, and you throw your entire back into it. You try to stay relaxed around the constant stream of cannibals going in and out of the emporium, catching snippets of the gossip they bring:
“My neighbour won’t stop putting her goddamn petunias in my garden! I’m at my wit’s end, what am I supposed to say to her?!”
‘That sounds normal enough,’ you think as you adjust a hat rack.
“Rosie, I can’t seem to get this recipe right. Got it straight from Daisy Darling’s which she swears by, but the eyeballs always have this sludge-like consistency when I boil them at medium heat, do you have any tips?”
‘That’s… Urgh, I don’t wanna picture it. Fuck the picture’s already in my head.’ You hide your grimace behind the jar in your hands.
“Did you hear about the couple living near the town borders? Apparently her husband sauntered on over to the Doomsday District for some secret deal involving angel dust but got caught up in a turf war between a snake and some harlot tossing bombs and whatnot. That man is an idjit through and through, so you know what happened to him? Completely discorporated, and I told her, good riddance to that man! I told her that to her face, but did she listen? Of course not! Absolutely blinded by love, that idiot. She still in sists on waiting for him because he had contacts with imps from the Lust Ring or something like that, with easy access to their merchandise , magically enhanced by Asmodeus himself from what I hear, and…”
‘What.’
You suppose it makes for free entertainment while you’re working, as weird as some of the gossip is.
Not that you mind the physical work. Ironically, the rhythmic sweeps around the emporium have helped you relax around the constant presence of cannibals. You still feel your heart skip a beat when you cross eyes with a cannibal, but as long as you keep your eyes down and your ears deaf to the unfriendly mutters and the discreet bumps, it’s easy to keep a lid on your brewing irritation.
Until one fine day, three days after that yelling cannibal.
You’re sweeping up the emporium like usual, although today you’re careful to keep your eyes away from Rosie. It’s like the moment you so much as glimpse at her, she has a spidey-sense that alerts her to your presence every. Single. Time , and you’ve eventually learnt to just not look at her, or else she will try to drag you into another mundane conversation that doesn’t help you.
It’s not like there’s any bad blood between you two after your crappy apology, but… what are you supposed to say to this?
“How did your day go, Maple darlin’?” is her question every night, without fail.
“I dunno, how do you think it went after I had to put up with a bunch of bloody shit with your shitty cannibals and this godawful stench?!”
… is what you would’ve said if you hadn’t learned your lesson about losing your temper, so you’ve only bitten your tongue and given a noncommittal shrug. But there’s only so many times you can keep doing that.
‘What am I supposed to do…?’
Something suddenly digs into your shoulder. With a choked gasp, you whirl around with the broom handle held up like a knife, aiming it at a… smiling cannibal woman?
… Is it sad to think that the smiling is weirder than the cannibal herself?
She stands before you with her hands full of shopping bags, grinning unabashedly down at you like the rest of the cannibalistic population hadn’t been icing you out ever since you got here.
Like everyone you’ve met so far, she’s considerably taller than you, a fact that’s not helped by the graying-pink pumps peeking out from under her ankle-length dress (you remember Rosie calling it an “afternoon dress”) made of thin-looking pink fabric with elaborate flower patterns embroidered on the hems and collar. Her hat, unlike Rosie’s, is conservative in width and the brim hangs low, leaving her shining black pits to barely peer out from beneath.
And yet, it’s only the wide grin stretching across her face that puts you on edge.
“… Hi?”
Her grin, against all odds, widens even more. “Morning, luv! You’re the new ‘un everyone was talking about?”
In other words, are you the one who attacked all those people?
Shoulders braced for imminent fallout, you give a single nod.
Her eyes flash- but not with fear or disgust. No, something more perplexing: joy .
“Oh goody! Here, you carry these for me!” She shoves half of her load into your arms before you can comprehend what she’s doing, and you barely manage to hold the surprisingly heavy bags aloft.
“Wha? What?”
“Ah got a teensy bit carried away with mah shopping today, so ah need an extra pair of arms to help carry some of my bags back to mah home!” she explains like that’s in any way, shape or form helpful.
“You should have told me you needed an extra pair of arms! I would have offered if I had known.”
“Ah need arms attached to a living, breathing body, Rosie dahling,” the weird cannibal lady chuckles. “But ah appreciate the offer!”
You immediately throw away your self-imposed promise to shoot her a pleasing look. The woman simply shrugs and flashes a smile at you. A wordless “what can you do”.
‘Help me!’
Rosie’s face softens. Your feelings must have successfully projected themselves across your face, but instead of the mercy you’re seeking, she says, “Go on, dear! It’s good for your complexion to spend some time outside, goodness knows you youngsters spend too much time indoors.”
‘What complexion?! Help. Me!’
Unfortunately for you, there is no aid in sight, so it’s with a grimace that you follow the strange cannibal lady out of the emporium. She’s waiting by the doors instead of going on ahead. Her grin widens when you meet her gaze.
Your shoulders slump.
‘She’s going to kill me. ’
Notes:
A/N: Would you believe me if I said this used to be one-third of a chapter?
I hope this is alright! Honestly I’m just having fun poking my reader-insert-that’s-sounding-like-an-OC-now with a stick lol. I don’t really have anything else to say other than have a good day, y’all! I’ll probably add an edit to this when I’m back.
Bye~
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