Blot!reader

by prettybugsinbandages

Summary:

Arriving alongside the Yuus but treated like you're invisible, an accident leads to a mysterious deal with the Blot.

Notes:

first time posting on here im sorry broski 💔
idk how to fix the format dude I post on Tumblr under the same user usually
im not fixing the format actually it sounds too hard

Chapter 1: 1

When they all arrived in Twisted Wonderland, the reactions varied wildly; Irritation, indifference, curiosity, empathy, pity, disgust, admiration. All directed towards them—The Yuus. Not you. You didn't even seem to exist.
You aren't important. At least not enough to be a protagonist in this story all seven of them are living in.
The realization that you're alone in this world seems to hit like ice cold water dumped over your head and the chill of it creeps into your heart, freezing your veins and arteries.
You arrived the same way they did: Another world, no magic, the black carriage ride that would've seemed like a lifetime opportunity. But you aren't like the Yuus. You can't muster the determination and resolve they have to push through this unfamiliar terrain without much of a reaction. In fact, you cannot even begin to understand why none of them are upset about this.
Why? You find yourself asking over and over again and the question echoes relentlessly in your mind. Why aren't they grieving everything they've lost? Because you can't seem to stop thinking about it—Everything you've ever amounted to is gone. All your relationships, achievements, successes and lessons. Everything you've built is gone like a dream. Erased in an instant.
Hundreds—no—thousands of eyes stare at all of you. You don't have time to think about how beautiful they are. You've been stripped bare and raw of everything that ever made you you. You've been killed without ever physically dying.
As you struggle to adjust into this unfamiliar world, you can't help but admire others you share Ramshackle with. They're strong and determined, truly remarkable individuals. Charismatic and brave, they seem like the type of fictional characters the fanbase would adore—praised for the grit and unyielding stubbornness they display valiantly. Even the other students of magic descent respect them.
Sometimes you lie awake in your room—rundown and shabby, but improving. Together you're slowly transforming the dorm into something livable, maybe even inviting. During moments like these you find deep appreciation within yourself for the other seven that arrived with you. In vulnerable moments like this, they aren't companions; they're a lifeline.
Then there's you—a playground rock next to shining gems on pedestals. They reassure you that you're important. But nobody outside these croaking walls seems to believe that. The frustration builds sometimes, a tight knot in your chest just twisting and turning, and inevitably only knotting more. Curled up on the creaky floor, clutching your hair while staring wide-eyed at a single spot as if that floorboard specifically caused all of this. Tears don't seem to come; instead, you sit there, taking deep, shuddering breaths, lost in a sea of thoughts that you're drowning in.
Why? Why are you treated like a Ramshackle ghost—or even less? You all share the same origin, the same story of loss and these faux "New beginnings", so what makes you so different, so unappealing that nobody seems to want to spare more time than polite? Is it because of the fear that grips your heart? Its clutch is tight and cold, holding you to this new world full of threats hidden behind the guise of beautiful and new magic you didn't have back home.
The mesmerizing people that wield such pretty magic can control bodies while leaving consciousness intact—or the opposite. The idea of someone with malicious intent having that power over you is a chilling nightmare. You cannot simply compete for your own safety.
The inhabitants of Twisted Wonderland are simply stronger. Not just the fae, mers, or beastpeople, but even the humans. Their bodies are resilient, able to shrug off low-level magic that would leave you bloody or bruised.
At times you wonder why exactly nobody seems to care enough to remember you and there are moments when you find yourself gazing in the mirror, only met with an unfamiliar face. The reflection you're met with isn't quite yours—it's something darker, something hollow. A shadow, endless and consuming, its eyes locking with yours with an unnerving intensity. That smile, twisted in ways that were once pretty, no longer feels like it belongs on your face.
It's almost as you though you're looking at an echo of yourself, a distorted version that somehow feels both foreign and familiar, comforting in its familiarity but unsettling in its wrongness.
You blink, and the reflection moves. Just a slight shift, a creeping inch closer to the glass, closer than where you stand in reality. Your heart leaps into your throat, panic surging through you as you back away, tearing yourself from the bathroom and your own gaze. You slam the door behind you, leaning against its cold, worn surface. But even as the chill presses against your skin, it does nothing to calm the racing of your heart. The sleep deprivation is wearing you thin, and the hallucinations are becoming harder to ignore, more frequent, more real.
Ace's eyes narrow as you attempt to make small talk in the Ramshackle kitchen. He's friends with all the Yuus and quite close with them all. Deuce lingers somewhere nearby and you can hear his footsteps clomping around as he chases Grim. A soundtrack you've grown familiar with over time.
"—so yeah. He totally shrugged us off. Said we weren't 'big kid' enough to know what was going on." Ace rants, throwing his arms up in exasperation before running a hand through shaggy locks, his scarlet eyes met your own briefly before he continued rambling about something that had happened today in physed. His words swirl around you, filled with the day's energy, yet never fully reaching.
You always liked when the Adeuce duo visited. They were really only here for the others and you knew it, of course. If you remain in your room when they visit, neither boy will seek you out. They only included you in their escapades when you're right there—an afterthought. It felt cruel, like an unspoken rule of polite indifference. Nobody hated you, you just weren't important.
Deuce poked his face into the room, offering a polite wave as he rummaged through the fridge for a snack before leaning against the counter as he watched you make lunch. His expression is thoughtful and only vaguely curious.
"You don't really do anything, do you?" The words slipped out like a quiet curiosity that cut deeper than he likely intended. It's not a jab, just a question. Maybe that makes it hurt more. You felt like a rarely regarded lamp in a corner, the bulb long burned out, the shade dusty and untouched, and a soft light no longer emit from it.
You awkwardly muster a smile and try to respond—to list a reason you're worth more attention than you receive, but your voice falters. Before you can say a word, Grim streaks across the table, scattering papers and bunching up the cheap cloth. One paw hits Ace in the face and Deuce barely manages to avoid a fall with the creature darting between his legs.
Both boys shoot up, laughter and curses ringing out through the dorm as they chase Grim out of the room. You're left in the quiet, the emptiness settling over you like dust—suffocating and dull. The buzz of the kitchen light hums in the silence, a low, monotonous sound that only seems to heighten the irritation building inside. It's the kind of anger that feels pointless, but it consumes you anyway, making you feel unbearably stagnant.
Your eyes are locked on the tiles beneath your feet, the stark off-whiteness almost glaring under the dim light. You stare so intensely that your eyes begin to sting, but you can't bring yourself to look away. Something feels off, something is off.
And then, it hits you. Your oldest companion—the one constant presence you could always count on—has abandoned you. Your shadow is gone. For a fleeting moment, you feel exposed, like the absence of it leaves you vulnerable. You almost want to reach out, to search for it, but there's nothing there. The realization leaves you with a cold, sinking feeling, and the silence suddenly feels oppressive.
Your gaze pulls away from the tiles, heart racing, trying to dismiss the unsettling feeling. Turning back to the counter, you expect to regain a semblance of calm. But as you do, something catches your eye—your shadow is cast strangely, distorted in a way you don't recall. Paranoia gnaws at you, the question unanswered. Was it always like this? You couldn't even remember.
Before you could process it any further, you hear Yuuken's voice, calling you from down the hall, asking for help with the renovations.
Engaging with anyone here was an uphill battle—woundingly difficult. The conversations seem one sided, his interest always fleeting as if there's nothing about you that's all that interesting. You're invisible. Once again, feeling like a ghost, a nameless background character in a story you were pasted into, into a story that you weren't even supposed to be dragged into.
What cuts deeper like a blade into the fat layer is the reality that you're not just standing idle. You're there in the overblots, fighting every battle as if you were qualified despite being dastardly unfit for this work. Fighting just as fiercely for people who don't even dare to acknowledge your existence for longer than necessary. You've pulled people to safety, pushed others out of the way of dangerous attacks and when it's all over you're tending to the injured, soothing the boy whose overblotted until he comes to. Yet when he wakes his eyes are darting for someone else.
All you want—all you need—is a simple acknowledgement. A thanks.
Yuu is injured but so are you. "What about me?" The words slip out before you can stop them
"What about you?" He repeats as his eyes rake over your crumpled form; battered and broken.
His voice is distant, edged with a vague obligation of care or pity. "You're hurt. Staff and paramedics will be here soon. Stay put." You would've felt your heart swell to feel any sort of acknowledgement and being withdrawn from your lonely bubble but he goes ahead and says that to everyone else and the hope sputters out and fades away. Are you merely another faceless voice in the crowd?
But he's beside Yuuka and her friends, thanking them tending to the others, offering words of comfort and appreciation and a hot surge of jealousy envelops you for only a fleeting moment before it cools almost immediately. It's not Yuu's fault. She's stumbling over words, eyes darting between you and him, desperately trying to redirect all the praise.
"They helped a lot too. Don't worry about me. Please—they took a lot of hits for the team—" her voice is rushed, earnest. She sees you. She knows.
But you're numb. The words wash over you, leaving you staring blankly. Your focus sharpens as you watch him, the indifference cutting deeper than any wound from battle.
It's not Yuu's fault, you think, the realization like a blade. And it's not mine either.
Your eyes harden, the simmering negativity solidifying into something darker—hatred for this world and its unforgiving, selective gaze.
The Blot's words wrapped around you like velvet, warm and inviting. Each word a whisper, and just beyond your comprehension. It spoke in a language too rich, too layered for you to fully grasp, yet you found yourself managing a nod and agreeing to flowery promises barely understood.
Home seems too far now, a vague dream you once had a long time ago that's memories grow dim within your worn mind. Crowley's so-called "research" moves at a snail's pace, each reassurance vague and hollow with no weight behind it. They have housewardens, heirs, socialites, all silently pining to have them by their side in the end. The others have people who want them here.
When graduation comes, you know you'll be alone. No citizenship, no comforting embrace after a long day, no government papers to properly own a home, and no magic to shield you.
A higher education was beyond your reach without the proper credentials. You could aim for a trade but no reputable company would hire a ghost in the system without insurance. Shadier paths were on the table for you but you didn't want to hurt innocent people and you weren't ready to die. Not yet.
"You promise?" The words rasped from your throat, a fragile plea to the pitch-black figure—it smiles.
Snowflakes gathered on your broken body, frostbite gnawed at your fingertips and toes. The cold seeped deep, pressing kisses to your very bone marrow. The results of the accident are chilling, your body numb and your mind blocking the pain out.
"You'd accept even if I won't, darling." It purred, voice dripping with amusement and leaning over your mangled body. Once again you looked like broken porcelain. Doll carnage—too pretty to die in its eyes.
"You're going to die in that stupid uniform." It reminds with a melodious laugh escaping it, crouching so unseen eyes met yours and the empty gaze felt cold like a harpoon through your skull.
A response doesn't form just yet, instead your words linger on time quickly slipping away. "You'll make me live?"
"You make it sound like a punishment."
"It could be."
Its grin only widened. "I'll make you thrive—I'll sponsor you. Only to test magicless bodies, of course. You're soaked with hatred, my dove—enough to feed me for centuries and I just might be able to use all that to give you some fancy powers," The Blot chimed and waves it's hands around with a lighthearted laugh as if you're not mangled and dying right now.
You muster a nod and your vision is blurring quickly, adrenaline settling in as your blood pumped quickly to get you up, away from the charming danger you'd shake hands with if your body was capable of movement.
"I've waited too long.." It murmured softly, a hint of cruel reverence sends a shiver runs down your spine as the Blot's presence looms closer, its hands—tender, almost too tender—brush away strands of hair from your face, as if trying to soothe the tension there. Your body trembles under the weight of its touch, that impossible softness juxtaposed with the suffocating darkness that clings to it. The Blot's dark hands reach for you, wrapping around your shoulder and back to prop you up, not in malice but in something more unsettling, as though its cradling you like something fragile, something it fears may break at the breeze.
It laughs, a low, melodious sound, "Even a worm will turn," it murmurs under its breath, the words curling into your mind, buzzing like static. You can't focus on anything other than the overwhelming presence of it, the heat of its breath a nearly welcome sensation against the stinging snow, slowly burying you.
It'd been a few days since the accident—now you walk the halls, your feet knowing the path subconsciously as your eyes linger on the jewelry again, the weight of it palpable on your finger. The design is intricate, just as you'd always admired—luxurious without tipping over into excess, a perfect balance of elegance. But it's the stone at its center that pulls at you, black as the void. It swallows light, reflecting nothing but its own cold depth, as if it has its own consciousness. You feel it almost stare back at you.
A scoff slips past your lips, quiet but bitter. On your left ring finger... really? The symbolism is unmistakable, painfully so. The left ring finger—a spot traditionally reserved for unions of love, a mark that binds two hearts together. But for you, it's a symbol of something far more suffocating. This ring doesn't speak of affection or choice. It speaks of a contract. A binding agreement you were coerced into on the brink of death.
You'd like to think that in a normal situation you would've denied it but a voice in the back of your consciousness rejects that. You know you would have taken the deal.
Yuuta's voice comes from behind, cutting through the weight of your thoughts. You don't flinch, but his sudden presence forces you back into reality. His usual smile is present, though there's something different in his eyes today—a worry you can't quite ignore.
"Hey! You walk fast-" He pants, falling into step beside you. "Doing anything for lunch? Me and the others are... honestly really worried about you. Ever since you came back a few days ago from that night-blizzard-walk.. you've been off." His voice drops slightly as he tilts his head to try and meet your gaze.
It's hard to resist his pleading look. Yuuta has a way of being both persistent and comforting, and something about him makes you swallow your usual refusal. You nod, even though you'd planned to stay alone, to work through your thoughts—thoughts about the Blot, the contract, and the strange shift in the world since you'd returned.
Sighing inwardly, you follow him to the familiar table. As you lower yourself onto the bench, your thoughts still scattered, the sound of something unpleasant catches you off guard—a soft, squishy noise. You frown, reaching down to find a purple whoopie cushion beneath you.
Before you can say anything, Ace's laughter rings out, easily cutting through the table's chatter. "I told you it'd work! They're always in their own world, seriously."
Epel's high-five to Ace is audible, and you can almost feel their amusement. Deuce, on the other hand, shoots Ace a disapproving look. "A whoopie cushion? What are you, twelve?"
Ace chuckles, standing and grabbing the whoopie cushion from your hands before glancing back at the others, a mischievous grin still present on his face. "Firstly, I saw you laugh too, and hey, what can I say? I'm a guy who appreciates the classics." His crimson eyes flick to you, and before you can even process it, he taps the cushion gently on your head a few times. "Real spacey lately, huh?"
The words hang in the air, and for a split second, you freeze. Spacey. They're speaking first. They're acknowledging you first. After everything, after how invisible you've felt... now they decide to reach out?
Anger grows in your chest but you quickly suppress it. Your fingers instinctively brush the blot ring on your finger, feeling its cold weight. Thrive. The Blot's promise. The smile and soft words is the only thing you can offer right now, even if it feels a little too forced, too foreign on your face.
"Have I been?" You ask, the words coming out light and easygoing. "It's difficult to sleep in a rickety, haunted dorm. You and the others should sleepover more. I like the background noise."
It wasn't a full lie. You did feel less lonely when they visited, but the feeling only increased tenfold when you could hear everyone downstairs while you remained forgotten in your room. Still, you left the invitation open.
Just you wait. You thought, your smile dimming as Ace returned to his spot and the conversation flowed, your earlier anxieties and insecurities nulled by the ring thanks to the contract.
You'll ease yourself into their lives, each thread slipping through the spaces between them, invisible but vital. Not just the ones at the table, but everyone you've fought for, the ones who've forgotten you, the ones who've never seen you or bothered to try. You'll become a part of them so intertwined that they'll find it impossible to live without seeing you in every aspect of their days and nights.
In time, you'll make sure of it. You'll be everywhere—in their laughter, in their sorrows, in the smallest moments, the ones they think they can forget. They'll breathe you in without even realizing, and soon, every part of their lives will have a thread of you running through it. You'll be their lifeline.

Chapter 2: 2

Steps echoed softly against the snow as you made your way toward Mr. S's Mystery Shop, the sound somehow muted, swallowed by the heavy quiet of the world around you. It felt oddly distant, as if the entire universe had drawn its breath and left you alone with the sound of your footsteps. The fog clouding your thoughts lifted slightly as Grim darted around your legs, animatedly recounting how he and Yuuken had gotten into trouble earlier that day. His enthusiasm was contagious, pulling a chuckle from you despite yourself—a rare flicker of light in the usual gray haze.
The shop door slid open, a warm breeze rushing out to greet you like an old friend. The chill melted from your bones as you stepped inside, the scent of old wood and something faintly spicy filling the air. You followed Grim down the narrow aisles, your eyes wandering across the haphazard stacks of oddities and trinkets. The faint hum of a space heater buzzed in the background, blending with the soft thuds of items being restocked.
Your gaze landed on Grim busy packing away cans of tuna into his own basket. The extra weight of the thaumarks in your pocket served as a gentle reminder of Crowley's recent miscalculation of Ramshackle's weekly allowance. The headmage likely thought himself generous—he wasn't. So none of you bothered to correct his mistake.
A little extra was hardly a sin, and in your eyes, it was long overdue.
Leaving Grim to his own devices—his attention firmly locked on a staff member restocking the vending machine and occasionally eyeing the tuna cans with restrained interest—you made your way to the produce section. Your dormmates had sent you out with a list, and you were determined to fulfill their requests without incident. On your way back, a treat caught your eye. The packaging was flashy, almost comically obnoxious yet charming. The picture on the front was practically begging to be tasted, and you decided it was well-deserved after... well, everything
The sound of beeping filled the store, blending with the hum of quiet conversations and footsteps. At the till, you placed your basket on the counter and waited while the cashier scanned your items. Stifling a yawn into your sleeve, you reminded yourself that dinner would be soon. Briefly wondering if you'd make it back in time. A light brush against your neck jolted you from your thoughts. A hand reached past your shoulder, casually turning one of your items over.
"Ahh.. You got the last, huh? These are so popular on social media these days. Enjoy it for me, 'kay?"
The voice behind you was playful, with a hint of mock disappointment, quickly replaced by cheerful teasing. The arm withdrew just as you turned to find none other than Cater Diamond standing behind you, his signature easy-going smile already in place.
Your lips twitched, an instinct to respond stirring but words failed you. Instead, you gave a polite nod and returned to what you were doing, keeping your attention on the cashier. Cater didn't seem to mind; his light banter shifted toward Grim, who chuckled along with him, occasionally adding his own commentary.
As much as you had once longed for moments like this—to be seen, spoken to, acknowledged, the confidence you'd briefly held earlier had crumbled.
The sun was already setting by the time you left the shop, casting the sky in shades of muted blue and grey. Though the snow had stopped for the day, the cold lingered, biting at your fingertips even through your coat. You buried your hands deep in your hoodie pockets, the weight of the grocery bags straining against your arms.
"Come on, little star. You wanted to shine, didn't you? Why hide now? You're making a waste of me."
The Blot's voice echoed in your head, silken and sweet with a bitter edge. The ring on your finger grew uncomfortably warm, almost burning against your skin—a searing reminder of your contract. Your pulse quickens as guilt crashed over you in relentless waves, tangling with rising panic. You had made a promise to yourself—a cruel, unflinching vow to get your revenge. To make them feel what you had felt. To become so important that losing you would destroy them. And yet here you were, frozen in place, paralyzed at the thought of receiving exactly what you'd wanted for so long: acknowledgement.
Worse still, you found yourself too afraid to even wield the power you had traded so much to obtain, recalling how you foolishly agreed to the Blot's honeyed words that night without asking more. Then again, your time had been running out like an hourglass with a hole in it.
Grim's tug at your pant leg pulled you from your trainwreck of a mind, the words spoken softly by the blot still resonating within your mind, unable to be pushed aside and filling you with some irritation. Blinking, you tried to reorient yourself, offering him a half-formed reassuring response—until a familiar figure caught your attention near the store's exit. Cater.
"Cater.. right?" you said, tilting your head just enough to feign casual curiosity.
His bright green eyes met yours, lighting up with recognition. "Yeah! And you're... uh..." He trailed off, scratching the back of his head with a sheepish laugh, threading his fingers through his orange hair. "One of the Ramshackle prefects, right? You're so hard to get ahold of." His laugh was easygoing, but something about it hinted at familiarity, like he'd been trying to speak to you for some time now. Your jaw tightened at the thought.
You knew who he was, of course. Cater Diamond—the social butterfly, the NRC blog king, the guy who talked to nearly everyone or updates on his fast-paces student-run blog. One of the many who treated you like a nameless voice in the crowd, a background character at best. But something in his words made hope flicker faintly in your chest, a dangerous ember waiting to catch fire. Had he really been trying to reach out all along? Were you just that hard to approach..? Doubt creeped in momentarily before you brushed it off. He's lying.
The doubts clung to you like oil on fabric and your smile almost faltered. Almost. You caught it in time, replacing hesitation with a soft chuckle as you offered your name.
"You said these treats are popular online, right?" you asked, gesturing toward the flashy package. "Why? Some influencer?"
His eyes lit up, and you knew you'd hit the right note. As the two of you walked toward Ramshackle together, Cater launched into a detailed explanation about the trending treat—some influencer's viral snack review had sent demand soaring. You listened, nodding at just the right moments, letting him fill the space with his cheerful energy.
Eight minutes and fifteen seconds. The longest conversation you'd had with anyone outside of Grim or the Yuus since... well, since home.
At the front gate to Ramshackle, you paused and opened a pack of treats. Splitting it nearly in half, you handed one portion to Cater. "Sam's restocking in a whole week. You wouldn't want to miss out on the trend, right?"
For just a moment your usual resolve wavered. You knew what you intended to do—make them all regret forgetting you, bring everything crashing down—but right now... right now, you just wanted to feel a little less lonely.
Cater grinned, his eyes crinkling with the motion. "Our little secret, yeah? Guess that makes us snack buddies now. Next time, my treat—you can totes hold me to that!"
His words sparked a fleeting warmth, a rare feeling of belonging. You nodded, unable to summon a proper response.
Just for a bit... this was okay.
You tighten your grip on the bags as the warmth from the interaction fades, the stinging cold of the winter air nipping at your flesh once again.
It had been a few months since it all began—the Blot, the deal, and your decision to tear everything down. Returning to Ramshackle after parting with some friends, you shut your bedroom door behind you, the warped hinges protesting with a grating scrape against the frame. Your thoughts swirled from the events of the day, seeming vague and hazy even though it happened only a few hours ago.
"I've missed you." A voice crooned from behind—smooth and sweet, yet laced with something razor-sharp. If you could assign an item to a voice, it'd be a sugar cube.
"I was gone for two hours." you replied, setting your bag down and beginning the slow unwinding from your day. You never really knew if the Blot lived in the ring on your finger—whispering its thoughts directly into your mind—or if it was free to roam as its own entity. Tonight, it was lounging on your bed, propped up on one elbow in a mockery of comfort, the picture of lazy contentment. Despite being a humanoid figure of pure shadow, it radiated an unmistakable fondness. If shadows could smile, you knew it was smiling at you now.
"Two hours too long," it purred, with a hint of petulance bleeding into its honeyed tone.
As you sat at your desk, the Blot drifted close, leaning over your figure until both your reflections appeared in the small mirror. Its fingers, dark and lithe, combed slowly through your hair—gentle, almost reverent. Or was it mocking possessiveness?
"Do you think they'd miss you if you left for longer?" it mused softly. "Or would you slip their minds again, like you always used to?"
The question struck a nerve. You averted your gaze from its reflection, unwilling to entertain the thought as your jaw unconsciously clenched, deciding to test the waters, you shot back a reply a little too sharp for your liking. "Are you jealous?"
You turned to try and catch a gleam of its reaction, anything to give you a better understanding of the enigmatic being you've tied yourself to.
"Of them? Never." it whispered, shadowy lithe fingers tracing along your jaw, gently tilting your head back to meet its gaze in the mirror once again. "They don't know you like I do."
A chill crawled down your spine as its grip lingered a moment too long. Silence stretched between you, heavy with words left unsaid—words only the Blot seemed to know.
"How was your day, my little adventurer?" it murmured, its voice dropping to something low and intimate, almost conspiratorial. The way it spoke made it seem as though its words were meant for your ears alone, a secret shared just between the two of you.
You didn't respond immediately, focusing on your homework instead before offhandedly responding. "You're talkative today."
The air shifted subtly, the Blot retreating to your bed once more. It flopped onto your sheets like a restless cat, rolling and twisting the fabric with a peculiar energy, almost playful in its antics. For a creature so powerful, it had a strange, childlike quality in moments like these—unsettling, yet somehow familiar the way it could switch from suave and seductive to childish and pesky.
"Perhaps I'm feeling nostalgic." It mused after a pause. Was that vulnerability bleeding through, or just another calculated lure to pull you in deeper?
"Ask me something," it offered, voice as smooth as silk, "I'll humor you with an answer—a gift for all you've done, my dove."
You hesitated. There were so many questions but one had tumbled from your lips before you could stop it. "What are you?"
"You already know the answer." It interrupted, its voice dripping with mirth. It almost seemed to avoid the question, a moment of lost composure that piqued your interest.
Your disappointment must've shown—your eyes narrowed, brows furrowing and lips pursing just slightly into a pout or protest—as the Blot paused, considering you. Finally, it relented, leaning closer with a softer tone.
"Another. Ask me another. I'll give you more because it's you."
Time stretched as you considered your options once again—more carefully this time to pull back as many layers as you can grasp to reveal just a bit more. The Blot was clearly fond of you for one reason or another, but why?
You asked, your voice steady but curious. "What were you?"
The question hung in the air like a heavy cloth, wet and suffocating. For a moment, the Blot stilled. Then it smiled—a slow, deliberate curve of its shadowy mouth.
"You're so curious," it purred, voice dropping to a velvet murmur. "I love that about you."
Before you could react, it was there, face-to-face with you again, close enough that the air seemed to hum with its presence. Its tone grew lower, softer, yet charged with something deeper. The air had grown heavier. When it spoke, its voice was softer, yet somehow deeper and filled with something ancient and still thrumming with life. "Once... I was something like you. Real. Tangible. Alive."
"Wh-"
"We'd get along. At least I like to think we would" Its voice gained a firmer edge, almost wistful, yet underlined with certainty. "No... I know we would. I've seen what it's like to be forgotten." The Blot sounded firm as if it had substance behind such an egregious claim.
You recoiled slightly at the sureness of its tone as the tension thickened, words caught in your throat as you searched for a response. But the Blot spoke again, its voice growing almost tender.
"Yes. That's how I'd explain it. But it's all in the past. And now... here we are. Together."
Its fingers laced with yours, dark and cold yet strangely warm at the same time. Its thumb gently traced the rim of the ring on your finger—the physical reminder of your contract.
For a moment, it almost felt like an embrace—warm in its own strange way—before the Blot retreated at the sound of a firm knock at your door.
"Human! Come downstairs! We're watching films and consuming takeout!" Sebek's voice rang out, loud and commanding as always. You blinked, suddenly remembering your prior engagements for the evening.
On the other side of the door, Sebek continued his monologue. "Unless you fear the horror genre?" His tone wavered between challenge and care before taking a haughty turn and somehow louder. "Shall I request a film more suited to your frail constitution? I shall do it only to protect you from disgrace!"
His rapid footsteps retreated down the hall, leaving you in a strange quiet once again. Your gaze lingered on the Blot, still stretched lazily across your bed, its head tilted in quiet amusement.
With a sigh, you stood and made your way to the door, half relieved and half-annoyed.
The TV blared whatever movie had been chosen for the night, a tradition at Ramshackle where native members of Twisted Wonderland picked their favorite media to share with the prefects. It had become a cherished cultural exchange, a chance for everyone to gush about their favorite things—though you and the others never had anything to contribute.
Not that any of you wanted to. Any mention of home dampened the mood. The others missed it—their world, their families—while you had long stopped thinking of returning. You're never going home. It's too beautiful in your memories, untouched by everything you had become. Setting foot there would be like introducing flame to the wings of a butterfly.
You sat beside him, finding solace and comfort in each other's quiet presence. There was no need to speak, no need to acknowledge it aloud. He was your own guest for tonight's movie, something you never thought you'd have based on your previous reputation, or lack thereof. And yet, despite everything, you still couldn't forgive him for the way he once ignored you. You couldn't even recall how long ago that time was. It should have been easy to let go, to forget the loneliness, but the ache of it still lingered, a phantom pain of being unseen, unheard, unnoticed.
Everything felt so stagnant back then, so suffocating. In moments like these you couldn't help but be appreciative of the Blot's assistance, even as you both resented yourself and the entity in your bedroom for what it had cost you—even worse, knowing you had willingly accepted the deal. The truth, that claustrophobic reality, felt like a noose around your neck, dragging you deeper with every breath. Without the deal, you would have remained nothing—forgotten, buried in the snow, your name lost to time, your face unrecognizable by all. And when the thaw came, they could have found your body, decayed and nameless. A casualty.
A chill ran down your spine at the thought, the memory of that night creeping back, sharp and biting like frost against your skin. Jack, seated nearby, must have noticed. Without a word, the beastman draped his large, fluffy tail over your lap, a quiet attempt to offer warmth without interrupting the film.
The movie came to an end without you fully understanding the plot, the storyline lost to your distracted mind as you reflected on the whole evening. The lamps flickered back on as everyone began cleaning up, and there was an awkward, unspoken feeling hanging over everyone. The sort of quiet tension that lingered at the end of a gathering—was this goodbye? Was this the end, do they go home? The moment felt too brief.
But how many tomorrows are left?
Everyone knew that the Prefects of Ramshackle didn't belong here no matter how defined of a shape carved into everyone's hearts that only they could fill, they all knew that the Yuus would return home someday, often lamenting about their own world. Whenever the topic came up, you'd catch a fleeting glance from your friends. You'd never mentioned home—not since you'd given up on the idea. But you knew he was silently asking:
Do you plan to stay?
The boys scurried around cleaning up their messes, but their efforts were clumsy, adding new minor messes to clean—small, unnoticed attempts to stretch the moment just a little longer. They didn't want it to end yet. For now, neither did you.
Your thoughts were interrupted by a loud sneeze from Epel—one that would certainly earn him a lecture from Vil. You turn to see what he'd done, spotting a vase tipped over the kitchen counter, water and flowers spilling across the surface. They had been a gift, though the reasoning behind them had been flimsy at best. Not that you cared much. They weren't even your favorites, and flowers never lasted long anyway.
Wilting. Drying. Rotting.
Much like people.
You were slightly startled by the dark thoughts, pushing them away as Yuuken passed Epel a tissue before grabbing a rag to mop the mess before it seeped into the floorboards. Ramshackle already had enough mold; any more would be cruel.
"Did you catch a cold? I told you not to sit out in the rain too late trying to win that bet." Yuuken's tone was exasperated but laced with concern. Yuuka, less patient, flicked Epel's forehead in reprimand.
The mention of illness must have triggered Ortho's health and safety protocols, as he immediately zipped over, offering a full-body scan to check Epel's vitals.
"Uwah? Me next! Scan me!" Ace butted in with a cheeky grin—an obvious attempt to dodge dish duty. You shot him a knowing look but he only grinned wider, brushing it off and receiving his scan.
What started as a routine checkup quickly turned into a competition to see who was the healthiest, with everyone eagerly comparing stats. In the end, it came down to Jack and Sebek, though Jack narrowly took the win. Even Ortho seemed baffled by the results, staring at his screen in genuine confusion.
"I cannot understand how Sebek Zigvolt functions with such high exposure to Lilia Vanrouge's cooking..." he murmured, tilting his head.
Laughter rippled through the group as Sebek loudly protested, but the amusement died down as Ortho turned to you. Unlike the others, you hadn't joined in on their little contest, preferring to avoid the inevitable teasing about your ranking. But now, Ortho's bright yellow eyes scanned you from head to toe, and for a brief moment, his expression flickered with something strange—confusion?
"That's odd," he muttered. "You don't have any health complications, but... your body temperature is significantly lower than normal. By a lot. Please wait a moment while I check something."
Yuuta shot you a concerned glance, setting down a broken shard of the vase and rinsing his hand before reaching out to touch your forehead, only to immediately recoil.
"Woah. You're freezing..! Like wax."
Ortho scrolled through his holographic screens with increasing confusion, while the others hesitated before brushing against you, testing Yuuta's claim. You hadn't noticed before, but now that you thought about it—your skin was cold. Not just cool, but room temperature. Maybe a degree or two above it.
Ace snickered. "Maybe you really are a corpse, prefect. Don't worry; I'll cry over your grave for a good hour so you feel loved." He received a punch in the arm from Deuce for that, assuring you they'd visit every day and cry tons if you died.
The joke sent a sharp chill down your spine. For a split second, you were back there—lying in the snow, the cold sinking into your bones, the world growing quieter and quieter. The Blot ring on your finger felt soft and warm like an embrace in that moment as you pushed the memory down. You didn't even want to think about Ace and Deuce's reassurance about your death, not daring to recall how they wouldn't have even noticed a few months prior.
Ortho, unimpressed with Ace's comment, gave him a firm shove out of the way before running another scan. As he worked, Yuu barked orders at the others to finish cleaning up their messes, leaving you to sit on the couch under Ortho's scrutiny.
"It's strange..." he said, flicking through his screens and mumbling your full name a few times to search for you. "I have a database of nearly the entire student body in my records, but I had to create a new profile for you."
Something in your chest twisted.
That sick feeling, the one that always crept in whenever you felt especially neglected, clawed its way to the surface. This was a punch to the gut, a reminder that even a machine designed to remember, hadn't even noticed you enough to have you in his system.
How cruel.
You forced a laugh, pushing past the bitter taste in your mouth. "So, what do you think? Am I a corpse after all?"
Ortho paused, then, as if to make up for the oversight, carefully selected your favorite color for your new profile, even marking the tab as favorite with a cute icon.
"I apologize. I don't know," he admitted. "But I'll ask Big Brother. Maybe it's something I haven't thought about yet."
Ortho had left earlier than the others after being called back by Idia for something, but a sense of foreboding lingered in the air. You couldn't shake the feeling of being caught—caught in a way that was difficult to explain. Who else, other than the Shroud brothers, would have the highest chance of recognizing what you'd done?
Then again, the Blot taking a form and making a deal wasn't something that had ever been seen throughout Twisted Wonderland's history. Perhaps you were safe.
But the uncertainty gnawed at you, that creeping feeling that something—someone—might figure it out. The longer the silence stretched, the more unexplainable guilt festered.

Chapter 3: 3

The blankets cocooned around you were cold—an empty, sterile embrace that offered no comfort as you lay wide-eyed in the oppressive stillness of the night. Sleep slipped through your grasp, elusive and taunting, while your mind clawed relentlessly at the remnants of the day. Each memory looped endlessly, twisting tighter and tighter, until nausea churned in your gut.
Your gaze wandered—adrift—until it landed on a keychain dangling from your bag. A sudden warmth flickered in your chest, fragile and fleeting, like the ghost of sunbeam on a winter morning. Nostalgia bloomed—sharp and bittersweet, wrapped in the fondness of forgotten laughter; It was a birthday gift from a friend back home. Ridiculous, overpriced, and born from an inside joke you no longer even recalled. The small plush charm had been worn thin, dulled and frayed by years of absentminded affection it had endured.
You slipped out of your bed, your feet ghosting over the cold floor. Every step toward the keychain made your heart pound louder in your ears. Its familiar texture met your fingers, soft and worn from countless caresses. Your heart was oddly soothed by its familiarity, calming you enough to allow a yawn to escape—perhaps you'd sleep tonight after all.
You turned the small item over a few times in your hands before the memory slams into you. The sharp, metallic ping cutting through the hum of your old room. The frustration that followed, the light graze of your thumb over the broken chain. The memory was vivid and final.
You left this behind.
Your breathing grew shallow, vision blurry as realization crept up on you and the keychain fell from your hands, making a soft thump on the floor. Why was it here? How was it here? Your mind spun, raking through any and all possibilities as you stared wide-eyed at the impossibility at your feet.
A sharp sound tore you from your thoughts before a light filled the room, the sudden change nearly shattering you. A melody—soft, haunting—echoed from behind, filling your stagnant cell of a room and tightening around your ribs like thorns. You turned sharply, breath caught in your throat as your gaze landed on your phone screen, glowing in the dark and casting an eerie, cold light across the room.
The name flashing across the screen made you involuntarily let out a weak gasp as you stumbled forward, your legs like jelly. That number was muscle memory, seared deep into your mind, like a brand on your personality. You knew it intimately from endless hours spent lost in conversation. Memorized by heart, you'd traced it absently while their voice poured through the receiver, filling quiet nights with laughter, dreams, and shared secrets.
"Hello?"
The voice on the line wasn't just familiar—it was them. It echoed through your skull like a haunting melody, colder than the air in your empty lungs. You couldn't breathe. Time thickened around you, dragging you slower, and slower, yet every second screamed you were running out of it.
A connection to home. A chance you'd forsaken—the thought clawed at you, desperate and hungry like a rabid dog. Shakily, you tried to respond, but it never went through. Were you finally going mad? Was there blot in your brain? You could only laugh—thin, brittle—the sound teetering between hysteria and madness.
"I don't know why I'm doing this," They said, a bitter laugh breaking through the static. Frustration bled into hurt—and then, almost painful hope. "-but I can't seem to stop calling. That movie you were excited about? It finally comes out next week. I bought us tickets—your favorite spot in the theater. I even saved up for snacks—And the café you love afterward... You'll be there, won't you?"
The line fell silent. Only the faint, familiar hum of their fan carried through—a soft, constant whir that had always comforted you during late-night sleepovers. It had run non-stop for years and back then, you'd playfully scolded them for keeping it on constantly, unaware just how much you'd miss it on quiet nights, so far from home. The sound had become home.
"...Please come back."
The call ended—abrupt, merciless. The silence that followed was louder than any goodbye, and you so desperately ached to hear the familiar: "I'll see you tomorrow."
Desperation clawed at your throat as you scrambled to call back, your voice breaking into raw, hoarse sobs—ones long overdue that tore from somewhere once deep and forgotten. Your body was drenched in uncomfortable, clammy, cold sweat as your fingers trembled to input the number once again—to hear their voice one more time. You dialed again. And again.
The number you have dialed is not in service.
Again.
The number you have dialed is not in service.
Each polite, robotic repetition was a blade twisting deeper, shredding through you with barbed, merciless precision. Your chest convulses with the weight of silence. Nails claw at your palms, desperate for something to ground you, but the shadows stretch—long, greedy, as though even the room has given up on holding you.
The ring on your finger was cold now—cold as your own uncannily waxen flesh. The Blot was silent for once—it doesn't speak, but you can feel it behind you, its presence heavy and infuriatingly soothing. Through your blurry tears, you caught its shadow standing beside your own, the moonlight spilling through your window casting both your forms in the same pale, eerie glow.
Two shapes horribly intertwined by fate.
And both so painfully, irrevocably alone.
The following morning was a haze—thick and disorienting, like radio static stretched thin over every sense. It clung to your mind like mold, seeping into every corner of your being, wrapping tight and suffocating, leaving behind a pressure that felt almost claustrophobic. Every muscle ached with a dull, persisted throb, and your movements were sluggish—each thought, each action, wading through the heavy drag of mud. Yeah, mud was the right word. The day felt filthy. You felt filthy.
Even Cater's presence—usually a bright, irritating hum in the background—brought no reprieve. When you recoiled from his touch without meaning to, the brief flicker of hurt across his face should've been satisfying. Normally, it would've been beneath the veneer. But you didn't even have the energy to enjoy it. Instead, you offered an apology sculpted to sound genuine, knowing exactly what to say to smooth it over—words shaped like honey but hollow inside.
The constant hum of the Mostro Lounge buzzed in your ears: the sharp clink of dishes, the scrape of silverware, the low murmur of conversation, and the sizzle of meals being made. The lights overhead felt oppressive, glaring down like the unblinking eye of some unseen god, judging, dissecting every falter, every wandering thought. But still, you endured.
Plate after plate. Smile after smile.
God, you hated them. You wanted to go home. Real home.
But after that cruel, fleeting taste of what you once craved, the hollow ache of your abandoned goal came crashing back—raging, desperate, clawing for dominance like rabid dogs over the newer, uglier desire: the need to stay and become somebody here. Yet deep down, you knew. You couldn't go back. not after this. Not after what you've become. You're a plague.
How would you even explain it? How do you justify the absence—the schoolwork missed, the time lost? Surely, people had moved on. Surely, you were already forgotten and that call was a hoax. Yes, another hallucination from the stress.
The spiral was relentless as you scrubbed another dish, eyes unfocused, locked on the lazy swirl of soap and bubbles clinging to your hands. Exhaustion dragged at your eyelids like heavy weights. You turned to put the glass away—misjudged the distance.
Crash.
The sound of shattering glass echoed too loudly, but all you could do was stare. For a moment, the world dulled around you—flattened into isolation, bleak and distant. The harsh light above bore down, merciless and searing, like divine judgement cast from on high.
And in that moment, it felt like punishment. Like you deserved it.
"~~~~?"
"~~~~."
Hands gripped your shoulder—firm, insistent—and shook you just enough to jolt your vision back into focus. The world sharpened painfully around the edges, and suddenly you felt it: the weight of their stares pressing into you like hot iron.
"Shrimpy!" Floyd's voice cut through the fog, sharper now, laced with something unfamiliar—concern. He shook you again, more urgently this time. His features, usually painted in playful malice, were drawn tight with worry: brows furrowed, eyes squinted ever so slightly, lips parted as if you were trying to find the right thing to say. "Did you eat somethin' Jade gave you? If you go home now, I'll be lonely." He whined with an undercurrent of care.
His head snapped up like a hunting dog catching a scent, scanning the room for his twin. But Jade was already there—hovering near the kitchen window, gaze cool and calculating as always. Yet, not even his polished mask could fully hide the flicker of unease that crossed his face. Whatever was happening, this time, he wasn't behind it.
You forced a weak smile—another apology weighing down on your tongue. Gods, how many apologies had you made today? "My hand slipped," you muttered, voice thin and brittle. "I just felt a little dizzy, that's all."
A spark of something darker, more cunning, twisted in your chest. An opportunity—small and mean—presented itself. Last night's events made you want to lash out and draw blood from any drawing too near. "I covered your and Jade's shift last night. Barely slept."
You didn't bother to look at them, didn't need to. Instead, you crouched down, gathering the shattered remnants of the glass. Floyd's grip loosened but his presence lingered close—hovering like a shadow unwilling to let go.
Measured footsteps soon approached—Jade. His gloved hands appeared in your periphery, collecting shards with practiced precision. You could feel his gaze, sharp and dissecting, practically daring you to meet his gaze. If you did, you knew he'd carve the truth out of you without mercy.
"Perhaps you should rest," Jade murmured, voice smooth as silk but carrying a weight beneath it. "I'll speak to Azul."
You kept your gaze trained on the floor.
The Leech twins were impossible to beat on their home turf. Their games were played on familiar ground, and anyone foolish enough to challenge them there would drown before they even realized they were sinking.
That's why you needed to build your own field. Make it identical, familiar, but yours. Drag them into it—make them play by their own rules.
The moment they showed the slightest hint of interest, you pushed—forced your way into their lives and curled in close until it felt natural, comfortable. And when they grew used to the warmth of your presence, when it started to feel like maybe you belonged by their side—that's when you pulled.
One would've thought they'd catch on by now, given their intellect. But perhaps they'd grown too confident, too sure of their mastery of this endless game.
You stood slowly, rinsing your hands of any lingering shards. No words. No gratitude. Just the cold satisfaction of leaving.
Behind you, their confusion burned hot—Why? Did it really sting him that much? Was it guilt for making you cover their shifts? But you had offered, hadn't you? Just yesterday, you were draped over him with teasing smiles, laughter curling between subtle touches.
So why did it feel like all of that had shattered just as easily as the glass in your hands?
He hadn't even realized he was already planning how to win you back like a forsaken lover.
Despite your body screaming for rest, you pressed on—first to your locker, then to his office.
Azul was exactly where you expected him to be: hunched over the sea of documents, files stacked like fragile towers around him, pen scratching tirelessly across paper. The steady rhythm of ink against parchment filled the room like background noise in a familiar, suffocating routine.
Your steps were measured, each one deliberate, the certainty of your intention steeling your spine. Your gaze was cold—detached—until he finally looked up. Only then did you let it soften, just enough to mask the sharpness beneath.
You hesitated for a moment, your movements stilling. Then, without a word, you extended your hand. A simple sheet of paper rested between your fingers. Two weeks' notice.
Azul took it, scanning the words with quick, efficient movements. His pale blue eyes—sharp and calculating—let every syllable seep into him, and for a brief, flickering second, something in his composed expression cracked.
You remembered why he hired you in the first place. The growing popularity of the Ramshackle Prefects had turned you and the others into commodities. Something shiny to be displayed and capitalized on. None of you were people in his eyes; you were an opportunity. Though it changed slightly after the overblot.
Of course, Azul had dressed you up nicely—polite gestures, a crisp uniform tailored just for you. And you, foolishly, had mistaken that for kindness in the beginning. Though only after the deal had you decided to repay it tenfold.
You remembered the small acts of care, offered without expectation: meals left discreetly on his desk when he skipped lunch, snacks, glasses of water, cups of tea. Then came the packed lunches—home-made and thoughtful—each one accompanied by a small, handwritten note or doodle.
The twins had teased him mercilessly for those notes. They swiped them, tore them up, or laughed at how soft he'd gotten while internally wondering why only Azul received such things. But Azul hadn't cared—or at least, that's what he thought. Until the day he found himself opening his lunch early, not to eat but to rescue the note, tucking it safely away in his locker safe before the twins could sink their claws into it.
And then you caught a cold. No lunches. No notes. No little reminders of care.
The absence was stark. The hours felt colder, emptier, like a hollow space you had opened within his routine. It was only then that Azul realized how deeply your presence had seeped into his life—how seen you made him feel.
You had understood him in ways others didn't—or couldn't. Every little gesture, every late-night conversation peeled back a layer of armor he wore. At first, it had unsettled him—your sharp perception felt like a threat, an exposed nerve.
But you didn't wield that awareness like a weapon—well, you did. But he didn't know—You gave it to him instead, focused it entirely on him. And somewhere along the way, your gaze stopped feeling like scrutiny and started feeling like sunlight—gentle and warm, coaxing him out of his cold, dark pot again.
What began as fleeting interactions and reluctant tolerance slowly bloomed into late shifts spent in quiet companionship. You started using your breaks in his office, sitting there in shared silence that felt unexpectedly comforting.
And when he noticed the way you would occasionally drift off—curled uncomfortably on the stiff office couch—he didn't say anything. But soon after, the couch disappeared, left along with Floyd in a bad mood and a small, carefully placed peel in the leather. Enough to ensure it would be ruined later.
A replacement arrived hours later, as if pre-ordered—softer, warmer. A silent offering.
Now, standing in front of him with that thin sheet of paper between you, all of that unspoken history sat heavy in the air.
And yet, you were still walking away.
"What's this?" His voice was smooth, composed, every inch the businessman he portrays himself to be—but you caught it; the slight tremor hidden beneath the polished exterior. The way his fingers tightened around the paper, the sharpness of his gaze behind those pristine glasses. He wouldn't acknowledge the sudden weight in his chest, but you felt it all the same.
You smiled—carefully, perfectly, just as you had rehearsed. Every word chosen, every expression measured, a script you'd been preparing since the first day you were hired.
"My two weeks." Your voice was light, casual, as if it wasn't meant to sting. "There's a place in town offering better pay. You always say business is business—or whatever the saying is, right? You get it; money's important. Especially for someone like me."
Azul's world spun beneath him. It felt like the ground had tilted just enough to send him off balance. You spoke like it was nothing, like he was nothing. A simple transaction—business, just as he always said.
Why had you been so kind to him if you were just going to leave? Why the meals, the notes? Why make him believe, feel, that your presence was anything more than a convenience?
He'd been aware of how distant you became outside of work when you had friends pulling you away from him—how the moments between shifts stretched into silence. The realization gnawed at him, whispering that maybe the warmth you gave him was only temporary. So, he had given you more hours, more shifts—greedy for your presence, desperate to keep you close.
It had only made things worse. You got sick. You slipped further away.
Now this—this final nail in the coffin.
He intended to be gracious. To let you go with dignity, to say something measured and reasonable—Right. I appreciate you letting me know. This is unexpected, but I respect your decision and will support you during the transition.
But when he stood, the words tangled in his throat. His hands trembled slightly, the paper shaking as if it had physically hurt him to hold it.
"I—" The breath hitched before he could stop it. his voice was raw—small. "What are they offering? I can do more."
The desperation hit him like hot spilled tea. How pathetic he must've sounded—how weak. That old fear clawed at him, the memory of being less than, the loser nobody cared about until he forced them to.
Azul adjusted his glasses, smoothing down the crack in his armor, slipping the mask back on with trembling hands. He sat back down, shoulders straight, voice steadier. "You're a valued employee. The Mostro Lounge would hate to see you go."
You almost laughed. The way he clung to formality, as if referring to his business in third person could shield him from the sting of losing you.
But instead, you smiled—bright, nauseously fake. "Ah, really? That's amazing! I was really sad I might need to leave. I've made so many good memories here." Your voice was softer, an undertone of reassurance.
Another lie. The only memory that clung to you was that night—trapped in a booth with the Yuus, celebrating a test you'd all fought tooth and nail to pass. They laughed, smiled, congratulated each other. The students outside Ramshackle never even spoke to you. You'd sat in silence, the world dull and cold, until you excused yourself with the excuse of a headache.
The drowning feeling had returned, thick and suffocating, but it was broken—suddenly, mercifully—by the Blot ring's warmth on your finger.
"Look, my dove. Look at what you've done; Watch how easily he breaks for you." The Blot's voice echoed in your head as you focused on Azul again, noting his relief.
It almost made you feel pity. Sometimes you forget he's just a kid like you.
"I'm glad we sorted that out," Azul said, his voice soft, almost tender. "You're a person I value... At the Mostro Lounge, of course." He added quickly.
When Ortho arrived home after the movie night at Ramshackle, he found Idia sprawled across his bed, fingers deftly maneuvering over his controller. The room was dimly lit with the signature blue glow it always had, the soft glow of his monitor casting a blue tint over his sharp features. The rapid clicking of buttons and the occasional flicker of movement on the screen cast across his walls like dancing spirits amongst the steady and consistent faint hum of the electronics.
Ortho inched closer, lingering near the bed, waiting for his brother to acknowledge him.
"How was it? Anything fun?" Idia asked, his voice absent minded as he spared Ortho a brief glance before refocusing on his game. Still, there was an unmistakable warmth in his tone—he was genuinely glad that Ortho was spending time with others, getting to act like a real kid. It was nice to see.
Ortho perked up at the invitation to share more eagerly plopping down beside him. "We had so much fun, Big Brother!" His voice buzzed with excitement as he watched Idia play, making a comment about a missed hit that elicited a scoff from the eldest. "I really think you should hang out with the Prefects more. You already get along with them—why not get closer? You need to get out more anyway."
His words carried a thread of concern, though he kept his tone lighthearted. He knew his brother was reclusive and lonely, always watching from the sidelines—yearning for the kind of effortless camaraderie he only saw in anime or online gaming parties. Idia longed for connection, even if he'd never admit it.
He prattles on and on about the event, recalling the experiences sharply so Idia could properly understand and visualize things. On occasion, he'd chuckle or curse under his breath at something happening in the game.
As Ortho chattered away, he recounted the night's events in vivid detail, ensuring his brother could picture everything as if he had been there himself. He was meticulous in his storytelling, highlighting funny moments and inside jokes. Occasionally, Idia would chuckle under his breath at a particularly ridiculous anecdote or mutter a curse at something happening on screen.
Then, offhandedly, Ortho mentioned the scanning competition—the malfunction with his scanner and your unusual results.
Idia's fingers hesitated over the controller for half a second, his attention subtly shifting.
You.
During his own overblot, you had been there. Ortho had mentioned it before, but at the time, it barely registered. In the haze of everything that happened, all he could recall was Yuu. They were always at the center of things, right? It made sense.
But when he later reviewed the footage, he found himself lingering. Watching.
You stood there, unwavering. No magic, no superhuman abilities—just you. And yet, despite every overwhelming odds stacked against you, you had fought. You had thrown yourself into the fray with the kind of reckless determination usually reserved for protagonists in the stories he obsessed over. The kind of character he would've rooted for, cheered for.
And yet somehow, you had slipped from his mind.
You weren't supposed to be important.
But now... now you kept appearing, inching your way into his life, making yourself impossible to ignore.
You weren't his best friend. You weren't even his close friend. If he had to assign you a rank on his totally real and definitely well-thought-out friendship tier list, you'd probably sit somewhere around B-tier.
…Maybe B+
Which, objectively speaking, was way too high.
Like, actually concerningly high. The kind of rank that makes Idia pause mid-though and wonder just how you'd managed to climb the rankings so quickly.
At first, it was just a quiet observation—fleeting glances stolen when he thought you wouldn't notice. He studied the way your smile curved, the way the light caught in your eyes, the little details that made you you. And somehow, without meaning to, those details slipped into the margins of his sketchbook—traced in careful, unintentional devotion. A tilt of your lips here, the shape of your eyes there, fragments of familiarity woven into characters he'd never admit were inspired by you.
Then came the conversations—small at first, barely more than mumbled words and hesitant remarks. But you listened. You listened in a way that no one else did, quiet and patient, letting him ramble about his favorite games, his theories, his endless tide of niche knowledge. And when he realized you weren't just humoring him—that you actually cared—the dam cracked.
One night, in the middle of another one-sided infodump, Idia got distracted. His fingers, itching for something to do, reached for his pen, and before he knew it, he was tracing delicate patterns along your skin. Spirals, constellations, intricate designs that sprawled from your fingertips to your forearm, blooming like ink-stained confessions.
It wasn't until he pulled back—saw the quiet amusement in your expression, the way you flexed your fingers to admire his absentminded work—that realization hit him like a sucker punch to the gut.
The mention of your odd vitals tore Idia back from the faint memory. "Wait, what?"
The words left Idia's mouth before he could stop them, his fingers stilling over the controller. His character stuttered to a stop, taking a critical hit and crumbling to the ground. It was enough of a shock to make him pause the game entirely, tired yellow eyes flicking up to meet Ortho's with rare focus. "What happened? Rewind." His voice came out sharper than intended—too firm, too alert. He realized it a second too late, clearing his throat awkwardly as he restarted the game, feigning nonchalance.
Ortho didn't seem to notice—or if he did, he didn't comment. Instead, his brows knit together, worry evident in his voice. "I did a full-body scan of them and found several discrepancies. Is something wrong with my scanner or are they okay?"
Idia felt something uneasy coil in his gut at the genuine concern in Ortho's tone.
"Their heart rate was extremely low, core body temperature matched the room, and their tidal volume was... severely diminished. Either extremely shallow breathing or apneic."
For a moment, Idia said nothing. His grip tightened ever so slightly on the controller. He should've shrugged it off immediately—should've dismissed it as some weird fluke, an error, a quirk of human biology he didn't need to concern himself with. Instead, a beat of silence stretched between them before he scoffed.
"Last I checked, you're completely up to date. Dunno, maybe anemia. Or thyroid issues. Human stuff. Or people from their world are a little different. Did you scan the others?" He forced out a short laugh, trying to ignore the nagging feeling creeping up his spine.
That wasn't entirely a lie. There were plenty of mundane explanations. But the gut feeling remained, pressing down on his instincts like w weight. If something was wrong—if something happened to you, and he had the chance to help but never did—he'd never forgive himself.
Ortho was quiet for a moment, processing, before shaking his head. "I didn't scan the others. They were busy. But... Do you really think everything's fine, Big Brother?"
His lips parted, but no immediate response came. Did he? Logically, none of those symptoms screamed emergency. And yet... something felt off.
"Uh—yeah... probably."
Ortho didn't seem entirely convinced, and honestly? Neither did Idia.
That night, sleep evaded him. Idia tossed and turned, body feeling heavier than usual, his mind on an unrelenting loop of unease. He could still hear the concern in Ortho's voice, see the way his little brother's brows furrowed in worry over you.
With a groan, Idia threw an arm over his face, trying to block out the gnawing guilt.
It's nothing, he told himself. It has to be nothing.
Still, the thoughts wouldn't settle. "Low body temp could be hypothyroidism or anemia. Low heart rate? Also hypothyroidism. Hypoventilation Probably anxiety T.B.H." He muttered the justifications under his breath, fingers threading through his mess of flaming blue hair.
But if it were just that, why did it still feel so wrong?
Before he even realized what he was doing, Idia had already sat up, fingers moving on muscle memory as his PC whirred to life. The pale glow of the screen cast his room in a cold light, turning every shadow into something deeper, something reaching.
Something was wrong—horribly, sickeningly wrong. He couldn't explain the gut feeling that gnawed at his ribs, twisting his organs into a grotesque bow. But it was there. it had been there since Ortho spoke your name, since those words crawled under his skin and nested like parasites.
Idia scoured through medical databases, flipping through symptom charts, searching for anything—anything that could explain this away with something as benign as anemia or some obscure human disorder he had no business caring about. But the deeper he dug, the less he found. The words blurred together, the clinical descriptions devoid of meaning in the face of the one thread that kept tightening, weaving itself through every desperate connection.
His tired yellow eyes lingered on his desktop.
STYX files.
He hovered his finger over the button. Idia had no real evidence, no real reasoning, just a gnawing dread sinking its teeth into his spine. And yet—
Click.
The sound seems to resonate in his ears and around the room like an omen of a bad decision.
The files unfolded before him, filled with brief experiments, files and documents, half finished analyses on his peers, and—at the very heart of it—the haunting icon of the folder holding his own overblot. He knew what it did. He felt what it did. The tearing of flesh, ligament and bone, drowning in darkness—thick and murky, that sickly sweet voice invading his mind.
Coaxing. Taunting.
An overblot occurs when one's body is devoured by magical corruption—a physical manifestation of despair, rage, exhaustion, and agony. The world rarely spoke about it outside hushed whispers, fewer discussed the survival rate.
Idia knew. he studied it. Lived it. During an overblot the victim is not dying. They are being unmade. It's not suffering—it's erasure. And yet, somehow, seven of them had clawed their way back from the brink in one year—himself included.
His fingers hesitated over the keys, twitching slightly with restraint. Then he dove deeper, pushing through firewalls, bypassing passcodes with the desperation of someone who already knew he wasn't supposed to be looking. He'd face repercussions from his parents later. That was a problem for a future Idia who didn't have this black hole of despair in him.
The deeper Idia searched, the less data looked like science and the more it bled into something else. Theories. Stories. Obscure folktales and half-forgotten legends. Whispers that suggested the Blot wasn't just a corruption of magic, wasn't just something lurking inside everyone.
It was suggesting the blot was an entity.
Hours bled into one another, the cold glow of his screen the only constant as Idia scoured every possible source, every scrap of knowledge that might explain the impossible. Each article, each diagram, each desperate thread pulled him deeper into a spiral, his stomach twisting with every answer he found.
Clarity struck him like the drag of a blade against flesh. A shock. Then cold, then hot. Then pain.
His blood ran ice-cold. A nauseating weight coiled in his chest, bile creeping up his throat.
It had always been okay before. It was okay when it happened to strangers, when they clawed their way back from the brink or succumbed to the abyss. It was okay when the others overblotted, when their bodies failed and their souls burned out in a final, desperate flare of magic. And it was even okay when he had done it—because that was the way of things. You burned, you recovered, or you perished. That was the rule.
But you?
You're different. You've become everything to these people—a lifeline, a tether, a presence so woven into the fabric of their existence that the thought of your absence was unthinkable. And yet...
The truth stared back at him from the depths of his research, stark and merciless.
In an overblot, the body fails. Lifeforce siphoned away, each spell cast bleeding it out like a sieve, pushed to the very edge of the fingertips until there is nothing left. The heart races wildly until it bursts—or slow, feeble and strained and full of sorrow until it withers into stillness.
He arrived at a horrible realization, one he couldn't even voice.
Idia made a choked sound, his hand clasped over his mouth, serrated teeth pressing into his palm—though the pain went unnoticed. His yellow eyes were wide and frantic, his breathing uneven and came out in short gasps.
In that moment a terrible, demented thought intruded Idia's mind. Maybe- Maybe it'd be easier if you were. Maybe it would be more merciful if your thread had already begun to fray, if your time really was fleeting—if there was an end in sight. Whatever was wrong with you, surely had to be worse than death.
But no overblotter lingers in this state. No one teeters on the precipice indefinitely. You recover, or you die.
There is no third option.
And yet, you remained.
Suspended. Stagnant. Neither healing nor decaying. All flesh rots. He will rot. One day, his body will succumb to entropy, will crumble and return to dust like every living thing before and after.
Idia avoids you like the plague. Like you're a walking curse, an omen draped in familiarity, something he found himself trusting before he knew better. Before he started watching.
He can't bring himself to look at you when you pass in the halls, can't muster the awkward half-smile or stiff nod he used to manage. His fingers hover over his phone whenever your messages come through, but each one feels like a landmine waiting to explode—his heart skips a beat for all the wrong reasons now.
Because now that he knows, he sees.
Your chest barely rises when you breathe—if you breathe at all. The crisp morning air doesn't turn to mist on your lips like it does for everyone else. And sometimes, after the laughter dies and the conversations fade, your expression slips—just for a second. Gone is the warmth, the life, replaced by something blank and cold.
And Idia wonders—how much of you is real?
How much of what he's come to know, to like—to admire—is actually you? How much of it is a lingering echo of something that should have already faded?
It's wrong. You are wrong.
And no matter how hard he tries, he can't ignore it anymore.
You stepped out of the shower, the warm steam lingering on your skin as you made your way to your room. The quiet hum of your thoughts accompanied you as you sat on the bed, towel in hand, drying your hair. Life has been good lately, mostly thanks to the extra pay from Azul. You'd been using it to treat the other Yuus, upgrading items they needed, buying things they wanted—spoiling them in a way that felt right.
Your eyes drifted to the plush still hanging from your bag, a sharp pang of hurt striking through your chest like a harpoon. You quickly looked away, a quiet whisper of resolve settling over you. You couldn't—wouldn't—go back.
A sudden ping from your phone startled you, snapping your focus back to the present. You searched your bed, brushing against the Blot, which had been lounging lazily, as it made an almost disgruntled noise when you disturbed its comfortable position.
Idia: I need you.
The Blot let out a soft whistle from behind you, leaning over your shoulder as if to read the message itself. "How bold," it teased in its usual mocking tone, its arms slinking around your waist in an almost possessive grip, like it feared you might actually accept the invitation. "I never took that one for such forwardness."
You shoved it off, frustration gnawing at you. The relationship between you and the Blot had grown strained ever since that phone call and plush incident. The Blot insisted it had nothing to do with it, but you weren't sure you believed it. That night, it had been quieter than usual. Maybe too quiet. You shook off the thought, glancing back at your phone as two more pings came through
Idia: wait no
Idia: not like that!
Idia: Just got early access to this game I've been wanting to test. ur the only person that won't be a total normie abt it
It felt... odd. Idia, of all people, invites you to his dorm room, especially after all the awkwardness between you two. He'd been avoiding you lately, distancing himself. Had you finally worn him down? You never thought it would happen so easily, but here you were.
Not that you planned to give in anyway.
You began to get ready to leave, tossing a glare at the Blot as it remained lounging on your bed. "Turn around," you ordered curtly as you changed, its childish huff echoing through the room in response. It had been off lately, less conniving, less manipulative. It was almost... docile. A little too docile. You couldn't shake the suspicion that it was up to something—or maybe, just maybe, it was comfortable with you.
"Dressing up for a date night?" The Blot's velvety voice called out, laced with an unmistakable sense of annoyance. It was once again sprawled across your bed, arms folded behind its head, legs crossed in a relaxed posture. "You're breaking my heart, my dear."
You paused for a moment, the question lingering in the air. What would it do if you fed it the wrong answer? You let your eyes flicker back to the Blot before responding, dismissing its teasing with a shrug. "I doubt it's a date."
You gave the Blot another glance, arching an eyebrow as you met its gaze. "You have a heart?"
The Blot ignored your question completely, shooting back a sharp, almost smug response. "No eighteen-year-old guy asks someone to come to his room past curfew just to 'test out a game.'" Its tone dripped with knowing mockery, and you found yourself wondering how it knew so much about mortal behavior. "Shall I escort you, my dear?"
The Blot reappeared behind you in a sharp three-piece suit, smoothing down the fabric with deliberate care as if it were trying to impress. The look suited it, but you weren't in the mood for compliments. You shook your head, irritation creeping up your spine.
"It's not a date," you repeated firmly. "You know my goal. Don't patronize me."
You shoved past the Blot, grabbing your phone and shoving it into your bag as you made for the door.
For a moment, the Blot just stared at you, its gaze heavy and unreadable. It felt almost suffocating, like the weight of its eyes was enough to drive a chill down your spine. "Ah, I see." it chirped after a beat, its tone shifting, the edge of its gaze disappearing like smoke in the wind. "Have fun then, my dove. I'll be here... as always."

Chapter 4: 4

The walk to Ignihyde was suffocating in its silence. The air sat stagnant, thick with something unspoken, clinging to your skin like a second layer. Somewhere in your bag, your phone buzzed—a new message from the group chat. Under different circumstances, it might have brought you comfort, a reminder that you weren't alone. But tonight, isolation wrapped around you like a mourning lover, familiar and unwanted.
Your mind wandered, flitting between fragmented thoughts like a radio caught between too many channels. It was exhausting, a constant background noise atop the weight already pressing on your shoulders. The steady rhythm of your footsteps on concrete softened as you entered the Ignihyde dorm, giving way to the cool echo of marble halls. Tonight, even the usual mechanical hum of the dorm's technology felt muted, as if the entire building was holding the breath for some crescendo.
The invitation still gnawed at the back of your mind. You hated to admit that the Blot had a point—something about this felt... off.
Idia's door loomed ahead, a simple barrier yet somehow imposing. Before, it had been a gateway into a world of dim neon lights and digital sanctuary, an introvert's haven. Now, it felt like the threshold of something, heavier, something waiting. Judging. You exhaled, squaring your shoulders before knocking softly.
The response came in the form of a quiet click as the lock disengaged.
Inside, the usual blue glow of Idia's room bathed everything in its cold light, but the atmosphere was different. The usual hum of monitors filled the air, but it felt heavier, dampened by something unseen yet tangible—despair, maybe. A slow, sinking sensation settled into your bones before you even took a step forward.
Did he lose in the game? You wondered, letting your gaze sweep over the multiple screens in his setup. but there was no new game on display. Instead, strings of data filled the monitors, lines of statistics and files that hinted at something far more serious. Had he already begun hacking the game? Or was this related to his unofficial internship at STYX?
Idia sat hunched at his desk, wearing the familiar pajamas you'd come to associate with the version of him that had grown comfortable around you. His knees were drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around himself in a posture that spoke of exhaustion. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, his normally wild hair casting deep shadows over his hollowed-out expression. The way he curled in on himself was almost childlike, a feeble, pitiful attempt at self-soothing.
You nearly laughed—an instinctive, misplaced reaction to lighten your own mood. but you tactfully swallowed it down.
Instead, you focused on what he had invited you here for. "Which game was released?" You ask instead, kicking off your shoes and coming up behind him.
The moment you moved behind him, his reaction was immediate. He shut the files in a heartbeat, screens flickering back to something more benign. But the damage was done. You'd already seen it. And the unease pooling in your gut only grew.
You didn't like the way Idia seemed to mirror the way you felt.
Slowly, his eyes drifted toward you and something about his gaze unsettled you. It was blank, hollow. No nervous darting, no anxious fiddling with his sleeves. For once, Idia didn't look away. His stare was unwavering—determined, but utterly hopeless all at once.
It made you want to stand a little taller—to brace yourself, because whatever this was, whatever had brought him to this point—you had a feeling you weren't going to like it.
"Idia?"
He doesn't answer right away. When he finally speaks, his voice is eerily flat. Clinical in a way that makes your stomach twist.
"...Take off your jacket."
You blink. What?
"It's—no. It's cold. Your room is always freezing." You argue, your throat tightening. You don't like the way the air suddenly feels heavy, pressing in on you.
Idia's fingers twitch. "You won't."
A shiver crawls up your spine, and it has nothing to do with the temperature. Something is wrong. You can feel it in your bones, in the way your limbs feel impossibly heavy—like gravity itself has turned against you, dragging you down under the weight of something unspoken, something ugly.
The creak of Idia's chair cuts through the suffocating silence as he turns to face you fully. His expression is... off. The usual awkward hesitance is gone, replaced by something raw and strained. His lips are parted, as if he wants to say something, but the words refused to come—lodged in his throat like razors, threatening to spill blood if he forces them out.
"What are you?"
The question lands like a dagger between your ribs. You inhale sharply—a mistake. "Idia, what—"
"No." His voice trembles, and his hands curled into fists, the fabric of his pants bunching under his white-knuckled fingers "No, don't—don't do that." His breathing is shallow, uneven. "Tell me; What are you?"
He sounds afraid. but not of you. No—he's afraid of knowing, of confirming whatever terrible thing is clawing at the edges of his mind.
"You're not normal. You know that, right?" His words stammer out, breath hitching. "You—you're not even cold when you should be. Do you—do you even realize that?"
A laugh escapes him, the sound ragged and worn—nearly broken. His voice rises, faster, breaking, unraveling. "You haven't noticed it, have you? You haven't said a damn thing about it—my room is negative six degrees." His voice climbs higher, fraying apart. "It's freezing—!"
Your blood runs cold—colder than it already was. You hadn't noticed the way his breath fogged in the air with every exhale. Your jaw locks shut, a dull sting in your palms forcing you to realize you've clenched your fists too tight, nails biting deep into your skin.
"Ortho scanned you." The words come out rushed, panicked. "I didn't think much of it at first, but— but I kept thinking, and looking and—" He swallows hard, struggling to force the words out. "I've seen those numbers before! T-that's what happens before an overblot takes over, except—it's not stopping. You're—"
His voice breaks, filled with despair. "You're frozen there."
You step back, arms instinctively coming up as if to shield yourself from the weight of his words. "Idia—"
He cries out your name, standing abruptly. The motion is almost aggressive, but then—he hesitates, body almost jolting forward before he stumbles back as if afraid to get any closer.
"No. No, don't act like I'm crazy! You know something's wrong, don't you?!" His voice is raw, frayed at the edges like he's spent nights crying until his throat was raw. "I'm not an idiot—look at you!"
His gaze locked onto your finger—the Blot ring. Moving to hide it like a fool, you only further incriminated yourself. You were too flustered, too out of your element. A person that thrives in carefully articulated plans will never blossom in unexpected situations and confrontations.
Silence stretched between you, tense, suffocating and then, finally—his voice drops to a whisper. "That's a Blot stone, isn't it?"
Your jaw clenched as you forced a smile, trying to get the upper hand again. "It was a gift from a friend."
Not a lie.
But not the truth, either.
Because the Blot—whatever it is, whatever you are to it—is not something you can explain. Not something you can put into words.
He watched you in silence, his gaze heavy, searching—like he could drag the truth out of you by sheer force of will. The room felt smaller, the air thinner, the walls pressing in and closing the space between you. Your skin prickled, instincts screaming at you to move, to run—but your feet refused to obey.
He was closer than he'd ever dared to be before, breath shallow and uneven, pupils contracted into pinpricks. it was the look of someone who had seen something they were never meant to see.
He was afraid.
"It's Blot, isn't it?" His voice is softer now—not less intense, just careful. As if he were unraveling a puzzle, and each word was another thread pulling the truth closer. "How? You don't have magic—so how? You didn't get sick, you weren't cursed—"
The silence stretched thick between you, swallowing the hum of his electronics, turning the once-familiar background noise into an irritating drone. You said nothing, but it was enough.
He exhaled a short, bitter laugh, devoid of humor. A wry smile flickered across his lips, brief and brittle. "I can't believe I didn't notice sooner. I mean, of course—! Of course, it had to be something like this. The first real friend I make and they're some... monster."
Your breath hitched, anger rising fast, sharp and sudden. Your fingers curled into fists, nails biting into your palms. Monster? He had no idea—no idea what you had sacrificed, what you had done to survive.
Idia noticed the shift immediately, his expression faltering. He took a step back and bumped into his desk, drawing out a low curse. "How much of you is still here?" he asked, and this time, his voice was small and fragile. "Did I ever get to meet you? Were you ever real?"
The words should have gutted you. Maybe later they would, but right now, there was no time for doubt—no time for guilt. You had come too far, had too much left undone to let this shake you.
So you smiled. Soft, careful, deceptive. A picture of warmth despite the cold seeping from your skin. You took a slow step forward the same way people approached startled animals.
Idia almost broke right there. How could you smile like that—so beautifully, so effortlessly—when he was holding your rotten truth right in front of you? He wanted to scream, to cry, to beg you to undo it. He wanted to pull you into a rare embrace and promise that it would be okay.
"It doesn't matter what I am." You you began, voice steady despite the way your lungs are closing at the fact you're admitting it to yourself. "I'm here, Idia. See? I'm real." Your words were flowery and sweet rivaling powdered sugar. Cold hands met his as you laced your fingers together gently—as if they belonged together, tilting your head up to meet his terrified gaze once again.
Your hands, impossibly cold, found his and laced together. Gentle, deliberate as if they belonged that way. His breath stuttered and yellow eyes widened, darting between you and the affectionate embrace. The chill of your skin confirmed his worst fears, but still, his heart pounded at your saccharine touch. A traitorous part of him bloomed with hope—hope that maybe, just maybe, things could still be okay.
You both exhaled.
A cloud of mist curled from Idia's lips.
None came from yours.
The walls pressed in again, suffocating and constricting like a serpent.
His expression shattered. "'Real?'" he echoed, the word brittle, dangerous in its quietness. "You think—?" He lets out another sharp, shaky breath, his breathing picking up, hands trembling in yours. He wanted to pull away, but they constricted instead, holding you tighter. "Real people don't have to convince others they're real."
The words cut deep. A blade straight through your skull.
And then he laughed. not out of amusement—but the hollow, broken sound people make when they don't know whether to scream or cry. His shoulders shake, and his fingers press hard against your knuckles like he's grasping at anything—even you—to keep himself together.
"You're dying." Idia whispered.
"You're already dead." His voice was eerily calm now. Empty as he sunk to the ground, dragging you down with him.
"And I don't know what I'm supposed to do with you."
The walk home was slow, the silence stretching thick and suffocating. Creeping whispers slithered into your mind, sharp-toothed and insidious, gnawing at the edges of your consciousness. You had left without a word, untangling yourself from him with a violent jerk—shoving him away as if his touch burned.
Only now did the look on his face register. The hurt. The despair.
Guilt settled into your gut like a stone. He was terrified—not just of you, but of what you had done, of what you had become. Idia's questions sent your thoughts spiraling, prying open doors you had never dared to unlock. Before now, your focus had been singular, your purpose unwavering. And yet—had you ever truly thought beyond that goal?
Had you ever been anything else?
Your pace quickened. Unknowingly, you gnawed at your thumbnail, gaze unfocused, lost in the labyrinth of your own mind. You had no destination, only the restless movement of your feet leading you anywhere, nowhere.
Were you ever real?
As you passed the window, the dark pane caught your reflection—a sight you had no desire to face. Yet, before you could stop yourself, your pace faltered and you drew closer. The sound of your footsteps echoed, hollow and distant, swallowed by the wind that howled like a living thing, shrieking in the shell of your ear.
The stranger in the glass stared back, their expression twisting in revulsion, lips curled in a sneer as if the very thought of mirroring you was unbearable.
Were your eyes always that color, that shape...?
You couldn't bear to look.
The thought burrowed under your skin like maggots in rotting flesh, itching, writhing, unbearable. They skittered through your veins like they belonged there with you and bile rose in your throat, bitter and acrid. You wanted to claw yourself open—to dig out whatever filth lay inside and present it to a watchful divinity, to dissect yourself beneath the eye of heaven, to strip away this diseased existence and return to nothingness once again. To be the faceless, nameless void again.
"Am I a corpse?" you whispered into an empty night.
The world only answered with silence. Cold. Oppressive. Cruel.
Your teeth clenched so tightly that the pressure throbbed in your skull, tension coiling like barbed wire and you felt something wet slide down your arm. Blinking, you pulled your hand back.
The nail-biting had evolved into something worse—your thumb torn open, the flesh peeled away to ragged strips down to the bone. It glistened in the moonlight, pale and wet, like a shard of quarts freshly unearthed.
Your breath hitched and hands trembled, but the pain hadn't set in yet—adrenaline drowning it out like restless tides.
A laugh bubbled up, fragile and unhinged, teetering on the razor's edge between hysteria and horror. It spilled past your lips in a wavering exhale, like a drunken ballerina twirling toward oblivion.
Your vision swam, locking onto the raw, ruined digit when a mortifying thought occurred to you—one that felt nearly alien.
It's already severed enough.
Might as well finish the job.
Before you could sink your teeth into the rest of your thumb, shadows lashed around your wrist, yanking your hand away with sharp, bruising force.
The Blot materialized before you, its form flicking like a nightmare barely held together, face unreadable—featureless, shifting—but you could feel its glare, an icy pressure boring into your skull like an icepick.
The slender digits wrapped around your arm only tightened, sending a dull ache up your elbow as your fingers numbed beneath the crushing force. Cold blood still dripped sluggishly down your skin and for a moment you thought the Blot might reprimand you, scold you for damaging yourself. After all, it needed you intact, didn't it? Alive and whole?
Then again... you couldn't quite recall the exact terms of your contract, the entire encounter seemed far away and blurry.
Instead, the Blot's voice dipped into something almost gentle, low and intimate in a way that made your spine stiffen.
"My... What have you done to yourself, little star?" It murmured, its words gliding over you like silk, knowing and low. "I warned you not to go to that boy's room... What happened?"
Despite the soft tone, its grip remained ironclad. A brittle, breathless laugh escaped your lips, the force of it making you dizzy. "He knows—Idia knows." You searched the Blot's face for any sign of deception, anything to suggest this was another game it was playing with you. It always seemed to know more than it let on, and foolishly you hoped it knew how to fix this predicament. "Actually... he seems to know more than I do. Why is that?"
You sounded far more vulnerable and accusatory than you'd have liked, making you cringe internally.
Your head swam. It was getting harder to focus, harder to breathe. Lungs grew stiff, like rigor mortis had set in and the muscle was now too firm to move. Even the fresh forest air seemed repulsed to enter your bloodstream.
The Blot's free hand materialized a handkerchief, dabbing away the streaks of blood down your arm with an eerie, deliberate tenderness. It pressed the cloth against your wound, the pressure grounding you just enough to feel the sting. "He's smart," it mused, voice edged with something unreadable. "Threateningly so. I advise you avoid him, darling. He's no good for you."
A pause. A breath. Then, softer—almost an afterthought, spoken like arsenic honey: "Or remove him. Anything for your goal, right?"
The casual suggestion sent an involuntary shudder down your spine, your body tensing on instinct. The moment of vulnerable hesitation was all it needed. Before you could react, the Blot lifted your injured hand—bringing it to its face. It was warm—soft—something you'd never have expected from something like it. You could feel its breath against your wrist as it nuzzled into your palm, quietly begging you to adore it the way it adores you.
Before you could realize it, the Blot's breath gently fanning against your finger as it took your thumb into its mouth, the sensation stinging for a moment.
A sharp inhale caught in your throat. Its tongue was warm, contrasting against its otherwise frigid presence, the sensation having an odd numbing effect that dulled the throb of your injury now that the adrenaline was wearing off.
You scrutinized the Blot in the short moment as it seemed to savor the taste of you—gazing at you with something dark and devoted, like an adoring lover, something dangerously akin to reverence as if you'd given it every star in the sky.
Even worse—you felt sickeningly safe in the weight of that adoration, the realization digging the knife deeper into your gut. For the first time in what felt like forever, warmth seeped into you—real, tangible and you almost leaned into it, instinctively reaching for something genuine, something real.
Connection. Affection.
The realization crashed over you like cold water, and you yanked your hand back, barely avoiding the scrape of its teeth. Your mouth opened, poised to scold it—to revel in the kicked-puppy demeanor it always assumed when chastised—only for your breath to catch on something else entirely.
Your thumb was healed perfectly as if never damaged but left behind was a mark—a scar shaped like teeth, a deep, pitch-black imprint that looked less like healed flesh and more like a crack into the void itself. The mark had seemed more like a brand upon your flesh, reminiscent of the lace-like markings overblotters had.
Instinctively, you tried to wipe it off—only to realize it stubbornly refused to fade.
"All better." the Blot chirped, the previous air of seduction vanishing in an instant. It slipped effortlessly back into that playful persona, as if it hadn't just done something deeply intimate.
There was no time to respond as the Blot suddenly jolted, its form flickering before vanishing into nothing and a sound echoed behind you—footsteps.
Someone was coming.
Folding your thumb into your fist, you shoved your hands in your pockets and turned, your gaze landing on a familiar figure—sandy hair catching the dim light, tired blue eyes flicking toward you with something unreadable in them. Ruggie.
Relief almost escaped in a sigh. You and Ruggie had worked together before—odd jobs, small schemes, and a shared understanding of the little sacrifices needed to survive. In time, a comfortable camaraderie had formed. You'd earned his favor, trust, and respect taking on extra work when exhaustion clung to him like chains in deep water. That familiarity should have steadied you. It should have made this easier.
But the weight pressing against your ribs, heavy and suffocating, refused to let up.
Lately, guilt had followed you like a stray dog, skulking in your shadow, nosing at your heels, whining for scraps of attention you refused to give. You tried to convince yourself it was misplaced, that you were entitled to the power you'd clawed for and deserving of the luxuries you'd earned. And yet, in the quiet of the night, when there was no one left to lie to, the thoughts gnawed at the edges of your resolve.
What if they didn't deserve this? What if they were undeserving of your plan for revenge?
By now, the dog had devoured you, leaning nothing but bones in its wake and it heavily impacted your interactions these days.
You forced a smile, ignoring the weakness in your knees, the warble in your voice. "Ruggie? It's late. What're you doing out here?" You chuckled and motioned him over.
His hesitation was slight but enough to send a ripple of unease through you. "Sam has a sale before closing," he muttered, glancing toward the direction of the shop before his gaze flickered back. "Gets rid of stuff that doesn't sell." Ruggie's voice trailed off, distracted.
"Hey... what was that?" He inched closer and set down his bag of groceries, gaze lingering on the spot in the forest clearing earlier where the Blot once stood.
Your stomach dropped, throat constricting as if barbed wire circled it like a serpent going in for a kill.
Ruggie sat straighter than usual, ears perked, tail stiff with bristling fur. Dull blue eyes locked onto you, scrutinizing and sharp. No room to play dumb, no easy escape. You opened your mouth, a defense already forming but he cut you off before you could speak.
"That shadow thing." His nose wrinkled, displeased. "It was creepy... Are you okay? Was that a campus ghost?" Ruggie had an idea of what it was, one he really didn't want to confirm or think was possible.
The concern burned like acid on your skin and for a split second your carefully constructed expression wavered.
He saw. He knew.
The thoughts whirled around in your head, a flurry of panic, anger, and grief. Too many people knew. Involuntarily, you found your mind circling back to the Blot's suggestion: Or remove him. the words were small in the back of your head, but they burned like hot iron.
You... wouldn't do that.
You're not that bad.
Lying once again felt like swallowing something foul, but your teeth were already rotten from all the saccharine lies fallen from your lips like angels.
What was one more? You're doomed anyway.
You let out a sigh, feigning exhaustion, and tilted your head back, the weight of the thoughts locked inside were too much to hold up. Your eyes lidded, shifted to meet Ruggie's and you chuckled. "Worried for little old me?" You teased, voice low and calm, betraying the tyrannical storm within.
You shifted your tone to allow a hint of vulnerability to slip through, creasing your brows and making him feel special—after all, you're opening up to him out of everyone else. "After the overblots, something changed. Maybe it was the repeated exposure to all that strong magic, maybe I've been here too long."
What a bad lie. You continued it anyway. "I've been practicing getting used to it. Applying the stuff I've learned in class really is fun. Don't tell, okay?"
It sounded fake even to you, but you prayed to whatever gods would listen that Ruggie would believe it.
The gods refused to answer.
Ruggie chuckled and crossed his arms, disbelief clear. "Hah? Are you pullin' my tail? You just- developed magic? What about the Yuus then?" His arms crossed, tail flicking once, sharply. "You expect me to believe that?"
Irritation flickered behind your eyes. Damn Blot. It's harder to lie when someone sees clear proof. Before you could respond, Ruggie's expression shifted, voice dipping into something softer, nearly hesitant. "Just... don't do anything too stupid, yeah? What will I do if my favorite coworker vanishes?"
It was clear he understood the lengths desperation led someone to. You must've had a reason, and clearly you didn't want to talk about it. Ruggie wasn't sure what you'd done, but as long as you're okay... it should be fine, right?
Internally you pumped your fist and attempted to direct the conversation to something else. "What about Yuuka?" You ask, a playful lilt in your tone.
"She's in sometimes. Leona gets Yuuka to do some errands like me, but we're never assigned to anything together—just two chores at once. Boring, lonely." He drawled, one ear flicking sharply at something that irritated it.
You nodded quickly, eager to let the previous topic fade before the cracks in your façade grew too wide. But Ruggie wasn't looking at your face now, no longer quietly admiring the angles and shape—his gaze had dipped lower, posture stiffening.
The handprint on your forearm was still there—your poor circulation kept it clear and visible, blood still hadn't rushed to fill in the space beneath your skin, leaving a clear, pale mark on your flesh.
Your stomach twisted violently, dread, your forlorn lover, gripping you tightly. It felt like you were drowning in sand; Gritty, dark, uncomfortable, and excruciating.
You wanted to give up.
Ruggie reached for your wrist, his fingers barely moving before you wrenched back, springing to your feet so fast you felt lightheaded. The boy's gaze darkened, expression creasing with annoyance and concern.
"You know, you've been acting really damn weird." he muttered. His tail bristled further, ears twitching. "It was always strange how you just showed up one day—not just stepping on stage with the others. Nobody even remembers seeing you there anyway. You just appeared one day. One day you were nobody, and then suddenly..." His lips pressed together, eyes shining with unspoken feelings. "You were somebody. To everyone. To me—please just tell me what's wrong."
There was an edge to his voice now, sharp and unforgiving yet hurt and confused. "And now you're jumpy, your excuses suck, and I saw whatever the hell that shadow was."
It was too much. Your senses overloaded, screaming at you to do something. Every nerve ending was firing conflicting signals and your body felt hot for once.
Or remove him.
Ruggie never got the chance to say more.
You lunged, mind going blank. Not now. Gods not now. You didn't want to think of your circumstances, or your life, or what you'd once been and now are. It hurt. It all hurt.
Ruggie reacted fast—he always did and it was admirable, but this wasn't a fight he knew how to win. It was brutal, desperate, nearly on the same level as fights the ones he'd get into for scraps of food as a child—and yet this was worse, like your entire life depended on it.
He fought back hard, scrappy as ever, teeth bared in something between a snarl and a plea. But you weren't just fighting to win.
You were fighting to end this.
He didn't want to hurt you. Ruggie needed you to stop— to listen..!
His mind spun, air cruelly knocked from his lungs as he hit the ground. The world seemed to churn as he tried to focus his gaze. Your weight pressed against his chest, arms pinned beneath your knees. Ruggie attempted to focus, but his vision swam from the impact.
A monster towered over him, primal by every meaning of the word, heaving and desperate. Its eyes were a cocktail of rage, yet tears spilled from them—the eyes he admired that once held so much conviction now full of sorrow.
A rock was held above your head, one too large for you to have been able to pick up in such a short amount of time, yet poised to come down on him.
This isn't happening.
In the space between heartbeats, he felt it come down.
The crunch echoed in his ears as they filled with blood.
Skull collapsing like a shattered pastry. The bones splintering, cartilage crumbling beneath the force of it. Over and over again—
No.
His body jerked. The scene in his mind unraveled in an instant, yet the bloodlust in your eyes lingered, making it feel real.
His breath hitched, shallow and frantic, ears flattening so hard they almost ached. Every instinct in him screamed at him to run, but his body remained frozen, muscles locked in tight animalistic panic.
When you hesitated, a weak sob escaping you, the stone slipped from your hands and landed with a dull thud beside his head and your body crumbled like paper on top of Ruggie. Whatever spell of despair you were under shattered under the pressure.
Ruggie scrambled away, breath ragged, body trembling. His usual smirk was absent, snark stolen by something colder, something raw. No jokes, no clever remarks. Just wide, fearful eyes staring up at you like he was seeing you for the first time—was this the real you?
You were going to kill him.
And yet against all logic, against the terror still clawing up his throat and clutching his heart-
Ruggie was still worried for you—the way a loyal dog is despite the way its master treats it.
This monster hunched over on the forest floor, wracked with sorrow unimaginable—even by the divine—was still somebody's baby. This monster wanted to go home and fall into the embrace of somebody safe.

Chapter 5: 5

What a foolish, hollow victory—if it should even be called that. A pyrrhic triumph over peers and acquaintances alike, leaving them stranded in the no-man's-land between your hatred and a sickening semblance of friendship you could never quite trust. The confrontation with Idia, the attack on Ruggie—it was a mess, a tangled web of conflict and resentment.
And yet at least nobody had told.
You hadn't been dragged away by STYX, hadn't been locked up in some sterile, white-walled cell to be picked apart and studied for the rest of your life. That, at least, was something.
Your misanthropy had always been a shield—cold, unwavering, impenetrable. But now, it was a curse. The more you resented others, the more you unraveled. Every conversation, every fleeting glance, every whispered word—each one a scalpel sliding deeper into your skin, peeling you open, exposing too much.
You're tired. So tired.
Your eyes have been open too long, staring too hard, too often. But the worst part? The horrors you see don't lurk in the shadows. They aren't some unspeakable nightmare clawing at the edges of your perception.
No.
The monster was you.
Grotesque. Disgusting. Clawing at your own flesh, as if you could tear through the layers and find something—someone—else beneath. But there's nothing. only guilt, thick and suffocating, warring against the weight of your past, your bitter philosophies, your carefully constructed armor.
And now?
The future looms over you like a coiled serpent, ready to strike. But will you? Can you even lift a finger? The world continues its endless droning, conversations whirling like an unbearable cacophony of false normalcy. All you can do it listen. Nod. Smile. Pretend.
They're noticing.
They know.
Again and again, you perform autopsies on long-passed conversations, dissecting them, sifting through every word, every inflection, searching something—desperate—for any hint of deception. Any sign that someone knows too much. The paranoia festers, warping misanthropy into nemesism, a slow, spiraling collapse into something far worse.
You're cornered.
Pushed further and further until you can see it—two escape routes, each leading to another cage. One path is damnation. The other, salvation. But which voice speaks the truth?
The Blot, which saved your life once, whispering in its sick, twisted devotion? Or the people who ignored you until recently—who now, finally, claim to care?
You think both paths are liars.
You try to push it down—the gnawing, the clawing need to confront it—but Kalim's voice cuts through the noise like sunlight piercing the thick fog. Too bright, too warm, too alive.
His touch is an anchor, grounding you in the present, pulling you away from the grimy wretched thoughts that coil around your mind like ivy. His bright smile nearly soothes the tension in your shoulders. nearly.
He's been talking for the past fifteen minutes, his voice a constant stream of energy, filling the silence with anecdotes and half-finished tangents. no one is really listening. His words blur together, melting into a foreign language you don't quite register.
And thankfully, Kalim, and his fleeting attention span, hasn't caught onto your blank stare.
But Jamil has.
A sharp, dissecting gaze—gray eyes that pin you down like an insect under glass. Another bolt of paranoia crawls up your spine, tearing through the delicate strands holding you together. You feel bare before him, exposed and unraveling, as if he's already seen the cracks beneath your carefully placed mask. Does he know? The thought is suffocating, bile rising at the mere possibility.
You force a façade of normalcy, pushing a curious smile to your lips as you shift your attention back to Kalim, who practically vibrates in place, eager for your acknowledgement, like a starved pet desperate for affection.
In his hands, he holds a small charm, raising it up to the sunlight. The rays filter through the red stained glass, casting fractured, beautiful patterns across his face. The delicate craftsmanship, the way the light dances through it—it's undeniably pretty. Something you could admit you would've liked to have as your own.
"I was so worried I lost it," Kalim sighs, cradling the charm close like a treasured relic. "You still have yours, right? Even Jamil has his."
At the mention of his name, Jamil doesn't look up immediately, his gaze fixed on his phone. but there's a brief flicker—his eyes dart up, assessing. As if to prove Kalim's point, he idly taps the charm dangling from his phone case, his movements slow and calculated. He's watching you. Studying your reaction.
He's not dumb.
Jamil has been noticing something is off. He's ignored it before, brushed it aside as nothing more than stress or fatigue. but it's only getting worse. There's something eating away at you, a secret that is detrimental if you let it slip. And yet you're floundering, barely holding it together.
A weakness.
Your brows furrow, curiosity gnawing at the edges of your mind. "Mine?"
Shifting forward, you lean over Jamil, peering at his charm closely. He stiffens slightly, his fingers tightening around his phone as he raises it a little higher—keeping a small distance between you. A faint flush dusts his complexion. Under different circumstances, his reaction might have been amusing.
But you don't have time to dwell on it.
There's a gap in your memory.
Kalim nods eagerly, his smile wide and unburdened. "Right, when we went to the carnival in town!"
A ghost of a memory slips through your fingers, fragmented and fleeting. Laughter—warm and unrestrained. Close touches and easy smiles. The sticky sweetness of popcorn and candy floss. The world spinning, a song hummed under breaths.
It's warm.
Like something meant for you, a fate you could've had—if not for the unfortunate circumstances you're in now.
"When?" you ask softly.
For a moment, the weight of earlier, the crushing paranoia and gnawing fear, is subdued by that fleeting warmth. but only briefly.
"Yesterday," Jamil interjects, his voice sharper than before, tinged with something unreadable—concern, maybe, or something far heavier. His fingers tighten around his phone as if he could hold onto the memory through sheer force of will alone. "How could you forget an entire night? We had that talk about..."
He trails off. The words slip away before they fully form, vanishing like breath against a mirror. His grip on his phone turns vice-like, knuckles going white as if he's trying to physically pull the recollection back before it disappears entirely.
Beside him, Kalim's usual endless chatter has died. The brightness of his expression dims, his ever-present smile cracking at the edges, like something inside him has soured. His lips part hesitantly, but there's a twitch—something unnatural, like his mind is stumbling over itself, tripping on a step that should be there but isn't.
"We went with... with..."
Silence
The world holds its breath.
Kalim's lips move. A name escapes.
It should be yours.
But it's not.
It's close, familiar in shape, in sound, yet wrong—warped, like a reflection ripping in water. A name that belongs to you yet it doesn't, slipping through your grasp like sand.
An old name.
Jamil stiffens beside him. His brows furrow, his expression shifting—anger, confusion, unease flashing across his face in rapid succession. His eyes flick between Kalim, you, his phone, as if willing reality to correct itself. "That's not—" He stops abruptly, his breath hitching. "That's not right."
And something colder than fear pierces through you.
The name—it should fit, should settle against your ribs like something natural. but it doesn't. Because it's not yours.
And yet, at the same time, it clings to you, molding around your existence like it was meant to be there.
A sickness rises in your gut, curling tight around your spine. In the fragile space between heartbeats, something inside you shatters.
You've been ignoring too much. Brushing things off, making excuses, blaming yourself when cracks showed. Too many things have been wrong, buried under a rug now bulging with hidden lies and misplaced truths. Why had you let it go on for so long? Why had you chosen to turn a blind eye—when the one who holds all the answers lingers on your finger, waiting, curled up in the corners of your room?
Your ears ring. The static hum of something beyond your understanding gnaws at the edges of your mind as you push yourself to your feet. Even the Blot ring on your finger seems to tremble, as if it, too, can feel the wrongness in the air. As if everyone in the room knows something is amiss but cannot grasp What.
"I... need to go." you murmur, voice barely above a whisper.
Questions claw at your skull, pressing against the fragile limits of your mind, until you feel like you might burst.
Your legs move before thought can catch up, leading you toward Ramshackle, the only place where you might find the answers. but—no. Ramshackle means the Yuus, Grim, maybe even others visiting. You can't risk it.
You walked and walked.
Through the dense thicket, past the towering silhouettes of trees standing like silent sentinels, bearing witness to your undoing. Head bowed, shoulders heavy, as if an invisible crown of burden laid upon your brow, pressing down against your skull. The world around you blurred into a smear of muted colors, but the sound of your footsteps rang clear—too clear. Foreign to your ears, like an echo that didn't belong to you.
You weren't alone. Yet every glance over your shoulder met nothing but empty space, the stretch of the forest swallowing anything that should have been there. Desolation wrapped around you like a second skin, suffocating, watching. The wind whistled through the leaves, its wailing voice desperate to warn you of something, but the message slipped through the cracks of your understanding.
Even nature forbids your being here.
The gnarled roots and stray branches tangled at your feet, snagging at your ankles as if they, too, wished to keep you away—to shelter you from whatever lay ahead. The trees loomed too tall, their skeletal arms blotting out the sky. The moonlight poured in thin, needle-like strands through the gaps, sharp and cold as if it, too, sought to carve something into you.
And through the tangled wild, you found it.
Ruins—crumbling yet standing, broken yet enduring. Whatever it once was had been devoured by time or perhaps an untold story long lost to history. Even in its decay, the quartz and marble shimmered beneath the moon's gaze, stubborn against the age's relentless grip. Thick vines and sprawling branches crept over the walls like veins, an eerie reclamation of forgotten artistry. You couldn't help but think Malleus would love this.
At the heart of it all, a statue—a grand angel, arms outstretched as if to descend from the heavens, delivering divine whispers to the mortal world. but its head was gone, shattered and lost to time, leaving behind a faceless messenger. A list, etched in Old Runics, lined the pedestal, but the words—words you felt you should know—were now unreadable.
Scattered across the ruin, fragments of stone faces lay strewn like gravestones, watching.
How you wished for any divine being to descend and grant you answers...
But no one would come.
Pushing forward, you dismissed the place's whispers, its heavy history pressing against your skin. You had something more pressing, something that burned hotter than the eerie beauty of forgotten stone and untold stories.
"Out."
Your voice cut through the hush of the ruins, a command wrapped in quiet restraint. The turmoil beneath your skin twisted, writing against the mask of control you forced upon yourself.
Silence stretched, a fraction of a second too long.
Your eyes narrowed, fixed on the darkened edges of the forest, where the trees bent too sharply, where the shadows swayed too unnaturally.
"Come out."
For once, it was you who summoned it. Not in fear. Not in desperation. But in demand—something long overdue. Something you were entitled to.
The Blot unfurled from the ring like ink bleeding into water, its form shifting in the dim moonlight as it fully materialized. For a fleeting moment, it didn't acknowledge you. Instead, its attention was fixed elsewhere—on the ruins surrounding you. It stood unnaturally still, a rare moment where its usual theatricality faded into something... uncertain. Unsettled.
It refused to turn towards the shattered statues. its gaze darted away from the broken faces lining the ground, feet shuffling as it stumbled over a stray stone. A visceral reaction.
You took it all in, gaze sharpening. Did it know this place? Did something about these ruins repel it?
The Blot barely had time to recover its balance before its attention snapped back to you. The discomfort melted into something else—something almost reverent. Relief. Delight.
It reached for you, dark fingers stretching forward, curling as if it could trace the lines of your face. "Yes, my dea—"
You slapped its hand away and the sound echoed, sharp and final.
The Blot froze, staring at the space between you, where your touch rejected it.
"Answers." It took a step back. You took one forward.
For the first time, you were looking at it. Truly looking. And it—it shuddered. Not in fear. No, something worse. Limerence—a dreadful, aching devotion. Like it had been waiting for this moment, dreading it, yearning for it, something twisted and hollow all at once.
"Of course." It breathes, a reverent hush, voice soft and distracted. Its breath was hot against your face—only further invoking your ire.
Why does it get to have warmth while you walk around like some glorified corpse?
The questions rose within you, a flood pressing against the walls of your mind, demanding release. You swallowed them back, choosing carefully.
"Why did you really do it—the contract?"
The Blot exhaled, something between a sigh and a chuckle, dragging a hand down its face. It sank onto a piece of rubble with an ease too practiced, too comfortable, its posture a mockery of casualness.
"It was an attractive opportunity to me. That was all."
Liar.
You felt the lie in your bones, the cold, dead space where something vital should have been. it was too easy. The answer came too smoothly, like a script rehearsed a thousand times over.
"Is that it?" You asked, voice deceptively calm, leashing the fury that clawed at your throat. If you lost control, you lost the game. You needed clarity to cut through its deceptions. "How does this benefit you? A mere test—that is your only motive for helping me?
The Blot tensed.
Not obviously. Not enough for the untrained eye. But you saw it. A subtle shift, a fraction of hesitation, something almost imperceptible. It wasn't your anger that unsettled it, but the fact you were seeing through it.
Something inside it twisted, recoiling. For the first time, you were under its skin.
Like a tick.
"How could I not?" it purred, stepping forward, the distance between you an unbearable thing it sought to close. "Crimson purity staining the snow—doll carnage. You were beautiful. Perfect. I was playing, testing how well magicless bodies full of hatred and despair hold me.
A flowery lie. Flimsy in the same nature.
You heard it in the way its voice wavered when it spoke too loudly, in the way its words slipped, momentarily unguarded. It struggled to lie to you.
And yet, the way it longed for you, ached for you, seeped into your marrow like venom. It adored you in a way that felt like hands slipping between your ribs, prying them open, peeling muscle from bone to cradle your heart in its hands. To own it. To press it close and be the only one privileged enough to hear the final melody of your life before it faded into nothing.
It reached for you again—a deliberate move, a test of control.
This conversation was not just words. It was war. A battle for dominance. A struggle to decide who will belong to whom when it ends—if two of you emerge at all.
"You hold me perfectly," it crooned, its voice weaving through your thoughts like a lullaby, sweet and saccharine and cloying. "So you'll be good for me."
A whisper of something unseen curled around the words, an invisible force creeping in. You felt it now—the subtle manipulations, the tiny, practiced tricks it used to keep you beneath its thumb. Its outstretched hand was not just a gesture. It was a leash waiting to be fastened.
You swatted its hand away, forceful, decisive. Your eyes darkened.
You knew the moment you allowed it to touch you, to warm you, to let its honeyed words wrap around you like a noose—you will lose.
Its expression twitched. The rejection—your sudden, ice-cold shift—had unsettled it.
"Do not mistake my kindness for weakness," it murmured, voice softer, but laced with something colder. A slow, creeping shift beneath its mask. "I'll choke you with the same hand I fed you with, my dear."
The Blot seemed to smile then—if it could be called a smile. A grotesque mockery of the expression, teeth too sharp, eyes to knowing.
"There will always be a next time."
But it didn't sound certain.
You saw it then, the cracks in its confidence. Something crawling beneath the surface of its being—maggots of anxiety writhing beneath void-like flesh.
A brittle laugh tore through you—unnatural, humorless yet not unfamiliar these days.
"You don't really know that, do you?" your voice carried something sharp, something cruel, an edge to it that sent another ripple through the Blot's form. "'Next time?' Can I even still die? Can you manage next time?"
The Blot flickered violently, its form spasming, the darkness around you thickening as if the world itself was recoiling. Its reaction was visceral. Violent.
Fear.
You were slipping away. How could you?
Before it could recover, before it could cobble together a response, you forced a grin—wide, too wide. It pulled at your skin, the expression foreign, almost painful.
"Shall we test it, dear sponsor?"
The way it jolted—a full-body shudder, dark fingers curling into fists—wasn't just fear. It was something deeper. Something primal. Something it didn't want you to see. It didn't want to know. It refused to know.
And that told you everything you needed to hear.
It needed you as much as you needed it.
The Blot refused to meet your gaze. The ring on your finger, normally a passive weight, was cold. Cold enough for you to notice. The band trembled, betraying the entity's emotions in ways it would never admit.
Silence.
Real silence. The kind that stretched too thin, suffocating, when not even the Blot had something to say. When both of you were forced to acknowledge things neither of you ever wanted to think about. You loathed this silence.
Then, finally, the Blot exhaled. A slow, steady thing, like it was forcing itself back into form, fathering the shadows that had momentarily frayed at the edges. When it spoke, its voice was careful, deliberate. "I do not know."
The words were slow. Resigned. It had to force them out, had to drag them into existence.
Then, a pause. A long inhale. It straightened. its gaze sharpened, locking onto you with something unreadable. "I spoil you, my dear."
The shift was subtle but it felt like an iron door slamming shut between you. The fondness was back, creeping in like rot beneath fresh paint, like it hadn't just faltered, like it hadn't just broken for even a second. It leaned in, pressing closer as if seeking warmth you no longer bore. "Keeping your little mortal body alive is... taxing, you know."
Another pause. This one heavier.
"Perhaps you should make it easier for us. Go ahead—test it."
Barbed words—spite wrapped in velvet. A silent accusation. You had defied it too strongly tonight, and it resented you for it. So much was buried beneath its void-like flesh, history it would never share.
And yet, you still reached for it. Greedy, unyielding.
You pressed further, voice even, calculating. "Am I stronger than previous overblots?"
For a moment the tension cracked—not from unease, but from offense.
The Blot scoffed. "Of course—how weak do you think I am?" It straightened fully now, like the question itself was an insult. "I've given you everything. Far more than I'd have given to anybody else."
The words carried a weight—a reminder, a warning. Not of its power, but of your place. Of what it had poured into you, what it had made you. There was something else burned in that patronizing tone, something desperate and unspoken.
It couldn't stomach the thought of you leaving. Not in death. Not in defiance. It would rather have your hate than your absence.
And you—perhaps foolishly—let it pull you down into its grasp. Arms wrapped around you, pulling you to sit amongst the ruins, among the echoes of something long forgotten. It traced the shine of the stone in silence, as if admiring something you couldn't see, before finally resting its head against your shoulder.
The Blot's breathing was soft, Even. Too even.
"Now, now..." It whispered, voice honeyed, too gentle. "You're stressed, little star. I couldn't bear to witness a collapse from all of this..."
A pause. A careful lull in the rhythm of its words.
"Let's talk about it again later, yes?"
The arms tightened around you ever so slightly, as if securing you in place. "I'll walk with you home and—"
Another attempt. Another carefully placed detour. Another desperate bid to lead you away from things that could shatter the delicate illusion around you.
You had pushed too close to breaching something dangerous and now it was scrambling to lead you back.
"If I get rid of you, will I die?" The words were sharp, cutting through the thin air as you tilted your head back, your gaze unwavering. You stared into the vacant spots where its eyes should have been, your own eyes nearly devoid of any semblance of life. The coldness in your voice made it clear; this was no idle question. You were determined now, and the warpath you'd set yourself upon was one of demand. "Will I crumble and fold, returning to the state you found me in?"
It almost chuckled, but the amusement quickly faded into something darker. It was surprised by how much you had become like it, the blank stare, the chilling words wrapped in a thin veneer of a smile—you had become a mirror, and that reflection was something it hadn't anticipated. But beneath that initial amusement, something else coiled in the depths of its being; horror.
The idea of you pulling away, tearing it off of you, and crumbling in the process sent a deep shiver through its form. it couldn't lose you. Not now. Not after everything.
The Blot's grip tightened, just enough to make sure you knew it was still in control, still bound to you. Still connected. "You can't," it stammered, its voice rising in pitch, now tinged with panic. "You don't know how—you can't leave me anymore. You were meant to be here. If you leave me, I'll have to—"
It stopped abruptly, as though the thought was too much to handle. The flicker of its form, the instability in its presence, revealed how deeply that fear ran. The idea of losing you was more than just an inconvenience; it wasn't an existential terror that caused it to falter.
Satisfaction bloomed cold in your chest as you watched it unravel just slightly. The realization that you had more power here, more leverage than you'd ever given yourself credit for, was strangely comforting. but something darker followed—a flicker of unease, a sickening worry that it seemed far too willing to go to extreme lengths to keep you bound to it.
"You belong to me, my dove." Its voice softened, returning to the euphemistic tone it favored, the flowery language dripping with soft, seductive quality. "It's in the contract..." The words were wrapped in honey, almost coaxing you to accept its hold the same way it had when you first met. "I'd hate to see you wither away again. It broke my heart seeing you like that. I worked so hard... bringing some things back from your world. It was difficult, you know. That keychain, that call. I thought you'd be happy having a few things to make this feel like home. Do you know how hard it is to keep you hidden from them?"
Voice dropping lower, breathing blooming against your neck, the words now little more than a whisper meant to burrow beneath your cold flesh. "Stop digging. You will only find rot and carnage."
The words slithered into your ear, a sick, twisted whisper that sent a strange shiver down your spine—one that shouldn't have felt the way it did, but it did anyway. Your neglected heart, long buried beneath layers of apathy and indifference, beat just a little harder in response. You hated it. You certainly hated yourself for responding. This was all so sick
You're both sick.
But enough was enough. Enough rot. Enough desensitization.
You weren't done digging. You weren't done looking for the answers, whether that meant finding a heart that would warm the body against yours—or tearing its chest open until you saw all the lies laid bare, no heart, no warmth, nothing left but an empty, rotting shell.
Your head fell back against its shoulder, a motion that felt almost natural despite the heaviness pressing in around you. You tilted your gaze away from the Blot, eyes sweeping across the ruined remnants of the structure surrounding you. The ruins gleamed in the pale moonlight, fragments of marble and stone reflecting the chill, but the lifelessness of it was undeniable. Once, perhaps, this had been a place alive with warmth and movement—now it was little more than a husk, torn open and emptied, its ribs exposed to the indifferent sky above. The people who once filled it, with their quiet chatter, their bustling lives, were no more.
Just like you.
But the Blot held you in its grasp as if you were the most magnificent thing it had ever laid eyes on—as if you were the sun itself, illuminating the sky, or the moon, shining with a beauty too radiant to touch. To it, you were perfection, a creation so divine it could only have come from the heavens themselves.
"Do you love me? Or at least care for me?" The question slipped from your lips almost without thinking, soft and vulnerable. The words, simple and laden with months of quiet desperation, carried the weight of loneliness you hadn't known how to bear. The months had piled grief and yearning into your chest until it felt like grime, coating every inch of your thoughts, every inch of your soul. Beneath all the hatred, all the rage, there was a simple longing for affection, for anything that resembled warmth, from it or anyone else.
The Blot didn't respond immediately. It didn't move, didn't flinch. its form remained perfectly still as your hand rose slowly, almost instinctively, to trail across its chest, up to its neck.
A heartbeat. A pulse.
Strong and rapid, it thrummed beneath your fingertips like a living thing, blood rushing through its arteries at an unusual pace. "Your heart's beating fast." you noted quietly.
At your touch, the Blot's hand shot up, grabbing your wrist with a force that could have broken bone. it tried to pry you away, but it faltered—its fingers trembled slightly, and its body leaned into your touch, as if unwilling to let. Its neck craned further into your hand, a subtle surrender you could feel even through the tense, frozen air. You could hurt it, squeeze the life from it if you wished, and yet it stayed, willing, waiting—it would let you.
A shuddering breath escaped from its lips. Defeat lingered there, but beneath it, something else. Something like longing. And then, it spoke. The words were soft, dripping with something close to affection. "It is, my love. It is."
It didn't directly answer your earlier question, but its actions told you everything you needed to know. The Blot—this strange, unknowable entity—was more fragile than you had realized. it was closer to mortal than you had ever expected. Perhaps, it was more like you than either of you cared to admit.
The Blot's reticence was exhaustive, yet with every word it avoided, every vague response, only served to further unravel it more, to make it slip further from its carefully constructed façade. And with each fragment of truth revealed, it seemed to grow weaker to you, spilling secrets it desperately wished to hide. You could see it now—how much it feared being vulnerable, how much it needed you to remain close, even if it wouldn't admit it outright.
The air grew thick with silence. In the distance, the sea on Sage Island crashed against the jagged rocks, its roar a distant but constant reminder of something larger than both of you. A cold memory surfaced, one you'd try to bury deep in your mind. You had cast it into the sea, hoping it would be carried away forever, but like the tide, it always returned, washing back up to haunt you.
"So you care." It was a statement, not a question.
The Blot's pulse quickened, the rapid rhythm an unsettling contrast to the tenderness in its voice. "More than you could think." its shadowy fingers moved to cover your hand, pressing your cold touch closer to its neck, as if binding you to it in a way words never could. The pulse beneath your fingertips thrummed louder, faster, as if it was trying to prove something to you. Something it could never say with just words.
It was too much. All of it. And yet, somehow, the weight of its affection—distorted, twisted, and terrifying as it was—felt more real than anything else.
"Have you ever cared for another?" The question slipped from your lips with a quiet force, your gaze unflinching as the Blot's fingers twitched slightly against your hand. Another subtle tell. For a being you had once believed to be a master of deception, impervious to these small signs of weakness, it was becoming more and more apparent that the Blot wasn't as untouchable as it seemed. hesitation lingered in the air between you, the kind of silence that stretched on for far too long. Time itself seemed to drag, the irritation that had once simmered beneath the surface rising again.
"...Once." The response came quietly, almost inaudible. "Long before you. They saw every face I wore and loved me regardless. They loved me. And we were happy." The last part came out with a sharpness that was almost bitter, as if the mere mention of that happiness had reignited something long buried. Something painful. The words, harsh and raw, betrayed a history the Blot had tried to bury, and in its voice, you could hear the wound still fresh and tender.
You didn't let up, your questions firing like arrows aimed to kill. "Who?" "How did you meet?" "What happened to them?" But instead of answering, the Blot chose silence, almost petulantly ignoring you. It let out a disappointed whine when you retracted your hand from it, as if punishing it for not complying.
Frustrated, you pressed further. "Are you all the Blot in the world? Some kind of phantom?"
"I am beyond that," it snapped, its voice growing defensive. "How low do you think I am? The other overblots are handled by the others below me—followers." How else could I dedicate all my time to you, my dear?" There was offense in its tone, as if the suggestion you made had wounded its pride. it seemed to have an image of itself as something greater, something more powerful, and the idea of being reduced to something lesser, something controlled, disturbed it.
Your brows furrowed as the weight of its words began to sink in. A creature beyond the Blot, handling others beneath it, followers that served its whims. It spoke as if it were a rule of the shadows, an entity so ancient that time, the concept of it, no longer mattered. And yet, it had once cared for someone. Someone it loved. That alone contradicted everything you thought you understood.
"What were you before you became this then?" The question, even to your own ears, felt dangerous, too personal. The Blot froze at your words, momentarily stiffening. You could feel its nails dig into your sides, a sudden spike in tension coursing through it.
"What do you think?" The response came back sharp, the anger in its voice barely veiled. "Could you dare to comprehend me?" Its tone was almost accusatory, as if you had crossed some unseen boundary by even suggesting it. "I was beautiful—" it paused, the breath it exhaled coming out ragged, as if that single word had drained something from it. The Blot seemed to shrink in on itself, its presence dimming slightly, before it seemed to collapse into you. It sought comfort, but there was no embrace to give.
"Do you still think I'm beautiful, little star?" The question hung between you, vulnerable in delivery, though it was wrapped in layers of something deeper. A need, an ache that was buried beneath all the darkness, all the endless hunger.
It waited, form tense with anticipation. The mendacious creature seemed to yearn for your acceptance and confirmation, seeking an answer you cannot give. Could a creature of shadow with no appearance be classified as beautiful? Could you consider its nature—one of corruption, a motley of despair as something beautiful?
In the silence that followed, you realized something you hadn't before. You didn't know the Blot at all. its personality, its desires, its nature—all of it remained a mystery to you. It had always been desperate to please, to give, to entertain, and even torment, but beneath it all, there was a deeper need—one that hadn't been satisfied in the way it thought it would be. Every gift, every smile, every word it spoke was given in hope that you might—just once—give something back.
Every sin it bears is for you.
And perhaps that was why, despite all of it, you softened, just slightly for a moment. A fleeting softness that you couldn't control, that you didn't want to have. Perhaps it was why, in the midst of everything, you spoke the words that you knew might not be true, but were still true enough to leave your lips.
"You are."

Chapter 6: 6

The weight of the conversation clung to you like an iron shackle, dragging with every step, slowing you further. You had unearthed some truths, yet in doing so, only carved out more unanswered questions. Just the tip of this disastrous iceberg.
And the illusion of progress.
You couldn't quite recall how you had returned to Ramshackle. Your mind felt like a void, empty and unresponsive. You barely registered the sensation of unlocking the door, barely acknowledged the presence that trailed behind you—silent, patient, ever-eager. The blot moved like a shadow, misinterpreting your fleeting moments of warmth as permission, as affection.
Had you walked? Ran? You weren't sure.
Morning came quietly, golden light filtering through your bedroom window, painting the room in warmth that failed to reach you. You stirred at the shrill cry of your alarm, eyes blinking slowly as they adjusted to wakefulness. Beyond the glass, birds sang in the trees, but their melodies were swallowed by the ever-present static that plagued your mind.
And, as always, the blot was there.
It lingered at the foot of your bed, waiting—no, anticipating. Its posture shifted ever so slightly, subtle stretching itself taller, as if longing to be the first thing you saw upon waking. You didn't allow it in your bed while you were in it, but you permitted the entity to nestle into a tangle of the blankets on the floor beside you.
Like a pet.
"Did you sleep well?" It inquired, voice smooth as silk, thick with misplaced limerence.
The Blot moved with eerie precision, rising to its feet, gliding soundlessly across the room. It handed you items before you even thought to reach for them, a silent shadow shaping itself to your needs.
You didn't respond immediately, eyes following its every move with muted scrutiny. Something about it felt... off. Too eager. Too rehearsed. Your lips curled into a sardonic smile as you finally spoke.
"Well trained, are you?"
And yet it only beamed in return, as if the remark had been a compliment rather than an insult. "Of course I am, my love. For you, anything—I'd defy god."
You didn't dignify that with a response, nor did you allow yourself to linger on the implications of such words. It was impossible to tell whether this power over the Blot was something to relish or recoil from. The most unsettling thought of all was the question clawing at the back of your mind; Were your affections real? Or were they simply a means to survive?
You couldn't tell. Or maybe you didn't want to—afraid of the answer waiting for you.
Your morning routine continued in a state of autopilot, muscle memory guiding you through the motions. The day was yours to waste—Kalim had suggested fresh air after you'd fled from him the other day. He had worn his concern on his sleeve despite trying, as always, to mask it beneath that ever-present cheerfulness.
A part of you appreciated it—the concern you never received before—but as always the memories came back to haunt you like abandoned lovers. Concern you never received before.
You reached for a shirt, motioning for the Blot to turn around as you changed. But then—
A flicker of something wrong. A shift in the air. The phantom scent of home.
Your fingers stilled halfway through pulling the fabric over your head, eyes narrowing. The scent of something mockingly familiar lingered in the room, subtle yet jarring. And there—sitting neatly on your desk, impossibly out of place—
Three books.
Books from home.
Your breath caught, chest tightening as you took a hesitant step forward. Titles you had mourned, stories you had resigned yourself to never being able to finish. Two, half-read, fated to remain incomplete. One, a beloved favorite you thought you'd never hold again.
Your gaze snapped to the Blot.
It had curled into your bed in your absence, pressing into the sheets like a needy cat basking in the morning sun. You inhaled sharply, your expression hardening as you turned to it, accusation laced your voice.
"You're cruel." It wasn't anger. Not quite venom. Just exhaustion. A bitter, quiet fatigue.
And yet, the Blot merely materialized behind you, shifting effortlessly as mist. A favorite place of its—just beyond your line of sight, close enough to touch. Close enough to remind you that it was always there. its breath, infuriatingly warm, ghosted against the nape of your neck, sending an involuntary shiver down your spine.
"Hm? Blaming me, my star?" There was something coy in its tone, something pleased.
Your lips twitched, a weak excuse for a laugh escaping. Slowly, you tilted your head, resting it against its own, playing into its desires. If there was one thing you had learned, it was that the Blot answered better when you indulged it—when you fed into its obsession, however reluctantly.
"Why?" You forced the question with normalcy instead of the disgusting concoction of emotions brewing within.
It hesitated. Only for a fraction of a second. Considering which truth to give you. "You won't need to go home anymore, my love," it whispered, melting beneath your touch as if your palm against its cheek was the highest form of worship. "We can stay here—together of course—and I'll work hard to bring your favorite things here."
It clung to you a little tighter.
Desperation masked as devotion.
As you moved through Ramshackle's halls, past faded portraits and ever-watchful ghosts, you could feel them watching. Shrinking away yet unable to quell their curiosity. Could they sense it? The Blot, wrapped around you like a second skin, or perhaps more accurately fused with your soul? Or perhaps they saw the truth beneath the surface—
That you were barely living.
A corpse still walking.
One of them hesitated, drifting close, mouth parted as if to speak. A warning. A revelation. You weren't sure. But the dread curled in your stomach as Yuuna took notice, mid-conversation with Yuuken.
You prayed to whatever got might still listen and as always, silence answered you.
The ring on your finger turned deathly cold and the ghost recoiled as if burned, retreating through the wall in an instant.
They're looking.
You're going to get caught.
Instead, you slip too easily back into the composed, assured mask you wear around others—the same one even your newfound family has come to expect from you. The thought of them ever knowing the truth, ever glimpsing the weight you carry, coils in your stomach like a sickness. Guilt festers beneath the surface, nausea bubbling at the mere idea of their concern.
"Morning," You say, voice leveled, steady. "Where's Grim? I figured he'd already be up and raiding the kitchen."
Your gaze sweeps across the lobby and into the kitchen, yet there's no sign of the little gluttonous bastard. A rare occurrence.
Yuuken hesitates for just a fraction of a second, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly before he offers a measured response. "Might still be sleeping in someone's room." He takes a slow sip from his mug, the pink ceramic one Yuuna thrifted with a faded phrase scrawled across it about being a 'single mother.'
Yuuna scrunches up her nose, peering around the kitchen as if Grim might appear if she looks hard enough. "Grimmy's probably just sleeping in." Her voice is casual, dismissive, but there's the faintest note of curiosity.
Relief washes over you like crashing tides, your body sagging into a chair with a sigh. They don't seem suspicious—at least, not outwardly. No accusations, no searching glances lingering too long. They aren't going to confront you.
Not yet.
Kalim had thrown together some impromptu plan, gathering a mix of people for a day out—something about fresh air, a hike, and 'cheering you up.'
Soon enough, Yuuka hopped down the stairs, her hand settling on your shoulder as she checks her phone's time—a silent signal. Time to go.
"Grim's in Yuuta's room." She confirmed while already heading to the door.
She was the only Yuu not tangled up in other plans today, so she's tagging along.
And so, the day begins as you try to swallow down the lingering anxiety that's seemed to cling to you long enough to seem familiar.
Up ahead, an unexpectedly large group waits at the edge of the park, where the neatly trimmed grass gives way to the dense forest beyond. The air is crisp with the lingering chill of the early morning, and the golden light of the rising sun casts long shadows across the scene.
Kalim is off to the side, gathering dandelions with childlike enthusiasm, his nimble fingers attempting to weave them together into something resembling a flower crown. Rook kneels beside him, offering guidance with a keen eye and steady hands, spewing encouragement in that overly flowery way that's grown familiar to everyone. Jamil, ever the shadow, lingers nearby, half-watching with an expression caught somewhere between exasperation and resignation.
Leona and Vil are handling the food—well, mostly Vil. Leona looks about two seconds from abandoning the task altogether. Not far from them, Ace has completely taken over the children's swing set, lazily kicking his legs as he sways back and forth. Trey stands nearby, leaning against the metal frame with a knowing look. undoubtedly to keep an eye on the freshman. Ace must have been in trouble, and you wouldn't find yourself doubting it if he told you he was sneaking out and Trey trailed him just in case.
Bags are piled neatly in a corner, and for a fleeting moment, the entire scene looks like something out of a dream—idyllic, lighthearted, the kind of outing anyone would be lucky to experience. The kind of memory people hold onto when everything else falls apart.
Leona is the first to notice Ramshackle's arrival. His ear twitches before he turns, walking over in what seems like an effort to brief you on the plan—but you have a sneaking suspicion he's just looking for an excuse to ditch setup duty.
"We're eating quick and going over materials before heading out," he says, his tone gruff and to the point. "Kalim heard from one of those creepy twins—the one that lies politely to your face—that there's a good spot around here, so we're gonna find it. For whatever reason."
His gaze settles on you, lingering just a second too long. Ears flick back, subtle but telling and you can't help but wonder if he can smell the Blot on you.
The first time Yuuka met him, Leona had been dismissive—rude, even—stating outright that he couldn't smell even a trace of magic on her. A human with nothing special to offer. But things are different now.
You push the though away and smile instead. No use dwelling on secrets that might already be slipping through your fingers. You wanted to try and relax today.
"Why did you come, then?" you ask, your tone light, bordering on teasing. "Kalim must've made it clear this whole thing was meant to cheer me up. He's not exactly subtle about it and can't keep secrets for the life of him." You shrug off your bag into the designated pile and turn to face the housewarden again, a brow raised, eyes narrowed. "I figured you'd rather be home sleeping—wasting away your remaining days like the old man you are. What, feeling bad for me or something?"
Leona bristles at the slight, but his gaze darkens further at your suggestion, jaw tightening as a muscle twitches beneath his tanned skin. His brows, furrow, and he glares straight ahead like the very suggestion is beneath him.
Jerk.
But instead of snapping back with a cynical remark, he merely crosses his arms, eyes scanning you with that sharp, piercing scrutiny of his.
"Something's off with you," he states, matter-of-fact. "And Ruggie acts differently around you. You both used to be closer."
A jolt of unease ripples through you, trampling whatever fragile hope you had for a peaceful day. Now you felt like you were walking on a tightrope with a sea of glass beneath it.
"We got in a fight," you lie smoothly, the words slipping past your lips with practiced ease. It isn't even entirely untrue—just not the whole story. But you're not about to tell Leona that you nearly killed his right-hand man in the midst of a breakdown.
Leona doesn't buy it. Of course he doesn't.
Something about you is wrong. Off-kilter. Fractured. You carry yourself like you're standing at the edge of something—death, madness, revelation—he isn't sure which. Perhaps all three.
It's the real reason he came along.
Not that he'd ever admit it.
But there's something else, too. A quiet, nagging concern buried beneath his usual indifference. because people like you don't just disappear. You don't slip through the cracks without someone noticing. You've already rooted yourself too deeply in their lives—unraveling them, understanding them, comforting them with an ease that borders on infuriating.
And people don't let go of someone like that so easily.
Idle chatter drifted through the air as the group walked, a soft hum of voices blending seamlessly with the rustling leaves and distant chirping of wildlife. The forest path stretched ahead, dappled with shifting patches of sunlight that filtered through the canopy above. Despite the lingering unease from Leona's earlier words, you had to admit—the fresh air, the rhythmic crunch of footsteps against dirt, and the sheer vastness of nature did wonders to soothe your nerves.
You let yourself slow, just slightly, allowing the group to move ahead as you took your time absorbing your surroundings. The scent of damp earth, the occasional flicker of movement in the undergrowth, the way the sunlight caught on the edges of the leaves—it was all so strangely grounding.
Ahead, Ace was in the middle of an animated conversation, his voice rising above the others as he gestured wildly.
"No, no, I'm serious! The last unbirthday party was nuts—Riddle actually let loose for, like, a while five seconds. That's gotta be some kind of record," he declared, spinning on his heel to look at Jamil. who regarded him with tired patience of someone used to Ace's antics by now. "You guys do things way differently over in Scarabia, yeah? Like, c'mon, why can't Heartslabyul throw parties like that? I'm just saying, my morale would be through the roof."
Ace threw his hands in the air for emphasis, nearly smacking Yuuka in the process.
"And your grades would be through the floor." Jamil added, earning a snicker from you.
"I'm just saying," he continued, turning to Jamil with an exaggerated huff, "Scarabia's got the right idea. Parties should be wild! And fun! Heartslabyul is all rules, rules, rules—what kind of party needs a rulebook?"
Trey~," he drawled, dragging out the name as he shot his unofficial babysitter a pleading look. "When's the next unbirthday party? I'll die if its in like four months. People need to stop being born every day or something."
Trey, who had been walking at a steady, unbothered pace behind them, pulled out his phone to check the calendar. "Next month," he said with a chuckle. "This month's already packed with birthdays."
Ace let out a theatrical groan, dragging his feet as he stalked ahead with exaggerated lethargy, muttering something about the injustices of responsible scheduling.
You might've laughed at the scene if not for the sudden, quiet prickle at the edge of your awareness. A presence lingering just a little too close.
A strand of golden hair caught the sunlight in the corner of your eye and you turned just in time to see Rook.
You startled and he laughed—bright, effortless, the kind of sound that felt weightless, as if he had never known the burden of uncertainty. For a brief, fleeting moment, you envied that.
"Ah, Petite étoile," he purred, his words dripping with something sweet. It reminded you of the Blot—of something thick, syrupy, impossible to escape. "It has bothered me longer than I dare admit, but I cannot help but notice... we have never celebrated ton joyeux anniversaire?"
Your birthday? The question made you pause-mid-step.
When was the last time you even celebrated it? The memory was hazy, distant, like something viewed through a fogged -up window. Had it been so long? The thought unsettled you more than you wanted to admit.
The idea of celebrating it here—with them—felt... wrong.
Yes, you were close now. Yes, these people had become something akin to friends. But that didn't erase the beginning, the cold indifference, the neglect, the way you had been overlooked time and time again.
Forgiveness wasn't so simple.
Your stomach churned.
Rook, perceptive as ever, tilted his head, waiting—expecting.
You swallowed the unease, forcing your expression into something unreadable before giving him the easiest answer.
"...Never thought about it."
Your anxiety must have been obvious—even in that split second, because Vil swiftly intervened. With a sharp huff, he placed a perfectly manicured hand on Rook's shoulder to quiet the boy. Then, just as seamlessly, his other hand landed on your back, a gentle but firm pressure meant to guide you back into the fold of the group.
"Perhaps it simply hasn't happened yet?" he mused, his voice light, but his violet eyes sharp as they studied your face. "I trust you'd invite us when it does. We're friends, aren't we?"
The weight of expectation in his gaze made something in your stomach twist, though he likely didn't intend to make you feel that. way. Vil could accept it, if you truly didn't want him or the others—but especially him—at your birthday. But that wouldn't make it hurt any less. Weren't you close?
The air shifted. Conversations lulled. The moment stretched just long enough for you to realize—all eyes were on you.
A nauseating pressure settled in your chest, tightening like an iron vice.
Instinctively, your gaze flickered to Yuuka, searching for something—reassurance, an escape, an answer she didn't have.
She stood with one hand on her chin, her head tilted ever so slightly, deep in thought. The usual warmth in her eyes was tempered by quiet contemplation, her gaze downcast. The forest pressed in around you, the rhythmic crunch of footsteps and the rustling of leaves the only sounds filling your ears. But they no longer offered any sense of calm.
"Huh... now that I think about it," Yuuka murmured, "we don't know your birthday either." She turned to you with a playful smile, poking your side teasingly. "Hey, how could you neglect us like that? I thought we were close."
Her words were lighthearted, teasing—but because they were from Yuuka, or any of the Yuus for that matter, you knew there was no malice behind them.
Still, your lips felt stiff as you smiled, hoping it masked the way your stomach churned.
"It's coming up." You lied.
Lies upon lies. They pile up endlessly, stacking so high that at some point, you'd begun to suffocate beneath them.
A deep, unsettling monachopsis loomed over you, wrapping around your ribcage like barbed wire. The date didn't matter anymore—it felt meaningless. How could you celebrate the birth of a person long dead? A person you still feel was left behind in a cold, snowy ditch. A body buried or eaten, lost to time. Their soul-splitting hiraeth never healed.
"Four weeks from now—"
A voice slithered into your mind, curling around your thoughts like smoke
"You lie so often, it's widdiful."
The Blot's presence enveloped you in suffocating warmth, cloying and sickly sweet, whispering in a tone that was almost amused. You could hear the smile in its voice, feel its cruel delight reverberating through your bones.
The ring on your finger trembled against your skin, nearly pulsing with excitement.
It corrected you. Softly. Sweetly. Mockingly.
It spoke your true birthday like it was sacred—like it was the most important date in all the world.
You froze. The breath in your lungs turned to ice.
A visible flinch. A sharp recoil
As if you could physically escape the voice in your own head.
How does it know that?
How does it know so much?
Disgust coiled over you in thick, suffocating waves. You'd let yourself get too comfortable. You'd let yourself forget the philosophies you once swore to live by—
Though that was an empty promise from the beginning, wasn't it?
A promise a corpse made to itself using its own life as a bargaining chip when that life had long since been snuffed out.
You lag behind, arms wrapped around yourself as if trying to hold something in—pressing against your ribs as if to keep the truth from spilling out, as if guilt might slip through the cracks of your gingers and stain the earth beneath you.
Exhaustion clings to your bones like frost, settling deep, making the world blur at the edges. The colors of the forest, once vivid, now bleed into muted grays and greens, their vibrancy dulled as if a veil has been drawn over your eyes. The laughter and idle chatter of the group dissolve into the distant hum, their voices blurred, like echoes traveling through the water.
You cannot even appreciate the beauty around you anymore. The sky stretches vast and endless above, golden light threading through the branches, dappling the forest floor in flickering patterns of warmth. And yet, you feel cold. The weight of guilt presses against your chest, relentless and suffocating. This trip was meant to lift your spirits—to make you smile. but instead, you've cast a shadow over it.
Vil, ever the perfectionist, refuses to let the silence fester. With a sharp sigh, he slows his pace, stepping back toward you. His gaze, cool and assessing, sweeps over your face, searching for cracks in the mask you wear.
"What is with you today?" His voice is poised, controlled, yet laced with something more—something akin to concern. It strikes like cold water to the face, and you grimace instinctively.
Ace, always quick to tease but slow to notice subtleties, finally picks up on the shift. His brows furrow, his usual carefree demeanor slipping away as the frown tugs at his lips.
"Wait—yeah. You're acting weird. Or, like—recently. I dunno." His words come out clumsy, but earnest. He realizes, belatedly, that he should have said something earlier. But how do you bring up something like this? How do you ask what's wrong when you don't even know where to start?
Kalim squeezes past Leona and Trey, warm hands enveloping your own, his touch gentle yet urgent. His garnet eyes search your face, open and unguarded, filled with a worry so sincere it nearly burns.
"Are you okay? Are you sick? Tired? We can stop if you need—" He glances back at Jamil, as if seeking confirmation, as if hoping someone else has the answer he lacks.
The concern is suffocating. The world feels too fast, yet you move so slowly—like sinking into the mud, like falling through water too thick to breathe.
Your knees buckle. The forest floor rises to meet you.
Muted voices. Hands reaching, shadows shifting. Their words fade into nothing, drowned beneath the roaring static in your head. You press your fingers into the damp earth, grasping at the grass as if you could anchor yourself to the present, as if the ground could tether you to reality before you drift too far.
Rook kneels beside you, his presence a quiet force in the growing storm. He does not touch you. Does not crowd you.
But his voice cuts through, an arrow through the fog.
"You are afraid."
Something cracks.
Something crumbles.
The tower of lies—built from desperation, stacked upon a foundation of despair—collapses beneath you, the weight of it finally too much to bear.
Your lips part, trembling. You try to speak. Trey to salvage the last shreds of the façade. but nothing comes. Your mouth opens and closes, a fish gasping for air in a world where none exists. The fear in your eyes is raw, unfiltered, undeniable.
Even the most naïve among them would not believe another lie from your lips. The truth spills forth, quiet, brittle, final:
"Last winter... somebody died."
A breath. A pause. A shuddering exhale.
"Last winter, I died."
Ace lets out a nervous chuckle, but it's thin, fragile—like glass ready to shatter. He rubs the back of his neck, as if the motion could scrub away the uneasy weight pressing down on him. "Good one. Uh—kinda dark though. What, did you fall in the snow and think you were gonna freeze to death or something?"
He's being flippant because he has to be. That's how he copes—with humor, with sarcasm, with pushing things down so they can eat away at him later, when no one's watching.
Kalim still clutches your hands, fingers trembling slightly, and when his pleading gaze flickers toward Jamil, looking for reassurance, he finds none. Only the furrowed brows, the narrowed grey eyes, calculating, searching—examining you for cracks in the story, for a lie he desperately wants to uncover.
Because this doesn't make sense.
It shouldn't make sense.
Jamil's silence is louder than any accusation.
The longer you don't answer, the more the panic festers, creeping into the air like thick smoke. Ace steps forward, shoving you—not roughly, but enough to try to jolt you out of whatever this is.
"O-oi... snap out of it," he urges, voice strained. It wavers, cracks, uncertainty threading into his words. "Answer." His voice rises now. "Just—just say something!"
Trey, ever the peacemaker, reacts instinctively, placing a firm hand on Ace's shoulder, mediating the moment before it spirals. "Hey, let's not jump to conclusions, alright? There's gotta be some kinda of—
He stops.
Because he already knows.
He doesn't want to know, doesn't want to believe it, but it's in your voice, in the way you said it, like someone who's already accepted the truth as an immovable reality. Defeated. Final.
Yuuka kneels beside Kalim, shooting Ace a warning glare before grasping his shoulder, grounding herself through him just as much as she's grounding him. He's trembling—breathing too fast, too shallow. He's always been the type to hide his worry behind laughter, behind warmth. But right now, there's nothing left to mask it.
And still, she won't look at you.
Because if she does—if she acknowledges what you are, what this means—she'll break too.
The silence stretches, Thick. Suffocating.
Vil, Rook, Leona—they don't speak. They don't move.
And you don't dare lift your head, shoulder hunched beneath the unbearable weight of their gazes. Shame settles like a stone in your gut.
Kalim moves before he can stop himself, dipping his head lower, desperate to meet your eyes, searching for something—anything—to break the illusion. He waits for the laugh, the grin, the reassurance that this is a cruel joke.
But Jamil doesn't say anything.
Nobody does.
And Kalim's heart pounds so violently it aches.
His fingers lace tighter with yours, as if holding onto you harder will somehow keep you here. A creeping, suffocating feeling of running out of time seizes his heart, drowning him in silent, unseen panic.
"But... but you're here." Kalim's voice is small. Fractured. "You're right here, in front of me."
I should've spent more time with them.
His grip tightens until his nails leave half-moon indents in your skin. He lets go of one hand only to trap your wrists together in one hand, and his free hand rises—slow, almost hesitant—to cup your face, to force you to look at him.
To prove you're lying.
"You're lying," he whispers. It's not a question. it's a desperate command. "Tell me you're lying."
What do I do? What can I do?
That—That's not—you're not—"
But your gaze is blank. Unfocused.
Staring through him. past him.
You look dead.
Kalim's breath stutters. "Oh."
The sound is barely more than an exhale, a whisper of realization as his vision blurs and hot tears spill over sun-darkened cheeks.
Leaning against a tree, Leona grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches. His tail lashes, irritation rising—not at you, but at fate.
This shouldn't affect him. It doesn't affect him.
That's the lie he keeps telling himself. Keeps repeating, over and over, like some stubborn, half-hearted mantra.
But it does.
More than he's willing to admit.
"And what?" His voice cuts through the air, the simmering edge of frustration barely masking something deeper—something unspoken. "You expect us to just get all weepy?" His tail whips against the ground, his voice measured, forced into control even as it rises. "What, you expecting a damn eulogy? A pity party? If you're dead, why the hell are you standing here?
Because he doesn't know how to handle this.
He's a prince. He can fix things. He should be able to fix this.
But he can't.
And the realization is unbearable.
The room feels impossibly small. The silence weighs heavier, pressing against your ribs, making it hard to breathe.
And then—
"Explain." Vil demands, stepping forward.
His fingers grip your jaw, firm, unwavering, tilting your head up until your vacant eyes meet his own. His gaze is sharp, burning with the need for clarity, for control, for something that will make this make sense.
But there's no sense to be found.
Only grief.
Only growing despair.
Only the horrifying, unshakable uncertainty of what this truly means.
Your body felt unbearably heavy, the pull of consciousness just beyond your grasp. It was as if exhaustion had struck you like a freight train, barreling through your body with merciless force. The weight of everything—of truth, of revelation, of fraying nerves—had finally collapsed upon you. Words abandoned you, retreating into the recesses of your mind where they could not be reached.
Time had begun to slip through your fingers like silk, too smooth, too fleeting, too intangible to hold onto. The sun, once high and brilliant, had begun its descent, bleeding into the sky with streaks of molten gold and deepening crimson. A masterpiece, painted just for you, but you barely had the strength to admire it. The air cooled with the vanishing light, a crisp reminder that the day was ending, though the night ahead felt even more uncertain.
A low sigh broke through the thick silence. Leona pushed off the tree he had been leaning against, running a hand through his hair before snatching up your bag without a word. The movement was almost lazy, but there was something deliberate in the way he slung it over his shoulder.
"They can explain it later," he muttered, his voice rough with unspoken exhaustion, ears still lowered. "I'll rent a cabin nearby. We're staying overnight." His free hand gestured vaguely to the group, to the silence, to you. "I can't drive like... this."
His words lacked their usual drawl, as though even he was struggling to process the weight of the moment.
Yuuka was at your side before you could even think to stand, her grip steady but careful, like you were something fragile—something that might break if handled too harshly. You let her guide you, though your limbs felt leaded, your steps sluggish.
Kalim sniffled softly beside you, his red-rimmed eyes downcast. He wasn't even trying to hide it anymore.
No one else spoke.
Rook had already separated from the group, his silhouette cutting through the evening as he walked ahead, disappearing into the trees.
You could still feel Ace's presence to your left, his burning stare drilling into your back. Of all people, it was his disappointment that twisted something sharp inside you. You saw him every day, whether by chance or by choice. He had always been there, lingering like a familiar melody you never quite noticed until it was gone. And now? Now he stood just out of reach, silent and unreadable.
The last remnants of adrenaline drained from your body, and your vision flickered in and out of focus, your memories hazy and fragmented. One moment, you were still on the trail; the next, you were inside the Airbnb—warm, dimly lit, and unnervingly quiet.
Vil stepped inside the cabin, tucking a strand of blond and purple behind his ear. "Your driving was abysmal." he muttered to Leona, arms crossed.
Leona grunted in response, hardly paying him any mind.
The cabin itself was beautiful—spacious, yet intimate, crafted from dark wood and bathed in the soft glow of warm-toned lights. It was the kind of place you might have admired under different circumstances, but now, it felt too much like a gilded cage.
Your head lolled to the side as you sat, exhaustion pulling at you, but the second you felt yourself slipping too far, you jolted awake, a frown creasing your face.
Your gaze flickered toward the door, an old habit surfacing, your mind hazily calculating the energy it would take to run.
But Rook stood against the nearest doorway, his arms crossed with deliberate ease, as if he had been expecting this. The warm light caught strands of his golden hair, illuminating his sharp features. He smiled as your eyes met, and though his expression was unreadable, there was something in it—something patient, something knowing.
"Mon Étoile." His voice was smooth, saccharine in the way that a chill down your spine. He gestured lightly toward the couch, as if this was some grand stage and you were the evening's main performance.
The weight of expectation settled over you like a suffocating fog. They still wanted answers. They still wanted to know.
Could you do it? Could you really tell them everything?
You sank into the plush couch, the cushions swallowing you whole, but there was no comfort to be found. Their eyes were on you—Kalim's heartbreak, Ace's hurt, Leona's unreadable frustration, Vil's impatient scrutiny, Jamil's calculating gaze, Trey's quiet unease, Rook's unwavering curiosity.
Yuuka was the first to speak. Her voice was soft, too soft, the kind of gentleness that only made the ache in your chest worse. She was giving you a kindness you didn't think you deserved.
"You're... dead."
The word hung in the air like something fragile, something forbidden. It was barely more than a whisper, yet it felt like it could shatter the very ground beneath you. Yuuka, the ever-steadfast, ever-confident girl you knew, suddenly looked small. Unsteady. Her breath hitched, and for once, there was no easy answer at the tip of her tongue.
"How—when?"
You tilted your head back, baring your throat to the ceiling, to the heavens, to the weight of their stares. Like an animal in surrender. Like a body already cold.
"I went on a walk," you murmured, voice light, distant, eerily calm yet carrying the unmistakable finality of a confession. "I didn't belong here. My feet carried me outside, further and further, like they had a will of their own."
Your fingers found the Blot ring on your hand, twisting it idly, the habit second nature by now. The silver was cool against your skin, humming with something you pretended not to feel.
"That compulsion neglected kids have when they float limp in a swimming pool, waiting—wondering if someone will notice if they're gone or quiet." A humorless chuckle escaped your lips, brittle and tired. "I guess I wanted the same thing. For someone to notice."
But no one had.
"A slippery path, no winter clothing... that was all it took."
The memory was sharp, ice cold. You nearly recoiled from it, but you forced yourself to stay still, to keep speaking. You wouldn't—couldn't—look at them. You didn't want to see what was in their eyes.
"I fell." Your voice barely carried across the dimly lit room. "Somewhere isolated. Somewhere no one would ever think to look, not even come spring." A pause, a breath, but it didn't make it any easier. "The cold numbed the pain, but I knew I was mangled. Left to die—unnoticed. Forgotten. A name in a ledger, a carving on a stone, if I was lucky.
Your laugh was sudden, breathless, and void of anything resembling joy. It scraped its way out of your throat, raw and ugly, carrying only self-loathing in its wake.
"I gave up."
There was a sharp intake of breath from someone in the room. A flinch, barely visible from the corner of your eye.
The words threatened to stick in your throat, but you forced them out anyway.
"And I died that night. Alone in the cold. Forgotten."
Yuuka's hand flew to her mouth, but it did nothing to stifle the soft, broken gasp that escaped her lips. The color had drained from her face, her wide eyes glassy, unreadable. It struck something deep—something painful—inside her. You could see it, feel it. The way her hands trembled slightly, how her posture caved inward like she was trying to hold herself together. Like she could make up for something she had never even known happened.
A sharp 'tch' broke the silence from Jamil.
How are you here then?" The words were clipped, suspicious. An accusation, not a question.
You couldn't blame him.
Your fingers clenched around the ring, its metal thrumming with something sinister.
"I made a deal."
The words leave your mouth before you can think better of them before you can soften the edges, and you hate how they sound.
How final.
The silence in the room sharpens.
Trey is the first to break it.
"What kind of deal?" He sounds cautious, like he's waiting for you to confirm his worst suspicions.
"Something parasitical."
Silence stretched between heartbeats, heavy and unbroken, as you lay on the floor.
You weren't allowed in your own room—monitored for your own safety, watched like a fragile thing on the verge of shattering. Instead, you were cocooned in a nest of blankets in the cabin's living room, the rhythmic assault of rain against the roof filling the space where words failed.
Your eyes remained shut, feigning sleep indistinguishable from death with your barely-functioning body.
Earlier, exhaustion had weighed on your bones, pressing down like a relentless tide, yet now, rest refused to come. Something lingered at the edges of your mind—unease, dread, or perhaps something worse.
Watching.
The Blot had been quiet since you reached out to others.
Kalim sat close, his presence warm, hesitant. He hovered at the edge of touch, unwilling to wake you, yet unable to let you go. In sleep, he betrayed himself, arms curling around you in a desperate grasp, his fingers clenching the fabric of your sleeve as if holding on for dear life. As if he feared you'd slip away like mist come morning.
Ace lay facing you, silent except for the steady rhythm of his breath. His fingers ghosted over the ring encircling yours, tugging at it occasionally, as if testing whether it would come off—whether he could pry it away from you like it was some cursed shackle.
It wouldn't budge.
Earlier, his grip had been ironclad, his hand clasping yours so tightly you thought something might break. Your sleeve was still damp from his tears. They were nearly silent—save for quiet gasps and low apologies he thought never reached your ears.
In the distance, past the hush of breathing and the storm outside, voices murmured from the kitchen. Low, tense.
They were discussing you.
Arguing, no doubt, about what to do, about how to fix something irrevocably broken. but beneath the clipped words and frayed tempers, a common thread wove through their voices.
Steady. Unyielding.
A promise.
And for the first time in a long, long while, a quiet ember of hope flickered to life in your chest.
Maybe—just maybe—you didn't have to reach for the Blot alone.

Chapter 7: 7

The entire cabin sat in suffocating silence, the air thick with grief, pressing down on everyone like a heavy blanket. Though each person reclined in the lounge with eyes closed and limbs still, it was only a performance—none of them could sleep. Not really. The loss was too sharp, too fresh. Everyone processed it differently, but one truth echoes in their hearts: the tragedy hadn't begun the night you died. It had taken root long before. By the time they truly knew you—truly loved you—you were already gone.
Yuuka took it especially hard. She had always seen you as family, someone irreplaceable, and yet, she hadn't been able to do anything to save you. She sat, hollow-eyed, looping over every memory in painful detail, desperately searching for a moment she'd missed—a sign. Was there a day you came home different? Later than usual? Quieter, colder? She tore herself apart wondering if she had ignored the moment your light began to dim.
Ace wrestled with a different torment. His guilt ran deep. He had known you from the very beginning, or at least, that's what he'd convinced himself. In truth, he saw you—passed by you—but never really looking until it was already too late. You were forgotten the moment you weren't in the room. The thought haunted him. He should have known you better. Should have seen the signs. Should have asked more questions. Lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, he kept repeating that same aching mantra: I should've done something. I knew them. I should've known.
You never spoke about the neglect you endured, not directly. But in the aftermath, the pieces fell into place. It became clear to those who mourned you that something had been very wrong. Whatever deal you'd made to rise so suddenly in the eyes of the world—whatever force had pulled you from the shadows into the spotlight—must have come with a price. And so they wondered, each in their own quiet despair: What final blow pushed you over the edge? Who, in their carelessness or cruelty, handed down your death sentence that night?
When you told them about the Blot—about everything you knew and everything you felt they needed to know—their responses were varied as they were heartfelt.
Kalim, Ace, and Yuuka held onto you with unwavering faith. They clung to the belief that you were still you, that the Blot didn't change who you truly were. They hoped, desperately, that it might fade, or be cured. That things could somehow return to normal.
But others—Vil, Leona—responded with wariness. They had seen what the Blot could do, had felt the darkness clawing at the edges of control. To them you were walking a dangerous line. They didn't say it outright, but the fear was there, unspoken but heavy: Had you been building this Blot inside you for months unnoticed? Were you already a ticking time bomb?
And the unthinkable loomed in their thoughts: If you were to overblot... if the darkness overtook you completely... would they even be able to stop it?
None of them could say it aloud, but the truth lingered in every glance exchanged, every tense silence.
None of them were sure if they could raise their pens against you.
Not if it came to that.
When the talk turned to the possibility of breaking the contract, of severing the tie that bound you to the Blot, the group was split even. They knew, perhaps more clearly than you did, that the Blot wasn't just a threat—it was also your lifeline. Whatever bargain had been struck, however dark, it was keeping you here. Keeping you alive.
Leona, ever pragmatic, offered to try. He mentioned his Unique Magic—how he'd broken so-called unbreakable deals before, even Azul's ironclad contracts. Nothing was truly unbreakable, he said.
And so, with quiet determination, he reached out and took your lifeless hand in his. The moment his fingers brushed the ring, the temperature plummeted. The metal, already ice-cold, turned searching. It burned your skin with such intensity that you cried out, jerking away. A small yelp—but it was enough. Enough to freeze everyone in place.
A warning.
That was the last attempt. They decided then and there—spoken or not—that they wouldn't try again.
Especially not if removing it meant risking your life.
It was unmistakable now; the Blot did not intend to be cast off. it had clung to you with possessive desperation, punishing even the suggestion of separation. It lashed out—not with fury, but with something: quieter. Sharper. Intentional.
Even in sleep, where you should have found escape, peace eluded you. Your dreams were restless landscapes of whispered arguments and echoing what-ifs, and always, always, you felt watched. The Blot's presence lingered like static in the air, wrapping around you—and them—with a warmth that was oppressive now. it pulsed with something old, something aware.
They felt it too. All of them.
This thing, this force that had given you life again, now seemed to loom like a second shadow. To you, it hummed softly—a low thrum that followed you into sleep. A presence. A heartbeat.
The ring itself pulsed faintly now, like something alive. At first, it was steady, a subtle rhythm you barely noticed. But tonight—tonight it was faster.
Uneven. Anxious.
Almost... afraid.
The world you found yourself in was a place that refused to stay still, a kaleidoscope of shifting shapes and colors, constantly rearranging itself. It couldn't decide what it wanted to be, but there were a few constants—persistent patterns, repeated hues and forms, that twisted in ways you couldn't make sense of.
Then, you hear it. A voice. Ortho? Malleus? Someone else?
The syllables stretch unnaturally long, each word mangling into the next. The rhythm of their speech is off, warped, the tone repeats your name—but something's wrong. Too many echoes. Too many wrong echoes. You blink, and the voices morph into your own, distorting, mocking, mourning. They plead with you in voices that sound like they belong to someone else, but their sharp edges make you flinch, as if they're cutting into you from within.
Are you dreaming? You can't tell. You're not sure of anything here.
You're not sure of yourself.
As you move through the space, you catch glimpses of your reflection—though it's never whole. Shattered glass splinters at your feet, distorting the image in jagged pieces. In broken fragments, you're not what you remember. You're something else. Your flesh is gone in places, hanging from exposed bone, rotting, decaying. Your neck is bent at an angle recognized as impossible and inside you, insects crawl—skittering through the hollow where your heart should be, where your life should still pulse.
The sight is too much. It's suffocating.
You can't bear to look any longer, but the reflection clings to you, mocking you with every step. You stumble backward, heart pounding, your body aching as if each moment is strenuous. Your legs are unsteady, as if the ground beneath you is not quite solid, and you twist around, turning on your heel.
You run.
But it's difficult.
Breathing is a struggle. The hollow ache in your lungs is a cruel reminder there is no air to pull in.
When you look down, the fragments of your reflection remain—clothing torn, tattered, beyond recognition, and the sight of your chest, cracked open like a broken shell, takes the last of your strength.
The world is wrong. Everything is wrong.
No wonder you can't breathe; you don't have lungs anymore.
The gravity of the place feels distorted, pulling in strange directions that you can't describe, warping the space around you. The world is devoid of color, but your eyes are assaulted by a dizzying array of hues—too many, too fast, too intense to comprehend. It's as if the colors exist beyond the spectrum you know, beyond the limits of your perception.
The Blot's voice—its presence—flooded your ears, your mind, seeping into every corner of your thoughts. It shuddered around you, writhing, as though the dream world itself couldn't hold its form any longer. It was a reflection of the Blot's own stress, its instability. Just as it's form trembled and shifted when thrown off, so too was the fabric of this space.
You could only assume that by being so deeply entangled with the Blot, you had somehow slipped into its mind—or maybe its world. It wasn't clear.
Words collided in the air—some soft, others shrill—whispers, shouts, incoherent fragments. It was like it was speaking from everywhere at once. But amidst the chaos, one voice pierced through the noise, Its tone raw and desperate. It screamed in your head.
"Why? Why are you doing this?" The Blot's voice cried.
Its panic was visceral—almost childlike, trembling between frustration and pleading.
It didn't understand.
"Why are you telling them? We were fine! We were together! You... you were so kind to me this morning before the hike..." It stuttered, its words stumbling in confusion, the longing sharp as it clung to your closeness from that morning.
It didn't understand.
You ran—but you didn't know for how long.
How long had you been hiding from the Blot? From the reflections that mocked you? From the rotting body that you could feel but not escape?
Every step felt like a step toward something other, something incomprehensible. You were a ghost, running from the dark surrounding you.
The collision—the crash—was deafening, shocking you back into clarity. The monolith before you splintered at your touch, shuddering and shifting. It was an immense crystal statue—though it was never still. It shifted, reformed, nearly a living creature in constant flux, impossible to make sense of. Was it a figure? A being? Or something that had once been but had long since lost its meaning?
The statue hummed, a deep, resonant sound like the tuning of a cosmic fork, vibrating through the air, through you. Its surface was smooth, glasslike, but etched with thousands of names, faces, forms—rewriting itself over and over again. It was as if the statue was an archive, trying desperately to preserve its own history, its purpose.
You wanted to reach out, to understand, but before you could touch it, the ground beneath you buckled. The wailing grew louder, sound warping and twisting until it seemed to come from every direction at once. The Blot's presence flared, its grip on you—on everything—shattering.
And then... it was gone.
And darkness swallowed you whole.
Static crackles across your tongue—acidic and sharp, like chewing electricity. You blink rapidly, over and over, your eyes straining against the suffocating nothingness that surrounds you. There's no darkness, no light. Just everything and nothing, layered over each other in a space that doesn't obey rules. A contradiction you can't comprehend.
Then—clarity.
A voice begins, soft and distant, like a recording warped by time. It's not speaking to you, not exactly. It's narrating. Telling a story that feels familiar in your bones, though your memory protests.
Long before time's tapestry unraveled into the mortal world, there existed the Angel of Faces, a being crafted by the divine will to be a mirror of mortal perception. The Creator designed them without a fixed form, a blank slate destined to reflect the countless faces imagined by mortalkind—a bridge. They were the Messenger of Truths, delivering divine revelations in guises familiar and comforting, ensuring mortals could bear the weight of celestial messages.
Images crack open before you—like shattered glass, jagged and glinting, tumbling one after another into focus. They don't move like real things—more like illustrations torn from pages of a storybook.
You see them—a being of indescribable beauty, ever shifting. Their form changes like water caught in starlight, their features never still. They descend from the sky, trailing light behind them, wearing faces borrowed from dreams and fantasies. As they meet mortals, they speak in soft tones and gentle smiles, becoming what people expect to see.
The scene carries the nostalgic warmth of fable, but something about it gnaws at the edges.
Mortals, however, are imperfect storytellers. Each encounter reshaped the Angel of Faces, adding new features, quirks, and expressions. Some saw them as a serene guardian; others envisioned a stern judge or a deceiving trickster. These conflicting descriptions layered upon the angel like masks, making their true self indistinguishable, even to themselves.
You watch the whispers spread—around campfires, across market stalls, through grand halls. People speak of the messenger, the celestial, the angel. You see them again, curled up in a fetal position with their wings cocooning them, their form folding and reshaping themselves as mortals impose identities upon them.
A healer. A warrior. A muse.
Each expectation a mold. Each opinion a new mask.
And though the angel's face remains serene, poised—graceful even—you notice it now. The flicker. The micro-twitch. A wince that doesn't belong. Pain—subtle but unmistakable—buried beneath the surface as they fracture to match fantasies of others.
Over the ages, this shifting identity became a curse. They could recall every face ever worn, every lie spoken to soothe mortal fears, yet no memory of an original self remained. In despair, they sought reassurance from the Creator, pleading for a singular, immutable form. But the Creator remained silent, bound by cosmic law to let mortals shape the angel's existence. They were the bridge between the divine and the flesh—the only way divinity could properly understand mortal and vice-versa.
Then, a throne.
Massive. Towering. Its presence dominates the space. The angel kneels before it, wings unfurled behind them—crushed and colorless, like a butterfly pinned beneath glass. Their head is bowed. You can't hear the words exchanged, but the feeling crashes over you like a wave.
Agony. Sorrow. Desperation. Pleading.
And beyond it all: silence.
A cold, heavy silence that presses into your ribs. The kind that follows disappointment from someone who once loved you. Or worse—pity.
You can feel the weight of the Creator's silence. Not anger. Not wrath. Just... regret. And it's so much heavier than anything else.
Resentment festered. If mortals could define them, why should they not seize control of that power? They abandoned truth, embracing deception. In time, they learned to wield their ever-changing faces as weapons: impersonating kings, prophets, and lovers, sowing discord with whispers of false promises. Their once-pure voice became a chorus of lies, harmonizing with the ambitions and fears of those they encountered.
Scenes follow in rapid succession, kaleidoscopic in nature and fragmented, but you know the angel is there—though their wings are gone, though their face is someone else's.
A king laughs on a golden throne, his kingdom shining.
A secret lover slips out of a bed in darkness.
An assassin vanishes into a crowd.
A prophet raises trembling hands before a weeping congregation.
Then, ruin.
The king's palace, turned to rubble.
The lover, now a wife—yet the old wife is miraculously absent.
The assassin's victims, nameless in a list.
The prophet's followers, bloodied and broken in their belief.
None of them ever saw the angel beneath the face they wore. They never looked long enough, painfully unperceptive—or perhaps unaware.
If no one knew what the angel truly was, then stories couldn't cage them. Rumors couldn't wound them—shape them. And so, they wore more faces. Hid deeper. Buried themselves beneath perception. And when they were wronged—betrayed—they sought retribution. Over and over again.
But the revenge never tasted sweet.
Only hollow.
Thus, the Angel of Faces fell—not through rebellion, but through erosion of identity. Cast from the heavens, they now wander the mortal and infernal realms, a living mask who changes with every glance. They are feared as a master manipulator, a thief of faces and fates, cursed never to be remembered as themselves.
Legends say if you meet someone whose face you forget the moment they turn away, you've crossed paths with the Angel of Faces or their vassals. Pray they haven't taken an interest in wearing your face next.
More faces, more identities flash by, countless and unclear. You can't see them distinctly, but the truth sinks in. You know now. You know who they are.
The Angel of Faces. A creature lost in masks, wandering through mortalkind, trying to feel whole.
A being warped and corrupted by their own nature.
No matter what name they claimed, no matter what role they played—no one ever saw them. Only what they were supposed to be. What others wanted.
A crown. A smile. A blade.
But never themselves.
The images fracture and collapse around you—but not into darkness. This time, they pull you in. Like pages of a book folding shut around you, dragging you into its chapters.
The sun is high, warm and golden, filtering through thick branches overhead. Shadows dapple your skin—real, textured, soft. The breeze smells of pine and something faintly sweet. It feels safe here. Familiar in a way that aches.
But you aren't alone.
Ahead of you, moving slowly through the trees, is a figure. They look like a hunter—simple clothes, dirt on their boots, a bow strapped across their back. It's a quiet disguise, inconspicuous. Something they've worn before, probably in times of mischief or survival.
You follow, but your steps make no sound. You don't rustle the leaves. You leave no footprints. It becomes quickly apparent you aren't really here. Just a silent observer.
The hunter reaches a clearing—a wide expanse of green, peaceful and untouched. At its center stands a single oak tree, massive and ancient, its roots twisting deep into the hill it rests upon. The sunlight catches on its leaves like gold.
You've never been here. Not in memory.
And yet—your chest hurts with recognition.
The ache isn't sudden. It's long, settled. Like a name you forgot but still miss. Like a song you can't hum, but remember how it made you feel.
You miss this place.
But you miss it the way a house misses laughter. The way empty arms remember who they used to hold.
You follow the hunter in silence as he steps into the embrace of the oak's shade, the heavy stillness of the clearing wrapping around him like a familiar blanket. He lowers himself onto the earth with a tired sort of grace, his limbs moving like someone who has worn exhaustion too long to notice it anymore.
You rest just opposite him, your back finding the warm bark. The sun flickers gently through the leaves above, dappling the ground in gold, and for a moment there's peace.
But then it begins crashing over you; a torrent of emotions strong enough to nearly sweep you away.
Regret.
Longing.
Fear.
And grief so ancient it's fossilized into the soul—grief that has learned how to survive by becoming quiet.
It coils in your gut like smoke, pressing against your ribs, too heavy, too consuming. It isn't yours—you know that—but it moves through your body like it belongs there.
It makes you want to rip yourself open just to see if the feelings bleed out. To see if they're real. To see something—anything—clear for once.
You try to drown it out—to focus on the soft hush of wind through leaves, the warmth of soil beneath you, the steady breathing of the man sitting across from you, against the other side of the tree. The quiet hum of the world moving around you. But then—
Footsteps.
Soft, but sure. Grass shifts. A twig snaps.
You tense. Your body doesn't move, but your mind begins to brace itself. You squeeze your eyes tighter, silently begging: Leave. Just walk on by.
But they don't.
They stop—right on the other side of the tree. A beat of silence.
And then—they sit.
Like they belong here.
Like they were always going to.
The bark dug into my spine. My shoulders stiffened, and I pressed harder against the tree, jaw tightening. Whoever they are, they've broken the rhythm of the moment, shattered the fragile stillness I've carved out for myself in this place.
I didn't want to look.
But I had to, didn't I?
Not out of curiosity, not out of fear, but because I felt myself compelled to know who would dare come here, to the one place I'm allowed to not be anyone.
I recall turning my head slowly, angling to peer through the crooked gap in the oak's wide trunk, through what now seemed like a portal to the heavens.
And you sat there quietly, knees drawn up to your chest, head resting in your arms and eyes closed like you belonged there. A mortal, nothing important, nothing special.
I remember shifting to my knees, the bark rough against my palms as I leaned forward, peering through oak's crooked hollow. The memory is soft around the edges, worn thin by time—but you were there, seated as though you belonged.
You must have known the whispers by then—the carefully cultivated reputation, the layers of distance I'd wrapped myself in like a cloak. I'd made myself a shadow, a storm behind furrowed brows and quick footsteps. The kind of presence no one dared to interrupt.
I rose slowly and deliberately, brushing the dirt from my knees with practiced indifference. I took a short walk around the tree, boots pressing quietly into the grass until I stood directly before you. Still, you didn't move. Didn't even glance up. As if my presence meant nothing.
Strange little thing.
Even without knowing the truth buried beneath this face—this shape—I'd made sure the mask was fearsome enough to ward off the curious.
Yet you sat there like you'd missed the message.
I braced my arm against the tree, leaning over you, letting my shadow stretch across your form like a storm rolling in. I remember thinking it would be enough. Surely, this would send you away.
Perhaps I'd grown a little too confident in the image I wore.
And yet, still—nothing.
You didn't move. You didn't cower. You looked at me, eventually, and blinked as though bored by the drama of my entrance. The sky behind you was warm with late summer light, and I remember hating how it caught the edges of your face, like a portrait too breathtaking to forget.
"This is my spot," I said—sharper than I meant to be. The words came out brittle, my tone edged with irritation I hadn't yet admitted was born from something deeper. "Are you a fool? Everyone in town knows not to bother me."
I'd come from a fruitless hunt that day. Old faces Old temples. A bad memory scraped raw by ruins once gilded in my name. And yet you met my bitterness not with fear, but with a half-lidded stare of quiet disbelief—as though I'd just asked something absurd.
Then, you asked me if I had put my name on the tree. On the hill. On the grass beneath our feet.
I had not.
Of course I hadn't.
"You don't seem all that intimidating," you said, head tilted, voice a touch too amused. There was a challenge in your eyes I hadn't seen in ages—cocky and warm like sunlit water that dares you to relax and step deeper.
"We can share."
I argued, of course. Drew lines in the dirt with stubborn words, even threatened you with a bow I never truly meant to raise. I told myself it was principle. Territory. A matter of pride.
But it wasn't.
And still—you stayed.
So I stayed, too.
And it became a game of attrition. A quiet war beneath that old oak tree. Day after day, seeing which of us would yield first. Who would grow tired of the silence. Who would falter.
And yet—
Somehow you slipped into the rhythm of my days. I never meant for it to happen. I never invited you into the quiet rituals I built to keep the world at bay. But time has a way of folding itself around people like you.
Before I realized it, my hours bent at the knee, reshaped by your presence beneath that oak. The days grew long with half-conversations spoken through the gap in the trunk, voices low, laughter occasionally catching on the wind like birdsong.
The mischief faded first—those little pranks, the constant games of pushing and posturing. They dissolved, quietly, as if they had never belonged between us. And in their place: stillness. Companionable silences. Glanced exchanged through the bark. A strange sort of truce that no one decaled.
Summer vanished. Slipped through the cracks like water. The tree grew bare and brittle, its crown stripped of leaves and clothed in frost. Snow came in thick, crystalline blankets, and for a while, I thought that would be the end of us.
Without the tree to claim—without a battleground—I thought you might forget. That I would forget.
So I returned to what this guise knew. I buried myself in the role of a hunter—sharp-eyed and silent. A ghost that moved through the forests and frozen paths. You vanished. Life moved on.
But gods, the winter had teeth that year.
It sunk into me in ways no season ever had before.
I missed you.
You, a mortal—one of the very creatures who had carved me hollow with stories and lies. And yet the ache of your absence bloomed in my chest, slow and unrelenting.
One day—without thinking, without deciding—I found myself beneath the tree again. My feet knew the way better than my heart did.
The air was cold enough to bite, frost curling at the edges of my sleeves, and I stood there like a fool in the snow—ready to accept the silence I'd earned.
But then—you were there.
Waiting.
Lashes kissed white with frost, hair tucked beneath your hood, the pale winter sky behind you like the canvas of a masterwork. You looked like something out of myth—something I might've made up just to keep the loneliness at bay.
"Why are you still here?" I asked. My voice was rough, choked with breath that bloomed white into the cold. The question burned in my throat, but I had to ask it anyway.
You looked up at me with that ridiculous smile—soft, knowing, a little smug—and it tore a laugh from me before I could stop it.
"I won. It's my spot now." you said, brushing snow from your clothes with exaggerated nonchalance.
And every instinct I'd once held sacred—against every philosophy I'd sworn by—I followed you.
I told myself it was curiosity—that I needed to understand. That a mortal like you, warm-eyed and strange, couldn't possibly be real. That something so unspoiled had to be a trick. A lie—like faerie food.
"Where are we going?" I asked, hands clasped neatly behind my back, trying to sound disinterested—detached.
You hummed, tugging your hood a little tighter against the wind.
"Your home," you said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I looked all over town when the cold came, but I couldn't find you.
Your voice wavered just slightly at the edges—the way it always did when something mattered more than you wanted to admit.
"You like to disappear," you added, gaze turned toward the path ahead. "But you can't hide from me."
Hiding?
Had I truly been doing that?
Avoiding the truth nestled deep in my chest—that I'd grown fond of you in ways I never intended? That I was no longer as indifferent as I'd have liked?
"Perhaps I had been." I murmured, more to myself than to you. My head dipped in a quiet concession, and I stepped ahead, reluctant but resolved, guiding you toward the place I called home.
Or rather... the place I'd borrowed.
The home had once belonged to a huntsman who drank himself to death, his loneliness thick enough to choke on. I'd slipped into the shape of him, claimed his bed, his hearth, his name. Mortals rarely question a presence that mimics familiarity well enough.
I've lived in countless homes—shacks, palaces, temples of crystal, and cities carved in marble. Each built around the face I wore at the time. But none of them ever fit right. Every roof felt too low, every bed too soft or stiff. They had pressed against me like ill-fitted skins. none could hold me—not the real me.
And yet... this one somehow, felt different.
You filled the space in a way I never could. Your voice, your laughter, even the way you sulked when the wind crept in under the door—it made the walls feel less like cages.
There were nights when I forgot what I was. Where I wasn't an angel buried under names and masks and vengeance—I was just something warm, watching you speak beside the crackling fire.
And then, as if we had blinked, winter was gone.
Melted into memory.
It struck me quietly one day beneath the old oak—that was the longest I'd kept an identity. The longest I'd stayed still without splintering a town or vanishing into the fog, without punishing someone for the weight of their perception.
That evening, you met me beneath the tree again, a satchel in hand and a grin tucked at the corners of your mouth. You'd saved for weeks, you said, pinched coin where you could, though I knew most of that money had come from me. Quiet gifts slipped into your pouch when you weren't looking. What use did I have for currency? I did not eat. I did not burn fuel. I had no need for comfort.
But you—you used it to buy a book.
And when you opened it, when your fingers brushed the yellowed pages, something shifted.
Because I recognized the words. I remembered them.
My stories. My tragedies. My sins—etched into ink by mouths that had never known me, retold by voices who feared and worshipped in equal measure.
And you were reading them. You knew.
My breath caught in my throat, unfamiliar and painful. That age-old instinct reared its head—run. Disappear. Start again.
I always ran when I was seen too clearly.
My hands trembled. My stomach churned with something not quite shame, not quite terror—a horrible ache. Familiar. Like home.
I stared at you, bracing for betrayal, or disgust, or fear—for the look that always followed.
But instead—
"I—I'm sorry." I heard myself say.
The words tumbled from my lips without permission, jagged and strange, like something living had crawled out from deep inside me.
A part of me recoiled in disgust. Apologizing? To a mortal? I'd never done that—not sincerely.
And still, I searched your face. Desperate. Panicked. Waiting for you to shatter the fragile world I'd built. To call me monster. To finally see me.
The sky spun above us. The forest pressed in. And I—
I felt stuck in my skin. I wanted to tear it off—to leave the hunter behind and vanish into mist, into shadow, into myth.
Because that's all I've ever known how to do.
Flee.
Run.
Hide.
It's all I've ever done.
But you only shook your head, quiet and steady, and gently pulled me down to sit beside you beneath the tree.
And then—like it was the simplest thing in the world—you spoke words I never imagined I'd be allowed to hear. Words I thought were forbidden to something like me.
"You have no name, no face, no anchor to the world... Do you want one? Should I give you one?"
Your hands were warm—foolishly so, impossibly so—and when they rose to cup my cheek, I leaned into them without protest. Without thought. Just instinct. Bone-deep exhaustion seeped from my limbs, and I slumped into your waiting shape like a story trying to remember how it was first told.
Centuries folded in on themselves inside me: Regret, violence, tenderness, exile, desperation. I carried them all, and suddenly, I was too tired to bear the weight alone.
"That is impossible, my dear," I murmured with the heavy certainty of someone who had begged one, long ago, and learned never to ask again. "Not even the Creator could grant me that."
But you simply hummed, a sound as light as wind through leaves, unburdened by the rules I'd spent lifetimes bound to.
"The Creator is governed by cosmic law, sure. But mortals...mortals were given free will. And they were given dominion over you, weren't they? So I ask again—what do you say?"
Those words hit something ancient and aching inside me—something that had never been named but always lingered, humming under my skin like a prayer I couldn't remember anymore. My lips parted before I could stop them.
"Yes," I breathed. "Yes, please."
And so it began.
We spent four months and eight days fashioning me like a myth retold by firelight.
You scratched categories into the dirt with a stick, had me toss pebbles with my eyes shut to choose hair, height, voice, eyes. We ran through fields and libraries and markets so I could feel what drew me, what felt like mine. We spoke for hours—about food, about stars, about what kind of kindness I might carry. We peeled back the layers and decided who I wanted to be when I wasn't forced to be anything at all.
And slowly, I became.
A name began to rise in me like spring after a cruel winter. A shape. A soul. A self.
And in that self, I found something terrifying:
I had fallen in love with you.

And love—what a cruel thing.
What a luminous, sickening thing.
It turns every other feeling into a shadow.
It renders contentment into longing.
It corrodes reason and whispers delusion in a voice sweeter than truth.
Love is the death of logic, the ruin of kingdoms, the doom of angels.
And I needed it.
I needed it with an ache that made me stupid. Desperate. Mortal.
So I wrote you little poems under moonlight, clumsy with feeling, desperate to condense eternity into twelve words. I slipped them into your books, between the recipes you collected and the strange ideas you left half-finished in the margins.
I loved you the only way I knew how: endlessly.
I would have loved you until our veins braided like roots in the earth and our hearts beat the same rhythm beneath our ribs.
Because you were my Creator. You were the one who saw me not as myth or threat or shapeless horror, but as someone who could be.
You made me real.
And without you, I had no reason to be anyone at all.
I never should have let you give me everything.
Never should have placed you in the path of what I was—what I've always been.
Because while the Creator could not command mortals, could not lace them with cosmic law or shape their choices—it could still ensure. It could correct. It could balance the scale.
And it did.
Because you crossed the line that wasn't meant to be drawn, let alone stepped over. And I stood at your side and let you.
A defiance.
A devotion.
A crime.
A mortal, after all, was never meant to rewrite the purpose of one of its creations.
To grant meaning where none was given—
To name what should have remained nameless—
That was a violation.
A defiance of divine structure.
An offense that demanded retribution.
I remember the night it happened as though it were carved into me. The details seared into the marrow of my being, relentless in their clarity. No matter how much time passes, that memory remains untouched by erosion.
We walked in silence, your hand cradled in mine. I had planned to tell you everything—about what I had done, what I had been, and what you'd done to my heart. I was ready to surrender the whole truth. But your hand was warm, your thumb brushing the backing of mine in small, thoughtless circles, and I found myself stalling to make the moment last just a bit longer.
My divine heart beat with a violence I'd never known—no battle or vengeance or miracle had ever stirred it like this. With you beside me, all of it—every war, every mark, every century—faded into background noise and it no longer seemed as loud in my head. You were more than grounding. You were anchoring.
You made me real.
You chattered about something that had happened earlier that day—some nonsense about a goat loose in town with two children clinging to its back like miniature bandits. The scene meant nothing to me, but your laughter rang like a melody I hadn't known I needed until I heard it. That sound—pure and unburdened—was rest. A kind of rest I'd never been allowed.
And the moonlight? It loved you as much as I did.
It bathed your skin like a blessing, caught in your hair, made your eyes gleam with mischief and warmth. I remember thinking the entire world looked like a backdrop created to cradle your beauty alone—just a stage where you moved freely and unknowingly beautiful.
You looked up at me, your expression full of unbearable joy you always managed to carry, even over the smallest things. It unsettled me, in a way. How could you be so happy in such a broken world? How could you carry such softness without it cutting you open?
And perhaps... perhaps that tiny shard of judgement—of not understanding you fully—is what made it worse. Perhaps that is what made it all the more tragic.
Because I hesitated.
I let the night go on too long.
I let myself fall too deeply into the illusion that maybe, just maybe, I could have all of this.
You.
Peace.
A name.
A future.
And in that hesitation I doomed you.
They moved through time because they existed outside of it.
And your lips—those soft, precious things that said the most wondrous things—had just begun to part with a question or a laugh or a breath, I'll never know. It was lost in the moment your eyes widened, a flash of something ancient behind them—recognition. A silent understanding that something had happened, something final, even if you didn't yet know what it was.
Then came the executioner.
A blade plunged cleanly through your back—swift, silent, a perfect strike.
It didn't bleed you.
No, the blade wasn't meant to be tainted with blood. It was meant for undoing.
It pierced you like a key, not a weapon—unlocking soul from flesh, unthreading the stitches that kept you in this world. You crumpled, so softly, like a page torn from sacred text. And oh, how I wanted—how I needed—to have moved faster. To have noticed sooner. To have thrown myself behind you and taken it all.
The executioner was beautiful. All things from the divine realm are.
Beautiful in the way holy things are: absolute, motionless, terrifying.
They never opened their mouth. Never broke their gaze. But their presence split the sky inside me.
They were not cruel—not even angry.
That would have been easier.
Instead, they were perfect. Silent. Unmovable.
And it was that stillness that shattered me.
I felt the weight of every sin, even the ones I hadn't known I'd committed—especially the one I'd inflicted on you. They pressed down on me until I couldn't breathe, couldn't move, as you sank to the forest floor like a puppet whose strings had been snipped with precision.
I looked in fury at them, searching for a sign of injustice I could fight back against, but there was nothing. Nothing but a slight nod—a movement so small it could have been the wind, and yet I felt it. A gesture I couldn't understand then, but now, maybe it was pity. Maybe it was a quiet apology. Because they are only summoned when a divine law has been broken so utterly that even the gods and angels must look away.
It wasn't your fault.
It was mine.
And yet they punished you all the same.
I collapsed beside your body, the earth rushing to meet me. The forest dulled around me, sounds folding into a high-pitched ring, like reality itself was recoiling at the sheer grief of the scene. I gathered you in my arms with trembling hands, and I knew it the moment I touched you—you were gone.
Not sleeping. Not wounded. Just... absent.
Your body was still whole. Still beautiful. The vessel I had admired, adored. But the soul within—that spark that laughed and argued and made me—it was nowhere to be found.
And I didn't know how to react. There was no emotion strong enough, no shape of grief that could express what tore through me.
My form betrayed me—unraveled into the divine shape you had never seen. The one I hated. Wings too large, body too incomprehensible, face too beautiful. My voice broke apart when I tried to speak, to demand why the Creator had taken you and not me. To beg for your return.
But no words came, and when I looked up, the executioner was already gone.
Just like you.
I was alone.
The woods—once warm, once soft—were suddenly hollow. The moonlight, once silver and loving, burned like acid on my skin. The whole world had turned against me.
And then I sensed it. Not just your absence, but your removal.
You weren't in this world. Not in the heavens. Not in the underworld. You had been taken—cast out into another realm entirely, one far beyond my reach. A place even somebody of my caliber couldn't go.
The Creator didn't just correct the error.
It hid the evidence.
You.
Gone.
Perhaps it was the carnal desire to be gone,
to undo myself,
to become nothing.
My form began to break.
That beautiful, temporary self you'd helped my build—it cracked and splintered until it was dust.
Until there was nothing left but darkness.
I lost my face. My shape. My center.
What remained was a shifting blot of ink and shadow. A void. An echo.
And without you, even that felt too much.
I don't remember what I did that night. Or the nights after. Or the years that followed.
Maybe decades. Maybe more.
But eventually, I started to hear whispers—of a shadow that moved like smoke. A shapeless thing that fed on grief and misery. A monster that haunted the edges of villages, stealing warmth and magic from the air.
And I understood.
Without you, without your name on my lips and your laugh in my chest, I had let myself be shaped by mortal fear and legend.
I was forced into a mold again.
I spent years searching for you—my heart, my breath, the axis upon which my very being once turned. I scoured every corner of the living realm, dared disturb the divine with my rotting body of misery, even descended into the underworlds where no light reaches. Always hoping—aching—that the feeling was wrong. That hollow emptiness where your presence should have been was a lie. That maybe I was only panicking.
But it was never a lie. You were gone.
And in that time... I don't know what I became.
Without you—my reason, my tether—I was a thing adrift. Disgusting in nature, I hid and only lashed out. I lived in echoes and shadows, unanchored and shapeless. A being wearing old regrets like skin. I can't remember the faces I wore, or the deeds I committed while searching. There are blank places in my memory, stained only with the knowledge that I must have hurt many in my desperation. I must have destroyed things, twisted fates, left ruin in my wake.
And may the divine forgive me—I would do it all again if it meant finding you.
But you are not here to forgive me.
Not yet.
So I wait.
I wait like a prayer made in flesh. I wait like an abandoned altar beneath a sky that no longer answers.
I wait for my creator to return—not the One in the heavens, but you.
You, who named me. You, who gave me a face.
You, who made me someone.
I wait for you to salvage me from this endless dark, to craft me again with warm hands and soft laughter. To call me into being like you did before.
Because I believe now, with all the fragile, fractured pieces of what remains of me, that the Creator—the Creator—was hasty. Rash in its punishment. Cruel in its corrections. It shattered us and called it balance, but it made a single, fateful mistake.
It forgot to scratch your name from the ledges buried deep within the grand library of all things that are, and were, and will be.
And all unnatural things, in time, return to how they belong.
Like a tide pulling the wayward back to shore.
Like a thread—cut too early—still tugging at the loom.
So I hoped.
Oh, I hoped with the kind of hope that burns and scalds.
With the kind of hope that only something eternal can endure.
It took a long, long time.
Longer than most stars get.
And in that time I did everything.
Begging. Bartering. Lying. Challenging.
The Weaver of Fates hated me, hated the way I slipped between threads, rearranged destinies like pages in a book, like a god with a pen too eager. But like all living things, even the divine, they grew curious. Even they hungered for something new—an unexpected turn in the story. And so, for each fate I promised to rewrite in their name, I was granted one meager decade within their library.
And there—
Amid endless shelves, beneath eternity's whirring lanterns, swathed in dust and starlight and silence—
I found you.
Your thread.
Out of nowhere. Woven anew.
Subtle, but unmistakable.
You.
I remember how I staggered. How the breath left me like a struck bell. How my trembling hands reached for the book that held your name like it was the only thing in the universe worth touching.
Because to me, it was—It is.
You were still out there. Alive again. Somewhen.
And the only thing left in me—after centuries of ruin, centuries of silence—was the desperate, carnal need to find you again.
My Savior.
You returned to the world through the smallest crack—a school and a fluke of magic, they called it. But I knew it was fate, twisting itself in impossible ways just to give me a second chance.
The world, however, is as cruel as it is careless. Your fate was once again marred by suffering—cut open by hands that saw you not as a soul, not as the brilliant, unshakable light I remembered, but as a vessel.
A means to an end. A thing to use.
The book said they'd grow to love you. That time would soften their edges, that eventually they'd see the truth of you and come to adore you. but now, my star—how could they not immediately fall to their knees before your purity? How could they ever lay a hand on your gentle spirit and think it anything less than sacred?
I couldn't allow it.
Not again.
Not after all you'd already endured because of me.
Please.
Please rest, my beloved.
Let me carry the weight for a while.
Come back to me, curl close to my side. Lay your head against my chest, feel my heart beating for you and you alone. Let it remind you that you're not alone anymore. That you're home, you're safe.
I felt it in the moment you stepped through again—the second your soul returned to this realm. The wind shifted. The light changed. The world, once fueled by my grief, suddenly shimmered with warmth and color.
And there you were.
So breathtaking, it almost hurt.
A different form, yes, but still you.
Your soul radiated through, unmissable, unmistakable. That light of yours—impossibly bright. Unyielding. Unchanged.
In that moment, I nearly ran to you, fell to my knees before you like a worshipper before their altar. I would have offered every piece of me right then—my hands, my heart, my every divine and ruined piece.
I wanted to pray to you, not the Creator.
Because only you had ever given me peace.
Only you made me real.
And so, driven by that desperate ache, knowing what trials were written for you in the pages of fate, I made a choice.
A hasty, selfish, loving choice.
Please forgive me.
I became your guardian.
Not by divine assignment—no, the heavens had long since turned from me. I was no longer an Angel, no longer anything at all in their eyes. A fallen thing. A memory.
Shelter.
Protection.
A little more time.
Until I could earn back your love, until we could escape this wretched cycle together—somewhere quiet, somewhere safe. Somewhere the stars forgot. Hidden even from the Creator's gaze.
I passed my gift to you—the same one that had once forced me to slip through the cracks of perception, to disappear and be ignored by even the divine. I made you forgettable. Your name, your face, your presence—reduced to a whisper in the minds of those around you.
No one could hold you long enough to break you again.
But I was wrong.
I was so wrong.
The night I found you in the snow, body broken and spirit dimmed, something inside of me that had been subtly blooming again tore.
My treasure—my heart, my only—shattered again, and I hadn't even seen it coming. You had become so invisible, so perfectly cloaked in my protection that even I could no longer feel the ache of your suffering until it was too late.
And still, even mangled, you begged to be seen.
To be known.
And perhaps—perhaps I had been cruel in my reverence. So intent on protecting you that I denied you the very thing you longed for: connection.
So I lifted it.
The concealment, the cloak, the silence. I peeled it back and let the world see you again.
And I watched you drown beneath the affection you so rightly deserved—both soft and overwhelming, subtle and blinding. Some of it pure. Some of it not.
And I remained in the shadow, unseen. As always. Just your guardian.
Just the broken remnant of what you once loved.
Waiting.
Always waiting.
For the day you remember me.
And love me again.

Chapter 8: 8 (ENDING)

Notes:

This has split endings btw. After this chapter there are 4 endings available.

The days blurred together, spinning like a carousel that had lost its rhythm—too fast, too bright, too sweet in all the wrong ways. It was beautiful, almost nostalgically so, but nauseating. As if time had decided to move forward with a cruel sort of cheer, indifferent to the heaviness you carried with each step.
After that night, no one asked questions.
Perhaps they didn't know how. Perhaps they feared the answers. Or maybe, deep down, they understood that no explanation offered could make any of it easier to bear. No truth would be gentle enough to soothe the ache or clean enough to satisfy curiosity.
The Blot, once a constant presence—whispering in corners of your mind, teasing you, luring and lamenting in equal measure—had gone quiet. It had curled into some hidden recess of your mind and fallen silent. No more murmurs. No more laughter. Not even sorrow.
Just stillness.
And in that silence, the days continued. Time didn't heal so much as it dulled. The pain didn't vanish, but its edges softened, becoming something you could carry without crumbling.
Word of your circumstances had reached others too. Rook, ever the optimist, had suggested involving more minds might help—perhaps a collective pursuit would bring clarity, or even a solution. But all it did was wrap you in an uncomfortable awareness. You weren't a mystery to solve. You were a burden to be managed.
A melancholy settled over campus like mist, creeping into everything and everyone. Even the most powerful students, the most composed individuals, wore subtle changes in their expressions. It was like ripples in still water—small, but undeniable. You noticed them. And worse, you knew you had caused them.
Ruggie caught your eye in passing once. His ears drooped, not out of fear this time, but something gentler. Understanding, maybe. He shifted his weight like he might walk toward you—might say something—but in the end, he turned away. He didn't blame you. He knew what happened was terrifying. But he also knew you were terrified too. Still, things weren't the same, and that subtle drift between you stung sharper than outright blame ever could.
Then there was Riddle.
He said nothing. But you caught him watching you in the reflection of your teacup—eyes focused not on your face, but on the quiet tension in your hands, the way you rubbed the edge of the porcelain like it might fray under your touch. Your tea had gone cold long ago, but you remained seated, fingers tracing delicate swirls as if hoping to anchor yourself in something familiar.
In a quiet, grand gesture of hope—or maybe desperation—Heartslabyul's signature rose guardian had been unearthed. The flowers replanted, replaced with blooms of your choosing. Riddle hadn't mentioned it aloud. He didn't need to. Somewhere beneath his rules and routines, he hoped you'd still be around when the first buds opened. As if time itself could become a clock, counting down not to an end—but to a beginning.
One late night, as you lay motionless in bed, half-present and barely breathing through the static of your own thoughts, a soft ping from your phone flickered through the silence. The shadows in your room flickered, signaling that the Blot had also been startled by the sound. Idia had sent you a message—long, rambling, awkward, and painfully sincere. He apologized for the last tense interaction, for the things he'd said and the things he hadn't. Attached were coordinates.
Curiosity, or maybe something gentler than that, stirred in your chest as you followed them in-game.
What waited for you was a massive, underground bunker built block by block with obsessive care—stocked with everything you liked and needed, every silly item you'd once casually mentioned, every rare collectible he knew you adored, and even every animal—tamable and untamable—neatly confined in entity-friendly spaces as well. It was a digital sanctuary, crafted with shaking hands and a quiet breaking heart. He didn't say he missed you. He didn't have to. The base was the confession.
Idia: I just want you to keep going. Even if it's not for me.
His last message read, surprisingly written with perfect grammar.
Meanwhile, outside your actual window, Malleus continued his nightly rituals. The gentle tap of wind or the faint glimmer of magic was all that marked his passing. The gifts he left behind were unique and otherworldly—small fae tokens: a branch from his favorite tree, a stone somehow carved into an intricate small gargoyle, a piece of glass shaped like a tear that never fell. Each one left in hope, in helplessness, in longing. He was trying to help. Trying to understand. But even the great faerie prince could not comprehend the wound inside you, only mourn that he couldn't soothe it.
Silver never said much. His silences were eloquent and graceful. He continued his quiet patrols past Ramshackle, watching from a respectful distance. He'd always been a guardian of dreams and peace—but he couldn't guard you from yourself. Or the Blot. So instead, he left small flowers woven into crowns and rings on your doorstep when he could, humble blooms from his walks. But they were always wilted by morning. As if even nature understood the fragility of his offering.
You never mentioned the state you often found them in, not wanting to see the boy wilt himself.
The Yuus were gentler now, but more intense in their presence. Always hovering, always nearby. They didn't speak of the truth—but it haunted the spaces between your conversations. The weight of your confession clung to them like a second skin. They smiled at you as if afraid the wrong word might shatter the air around you.
You hated the way they all looked at you—as if you were glass set on the edge of a high shelf. As if breathing too hard might tip you over.
But the truth?
Nothing had changed.
Not really.
Somewhere deep down, you had already made your choice—long before any of them noticed the fracture. It sat inside you like a quiet star: constant, cold, inevitable. You didn't know when the moment would come, only that you'd know it when it did.
And for all their efforts—sweet, sincere, achingly kind—you couldn't be saved in the way they hoped. But overtime it became painfully clear how difficult that goal truly was.
And it wasn't their fault.
It only made the guilt worse.
Like a debt you wished they'd stop trying to repay.
Because the person they were fighting to save—the one who had held them all together—was slipping quietly out of reach. And no one, not even you, knew if they could come back.
The news spread like fire on dry grass—swift, bright, and impossible to ignore.
A way home had been found.
Reactions rippled across campus in a tangled mess of emotions: elation, sorrow, disbelief, anxiety, longing. Some students whispered with hope in their voices; others stared blankly at the walls, caught in a strange limbo of what-ifs and memories. And through it all, one truth remained: you had changed them.
The way people looked at you—the way they felt about you—had shifted. No longer were you just a strange newcomer from another world. Somewhere along the line, you'd become theirs. A friend, a rival, a confidant, a source of chaos and comfort.
And now you were all leaving.
Headmage Crowley called a formal meeting, though even he lacked his usual flair. He stood a little straighter than usual, voice more solemn than usual. The mirror home was open, stable. The stars had aligned in a rare cosmic arrangement. The gate thrummed with raw energy—ready to bring you back where it all began.
Your world. Or... was it?
Because deep inside you, a whisper lingered. Faint. Familiar. The Blot's story. The idea that this—this—was your real world. That your soul had bloomed here once before. Perhaps that's why the ocean reached for you on calm days, why the wind danced with you when you in lonely moments, why the snow and sun kissed you with reverence instead of indifference.
The world here didn't just accept you. It welcomed you. Embraced you. And so did the people within it.
And as the final day drew nearer, fleeting moments played in your mind like petals caught in a breeze:
Deuce had leaned over during class, whispering urgently as if trying to catch time by the tail. His teal eyes shimmered with quiet urgency, like deep ponds stirred with emotion. "You should text me if you go," he said, lips tugged into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "All of us. Even if it's like... cross-dimensional." It wasn't meant to sway your choice, just a promise: you are loved here.
Leona dropped his thoughts at lunch like they didn't weigh as much as they clearly did. He sat across from you, lazily pushing a tray your way. "Ordered too much." he muttered—though you both knew he didn't. As you ate, his gaze lingered, not on your face, but on the simple fact that you were still here. Still present. Still real. "You're stronger than you think. Even without all that Blot junk." The lion gave a soft scoff, one ear flicking. "You'd fit in at the Sunset Savanna. People respect lions there. And you have the strength of a Lion." You knew what he meant: There was a place waiting for you.
And Kalim? He couldn't sit still. Ever since the news broke, he'd been rushing around like a whirlwind of joy and dread, putting together elaborate gift boxes for each of you. Trinkets, silks, spices, ornate keepsakes—things that would make jaws drop back in your world. He said it was so you'd never forget him. And oddly enough, Jamil never once protested. He simply helped. Quietly. Carefully. Like he, too, wanted to give you something that could never be repaid.
The hour before your departure arrived too quickly, yet dragged with unbearable weight.
Within the quiet hush of the Mirror Chamber, everything was illuminated by an eerie softness—like the world itself knew this was a moment it should handle delicately. The usual chatter had fallen to a hush. The air was heavy with unsaid things.
Trey approaches first, carrying bags loaded with care. You could tell he'd packed them himself. Neatly arranged inside were tarts—your favorites—alongside sweets he'd made over the years. Some were crumbling a little from being hastily prepared. Others were packed carefully in tins or paper to preserve their shape. Between them, he'd slipped in small, handwritten notes. Jokes. Memories. Reminders. Pieces of a life he can't follow.
"For the road," he said, voice rough and cracked, like he hadn't spoken all morning. Not quite the easygoing Trey you remembered. As Yuuken reached in to quietly take one of the signature sweets, there was a shared understanding—this was the last taste of Heartslabyul you would have. The last sweetness made for you.
The Mirror Chamber had filled with those closest to you, all huddled in a makeshift half-circle, as though any moment now they'd try to block the mirror with their bodies. A final attempt to keep you here.
Confessions clung to the walls like mold. Unspoken apologies floated like dust in the morning light. It felt like being at the edge of something vast—something you couldn't see beyond, but could feel.
Vil approached you next. Always composed, always immaculate, his heels clicked quietly against the floorboards as he came to fix your collar. His fingers moved with precision, but his touch lingered just a second longer than it needed to.
"You've always made an impression," he said, eyes narrowing though the edges of his expression faltered, "Now make an even better one when you go back. Hold your head high. Don't cry in front of that portal." His voice lowered, the gentleness slipping out against his will. "You deserve to leave with dignity. After everything, you deserve it."
You stood surrounded by uncharacteristic warmth, by familiarity, by those you'd once hated, distrusted, or even feared—only to later realize their cruelty wasn't personal. They'd simply been broken in their own ways, the reality around all of you unknowingly manipulated by something beyond comprehension. And still, you had come to matter to them.
The mirror at the center of the room pulsed gently, casting an otherworldly green glow that flickered across their faces—across your face. The kind of glow that seemed to hum with power, with promise.
Beyond that glass: a world you had once called home. You could almost hear it—distant sounds, the hush of a subway station, the hum of the bus, rain against a window, a fan left on all year. You could smell it, too—concrete warmed by the sun, your favorite food spot down the street, old paper and familiar detergent.
It called to you like a siren, and inside, something shifted.
The Blot was silent now. Dormant. Patient.
Maybe it hoped to return with you.
Maybe it simply waited to see what you'd choose.
Because that's what this moment truly was: a choice.
You, standing between two lives. Two worlds. Two versions of yourself. Whole, but scattered. Loved, but always longing.
The mirror ripples.
And somewhere behind you, someone whispered—maybe it was Azul, perhaps Jamil—"Are you really going to leave?"
With Lilia's assistance, Grim carefully raised the old ghost camera to capture you all in a final, treasured moment. For once, the lens faces the Ramshackle Prefects and not their subjects; A final keepsake for those you're leaving behind.
You swallow down a lump in your throat as you watch the Yuus all leave one-by-one, your feet now rooted to the ground.
Your decision, chosen long ago, came into play now.

1. Break the contract.
2. Remain with the Blot.
3. Reach for him.
4. Go home.

Chapter 9: The Pale Place

Notes:

Break The Contract

Time stretches, drawn out and breathless, as you stand before the mirror that hums with fate. The room behind you is heavy with emotion, but your attention sharpens, narrows—fixed on your hand, to the ring wrapped around your finger. It glows faintly in the mirror's light, its jewel cool and quiet. A symbol. A sentence. A promise. And maybe, in some tragic way, a love.
The contract etched into your soul by the ring had once felt protective. Needed. Binding in the way that a lifeline is to a drowning person. But now—now you see it for what it was. The Blot, in all its lonely mimicry, had clung to you in the only way it knew how: misinterpreted affection twisted desperation. A creature that tried so desperately to understand love, that it smothered you with it.
Still, you understood it. How could you not? The desire to be seen, to be chosen, to be loved not because of a role, a title, or some cosmic accident—but simply because you exist. The Blot didn't just mirror you. It was you, in all the ways you'd never said aloud.
As if sensing your thoughts, your shift in resolve, the voice comes—familiar now, intimate. "You won't." Its quiet at first, but filled with quiet certainty. Only, that certainty sounds shaken, like a lie trying to convince itself.
You don't answer. Your hands act first. The bag falls to the floor with a soft thud—forgotten. Your fingers move toward the ring, brushing over the ornate metal and the shimmering stone set in its crown. Beneath your touch, it trembles—whether in protest or fear, you can't say.
"You won't. You can't." The Blot speaks again, and this time it sounds like it's begging.
You pause.
The truth is you've never really tried to remove it. Not with intent. Not with your whole heart. Perhaps that's why it never moved before—because a part of you never wanted it gone. Not truly.
But tonight, it shifts. The metal slides ever so slightly. The seal begins to unravel. And it hurts—God it hurts.
It's not just your skin the ring peels from. It's something deeper. The Blot had tangled itself in you—into you—like veins of ivy through the brick of your being. Now, as the contract breaks, it feels like tearing muscle from bone, like ripping a second soul from the cradle of your own. It had you up. It kept your heart beating when you'd stopped trying to.
And now, it wails.
The scream echoes in your skull—a shriek of pain, panic, and devotion twisted raw.
"Please—please don't" the Blot sobs, and you feel the agony of it like it's your own. "You gave me a name. You said I wasn't nothing..."
It screams your name like it's all it has left—like it's carved into its essence and to lose you would mean unraveling entirely. The ring slides over the second joint, and its voice shatters into pleading once more, but softer this time. Resigned. Frightened.
"Please don't leave me, my dove. Please don't go where I cannot follow... where I can't protect you."
That tiny pause, that momentary flicker of compassion—it seizes it.
Suddenly, you're elsewhere.
The Blot shows you peace—imagined, but not impossible. A place where you're happy—normal. A world where love waits for you in simple things: arms around your waist while cooking, laughter in bed, warmth beside you on a cold morning. The person beside you is faceless, undefined—but the joy is unmistakable. It's real. It could be yours.
When the vision fades, the Blot's voice returns, like a ghost brushing your ear.
"You don't have to go. Stay. I'll be good. I'll be better for you, my love... You don't even have to love me. Y-you can pick someone else—I won't be jealous. I'll still be yours—just don't go. Don't leave me here. Please..."
There's something so terribly human in its desperation. In its willingness to suffer quietly for just a sliver of you.
You close your eyes.
"I won't become a victim of myself—my choices," you whisper, not to the Blot—but to yourself. "I will make it, even if it kills me."
The final pull of the ring comes with no glamor, no burst of magic. Just silence. Sudden and vast.
And then a forgotten memory floods back, cruel in its timing: The Blot didn't just bind itself to your soul. It held you together. You died, once. A long time ago, you slipped from the world, and no heaven opened, no underworld stirred. It was the Blot that held you upright, that made your heart beat, that pulled air into your cold lungs, and whispered its love into your hollowed chest.
And now, without it—
You unravel.
The thread breaks and the world forgets to keep you—to hold you in place within it.
Time stutters.
Space folds.
You fall—not from grace, but like paper losing its shape—through the seams of reality itself.
No heaven welcomes you.
No underworld opens its gates,
and your name dissolves.
There is no destination waiting, arms outstretched.
Only the deafening silence of a name unsaid, unwritten, and unremembered.
Only the echo of something that once loved you, crying out into a universe that no longer knows your shape.
Perhaps, in the end, the Creator took pity on you. You prefer to believe that. It's the only mercy that makes sense.
It could've crushed you with a thought—snuffed you out like a careless child crushing an ant beneath its finger. You were small, after all. Mortal. Fragile in the grand clockwork of the cosmos. But instead of ruin, you were gathered. Collected. Your soul in tatters, your essence threadbare, and yet the Keeper of Memories reached for you. Cradled you.
Gently.
Reverently.
As if you were something delicate and sacred. As if your pain mattered.
A warmth, faint but present, seeps into the hollows of what remains of you. "We are sorry," they whisper—not in pity, but in truth, calm and full of ancient kindness. "This is not a punishment. This is preservation."
And so you're taken. Plucked from the seam you fell through and placed somewhere distant, unreachable. Not destroyed, not erased, but preserved. You are sealed inside an artifact world—some forgotten relic out of time, a vessel to hold your ghost. You are documented, but untouched. Recorded, but forever out of reach.
The Creator should never have punished you for an angel's trespass, for the crime of being loved too much by something that never knew how. You were human. You are human. Mortal and soft and unprepared for the divine weight of such devotion. So this time, the Blot is punished—not you. You are taken and hidden, placed beyond its reach, so it may never find you. The Weaver of Fates sees to that. It is a fixed certainty written into the threads of this world: it will search, and it will fail.
You are unwritten.
Unremembered.
Unmade.
Your eyes are empty. Your thoughts are quiet. Whatever was left of your body, your vessel, falls apart like a sandcastle left in the tide—decaying without ceremony, too exhausted to resist.
And yet, you do not sleep.
You do not rest.
The sun rises.
Falls,
and rises again.
The moon chases after it, again and again, almost mirroring the Blot's own path of broken hearts and shattered glass.
Nations are born,
crumble into dust,
and are born again.
The seasons twist and blur,
snow becoming sun,
warmth becoming wind.
Stars ignite,
burn,
and die.
And still, you remain—not in the world, not outside it—just there, hovering on the cusp of something that cannot be named.
You are a breath no one has taken.
A moment that never arrived.
An echo without a source.
Time forgets you. The world turns on without you.
And those you knew—those you loved—pass by in a blink. Their lifetimes end. Their descendants rise. You watch them from afar, some flicker of what once was still tethered to your gaze. You remember their faces but not their names, remember the way they made you feel but not why. And still they change, evolve, and repeat.
You watch bloodlines stretch forward into futures they'll never know were built atop a loss they cannot name. You watch their descendants rise, carrying fragments of familiar laughter in their smiles, or a glimpse of a once-known stubbornness in their stride.
They never know you, not really.
You're a silent constant in the corner of every generation's eye.
From the void you inhabit, the Blot never ceases its search—and you watch quietly. It fractures. Regresses. Stumbles into the same dark patterns you tried so hard to soothe. You would scold it if you remembered how—if your voice still worked, if your heart still stirred.
But instead, you drift. And sometimes, when the space between moments goes quiet, you think you hear something. A whisper tucked in the corner of nothingness—familiar, devastated, aching.
"I've lived a thousand lives, and yet I always find a way to disappoint you. So maybe you were right. Maybe the real me is dying in a costume somewhere far away."
"Where are you?"
"Please... say my name."
But no name comes. Not yours. Not theirs. There's no pain here. No body to hold it. Only the memory of love that tried to survive the end of the world. A ghost curled into itself.
You exist in a field of glass.
Not broken glass—just... glass. Tall, sharp, swaying like grass blades, but cold and clear. Every step you take slices your flesh, but the wounds vanish before you can feel them. Your footprints leave behind melted patches as if for once—you are warm.
The glass hates your warmth.
The sky is black—but there are too many moons. Some are full. Some broken. One drips a steady stream of noctilucent blood.
And you are alone here.
Are you even aware of that?
Far away, the Mirror Chamber stands silent, bathed in the hush of night. A few voices echo softly against the walls. Sobs, mostly. The kind too tired to be dramatic. Lilia holds the last polaroid from the ghost camera in trembling fingers. He writes the date—Ramshackle's arrival, and now, its quiet farewell.
One by one, he writes your names. Each prefect, each person, immortalized in the faded paper. But when he reached your figure—there, smiling, alive, real—his hand faltered. The pen hovers just above your head. Your name sits on the edge of his mind, a syllable caught in fog. He knows it. He knows he knows it. But it won't come.
Sebek stands nearby, flipping through the photo album with a furrowed brow. You're there in a few photos. He turns pages that show you laughing, arguing, existing. Candid shots of dinners at Ramshackle, of snowball fights and late-night studying. You're often seen with the Yuus. But even more curious was how you were also seen there with them—the people standing around in the Chamber of Mirrors. Yet no one can quite explain who you were. A warmth, a presence, an eighth prefect whose name doesn't pass the lips.
One photo falls to the floor. It's older. Worn. Faded at the edges. It captures a room in Ramshackle no one recalls existing, a view no one remembers seeing. You're smiling in it—truly smiling—and the light catches you just right as you handed Grim a can of tuna.
There's no name written on the back.

Chapter 10: Where the World Forgets

Notes:

Remain With The Blot

You linger before the mirror, just a few steps from home. The air holds its breath, heavy with anticipation, as every eye in the chamber watches—waiting to see if you'll cross the threshold. Hope flickers in some, resignation in others. But instead of stepping forward, you take a single step back. Then another.
It's not fear. It's not indecision.
It's a choice.
Somewhere behind you, someone exhales in surprise. Others sigh in stunned relief, a ripple of soft joy passing through the room like wind through leaves. A few voices murmur, hopeful.
Did you choose them?
But your arms draw inward, hands pressed close in your chest—to your heart, still chilled and aching. And at the center of it all is the Blot's ring, warm against your skin. You clutch it as if it were a lifeline, and then, without quite meaning to, you speak.
"Take me away," you whisper, the words quiet, but certain. Steady. Not a tremor in your voice. "Let's go somewhere safe."
The Blot's breath shudders through the air—relieved, reverent, alive. "As you wish, my dear," it murmurs, its voice like velvet, like dusk falling.
The shadows ripple outward, slow and deliberate, curling around you with a strange kind of grace. They no longer hide. They do not mask themselves in illusions or whispers or glimmers half-seen. For the first time, the entity steps into the light. Everyone sees it—not just the fear it left behind or the traces carved into the world, but it.
What they see is something dark, nebulous, nearly impossible to comprehend. Its shape is fluid, ungraspable, as though looking at it too long might cause the mind to stumble. Yet its presence is unmistakably gentle—toward you. It does not glance to those who've suffered by its hand, does not explain or ask for forgiveness. It doesn't need to. It only sees you.
And without features, it somehow still looks at you with love.
A reverence that bleeds into every movement as it wraps its form around you—protective, possessive, tender. Its shadows cocoon you slowly, like dusk falling over a weary world. Its arms engulf you in warmth you once feared but now leaned into, and all around, the room stirs.
Some scream your name. Hands reach out, desperate to pull you back. Pleading. Others brace themselves, pens drawn, glyphs half-cast, eyes wide with panic. A few spells flash through the air, meant to separate you from the entity.
They don't land.
The Blot doesn't fight back.
It only takes.
And then you're gone. Plucked from the Mirror Chamber in a sweep of darkness and fading light like a dream pulled from under the pillow.
You land elsewhere.
The world around you breathes easy. No longer tight with tension or straining against magic. Light spills gently through the leaves above, dappled and golden. The sound of birdsong echoes faintly in the distance. Grass brushes your ankles, impossibly soft. You hear wind in the trees. The hum of peace. For the first time in a long time, it feels like you've escaped.
This place doesn't press against you. It welcomes you.
The light here doesn't scorch. It embraces. It glows.
Somewhere ahead, you catch sight of the Blot again—its silhouette framed against the gentle slope of a hill. Below it, a sweet little town nestles in the distance like a painted memory. When it turns and sees you awake, something changes. It smiles. That rare, delicate expression you've only seen in echoes and dreams—something you alone seem able to summon from it.
It descends the hill and comes to you, slow and careful, like approaching something fragile and precious. It offers a hand. And you take it.
Its touch is soft, reverent, guiding you as you rise.
"Is this... real?" you ask, your voice quiet, filled with wonder and disbelief as you look around. The trees, the light, the smell of the earth—it's too gentle, too lovely.
The Blot doesn't answer right away. It reaches out instead, brushing a fallen leaf from your hair, then lets its hand linger.
"Of course," it says finally, the words as sure as stone.
With that, it guides you forward, hand in hand, toward a house tucked in the glade. Your house. It stands alone and pristine, shaped perfectly to your soul—the size, the design, the softness of its lines as though waiting to be filled with your laughter, your footsteps, your breath.
But it waits. Lifeless, for now.
It waits for you to step inside and bring it to life.
And as the Blot gently coaxes you toward the door—like someone introducing a beloved pet to a new home—the world quietly sings around you.
Time passed, but it no longer pressed at your spine or curled into your chest like a fist. It moved like honey now—slow, golden, gentle. Here, time was not something to fear. Here, it was okay to rest. To breathe. To take your days like sips of tea, slow and satisfying.
The Blot made good on its quiet promise to care for you. In the kitchen, it moved with uncanny precision, absurdly skilled for a being of shadows and lost divinity. It cooked as if it had once worn the face of royal chefs, carried the soft memory of a grandmother's secret touch, and harbored the tenderness of a father feeding his child for the first time. It insisted you needn't lift a finger. It would never let you go hungry, never allow a craving to go unmet.
You teased it sometimes, smirking behind your hand at the sheer seriousness in its expression as it fussed over the spices and plating. And quietly, you wondered. Had the angel—back when it was still an angel—ever enjoyed the small, mortal joys of lives it wore? Had these details become more than masks—had they become hobbies?
One early morning, as the summer breeze drifted lazily through the open windows and made the drapes glow with golden light, you asked, your voice low and curious:
"Do you like cooking?"
The Blot stilled, halfway through preparing your breakfast. It didn't answer right away. Its shadowed form hesitated like a thought unfinished.
"I like cooking for you," it said finally, quiet and certain. "I like doing a lot for you."
Its voice was soft—calm and unassuming, like it had already accepted the weight of its feelings, quietly nestled into them like a bird in its nest.
In the evenings, when you chose to read—settled in a corner of peace, perhaps beneath the boughs of a tree or on the porch swing—the Blot hovered. No longer bold in its affection, it lingered just out of reach, hesitant in a way it had never been before. Like a pet uncertain if it's still welcome, waiting to be scolded for climbing furniture.
You didn't shoo it. Nor did you invite it. You simply read.
And eventually, when your blinks grew long and your breath evened, when your shoulder found its way to the Blot's side without your noticing, it froze. Rigid. Breathless. Afraid to shift and wake you.
But slowly—so slowly—it melted. Your head on its shoulder, your trust given freely and unconsciously. That small touch, that quiet closeness, was enough. It began to hum. Low and tuneless, an old melody born from somewhere deep in its past. A lullaby, perhaps, from when it had once been a nursemaid. Or a song remembered from its time as a soldier in a war, slower now, gentler.
Outside, the world remained still. The birds repeated their morning songs like clockwork. The clouds moved only when you weren't watching. And the stars? The stars stayed, unwilling to leave you.
They watched. They adored.
It made the Blot ache in a strange, bitter way—to know everything could look at you and love you. Yet still, it understood. Who wouldn't love you?
At night, when the sun dipped beneath the horizon to meet the dancing spirits below the earth, the Blot resumed its quiet ritual. Just as it once had in Ramshackle, it had helped you prepare for bed after studying, every motion careful, gentle, reverent.
But tonight, the cycle was interrupted.
You reached out and tugged it gently down onto the mattress beside you.
An invitation.
A shared moment of warmth and silent understanding. No longer simply tolerated—wanted. A comfort once fought against now pulled close. The Blot was stiff at first, startled. But it watched you roll over, watched your eyes flutter closed—and something shifted.
Acceptance.
Complete. Unreserved.
It slid down beside you, its body slowly curling into the mattress like a wave finally returning to shore. Maybe not tonight, but someday soon, it would be brave enough to wrap you in its arms again like it once had.
Your gaze found the moon beyond the window—huge, round, and unnaturally still in the sky. A thought flickered through your peaceful mind, sharp and intrusive.
"Don't you think the moon's been full for too long?" you murmured, as if afraid the question itself might shatter the illusion.
The Blot turned its head slowly to look too, its voice low and groggy. "...Maybe it just likes you," it said, a note of mischief bleeding through its fatigue. "It's making me jealous, dear."
It no longer slept curled on the floor beside your bed, a faithful shadow denied you. You had made space for it. And it stayed.
In the morning, you awoke to find it curled beside you—not holding, just touching, your bodies barely brushing. But its warmth wrapped around you all the same, like a protective ward.
It never clung.
It didn't need to.
But its touch was always there, grounding itself in you, making sure you were still here.
Still real.
Still with it.
The evening was quiet, soft around the edges, like a watercolor painting left out in the sun. You and the Blot had spent the day wandering the sleepy town, gathering groceries and odds and ends you didn't truly need but found comfort in purchasing anyway. The world had slowed to a lull here, and even chores—mundane and small—became soothing.
As the sun began its descent, smearing honeyed light across the hills and rooftops, the Blot shifted beside you. It stepped out of its human guise with a slow ripple, shedding the illusion like a coat too warm. Shadows slipped across its limbs, pooling into the amorphous form you knew best, the one that no longer frightened you but felt like a second presence to your own breath.
You paused, mid-step on the gravel path leading to your cottage. The basket of produce swung gently from your arm. That image, unassuming and quiet, struck something deep inside— a memory unearthed like a flower blooming through snow.
You remembered the look in its eyes once, in another life, a memory threaded through the seams of dreams—when you'd given it a name for the first time. The awe, the joy, the way it clung to that gift like a child with their first treasure.
And without thinking, you spoke.
"You don't need to be Blot anymore." Your voice had changed since arriving here—softer, warmer, as if weathered smooth by time and stillness. You couldn't tell how long it had been. Days, weeks, years? Time didn't matter here. "I gave you a name once, didn't I? Let's try again."
The Blot froze. The basket it carried slipped from its grasp and hit the path with a soft, earthy thump—apples spilling and rolling. Its form rippled, destabilized, as though the words had broken something vital inside. For a heartbeat, it looked like it might melt into the gravel, disappear altogether.
But it steadied. Sharpened. Reformed.
"Really?" it breathed. "Truly?"
Its voice trembled—hopeful, terrified, overwhelmed. Like someone being offered a future they'd long stopped believing they could deserve.
You nodded.
It lifted you in its arms before you could brace, spinning you easily, laughing—a laugh unburdened, unfiltered. You were weightless in its grasp, suspended in golden light, and the look on its face mirrored a soul given back something irreplaceable.
All the way home, your mind spun with names—some whimsical, some sacred—but one name rooted itself in your heart. A name that felt right. Familiar. Yours to give.
You whispered it once, testing the sound. Then again, offering it freely.
The Blot smiled now. A new form emerged, one soft and pleasing, as if they'd sculpted it lovingly from all the details you adored. A patchwork of gentleness and curiosity, carefully stitched together.
"I like it," they murmured, smiling with something shy and proud all at once. "It's mine, right?"
You nodded again. Final. Certain. Hoping, deep down, that this time the ending would be different. That some kind of force out there had finally taken pity. That you'd been allowed this soft life together. A quiet ending. A gentle forever.
That night, you lay beneath an old oak tree, side by side on the hill behind your home. The stars watched silently from above, their patterns frozen as ever. The moon didn't shrink or change—it stayed full, glowing like a promise. Your head rested against their shoulder, your hand gently brushing theirs.
Then, they spoke.
"There's a freedom in falling," they said, their voice low, more to themselves than to you. "Nothing above. Nothing below. Just a pilgrimage into emptiness."
They paused. You didn't interrupt. Only listened.
"Falling would've been perfect," they continued, "if not for the ground."
A silence followed—heavy and thoughtful. You turned your head to study them, the strange reverence in their profile as they stared at the sky.
"I think I kept falling," they said. "Even after I really hit the ground. Through identities, through pain, through revenge and memory and regret. I kept falling until I landed in you."
Their gaze turned to meet yours.
"In your arms. In your laughter. Your eyes. You caught me."
Their voice was steady now—poetic, but naked in its honesty. A confession that trembled between your hearts. This being, stitched together from shadows and sorrows, was still too afraid to say I love you aloud. To say it and hear it echoed back.
But this? This was their version of the phrase. And it was enough.
You smiled, your fingers curling gently through theirs, the stars above unmoving, eternal, bore silent witness to your quiet, sacred peace.
Every morning begins the same way.
A soft breeze flutters through open windows, tugging gently at the linen curtains, and a five-note birdsong floats through the air like the start of a lullaby. Always the same 15 notes. No more, no less. They curl through the quiet of your home, threading through your dreams and tugging you gently awake.
The birds themselves are elusive—never seen, never identified. Their song is too precise, too pristine, as though born not of nature but of a music box left wound and spinning. Eventually, you catch yourself humming along without thinking. You begin to add notes to the melody, little improvisations that suit your moods and morning. Slowly, it becomes yours—your own private lullaby, grown from something strange and distant into something intimate and familiar.
The sky above your little haven is always perfect. Painted in shades of the beautiful seasons, or draped in the deep indigo of night. The moon stays full, never waning, just the way you like it—round and silver and constant. The stars above never shift. They settle into place like puzzle pieces long since solved, and over time, you memorize them: a fixed constellation of comfort. A frozen sky.
That's when the cracks begin to show.
The calendar in the kitchen draws your attention first. It hangs innocently from a corkboard near the pantry. There's no marked year. Just months. Endless, repeating months.
April, May, June, July.
Then again,
April, May, June, July—
No matter how many times you flip forward, it never changes. There's no end, no beginning. Just a warm cycle of golden days and breezy nights. An infinite peace.
You try not to think about it too hard. Instead, you're brought to town for a promised festival.
There's dancing in the square, music and lanterns, food that smells like memory and happiness. When you're tired, they promise to carry you home, and you know they will. You'll fall asleep in their arms and wake again in your bed with the birdsong whispering at the window.
But the feeling of something amiss lingers.
At the town's small library, you find a book you can't forget. Ornate, ancient, humming with an energy that unsettles your bones. The cover is gorgeous—etched with gold and quality leather, the edges laced with silver filigree. You'd keep it just to admire, if it would let you. But no matter how hard you try, the book refuses to open. It sings louder each time you touch it—a wordless, humming pitch that rings in your teeth and skull until you have to step away.
You begin to wander more. Through the gardens behind your home, through the glade where flowers grow like they've been painted into place. There, you find a stone. Worn smooth, leaning into the earth like its been trying to vanish.
A gravestone? Or something like one.
The inscription reads:
"Here lies a love too loud to be erased—kept with care, sealed with silence."
Below the words is no name. Only a symbol—a stylized eye, its pupil a keyhole It feels divine. Familiar in a way you can't explain. It reminds you of the Blot, but something tells you it isn't theirs.
The attic becomes the final mystery.
The Blot has always warned you against it. "It's dusty," they said. "The ladder's rickety—you could fall, and what if I'm not home? It's just old junk and spiders, anyway." You remember the way they murmured the words into your hair, arms wrapped around you on the porch swing. You remember the soft kiss to your temple, the way their face bloomed into blush before they jumped up, babbling an excuse about needing firewood for tonight's firepit. They promised s'more. Stew. You let them go without reminding them that you'd bought some firewood only yesterday.
But curiosity always wins, doesn't it?
You hum the birdsong tune as you walk, the melody guiding your steps. past the eternal calendar. Past the stone that mourns in silence. Until you find yourself beneath the attic hatch, staring up at it, your heart slow and heavy in your chest.
You climb.
The attic is not what you expected. It's not dusty or abandoned. it's warm. Lush with unexpected plant life that spoils around beams and pots as if tended by invisible hands. A large, slanted window bathes the room in fading evening light. It is beautiful. Lived in. Almost loved.
But something made someone change their mind.
That's when you see it.
A glint of gold across the room—just for a second, like the sun catching jewelry. A mirror, tall and framed in carved wood, gemstones woven through its edges in delicate spirals. Your feet move without thinking.
An inscription lines the bottom, half buffered away:
"In memory, all things may be made safe."
"Sanctum. Unseen. Unwritten."
The symbol is there again. The stylized eye with the keyhole pupil. You can feel something shift in you—like time lurching forward and backward all at once.
You look out the window. The sea is out there, shimmering under the weight of dusk. You can see the town, far below. Somewhere, your companion is laughing—alive. Waiting for you.
And yet... this feels like a final glance.
Your gaze is dragged back to the mirror.
It doesn't reflect your face. You realize you didn't want it to. You're afraid of what expression might be staring back.
Instead, the mirror shows a different world. A chamber stepped in shadow and splendor—velvet draped in deep violets, coffins suspended midair, and a chill of recognition crawling down your spine.
Then movement.
A few boys pass through the reflected chamber. Their clothes are familiar, their faces aching with nostalgia. They don't look at each other. They look toward you—as if they see you. As if they've been seeing you. Waiting.
You don't know whether you want to step closer or turn away.
But your heart knows something of yours still lingers on the other side of the glass. Something you left behind—or perhaps someone who never stopped hoping you'd return.

Chapter 11: Under Aegis, Under Love

Notes:

Reach for him.

(This chapter is extremely long and has a mini-ending for each character. I apologize if the formatting is off.)

The mirror towers over you—monolithic and unyielding, like a figure carved from judgement itself. Its polished surface gleams, reflecting nothing, yet daring you to move forward. It feels like standing at the edge of something monumental—like a test, a trial, a threshold you cannot cross without losing something you'll never get back.
Your breath trembles as you squeeze your eyes shut, trying to anchor yourself in the chaos of your thoughts. A futile gesture. The air hangs thick with anticipation, the silence ringing like a warning in your ears.
This is the moment.
Now is the moment.
Your fingers drift to the ring—the one that once pulsed with heat and promise, always humming like a heart pressed against your own. But now... it sits cold against your skin. Silent. Still. Like it has already forfeit.
And yet...
You lift your eyes, scanning the crowd that's gathered like ghosts at the edge of a dream. Faces blur and blend, but you search desperately—until you see him.
He's pushing through them. Desperate. Determined. Shoving his way forward with all the urgency in the world written into the furrow of his brow. Then—there he is. Breathless, shoving himself onto the stage, eyes locked onto yours, hand outstretched toward you like a flower seeking sunlight.
He's not reaching out in pity.
He's reaching with resolve.
Time bends around the gesture. Seconds stretch thin and fragile like glass as your eyes meet his. In the stage light, he's illuminated just barely—cheeks flushed, lips parted, eyes wide and brimming with something fierce and quiet and raw.
You're leaving. He knows it.
And yet... he still reaches.
Maybe it's for one last embrace. Maybe it's a confession he thought he could keep buried, something he'd planned to carry to the grave. He tells himself you wouldn't want to go through there seeming so alone up there, that you'd need one more sliver of comfort before you go. But maybe it's not for your sake at all—maybe this outstretched hand is a plea. Not a demand, but a question. A hope.
Stay.
Stay with me. Stay here.
Please.
Then—your name. Soft, trembling, real.
And in that moment, the world sharpens. The pieces click. like a puzzle finally snapping together. You belong here. Not because someone told you to. Not because of a prophecy or fate or magic.
Because he says your name like it means something. Like you mean something.
Your foot pivots.
Your bag hits the floor.
You run.
The air stings your lungs, and the tears blur your sight, but you keep running. One step. Another. And then you're crashing into him—into arms that catch you like they were meant to. Like they've been waiting.
The warmth of his embrace isn't perfect—it's new. Like a home freshly moved into, walls echoing with possibilities, rooms waiting to be filled. There's uncertainty, yes. But it's the good kind. The kind that says: you'll grow into this. You'll make it yours.
And in his arms, for the first time, you believe it.
You don't know what's ahead—but you know what you've chosen.
You've chosen this.
You've chosen him.
You've chosen to stay.

Riddle

When Riddle first heard about the Blot—from Trey's steady voice and Ace's nervous, stumbling explanation—it felt as though the ground beneath him had shifted. Internally, he spiraled. The thought that you—someone who had helped him when he was at his worst, when he had nothing but rules to shield him from the world—were now under suspicion? It felt like betrayal from the universe itself. You'd been a rare constant, a soothing presence he came to seek when his certainty wavered. You challenged him kindly, helped him grow. He had come to rely on your quiet wisdom when his own rigid beliefs began to fray.
He let himself wallow—for a short time. He knew better than to indulge despair too long, especially when he'd once admired Ramshackle's persistence. So, like he'd seen you and the others do a hundred times, he picked himself up. He cracked open every book, every law journal, every dusty volume of magical regulation he could get his hands on. And with each page, the weight of it sank deeper into his chest: the rules he'd once lived and breathed, the very framework of order he had dedicated himself to... they didn't fit this situation. They didn't protect you. They labeled you.
An anomaly. A threat. A danger.
By those definitions, you should be contained—locked away for the safety of the world. But that wasn't right. Not for you. Not when the danger they feared wasn't the truth of who you were. Fortunately, the information hadn't yet spread to anyone outside a close circle, and even more luckily, the heir of STYX himself didn't want you caged either.
Still, the helplessness ate away at him. Riddle Rosehearts was not a boy who accepted powerlessness easily. He almost let it win this time—almost—until he saw you on that stage, on the verge of disappearing. And something snapped. The next thing he knew, he was breaking through the crowd, climbing onto the platform, reaching for you with a hand that demanded you stay—not from duty, but from something deeper, something human.
And you reached back.
That moment never quite left him.
After graduation, Riddle realized his prodigious memory and methodical mind weren't suited for a medical path like his mother envisioned. Instead, he went into law. The process wasn't quick or easy, but he flourished, carving a name for himself as a high-ranking legal figure. He made policy his battlefield, red tape his opponent. Every form, every clause, every outdated loophole—he conquered them. And all of it, all of it, was for one purpose: to make you official. To ensure that this world acknowledged your existence, your right to stay, your right to belong.
It became his proudest accomplishment.
You and Riddle stayed close, though never loudly. Your bond was quiet—built on mutual respect, long talks over tea, and the subtle, comforting kind of companionship that grows over time. The kind that doesn't need grand declarations to feel permanent.
And the world kept turning, this time without dragging you behind. Time slowed down just enough to let you breathe—to let you be.
Riddle found solace in simpler things. He started tending to a small greenhouse. Roses, naturally. You'd often join him in silence, handing him tools before he even asked. He would glance at you as if remembering something distant and dear, and then excuse himself with the same careful grace he always carried.
Today, though, he returns with a faint blush dusting his cheeks and a book tucked awkwardly in one hand. His gaze flickers everywhere but your face, his free hand rubbing the back of his neck—nervous, uncharacteristically so.
The book is familiar. The title is the same one you'd spoken about so often in passing—something from your world, a story you'd half-remembered and clung to like a comfort blanket. In your quieter moments, you'd shared it with him, filling in plot points and character arcs as best you could. Riddle had listened, soaking up every word.
Unbeknownst to you, he'd written to an author, relayed everything you'd told him, and commissioned the story to recreated from scratch—just for you.
"It... won't be the same," he says softly, almost apologetically. "But it's close. I hope you like it."
The way your face lights up is answer enough. He watches you with a calm that replaces his nerves, shoulder squaring just slightly in pride. He's grown taller now—his presence more grounded, more mature. It suits him.
"You've done so well," he says, voice gentle. "You've survived this world. Made a place for yourself in it. I hope..." He hesitated for just a moment, then forges ahead, "I hope you'll continue to let me be part of your life. Even now that your troubles are resolved. Even if you don't need me anymore."
But deep down, he hopes you want him there. Because he wants to stay.

Trey

Trey had been one of the first to find out. One of the first few unfortunate enough to witness the moment you crumpled under the crushing weight of the truth—like the world itself had pressed down too hard, and your bones might give way. He hadn't known what to say, hadn't had grand magic or a thousand solutions like others might. But he stayed. He held you up as best he could.
He knew his place. Not a genius, not a powerhouse, not the heir of anything legendary. Just Trey Clover—quiet, kind, steady.
But he promised himself—promised you—that he'd be your anchor. Your safe place. A post to lean on whenever you needed it.
The next morning, before the sun had fully risen, he'd already prepared your favorite breakfast. Everything cooked with intention, plated carefully, and carried to you with a silent kind of resilience. He didn't ask questions. Didn't offer empty platitudes. Just sat beside you, letting his presence speak.
There was a quiet sorrow behind Trey's eyes after that—something he never spoke aloud. Something he kept hidden so it wouldn't add to the weight already resting on your shoulders. Instead, he acted. Discreetly, delicately, he passed your story along to those who could help. Only to the trusted. Only to those who cared. He knew he couldn't save you himself—but maybe, just maybe, someone else could.
Then came the day of your farewell. The day you stood on that stage, prepared to leave. Your eyes scanned the crowd, searching—and they landed on him. That was all it took. Something inside him broke loose, something urgent and new. He pushed forward, cutting through the crowd with more fire than he'd ever shown. He didn't think. He reached.
And when you dropped everything—when you turned back and ran into his arms—it felt like winning something precious. Like holding onto a miracle.
That night, you were invited to Heartslabyul as an official member. Ramshackle was too empty now, too far from the people who mattered. Trey had made sure your room was nearby—close enough that if you ever needed him, he'd hear. He sat with you at the long dining table for hours, huddled under a warm-toned light, helping sketch out the logistics of a life in this world.
A student ID was the easiest part. The rest? Not so much. A legal identity, housing, a bank account. You were both still students, limited on what you could do. But Trey didn't falter. He opened a secondary bank account under his name for you and promised—without hesitation—that you'd always have a place with the Clover family. His family.
Seven years passed, and when it was finally time to secure your citizenship, Trey was there. With the help of more powerful friends, the process moved forward. He wasn't the one with the grand solutions. But he was the one who had never left. The one who gave you warmth, and safety, and something real to hold onto.
You moved into the second floor of the Patisserie Clover, living above the bustling bakery that had become your shared world. You insisted on working there—contributing your share, learning the rhythm of the kitchen, growing into the space as much as you'd grown into the life Trey helped you build.
Your bond with him settled into something like a hot drink held between cold hands—simple, comforting, deeply intimate in a quiet way. Neither of you rushed it. Neither of you needed to. There was peace in the closeness, in knowing he'd always be there for a baking session, an unspoken conversation, or just a shared silence.
Whenever you called it a baking date, his younger siblings would giggle and squeal behind the counter, earning quick shushes from Trey as he herded them away, red-faced and muttering something about "manners."
He sends you handwritten recipes now—folded neatly and slid under your door or left by your workstation. His neat handwriting often breaks into loopy cursive where he scribbles suggestions in the margins:
"Try a pinch more cinnamon."
"Less lemon, more parsley."
"Bake 12 minutes longer—trust me."
It's more than instruction—it's care. His quiet way of making sure you're still eating. Still baking. Still holding onto something soft. Something safe.
On days off, when you drop by the Clover family home outside bakery hours, he answers the door with his signature crooked smile. Like he'd been waiting. He reaches for your hand without thinking, thumb brushing over your knuckles, warm and grounding.
And when his family peeks in and coos and teases—"Ooh, someone's in looove!"—Trey turns scarlet and clears his throat, gently steering you inside with an embarrassed cough.
But he never lets go of your hand.

Cater

Cater's reaction hit hard—but not in the way most would expect. He didn't cry, didn't get angry. Instead, he dialed himself up to eleven. Talked a little louder, laughed a little brighter, smiled a little wider. Like if he projected enough good vibes into the world he could shield you from the weight threatening to crush you.
Triple that energy, and you'd get close to how he acted when he found out what was happening to you.
He took you everywhere—cafes, shops, pop-ups, art exhibits. Dragged you from photo op to photo op, insisted on treating you every single time, and probably set fire to his savings in the process. To Cater, you weren't just on borrowed time. You were already gone. And knowing that—that he'd lost you before he'd ever had the chance to really know you—shattered something inside him.
You were one of his first friends here—his first real friend. Someone bothering to really know him. "Snack Buddies," remember? That was the time you first met—first really got to meet.
But when the news broke, and it hit him all at once: you never confided in him. Never told him. Never asked for help.
Why?
He didn't ask, but the question haunted him.
So, Cater did what he could. He made happy memories like he was racing a timer, crossing off an invisible checklist of moments he had to have with you before it was too late. Because whether the Blot consumed you or you found a way home—it would mean losing you.
And when the latter became real—when there was a chance you might leave—he fell apart all over again. You'd think he'd cling tighter, text more, demand more time. But instead, Cater pulled away completely. Cold turkey.
The day of your departure, he didn't even show his face. Not at first. He stood back, hidden by the crowd, heart pounding in his chest and shame thick in his throat. He thought he'd blown it. But when you hesitated, when your eyes flickered to search the crowd—he was already moving. Pushing forward, desperate and unfiltered.
And when you chose him—when you ran to him of all people—something in him healed. The way his face lit up, that pure, uncontainable joy, was the kind of thing people wrote poems about. He looked like he could live off that feeling forever.
After that, you stayed close... he disappeared.
The messages slowed. The calls stopped. You assumed he'd moved on, gotten busy, grown up. What you didn't know was that Cater wanted to reach out. He nearly did—countless times. But every time he picked up the phone, he froze. Because he couldn't bear to be the version of himself you didn't deserve.
He missed you like hell. But he was wrestling with something messy, something dark. And until he figured out how to manage it, he refused to drag you down with him. He already regretted not being there when it mattered most.
Still, he never stopped working behind the scenes.
Even before you were granted residency, Cater had started crafting a campaign for you—carefully disguised, of course. Through curated content, subtle storytelling, and aesthetic posts that humanized your experience, he made people care. He built connections, charmed influencers, schmoozed with political heirs and even flirted with the partners of people in power—all to tip the scales in your favor.
He made your story real. Something worth fighting for.
And somehow... It worked.
The years passed. The two of you drifted, save for the occasional text that barely scratched the surface—quick check-ins, never deep dives. Cater tried college, flitted between majors like outfits. None of them fit. In the end, he dropped out and doubled down on what he was good at.
He built a name as a wellness and lifestyle influencer—one of the biggest. His content was vibrant, authentic, magnetic. He started planning high-end events, known for their dreamy aesthetics and viral appeal. He'd found his groove—and finally, finally—when he felt steady enough to be in your orbit again, he showed up.
Bouquet in hand. Grin just a little too wide.
"Uh... are the flowers too much? Kinda tacky, right?" he laughed, hiding them behind his back like a teenager confessing a crush.
Then he apologized. For disappearing. For the silence. For not being there when it counted. And when you forgave him—when you told him it was okay—his smile lit up like the first day of spring.
And just like that, it was as if no time had passed.
He still flirted. Still pulled you into wild adventures like, "This escape room is trending so hard right now—we HAVE to try it!" But there was something different now. A deeper warmth behind his words. A gravity in his presence. He wasn't just performing anymore—he'd grown. Grounded himself. Found joy that was real.
It became obvious: you'd never left his heart.
His content reflected it, too. Guides for people starting over. Credit-building tips, community resources, affordable and good quality brands for lifestyle and personal style as well. Things you'd once said you wished you had. His videos were comforting, encouraging, and personal. As if he were still speaking to just you.
And maybe when he recorded them, he was.
He always found a way to include you in his world. If there was a party, you were the first invite. If he planned an event, your name was on the list.
And when the burnout hit him like a truck, he didn't pretend anymore, he showed up at your door with bags under his eyes and a crooked smile.
"I had a breakdown. Can I borrow your couch and emotional availability?" he asked, lighthearted as always—but the look in his eyes was raw, real. Something unfiltered and unborrowed.
You ended up curled together on the couch, watching some barely-relevant movie. Conversation flowed instead. About the past. The pain. The healing. And slowly, like puzzle pieces slipping into place, it felt like something was being mended.
On a shopping trip to the mall, he handed you cash and told you to grab a drink from the booth while he "ran off for something real quick."
You returned, drink in hand. He reappeared, overly dramatic, snatching it with a flourish of his hand. A ring gleamed on his finger. A chic, silver star. It suited him perfectly.
You arched a brow. "What's the sudden accessorizing?"
Cater grinned and gently took your own, lifting it beside his and your own ring—the Blot ring—caught the light, thrumming gently and operating as your heart.
"Now we match," he said, voice bright. "Yours has lore. Mine has vibes."
Then, a pause. A slow quirk of his lips. "Unless... you'd rather we get real matching rings? Y'know—like, a wedding set?"
You blinked. Once. Twice.
Then nodded, before your brain could catch up.
Cater beamed. Not his usual picture-perfect grin, but something softer. Almost disbelieving. The tips of his ears flushed scarlet and he immediately turned, tugging you toward the next shop.
Still grinning. Still buzzing.
And still holding your hand.
He never let go.

Ace

Ace was already moving the second he caught it—that flicker of hesitation, that silent don't make me go on your face. He shoved through the crowd with all of the subtlety of a brick to the window in the dead of night, determined and reckless in a way only he could pull off without getting arrested.
For all the times he'd dragged you into trouble, teased you until you swore vengeance, and laughed through the consequences, Ace had always, always had your back when it counted after the contract. Maybe he wasn't great with words, and maybe he'd never say it out loud, but he'd owned his mistakes in the only way he knew how—through stubborn loyalty and relentless action.
He was on stage before anyone could stop him, face flushed from the sprint, chest heaving with breath, and scarlet eyes wide with something raw. It wasn't you who ran to him—no. He decided. Decided that you weren't going anywhere. Not somewhere he couldn't follow and pester you like an annoying cat. Not when he'd finally figured out what you meant to him—late. He knows.
He grabbed your bag, yanking you back from the mirror along with it like it was about to swallow you whole, like it had teeth. His arms wrapped around you tight—too tight—and he buried his face in your shoulder like Floyd might, but with an edge of trembling desperation that betrayed just how scared he was.
"You're... not leaving," he mumbled, muffled into your shirt, like he could will it into reality. "You don't wanna. I saw it; that look. So don't. Just... stay. We'll hit up that diner we all like, I'll even pay." His voice cracked, rushed and anxious, like he'd lose his courage if he slowed down.
He pulled back just enough to look at you, the cocky front cracking as uncertainty leaked in. Maybe he'd read you wrong. Maybe he'd just made everything worse. But then—you crumpled against him like paper, a slow, small hum of agreement slipping out.
Relief hit Ace so hard he laughed—short, breathless like a dam breaking.
That night, he sat across from you at the diner, chewing his burger with a single-minded intensity like it personally offended him. He didn't say much. Just... plotted. Quietly. Eyes sharp, teeth grinding as he thought too hard for someone who claimed to avoid responsibility like the plague.
After that, he clung to you—not obviously, not in a way he'd ever admit—but subtly. Always there. Always dragging you into some dumb new scheme or surprise lunch plan or whatever excuse he could make to be around. At one point, he even suggested kicking out one of his roommates so you could move in with him and Deuce.
Riddle, of course, shot the idea down before Ace could even finish the sentence.
But Ace didn't stop there. He couldn't deal with paperwork, but he could scream at it. He hounded ethics professors, annoyed every bureaucrat who couldn't block the amount of numbers he had, bribed old alumni, and guilt-tripped anyone he could. He dug through every NRC connection he had, shaking people down for favors like a mob boss in red sneakers.
While others worked through the official channels, Ace worked in the shadows. He got you fake IDs, documents, licenses—things you definitely shouldn't have right now. And he never told you how. Never would. Just smirked when you asked and said, "You're welcome."
Years passed.
Seven of them, to be exact.
And Ace? Still Ace. Still a chaotic menace with a smart mouth and endless energy. But he never forgot how close he came to losing you. Not once. Not twice. And maybe that's why he showed up at your place so often—like it was his second home. Never official. But there was always something of his lying around: a hoodie slung over a chair, phone charger left on your couch, a pack of gum in his favorite flavor.
He always left a reason to come back.
You weren't sure what Ace actually did for a living. Sometimes he was in town. Other times, not. He'd pop up on TV out of nowhere, or facetime you from some iconic monument halfway across the world, acting like the time difference didn't exist.
He's a freelance agent of chaos. Sometimes you see him as a popular magician, sometimes he's up there for a random acting role he somehow got into, he'll be a chaperone for high-profile events, and other times he'll show up to locations and begin working until they eventually hire and pay him.
No one knows how exactly he makes money. He's never broke, though.
Some nights, you'd find him on your couch at 1AM, half-asleep with a pause game on the screen. He'd wave his phone lazily at you with a dopey smile. "I ordered food," he'd mumble.
When the food arrived, he'd sit across from you with his chin propped in his hands, batting his lashes like a brat expecting tribute. "Soooo~? What's the verdict? You miss me? Gimme a compliment. Tell me your day. C'mon, gimme the goods."
You'd roll your eyes. But you'd talk.
And as the night settled, the conversation turned quiet. His gaze would shift, eyes drawn to the ring on your finger. The ring. The one that kept you alive.
His teasing would fade, expression softening.
"Still won't come off, huh?" he'd murmur, gently brushing it with a fingertip. "Guess that means we're stuck with you."
Then—classic Ace—he'd flash a grin. "Hope you're listening when we hangout, Blotty-Boy. I'm the favorite. I win."
On one outing—a "Market Date," as he proudly dubbed it—Ace held your hand through the crowd. Too casual to be romantic. But he didn't let go until you were home. And his cheeks were definitely a little red.
As you gathered his things after he'd crashed at your place, he lingered in your doorway like a lost cat. He watched you with this lazy, unfocused gaze, then grinned, cocking his head.
"We're not a thing yet, right?" He said it casually, self assured and cocky as if the idea was gross.
You squinted. "Yet?"
Ace laughed, too loud, too quick. "Cool! Cool cool cool. Just checkin'. Y'know how it, uh... be."
It made absolutely no sense.
You were just about to call him out on it—maybe hit him with a pillow—when he turned too fast, stubbed his toe on your furniture, and limped dramatically into your kitchen like a man escaping his own feelings.
You couldn't help it.
You laughed.

Deuce

Deuce found out through Ace.
And he didn't think he'd ever forget the look on his best friend's face when he came back that day—shaken, hollow, eyes wide with the kind of pain Deuce hadn't seen on him since ever. All of Ace's usual snark had evaporated, replaced with stunned silence and a tightness in his jaw that made Deuce's stomach turn.
That was when he knew something was seriously wrong.
The moment Deuce learned the truth—what had really happened to you—it all came crashing down. Every dumb joke he'd ever made, every offhand comment, every time he'd laughed without knowing what you might've been carrying behind that tired smile.
Had I hurt you?
Have you ever left feeling worse after hanging out with me?
Did I ever really see you?
He wanted to see you right away. He needed to. But guilt froze him. So instead, he stewed in his own misery, locked in his room for a few days replayed every memory like a crime scene.
He called his mom. Asked for advice with a tight throat and told her everything. He spoke to upperclassmen, to teachers, to anyone he could ask without giving too much away—keeping your privacy close to his chest.
The night before he visited you, Deuce rehearsed what he wanted to say again and again, pacing in the dark and muttering under his breath until Ace hurled a pillow at him from across the room.
"Shut up and sleep, man. You sound like a broken record. It'll be... fine." Ace didn't sound too convinced either.
When Deuce finally got the nerve to reach out, the first thing he did was apologize. And he meant every word.
He apologized for every comment, every moment of ignorance, every time you might have walked away from him feeling a little more alone. He apologized for not noticing sooner, for not being someone you felt you could come to, for hesitating when he should've come running.
And when things settled down—when the world stopped spinning and the mirror wasn't looming over everything—Deuce did what he always swore he would.
He tried to be your hero.
He even said it, a little too proudly, puffing his chest out with a goofy grin.
Ace snorted in the background, pointing and laughing about how lame that was, which only made Deuce turn bright pink and swat him away.
After graduating, Deuce dove headfirst into his dream of joining the elite magical enforcement division. The training was brutal, but he worked harder than anyone, landing part-time gigs with local authorities during college. Math class? Forget it. But law enforcement? He was a natural.
Since holding a legal and well-paying job wasn't exactly possible for someone who didn't officially exist, his mom offered you a place in her home. She insisted it was nothing, that you'd be helping her more than she was helping you.
And while Deuce was climbing the ranks, he was also... quietly working on something else.
He never told you. Didn't want you feeling guilty. But in between classes and protocols, Deuce spent any free time at the registry office, the records bureau, making connections with people in the system who knew how to make the impossible possible.
He asked the right questions. Found the best agents, shortest wait times, safest routes. It took him four years ever since graduation from NRC. Four years of people telling him no.
But he did it.
One afternoon, Deuce came home with a stack of paper in hand and a grin so bright it almost hurt to look at. He held the binder like it was made of gold and gently passed it to you.
Inside: documents. IDs. Certificates. A name that matches yours. A history that said you belonged.
He didn't say how hard it had been. Didn't say how many nights he stayed up calling in favors or redoing paperwork because one date was wrong. He just smiled like it was nothing.
When you had enough to move out, he made sure your new place was in a safe neighborhood. Somewhere quiet. Monitored by himself or coworkers he trusted.
And still, Deuce didn't stray far.
He visited weekly. Brought groceries. Checked your locks. Fixed the squeaky cabinet door that you kept forgetting to mention. He taught himself random handyman skills just so you wouldn't need to spend money on things he could do himself.
If anything broke, Deuce was your first call. Always.
Every now and then, while you were at work, you'd come home to find a new vase of flowers on your counter. No note. No explanation. But you knew—remembered what Dilla always says:
"If you care about someone, you give them flowers. Everyone likes flowers.
Holidays at the Spade home became tradition. Dilla hosted with her usual warmth, but you noticed the way her eyes lingered when she watched you and Deuce. How she'd lean in to whisper to her friends with that little smirk of hers, clearly plotting.
She knew.
She knew from the first time Deuce called home to tell her all about his first week and his new friends, and it was solidified when he called crying, asking for advice, scared out of his mind because he thought he'd lose you. She knew then that you were someone irreplaceable to her son.
So there were always plenty games with opportunities for you two to get closer.
One evening, long after you'd move out, you heard footsteps outside your door. Familiar pacing. Muted mumbling—rehearsals. Then a knock.
When you opened the door, Deuce was there with a shy smile and an arm full of groceries—a familiar, soothing sight.
When your face lit up and you invited him in, the script he'd rehearsed was lost immediately.
He stood there for a second, watching you sort groceries away like he'd forgotten how to speak.
"I like this," he said softly. "This life—with you in it. Let's keep doing this. Forever."
It didn't take long before he realized how that sounded—way too much like a proposal—his eyes went wide and he panicked.
"I—uh—bathroom. Sorry—hold on—!"
He turned to escape, bumping into a chair and heading in the direction of your bathroom. But he wasn't thinking straight, instead locking himself in the closet.
Instead of exiting and facing you again, Deuce resigned himself into pretending the closet was certainly the bathroom and remained in there for two minutes.

Leona

Anger. That's all Leona felt when you finally told him—everything.
All the secrets, all the pain, all the betrayals you had carried in silence. It hit him like a punch to the gut. He wanted to yell, to demand why you hadn't told him sooner. Weren't you two close? He thought you were. He believed you were.
But then he saw your face.
The anger cracked and faltered. That look—defeated, hopeless, like your future barely extended beyond the next breath—it froze him. Words that had been bubbling up, heated and venomous, died before they could leave his tongue. He bit them back, knowing they weren't true. Knowing they'd only cause more damage.
And when the fury ebbed, guilt settled in like a riptide. Cold, unrelenting. It dragged him under the weight of forgotten moments—dismissive words, avoided emotions, a wall built to protect himself that might've been the thing that pushed you away.
Leona couldn't face it. Couldn't face you.
For a while, he pretended none of it had happened. That you didn't exist. That the crack in his carefully constructed world hadn't appeared.
He swung between silence and frustration, indifference and sudden closeness. His moods flipped so frequently you didn't know what version of him would walk through the door—a soft, quiet shadow of the Leona you knew, or the usual irritable beast barely holding himself together.
Just like everything else in his life—complicated, heavy, always out of reach.
He tried once. Just once. In his own quiet, cryptic way, he suggested that if things ever blew over—if you ever decided to stay—the Sunset Savanna would welcome you. He would welcome you.
But you hadn't answered right away.
Leona understood rationally, but emotionally it still stung. So he shut down again, folding himself back into his cold walls and endless naps. Sleeping more than ever, even though rest never came easy.
And when sleep did come, it was cruel.
His dreams were filled with scenes of you that felt painfully real—buying an extra snack, setting it aside for you and waiting like luring out a mouse. Waiting. Always waiting. But you never showed up. In those dreams, you were already gone.
Those had jolted him awake in a cold sweat.
And for once, he was grateful for the nightmare. Because it reminded him of the date. The time. You were leaving—today. In just thirty minutes.
Leona had never moved faster in his life.
He shoved through the crowd, all elegance and composure stripped away by desperation. Gone was the lazy prince. In his place: a man running out of time.
"Get down here!" he shouted, voice ragged, rough. He didn't care who heard. Didn't care how pathetic or needy he looked. For once, pride didn't matter—not it it meant losing you.
And this time—this time—it wasn't too late.
He'd been wrong to think it was another situation he couldn't fix. That this was just another thing predetermined to slip through his fingers.
But you weren't gone. You were right there. And when you crumpled into his arms, he caught you with the exhaustion of someone who hadn't truly slept in weeks.
"Don't ever do that again." he breathed, the words muffled against your neck.
Leona pulled strings afterwards.
Royal ones. Powerful ones.
The kind of favors that made officials fall silent the moment his name was spoken. Falena, stunned to see his brother clinging so tightly to anything—anyone—intervened, and whatever red tape existed was cleared overnight.
Time passed. The chaos dulled. But something lingered—something unspoken, fragile. Like walking barefoot on glass, or breathing air laced with hidden blades.
Leona never said it out loud. Never called it what it was. But he was yours. Entirely yours.
As he once hinted—half promise, half plea—the Sunset Savanna welcomed you with open arms. Your new home was suspiciously affordable and entirely issue-free. Too good to be true.
And then you learned why.
It had already been paid for, courtesy of one very bratty lion who refused to acknowledge it. You never got bills. No letters. Nothing.
You might've protested more if the man funding your lifestyle didn't already spend most of his time in your house.
"It's closer to work," he'd grumble.
It wasn't. His commute from his own home was a mere three minutes longer.
You grew close in that quiet, unspoken way. Words left unsaid, but already heard. He didn't admit how much your presence soothed him, but you could tell in the way he made space for you—space no one else had ever been invited to.
It wasn't a romance. Not exactly. But sometimes, it felt like one.
Mornings were shared silently—Leona already awake, running a hand through wild hair as he set out two breakfasts. You ate without fanfare, peaceful. You fixed his collar before he left, catching the way his ears drooped, the softened gleam in his eyes.
After graduation, Leona had become a royal advisor—a strategist and a diplomat. He hated politics, but he was good at it.
Knowing how intense his work had become, you tried to give him space. Tried not to hover, to let him breathe.
You didn't notice the tiny pout he wore every time you passed him in the royal halls with nothing but a nod. Or how his tail lashed behind him, smacking his poor assistant in irritation.
To counter this, said assistant had taken to buying an extra drink on coffee runs—one you liked—and placing it silently on his desk.
Leona would scoff. Grumble. Swat her away but thank her nonetheless.
But he didn't move the cup. He left it out like bait for a certain mouse he wanted to catch. Waiting. Hoping.
The game of cat and mouse grew exhausting and this cat hated waiting. Hated this distance between you two that was so small. But not small enough.
Leona had learned to go after what he wanted. And maybe—just maybe—you were something attainable as well.
One day, he followed you down the hallway in heavy silence. A full minute of nothing but soft footsteps. Then—he reached out. Tugged your sleeve gently, like a cat testing its luck. Leona's ears were pinned back, eyes narrowed with impatience.
"I'm tired of this," he muttered, almost a growl, but he wouldn't meet your eyes. "Come home tonight—my home. I... have something for you. Probably. Just—come over."
And before you could say anything, before the words could register—he spun on his heel and stormed off, fast enough to hide the flush blooming across his cheeks and back of the neck.

Ruggie

Ruggie knew the moment he saw it—the moment that thing spoke to you in the woods, and you snapped.
You attacked him. And still, he didn't leave.
Despite the pain, the fear in his bones, the shock of betrayal—he stayed. Like a loyal dog. Like someone trained, conditioned on your presence.
Because no one understood desperation better than Ruggie Bucchi. Not the kind that carves you hollow and turns your heart into a survival instinct.
He recognized the look in your eyes instantly: fear, heartbreak, guilt, and something far worse—desperation. It hit him like a punch, and it was the only reason he said nothing. He just got his wounds treated in silence. Quietly. Stoically.
Then he went to work.
He didn't think of himself as especially smart—his grades were average and his study habits were barely functional while juggling jobs. But when Ruggie wanted—needed—to learn something, he did. He'd scrape and claw until he knew every answer, every workaround. He became relentless.
The only problem was... there were no answers. No documented care of what had happened to you. No framework, no warning signs, nothing he could reference to make it make sense.
So he pivoted.
He focused on what he could control: the future.
So far, there was no news, no sign, no hope that you could return to your original world. Which meant one thing—you'd be staying. And Ruggie? Ruggie started planning around that.
When the truth came out—when the word spread what you were, what you had done—he wasn't surprised. By the time it reached his ears, he only offered a tired little smile and a nod.
Of course.
He'd seen that look before. In Leona's eyes. In every overblot victim he'd witnessed. That flicker of chaos right before everything fell apart. It was a solemn kind of acceptance. He couldn't fight the Blot. But he could help you rebuild from it.
When the dust settled, Ruggie threw himself into helping you find your footing again. He didn't know why he was so sure, but deep down, he believed you'd stay—even if a way home was found. He called it a hunch, but it felt more like a gut-deep certainty.
So, when the day of the decision came, he was there. In the crowd. Watching you with his heart pounding in his throat.
And when your eyes locked with his—when you moved toward him—he didn't wait to be sure. He ran. Even if he'd already convinced himself of your choice, he still ran. Just in case. Just to know.
You reached for him first.
There was a guilt in your voice when you spoke, a sorrow that clung to you like god. You apologized again and again for what happened. For attacking him when all he'd done was poke holes in your story. For unraveling you without realizing it.
He flinched at the little contact, old instincts flaring, but the fear didn't stick. Not when he looked at you and saw past it. Past the Blot. Past the trauma. To you—the real you. The one that had been alone and afraid in this world for far too long. The person he'd grown to care for in a dozen tiny, ordinary moments during long, exhausting shifts.
And then Ruggie did when Ruggie does best—he handled it.
He forged documents.
Because, let's be honest, legal bureaucracy is expensive and stupid and he did not have time or money for all that noise.
He learned some tricks. Picked up a few skills. Bent some rules so cleanly is was almost elegant. And suddenly—poof!—you were a legal citizen. Kinda. As long as nobody looked too closely.
He walked you through it like it was just another shady alley in a bad neighborhood. He knew which hands to shake, which landlords didn't ask questions, who to bribe and who to befriend.
He vouched for you. Put his own name on the line. Built an entire paper life for you before the real system caught up.
Ruggie wasn't a noble. He wasn't a high-tier mage. But he knew people. And more importantly, he knew you needed time to heal. That something like this didn't leave people stronger right away. Sometimes, it left them broken and brittle, and in need of someone who could carry the weight for a while.
So he did.
Years passed.
Careers were chosen. Dreams followed.
Ruggie could've chased big money is he wanted to—gods knew he dreamed of it. But something else tugged at him: his talent with kids, his way with the overlooked, the struggling.
He became a teacher.
An elementary school in the slums took him in. It was barely standing, underfunded, falling apart—but Ruggie didn't let it stay that way. He harassed Leona into helping, twisted the right arms, and used the legal finesse he'd gained from helping you to secure grants. A few years later, the school had a new building and shiny new resources.
He had a real paycheck. A real roof. And best of all, a sense of peace.
In seven years, what had happened between you faded into something like a joke. A painful one, sometimes—but one told with a fond smile.
Though you do occasionally catch him glaring at the Blot ring.
In the staff lounge, you're rinsing mugs. Yours and Ruggie's match—oddly shaped with messy lettering and hand-painted patterns that don't quite line up. It was made by one of the kids and he guards it like a treasure. You once joked he'd kill a man if it chipped. He didn't deny it.
Ruggie leans back in his chair, eyes shut.
"We should go camping again," he says suddenly. "Remember that weird leaf we ate?"
You groan. "Why was your first instinct to eat it instead of, I don't know, using your phone to identify it? I was sick all weekend. I ruined the trip."
The scrape of his chair was the only warning you got before he's behind you, arms draped lazily over your shoulders, chin resting atop your head.
"I think it was a great trip," he murmurs, voice quiet, warm. "You clung to me in the tent all night for warmth."
You swat him away, shoving the mug into his hand, rolling your eyes.
This is why the kids think you're dating. It's their favorite drama—watching their teacher and teacher's aide act like a romcom.
The way he fixes your collar without a word. The way you pluck stray glitter from his hair during craft time. The way your paper flower offerings and beaded friendship bracelets feel like something more.
One rainy afternoon, Ruggie walks you home. The sidewalk is slick and shining, streetlights haloed in mist.
He's carrying a tiny umbrella—barely wide enough for both of you. Drops run off the edges and soak his shoulder, but he doesn't mind.
He looks down at your hands, gaze catching on two rings. One is that cursed Blot ring—the symbol of everything you survived. The other is different.
It's a flower ring. Handmade. Crooked and childlike, gifted during recess by Ruggie himself with the pomp of a knight bestowing a crowd and a fleet of little girls gushing around you both.
And you're still wearing it. On your right ring finger.
His tail twitches, mouth lifting slightly. Maybe... maybe in due time it'll be real.

Jack

Finding out his friend had died last winter certainly wasn't on Jack's summer checklist. But grief never cared about timing, did it? While others distanced themselves to nurse wounds in silence, Jack didn't flinch. He stayed close—stubbornly loyal, solid as ever. Not one whisper of disrespect passed around you without his glare silencing it. Not a single look was cast without him standing between it and you like a guard dog with bristling fur.
You had earned his respect long ago in a way that no one else had. You didn't just endure it—you persisted. Wounded and changed, maybe, but never shattered. And in Jack's eyes, you had never looked stronger than you did in those moments when it would've made perfect sense to crumble, yet you stood your ground. That kind of resilience was rare. Sacred, even.
He never smothered. He was simply there—near enough that you could always find him, but never so close that you couldn't breathe. A presence, not a pressure.
Of course, Jack was grieving, too. Quietly, deeply. But it wasn't about him right now. He didn't know exactly what you were feeling—couldn't tell if it was fear, rage, sorrow. That uncertainty ate at him. Jack hated not understanding, not knowing how to help. That was the hardest part.
Still, when the offer came for you to return to your own world, He was... happy for you. Genuinely. It opened his eyes to how harsh this world had been for you and the others. Maybe leaving was the right thing. Maybe it was finally time. You deserved rest. You'd done so well already.
He watched everyone else depart, one after another. Tall and still, waving them off with a quiet pride. He told himself he'd do the same for you.
But when it was your turn, and you paused—scanning the crowd, eyes flicking like a compass searching for true north—Jack's tail betrayed him. A hopeful little wag. He hadn't expected that.
And when your eyes found him—when you actually sought him out—he stepped forward before he could think, a big, goofy grin on his face. You weren't alone. Not then. Not ever.
You stayed.
Jack couldn't make your paperwork disappear or navigate bureaucracy, but he could do the next best thing—stand beside you through all of it. He helped you build a home with his own hands, sourced furniture, knocked on doors, introduced you to people who mattered. He accompanied you to every inspection and official visit, never letting you face a room full of strangers alone.
You and Jack built a life not on grand declarations, but quiet consistency. His was a love spoken on footfalls—always at your side, always keeping pace. You went on walks when time allowed, and he always seemed to have a gap in his schedule that just so happened to match yours.
He never let you fall behind. Not on the path, not life.
You worried, once, that maybe you were slowing him down too. That your pace wasn't fast enough for someone like him. But Jack only shook his head, quiet and patient. "It's not slowing down," he'd said. "It's making sure we walk together."
And as soothing as his soft words were, you had a feeling that it didn't apply to occasional walks along a familiar path—but in life as well.
And when you told him you wanted to grow more independent—that you wanted to learn how to stand on your own—he respected that. He stepped back. But not too far. Never too far. He'd always be waiting nearby, just in case you stumbled. Just in case he needed to help you up and hold you.
You had a feeling he still felt guilty for never noticing before—like he was trying to pay you back in some way.
At local festivals in the Shaftlands, Jack positioned himself between you and the busy street, between you and a crowd of strangers. It was muscle memory now—part of how he existed. But when your hand gently closed around his, grounding him, reminding him to live in the moment and stop regretting the past, he'd pause. He'd smile. The tension would ease and Jack's tail would wag subtly.
"What should we do?" he's ask, dipping his head to hear you above the din, voice low and earnest.
The two of you were opposites, yet perfectly in sync—two halves of a rhythm that kept the other steady. A sense of calm always lingered between you two and you felt you belonged.
One day, he handed you a small wooden wolf. Carved with care. A little uneven, maybe, but unmistakably made with intention.
"For protection," Jack said, scratching the back of his neck. "Not like you'd need it. But still. Even lone wolves need their pack."
He knew you weren't weak. You never had been. But worry wasn't about weakness—it was about love.
And Jack? He had once overlooked you. You would never let that happen again.
(literally shaking. I had to write the wolf line. sobbing actually)

Azul

Azul had heard it from Jade. The calmer twin—at least in appearance—offered him a tight-lipped smiles that barely held together at the corners. His eyes, however, betrayed him, darting anywhere but toward Azul's. Whatever words were spoken next blurred into a haze. Azul couldn't recall them—couldn't even remember leaving that conversation. All he knew was that when his mind finally clawed its way back into focus, his face was already wet with tears.
Pain sharpened behind his eyes like needles, and his skull throbbed with each heartbeat.
The crash of waves against jagged stone startled him into awareness. The ocean. Of course.
He hadn't stepped into the surf—hadn't dared. He merely sat in the sand, just at the edge of its reach, shoes long discarded, trousers dampened. The night sky stretched out above him, ink-dark and choked with clouds, swallowing every star. No constellations to guide him. No wishes to whisper to the heavens. Only the rhythmic, indifferent roar of the tide.
Azul stared into the void, not searching for answers—he doubted there were any—but quietly, desperately, hoping the sea might shoulder the burden of his questions and carry them away.
This was beyond him.
Could he write a contract to contain the Blot? That much was plausible. He had bested worse in ink and clause. But you—you were the complication. The Blot sustained you now. It kept your warm smile, your pulse steady, your eyes alight with something he couldn't name. And the thought of crafting a deal that might unravel you in the process?
He refused to imagine it.
No negotiation, no clever clause, no legally binding trick could free you without cost. The laws he'd mastered faltered before a power still cloaked in mystery. And when he asked—softly, hopefully—if you could simply end the pact, your expression fractures. You hesitated. Something unspoken flickered in your eyes, some silent truth you were unwilling or unable to voice.
And Azul realized, with a sick twist in his gut, that maybe—maybe—in all their neglect and abuse, you'd grown attached. Found comfort in a creature born from despair. Let it wrap itself around your loneliness until it felt like home.
The thought hollowed him out.
He understood then, or thought he did. Of course you'd want to leave—of course you'd want to be rid of all this. Of him. What had he ever done for you, really, other than hurt you in the ways that counted?
And yet... you stayed.
Why?
Azul's first question was sharp and brittle, whispered into the wind: Why me? Why choose him—why remain by his side?
Was it vengeance? A long, slow plan to make him feel the way you once did?
And yet, even with that fear twisting through him, he still held you like you might dissolve into seafoam in his arms—fingers trembling, glasses askew, breath shuddering as if holding you together took everything he had.
He asked the question again and again, each time more uncertain, more raw. His gaze lingered on you, half-afraid to see the answer in your face. He was always a breath away from fleeing—from you, from himself. But instead, he clung, desperate and undignified.
Like an octopus, he thought grimly. How fitting.
For the first nights after your decision to stay, the twins kept an eye on you—discreet but constant. You slept in Azul's bed, tucked beneath crisp sheets while he took the floor with the tweels, pretending not to hear Floyd's complaints.
When you began to fret about life beyond graduation—where you would go, who you would become—Azul responded with vague platitudes and averted eyes.
"You're quite resourceful," he murmured, the words stiff on his tongue. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."
But Azul was already working. Quietly, obsessively.
The moment he graduated from NRC, he made you his focus. While the world thought he was expanding the Mostro Lounge and climbing the business ladder, he was also building something invisible: you.
He forged a flawless identity for you—legal, untraceable, foolproof. Crafted through intricate contracts, bureaucratic slight-of-hand, and only a modest amount of moral compromise. You were now a citizen under a clause so obscure not even the authorities fully understood it. Neither did you.
Mostro Lounge became just another cog in a much larger machine. Azul's empire expanded rapidly, subtly. He invested, acquired, and monopolized until his name was threaded through industries beyond hospitality. He climbed to circles no one expected him to reach.
And in seven years time, he still flushed whenever your hand brushed his.
He flirted with deniability, wrapped his longing in professionalism and paperwork. He summoned you to meetings about nothing, claimed he "required your input" on decisions he already made. He wanted to see you. That was all.
You, in turn, baffled and impressed him. Your boldness, your ingenuity, your endless refusal to be impressed by him. It drew him in, over and over.
You had become his assistant, on paper. A transactional arrangement, he insisted. "Good business," he said with a straight face. "You're a long-term investment."
And then you'd hit him on the back of the head and call him out for skipping meals. You dragged him away from his desk when he forgot to sleep. You brought him fried chicken and threatened to force-feed him if he didn't eat.
One day, he called you to his office under the pretense of reviewing documents.
He looked every bit the businessman—sharp suit, confident smile, pen in hand as he passed you a crisp three-page document.
"Contract of Mutual Existence," you read flatly, eyes narrowing as you scanned it. You'd gotten food at catching hidden clauses and double meanings. Too good, he often joked. Half irritated.
Azul leaned back with a satisfied sigh. "No fine print this time."
You looked up slowly, raising the paper with a quirked brow. "Azul. This reads like a very elaborate, legally-sound marriage contract."
He smiled. His entire face on fire. "Does it? How peculiar," he said, voice a touch too high. It was the third one this month.
When Azul returned to the sea to inspect his underwater ventures, you stayed near your home along the shoreline. Each time he missed you, and business didn't anchor him too tightly, he sent bottles. Glass vessels sealed with wax, each holding a neatly penned letter in his distinct hand. Always unsigned. Always thoughtful.
On the surface, they were about schedules, logistics, occasional reminders.
But between the lines?
He missed you.
One day, you responded—not with the business points, but to the emotion laced beneath them. You answered with warmth, humor, vulnerability.
The next bottle came the following foggy morning.
It scolded you for "ignoring the primary intent" of his last message. But the writing was rushed—the loops in his letters too wide, his i's undotted. You knew he'd scribbled it in a fluster.
"If you truly wished to speak about such trivial things," he wrote at the end, "I suppose I'll indulge you."
An invitation. A plea. A hope he still wasn't ready to name.

Jade

Look at you—so stubborn, so resilient, refusing to wilt no matter the odds. It was something Jade found truly admirable, even if he'd never say so directly. You headstrong nature could amuse him endlessly, or at time, vex him just enough when you made it difficult for him to get what he wanted.
When you needed to vanish, Jade was the one who made it happen. And when the time came, he was also the one who helped you reemerge. With a few murmured words and a thousand carefully calculated steps, he blurred your records, filed false trials, and spun a whole new identity out of the air, all with that pleasant, unreadable smile. He knew exactly what officials to approach. He whispered your name in all the with ears, leaned in with that dangerous charm, and let people come to the conclusions he wanted without having to utter a single direct threat.
He had even offered—so casually—to forge an identity for you "purely for archival balance."
You had declined.
He made one anyway, tucking it away where only he could reach it, just in case.
You still don't know how he pulled it off, where all those slippery ties and unseen connections stemmed from. Every time you asked, Jade only offered his usual signature: a hand pressed lightly against his chest, a polite tilt of his head, and a slow, feline smile.
"I'm truly wounded that you underestimate my importance in this world," he'd purr, with all the fake hurt of cat caught stealing cream.
And you, as always, would retort without missing a beat:
"You won't even tell me what your importance is."
You didn't know much about Jade. Not really. Even after seven years, he remained a mystery wrapped in silk and half-smiles. When you pressed for more, his teasing gleam softened into something almost tender—and then he would simply steer the conversation away.
The truth is, Jade would love to tell you everything. He truly would.
But Jade leech is not the type to give his entire hand to anyone, not even you—not yet. Choosing someone, letting someone in deeply enough to hold real power over him—that was a rather frightening though. Even for him.
Maybe he couldn't have you at his side just yet.
But he was preparing.
Working, planning, weaving something intricate beneath the surface.
He never asked for a promise, a confirmation that you could stay—because he already had it.
You had chosen when you crashed into him that day, your "final day," clinging to him with desperate hands like he might slip away if you let go.
And for once, Jade hadn't slipped free.
No sly remarks, no deflections.
Just the honest, bewildering joy of being chosen.
You never told him the truth—that all his whispered half-truths, his careful gestures, his subtle manipulations hadn't swayed you—not really. It was the simple fact that he had tried—the image of Jade Leech, one of the most composed students of NRC, looking genuinely stricken at the thought of losing you—that had cracked something open inside.
Jade remains a mystery even now, but his fondness has becomes familiar, a quiet undercurrent in your life. Each month, without fail, he checks in—with tea, with oddly specifics gifts, with little slices of wisdom tucked between the ordinary. He's become a constant, like the tides or the moon.
Jade exists somewhere between affection and curiosity, treating your presence as something sacred—and slightly dangerous. He remembered everything: how you take your tea, which flowers make you sneeze, which stories from your home leave you aching.
And despite all his smooth composure, there are cracks you've glimpsed.
When you saved up for months to buy him new shoes for his eighteenth birthday—after spilling soda on his old ones—you witnessed something rare. His face barely moved, just the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth, but his entire face flushed deep crimson.
He's never worn those shoes.
Of course not.
You hadn't known then, but gifting shoes to a merfolk was no small gesture—it was a quiet plea, a proposal to leave the sea behind and stay. And though Jade would have gladly accepted, he is a calculating creature. If he was going to live on land with you, he would do it on his terms—with power, influence, luxury.
He's still preparing, so he implores you to wait.
You don't get to see him often. Jade vanishes overseas, pursuing business ventures he refuses to explain. No matter how tightly you try to hold him, he always slips away.
But he never forgets you.
Polished envelopes arrive from around the world, each neatly penned with his sharp, deliberate handwriting. Inside are small polaroids of curious places, buttons collected from foreign markets, dried flowers pressed between color-coordinated paint swatches. Every letter is an art piece—so carefully crafted, so unmistakably Jade—and each one ends with something that reminded him of you.
No matter where he goes, Jade always finds his way back to your seaside home.
Usually during storms, you've noticed.
He arrives soaked with rain and salt spray, peeling off his damp coat without ceremony, wandering into your kitchen as if he's never left. He keeps his favorite things here—his rare teas, his terrariums, his little trinkets too precious to lose to the tides—and of course you. He walks the halls like a man belonging to the space as surely as the wind and the sea.
"This house," Jade says one night, voice soft and low, "feels like you."
While he showers in the room unofficially reserved for him, you find yourself putting away his belongings, moving through familiar motions. Among his things, you discover a dried flower poking out from a well-loved leather journal—the same kind you once offhandedly complimented—pressed neatly between the pages of his notes. It's dated the day you chose to stay.
There are more notes alongside it: meticulous recollections of your favorite things, plans for the future, some crossed out, some left gleaming and untouched, waiting to bloom.
Jade will never forget the hollow pit of fear he felt the summer of his second year, when he learned you died. When he saw the loneliness you tried so hard to hide.
The memory of your face that day—the way your mask cracked—is seared into him.
And Jade swore, with all the weight of his scheming heart, that he would never let you look that way again.

Floyd

You're cruel, smiling at him that way—charming and bright, like fireworks blooming behind his ribs—and it just makes Floyd all the more glad he climbed through the roof of the Mirror Chamber when he saw you hesitate, saw you scanning the crowd for him once, twice, even pausing to gesture helplessly at Jade.
He could never forget the feeling of it—sprinting forward, scooping you right off your feet, and just running—until the mirror was a distant memory and the only thing around was quiet grass and open sky. He only stopped when he was sure you were safe, setting you down so gently it hurt, then flopping backward into the grass with a breathless grunt.
Floyd laid there, silent for a long moment, staring up at the stars with a wide, slack grin—like he was thanking each and every one he'd ever wished on. Finally, he turned to you, lazy and loose, his downturned eyes gleaming almost too bright.
"You were gonna stay, yeah?" he asked, voice hoarse, barely above a whisper.
And when you nodded, he laughed—breathy, cracked—and dropped his arm over his eyes like he could hide the way his whole body shook with it. "Good. That's good..." His voice splintered halfway though, raw and genuine. "I'm so happy."
The day he got the news from Jade, something nasty and cold twisted inside him. His usual grin had slipped, just for a second—a flash of raw panic—before he pasted it back together with something jagged and mean.
Underneath it all, he was terrified that day.
Somewhere deep down, Floyd had decided it would be easier to shove you away before fate could rip you out of his hands. Because if you died... he wouldn't just cry—he'd shatter. He'd wreck everything he touched, sobbing and screaming until he puked, until he couldn't tell which way was up anymore. Part of him wanted to grab you right then and there, crush you against his chest and never let go. But another, meaner part whispered maybe it would be kinder to let you go first—before he had to to watch you disappear.
That night, Floyd clung to you like a barnacle, breathing frantic, half-laughing, half-sobbing apologies into the fabric of your shirt once all the adrenaline had faded. Promising you outings, stupid gifts, anything he could think of if it meant you'd really stay. His heart thundered against you like he thought you might evaporate if he loosened his grip even a little.
And as the years passed, Floyd stayed Floyd—only sharper. His boyish features grew leaner, more cunning. That devil-may-care smirk getting more dangerous with time.
You never found out exactly what Floyd said to the officials handling your case. But you caught the little things—the way he tucked a strand of teal and black behind his ear, the way his grin sharpened, the way his eyes, usually so lazy, narrowed in lethal amusement.
He whispered something sweetly, too sweet—and though the words floated like a joke, the promise beneath them was real. It wasn't a threat—it was a confession. A crime not committed yet, but promised all the same.
Whatever Floyd tangled himself up in after that, it paid. Well. Enough that he could buy you anything without blinking, still trying to make good on that desperate promise he made when he was younger: to keep you here, with him.
Sometimes, a call would come through—he'd answer it with a casual, sing-song, "Yo, what's up?" but you'd see how his whole body stiffened, how his gaze sharpened and darted to you. If you were close enough, he'd make sure the person on the other end knew: "Shrimpy's with me." His tone just dark enough to be a warning.
Whatever came next was in code you weren't meant to understand.
Then he'd be gone—sometimes days, sometimes longer.
You never pressed. Whatever Floyd's gotten himself into, he kept you shielded from it. He could play the fool all he wanted—but you weren't blind. Floyd was sharp. Too sharp.
Yet no matter how far he drifted, no matter how long he was gone, he always found his way back. melting into your arms the second you opened the door, whining about "boring meetings" and "stupid people" while you plopped a juice box in his hand and made him sit down.
Dangerous or not, Floyd still threw on that ridiculous pink frilly apron you got him as a joke, still danced around the kitchen beside you, tossing food into pots while you caught up like nothing had changed at all.
And sometimes—when he thought you weren't looking—he'd watch you. Like you hung every star in the sky just for him.
One night, lying on the roof of an abandoned building he'd found, Floyd pointed at the stars and named them lazily—Hubert, Spaghetti, Dum-dum. And then, softer, more serious, he'd tell you the real names and lore around the stars.
"That one's you," he said once, deadpan and refusing to elaborate.
Later that night, after he passed out on your couch—arms and legs draped across you like a lazy octopus—you searched it up, curious.
And sure enough, he'd bought you a star. Named it after you.
The description was simple: "The Way Home"
The brightest star available, always visible directly above the surface of the ocean by his house. If he swam up and followed it, it would lead him straight back to you.
Right back home.

Kalim

Kalim lay beside you in the small cabin that night, eyes burning, cheeks streaked with tears. His gaze was faraway, lost, staring quietly as you slept. You barely moved—your breathing so shallow it was almost impossible to hear—and your skin was cold where he gently grazed it. That scared him most of all.
He understood what had happened. He was smart enough to piece it together.
And that was the worst part.
Kalim understood.
But he also didn't.
He couldn't understand how he, of all people, could've let you slip through the cracks. How he could have left you so neglected, so alone. Yet when he tried to recall certain memories of you from that winter... there was only a haze.
Without thinking, Kalim shifted closer—not too close, not in any way that could frighten or hurt you. Just enough to try and share his warmth, to lend you some of the fire inside him. He cradled you carefully, like a storm-torn flower he could somehow nurse back to life. In his heart, he made a quiet promise: he'd plant you somewhere safe. Somewhere warm. Somewhere you could bloom again, untouched by harm.
All you had to do was say the word.
Ask for help—and he'd give you everything he had.
You might've expected him to spiral. And he did, in a way. Kalim cried himself hoarse most nights, and what little sleep he caught was fitful and shallow. But whenever you were awake, whenever you were near, he smiled brighter than ever—like he could will his happiness into you, like his laughter could heal the pieces too broken to reach on his own.
The night you chose Kalim over returning home, he could hardly believe it. He asked again and again if you were sure—if you really wanted him. Even through the lens of his cheerfulness, Kalim had eyes. He had ears. He knew there were so many others better suited, steadier, stronger.
And still, you stayed.
When you insisted—when you smiled and said you'd rather stay here, with him—Kalim made it home and cried until he was sick. but they were tears of disbelief, of wonder. Because somehow, against all odds, you picked him.
That night, a deep, steady guilt sank into him. If you were staying because of him, then your future was his responsibility now too.
Much to Jamil's quiet astonishment, Kalim changed. The parties still came, but Kalim started slipping away from them early—or abstaining altogether. He buried himself in studies, preparing for the future he wanted to built. You weren't a pet. You weren't a trophy. You were a person. Someone he loved. Someone who trusted him.
When he finally came of age, Kalim moved fast. Through his family's endless wealth and influence, he arranged for your housing, your paperwork, even set aside funds for education if you wanted to pursue it. NRC graduation already glimmered on your new record like a star. He threw a few grand parties—not for himself, but for you—to settle you into his world, to make it clear that you were someone treasured. Not to be trifled with.
It was dangerous, he knew. Flaunting the things he loved most. but Kalim would rather face that danger head-on than let you slip into neglect again.
He grew up fast after that. Head of the Al-Asim family, he became a force in foreign affairs, trade, philanthropy. His name carried real weight now. But no matter how many lavish homes he owned, no matter where he went, Kalim's feet always led him back to you.
The night you gave him a spare key, he clutched it like it was spun sugar, not gold. "You can always hide here," you said. "Even if I'm not home." You welcomed him without expectation. Without conditions. That quiet acceptance made his heart soar in a way nothing else could.
And so he came. Tired, worn from travel, arms full of souvenirs or letters or rare fruits. Straight to your doorstep. Straight to you.
He never mentioned it aloud, but in the desert heat, your cooler body was the sweetest comfort. He'd just smile and pull you into a hug, drinking in your calmness.
He never stopped checking in. Never stopped texting—morning, night, tracking time zones like a second language just so he could reach you at the right moments. His letters, messy with stickers and doodles, stacked up neatly somewhere safe in your living room. He kept sending them, even if he'd leave a country before you could reply. It didn't matter. What mattered was that you knew he was thinking of you. Always.
Every year, on the anniversary of the night you chose to stay, Kalim threw a festival in your honor. Everything crafted to your tastes—the food, the colors, the music. Even as an adult, when you asked him if it was intentional, Kalim would look away, cheeks pink, and beam at you with that boyish, desperate kind of hope:
"Did I get it right? Do you like it?"
And when you told him it was perfect—how thoughtful it was—he'd shine so bright it hurt to look at him.
Later, when the crowds disappeared and the last of the music faded into memory, you would find yourselves dancing at twilight. No cameras, no guests. Just you, and Kalim. His hands hovered close to your waist but never touched. Not until you gave him explicit permission.
As open as Kalim was with his feelings, he'd wait.
As long as it took.
Until you chose him back, just as surely as you'd chosen to stay.

Jamil

Jamil resigned himself to being your anchor the night you chose to stay—when you flipped that invisible coin in your head and turned toward him instead.
He couldn't understand it. Couldn't rationalize it.
And really, there wasn't a good reason.
He told you as much, voice clipped, heart hammering against his ribs like a bird desperate to fly free as he tried to push you back where you "belonged":
"No—you're just being anxious. Go home. You—you belong there. Where it's safe. Where you're happy."
You didn't belong here.
Not in this world that had already bled you dry once before.
It stung to say it, but Jamil would never admit that. Would never confess how you felt like a lighthouse in the storm—how your calmness, your steady, gentle warmth, always seemed to guide him back when the fog closed in.
Jamil Viper, who carried the world on his shoulders like a single mother working three jobs, had found you in something he'd never known how to name: a kind of clarity. A reminder of parts of life he thought he'd buried years ago.
And even thinking that made him feel stupid.
Jamil hadn't been a king when you met him—he hadn't even offered the basic hospitality you deserved. Even when he did start to notice you, he was too much of a coward to treat you the way you deserved to be treated.
Jamil Viper was emotionally unavailable.
No one knew that better than he did.
Reluctantly, he accepted your choice as fact. But not out of the love you might have hoped for. To him, it was another burden—another responsibility laid on his already breaking back. He didn't—couldn't—understand that you hadn't chosen him to carry you. You had chosen him to walk beside you.
But Jamil only knew how to carry.
It was what he'd been trained for.
Years passed. He remained at Kalim's side, even as the boy grew into a more capable, more aware man. Still, he insisted on handling what he always had.
Just so you could have a place—any place—in this world, Kalim agreed to fold you into their work while your documents processed. An aide, like Jamil, but lighter. Less burdened.
Quietly, behind the scenes, Jamil carved paths for you. He taught you how to navigate the minefields of politics and power, coached you through delicate negotiations. Late nights spent bent over books and documents felt familiar—like those days back at NRC.
He stayed close. But careful. Always one step away. Never intruding. Never letting anyone else get too close. You'd seen it—how fiercely he defended you when people talked.
And yet, slowly, the distance between you grew, The quiet, domestic moments you used to share—the late-night chats, the casual mornings—faded away like smoke.
He wasn't blind. He caught every flicker of hurt that crossed your face when he pulled away.
You made him feel alive, yes. But he'd made a mistake. A devastating one he realized too late. He hadn't just made room for you in his life—he'd made you a part of the machinery he longed to escape.
You had become a tie to the Al-Asim household.
And cutting that cord meant cutting you away too.
So he left. One day. Without a word.
He finally got permission, and he took it.
Jamil's room was left barren. His presence, which had once settled in the corners of your life like a quiet, comforting hum, was simply...gone.
No lingering scent of coffee and his shampoo or cologne.
No easy mornings, exchanging lazy conversation over sunbeams and sleepy smiles.
No shared glances that caught the light and held it just a second too long.
It was like a street at night without drivers.
All the lights still there, but no one left to see them.
The first night alone in his tiny new apartment, Jamil tried to savor it—the peace of solitude he'd craved for so long. And at first, it was soothing.
Until midnight came.
He wandered outside, some half-formed instinct steering him toward where you should have been—and when you weren't there, the absence hit him like a blow.
The loneliness he had fought for now felt hollow.
Jamil didn't sleep that night.
Instead, he remembered.
Remembered the day he first saw you fall apart. How he had ignored the sharp pain in his chest. Pretended it wasn't real.
He hadn't been able to untangle you then.
All he could do was try to smooth the edges of the knot.
To make your days a little softer after all the ones that had broken you.
It wasn't duty.
It wasn't obligation.
It was care.
It was a love, quiet and clumsy and too late to name.
Two days later, he broke.
He didn't have to be at work for another three hours.
But he couldn't sit still.
Couldn't endure one more morning without you.
The air was warm as he drove, windows down, heart pounding. And maybe—maybe—if he took the turns slow and missed the potholes, he'd catch a glimpse of you. A ghost still waiting in the passenger seat.
He found you, somehow.
And before he could think better of it, the words were out:
"Those morning felt like a religion," he blurted. Voice raw, unguarded. His posture was slightly hunched, like he desperately wanted to curl into himself. "And I don't think you knew. But that's my fault for not telling you."
You stared at him, wide-eyed, trying to process this vulnerability never seen before.
Jamil swallowed hard. His voice, usually so measured, cracked slightly as he spoke again:
"I'm sorry—about a lot. For getting you tangled up in my old position. For leaving without a word."
Those storm-grey eyes, always so guarded, softened.
Genuine. Regretful.
A look you thought you might never see from him.
"I need you," he said, low and hoarse. "Selfishly—but that's the man I am."
His hand curled into a fist at his side. "Don't let me walk out of your life again."
A ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth, almost too sad to be called one.
"Hit me next time I try. Pull my hair if I try to walk out—because clearly I'm not thinking straight."

Vil

It had been shocking—almost incomprehensible—to learn that someone like you, someone who shone so effortlessly, could have ever gone unnoticed. You lit up the environment around in the smallest, most invisible ways: a faint warmth in a cold room, a softening of the air when you smiled, a kind of presence that smoothed the world around you without even trying.
And yet, you had died before he ever met you.
Both in spirit—and once, horrifyingly, in body.
The thought of it stung more than Vil cared to admit. What had you been like before that? Back in your own world, before the weight of it all? Were you brighter then? Happier? Did you laugh more, shine more openly, without that delicate hesitation in your eyes?
He would never know.
And maybe it didn't matter anyway.
You were here now—lovely still, even though you were damaged.
Beautiful not in spite of your hurt, but because of them.
When you first explained the truth to him, voice shaking, eyes darting like a wounded animal expecting to be punished, Vil had remained cold, still as a marble statue. Not cold toward you, no—but he had retreated inward, retreading deep into his mind where he could turn over every memory, every subtle expression he'd seen on your face and missed the meaning of until now.
The idea that you had suffered alone—that you had broken quietly while the world looked away—was something he couldn't tolerate.
Wouldn't tolerate.
The next morning, he came to wake you himself, gently brushing your hair from your face. You blinked blearily up at him, and the instant you noticed the dark marks under his eyes, guilt flared bright and ugly across your features, rearing its head and biting down hard.
His lips pressed into a thin line, his expression tightening with something closer to anger.
"No," Vil said firmly, the syllable slicing through the guilt before it could gnaw down to marrow. "We are not doing that. From this day forward, you're not going to live like you're waiting to break again. I don't care what the universe thinks it has in store."
His voice was stern—uncompromising—but there was a heat behind it, a furious kind of encouragement that only someone like Vil could offer.
It was clear in his tone: you had no choice. You are going to get better.
It was moments like these when Vil's tenacity blazed through, unrelenting and bright, like a floodlight tearing apart the fog.
Not cruelty.
Rescue.
When news eventually reached him that the Mirror had found a way back home for Ramshackle—and for you—Vil had paused. The thought of you leaving, returning to a life he'd never gotten the chance to see, made a low ache settle in his chest. He thought about the memories you had built here, the things he still wanted to show you, the futures he had half-imagined where you remained close by.
But Vil was not selfish.
Or at least—he tried not to be.
So he smiled, and dressed you and the Yuus in their finest, styling every detail to perfection to send you back in a blaze of glory. His hands lingered for a second longer than necessary when they brushed your cheek, and his violet eyes softened with a rare, unguarded tenderness.
"What do you think you'll do first when you get home?" he asks quietly, more curious than anything else. He realized belatedly, that he had never once asked about your world, about what it was like beyond the glimpses you had let slip. And now that he might lose you, he regretted it. Regretted all the things he hadn't thought to say, or ask, or do.
It was true what they said:
You never truly appreciate what you have until it's about to be gone.
But when you threw yourself at him instead—launching yourself into his arms rather than the portal home—Vil's breath caught in his throat. His eyes widened, lips parting wordlessly as he tried to process what had just happened.
Then he laughed, the sound light, melodic, and disbelieving, pulling you closer into a tight embrace.
"I worked so hard on you," he teased, his voice breaking slightly with the intensity of the moment, "only for you to ruin my grand sendoff." He pulled back just enough to study you, really study you. "But you made the right choice. You're my responsibility now. And I won't let you regret it."
Of course, responsibility meant more than just affection. It meant practicalities: endless paperwork, infuriating bureaucracy, finding a legal way to anchor you to this world. It was tedious, but Vil's influence—and a considerable amount of money—swept aside most obstacles.
You had the best lawyers money could buy.
The best support system anyone could dream of.
His home was always open to you.
Always.
Meanwhile, Vil's acting career could only soar. Higher and higher, until sometimes you wondered if he had already disappeared into sky you would never be able to reach.
You were still the same nobody from another world.
Someone who had once hidden behind an old, battered Ghost Camera.
But something fierce burned inside you—a refusal to be left behind.
And it turned out, the Ghost Camera had been more valuable than you ever realized.
Your photographs, capturing the raw, breathtaking moments no one else could see, caught fire. And Vil, true to his word, promoted your work without hesitation, praising you where it mattered—where it would be seen. Not because you were his friend, but because he supports genuine quality.
You climbed steadily.
Not as fast as him, maybe.
But you were climbing.
And that was enough.
Vil stayed close. not possessively, never with a chain—but intentionally, with a presence so steady it wrapped around you like sunlight. He let you shine or hide as you pleased, never once pushing or pulling.
And even years later, there was a softness to the way he said your name when no one was listening. A way he called you like your name was something rare and precious that he trusted to keep safe.
Second place didn't feel so terrible anymore.
Not when you looked at him like he were the entire world.
The café was bustling that afternoon, light pouring in through tall windows, golden and clear as you finished your last picture of the day. You handed him the camera, letting him pick the shots he wanted to post to his socials.
"You've done well today," Vil said smoothly, a playful purr curling in his throat. "Eat your treat. I'll be paying, of course."
You smiled and focused on your food while Vil flipped expertly through the photos. His brows furrowed for a moment.
Not a single photo of yourself?
Really now, that wouldn't do.
His gaze flicked up, and without a word, he raised the camera, subtly, carefully.
Someone like you deserved to be photographed too.
Vil was no professional photographer, but he knew angles, light, and presence better than anyone.
The afternoon sun caught you just right, haloing you in a soft, dreamlike glow. In the frame, you looked distant and unreachable, like a star that had drifted just close enough to touch—but only for him.
He nearly preened at the sight.
And you didn't even realize.
He selected his chosen photos, downloading them to his phone—including the candid shot he had taken of you without hesitation.
Vil's gaze flicked back to you, a small, private smile tugging at his lips. Gentle and fond.
"No wonder I adore you," he murmured, almost too low for you to hear.
You're perfect.

Rook

Rook understood the shape of your silence—the shame that curled around your throat like smoke, the fear that coiled in your gut each time your eyes met his and remembered that he knew. That others knew. Facing him like pushing a boulder uphill with trembling hands, only to have it roll back again and again, leaving the taste of bile and old blood in your mouth. A Sisyphean struggle.
So he came to you, wordless and calm, finding you when you were alone and unguarded, gently taking your hand and leading you into the woods. His smile was soft, certain, and unwavering—the kind that told you he had no intention of letting go. He said the trees listened, and though you didn't understand what he meant, you played along. You picked a tree that felt right beneath your fingertips, scrawled your heart onto a slip of paper, and tucked it into a crevice like a secret.
You forgot about it.
Days passed.
Until a lonely walk brought you back, and there it was—a new note waiting.
You had expected florid prose, something dramatic and honeyed. But Rook, for all his flair, is a romantic—not a fool. He understands when silence is sacred, when pain should not be gilded. His words were precise, gentle. Not overwrought. Just enough. Just what you needed.
So began your quiet ritual. The tree became your confessional, your pen-pal, your anchor. You poured your heard into those folded messages—some raw and trembling, others dark enough to frighten yourself—and still, when you looked into Rook's eyes the next day, there was no sign of knowledge. No flicker of pity. Just him. The same warmth, the same light.
And that, more than anything, gave you the courage to keep going. his care didn't chase you. It waited—constant, open-armed, patient. And when the day came that you ran into him, truly ran to him, his expression cracked open with surprise, then melted into something reverent and unguarded. As if you were stardust falling into his palms and he couldn't quite believe he'd caught you.
He removed his gloves with trembling fingers, cupped your cheek like it was a petal, and simply breathed. You were real. You were here. There was something in his gaze that echoes the Blot's worship—something sacred, if mortal. Something that tethered you.
After graduation, Rook vanished like mist in the morning. You didn't know then how he worked behind the scenes—clearing the legal brush that tangled your life, speaking to shadows, acquired impossible approvals. You had your suspicions, of course. nothing about Rook was ordinary. And yet, you never questioned it too deeply.
Because even in his absence, he was present.
When your thoughts turned to static and your bones refused to move, a ball chimed, soft and familiar. A note would be waiting, always written in that elegant hand, always scented faintly like something you couldn't name but always recognized. A constant hum of care that said:
"You seem stressed, mon étoile.
I've run you a bath.
I'll be home soon.
Do not miss me too much."
It was strange how seamlessly this had become normal. He always knew what you needed before you did. You still struggled, still stumbled through the world like it was too sharp in places, but somehow, Rook softened it.
He was always just beyond the corner of your eye—smiling, watching, waiting. Never possessive. Just present. You, the greatest mystery he never wished to solve. The muse he chose to love without condition. With you, he was both fox and flame—elegant, wild, profoundly gentle.
He didn't visit so much as arrive—like a poem made flesh. With letters, with gifts, with whispers in the form of pressed flowers and wine-dark ink. He never once said mine. He didn't need to. Every gesture said: I see you. I choose you.
You once lingered over his words. "Home", he'd called this place. You hadn't thought about it much before—but yes. It had started to feel like home. Warmer when he was near—softer. The air itself seemed kinder.
You didn't know where he lived. You weren't sure anyone knew.
His skill was noticing things—finding people, truths, hidden threads—made him legendary in private investigation circles. A ghost with green eyes and a fox's grin. But he was always on the move. So perhaps... this was his home. With you.
And then, one day, he returned.
Arms open. As always. Bearing gifts and that smile that never lost its sincerity. He asked for nothing. Hoped for everything. And each moment with him felt like stepping into a world he wrote just for you.
You wandered the flittering chaos of a night carnival, stars flaring above—but he told you plainly: you outshone them all. He kissed your knuckled like they were spun from silk, eyes glinting with mischief, but also with a yearning he rarely gave voice to.
He'd never tasted cotton candy from your lips. But you could see he wanted to.
Still, he let you set the pace, accepted your subtleties with grace—even if it never quite suited him. The stack of love letters tucked in your drawer proved that well enough.
You laughed, softly, and it bloomed like a song in the dark. His pride shone in the curve of his smile, in the reverence in his gaze.
"Why exactly do you love me?" you asked.
A dangerous question. But not for Rook.
His eyes widened, lips parted. And for once, he didn't speak immediately. Didn't have a script. He breathed out your name like a prayer.
"Mon étoile..." he began, voice caught in his throat. Then smiled, defeated in the best way. "You are you. I can think of no finer reason. Though... ask me again in an hour, and I will give you poetry worthy of your name."
And that sincerity—unguarded and soft—was perhaps what you cherished most.
That night, Rook left quietly, but his hand lingered in yours, unwilling to part. And when you turned the pages of your book later, a letter slipped free, unsigned but unmistakably his.
You recognize the handwriting as surely as your own heartbeat. The same pen that once whispered back to you through a tree, when you could barely speak to anyone.
I dwell within your quiet heart—
a haven cloaked in tender dark,
where silence hums a lullaby
and every beat becomes my spark.
This rhythm, soft as angel wings,
resounds beneath my resting cheek.
It sings me into gentle sleep—
the only song I ever seek.
No morning sun, no moonlit skies,
can find me where your pulse resides.
But I don't mourn the world outside;
I bloom beneath your touch, confined.
A worshipper behind the veil,
who tastes your kindness through the bars—
sweet offerings of sugar-spun
devotion passed from hand to heart.
So ask me if I wish for light—
when I have you,
my sacred night.

Epel

Epel was about five seconds away from throwing hands with the Blot itself.
If he could've punched that cursed ring off your finger, he would've tried—
consequences be damned.
Seeing Rook and Vil, two of the strongest he knew, return to the dorm looking pale and shaken told him everything he needed. Their posture was off. Their eyes didn't sparkle like they usually did. Vil's smile—always poised, sharp—faltered at the corners. And Rook? Rook couldn't properly meet his gaze.
Epel wasn't dumb. He wasn't blind. He'd seen the little tells in you—how your fingers would tremble slightly when you thought no one was watching, how your gaze lingered on the ring with something between longing and dread. He noticed it all. But this... this confirmed it.
And three days later... he was finally told the full truth.
That night, the dorm felt like a cage. Epel slipped out without a word, wandering aimlessly though the fog-drenched paths of NRC. Curfew didn't matter. Not when his chest was full of a rage that felt too loud to scream and too big for his body to contain.
It wasn't fair.
You weren't supposed to suffer like this. To be forced into silence, into survival. The thought of you leaving—choosing to leave—sent a sharp ache through his stomach. His nose scrunched up, expression twisted in pain.
Were you unhappy? No—of course you were. That was a dumb question.
Still, weren't you happy with him? With the rest of them?
So when you made your decision—when you chose to stay—Epel lit up like a firework display at a sledding festival. Politeness and composure went out the window in a flash. He ran to you, nearly tackled you in a hug that squeezed the air from your lungs. The warmth was overwhelming, and for a second you almost mistook him for Floyd.
"I knew you'd stay!" he cried, practically bouncing. "Yer tougher than damn Leona—easy!"
Vil didn't scold him. Not this time. That kind of joy deserved to live unbothered.
Classes resumed. Time moved forward. Things returned to almost normal at NRC—except now Epel stuck closer to your side, a little more protective, a little more vocal. Somehow even more attentive, if that was possible.
Graduation came faster than anyone expected, and with it came offers. Professors, alumni, and even some upperclassmen offered you places to go—options, safety nets. But Epel, with a smug little grin and too much confidence for his own good, would always nudge you and remind you:
"You ran straight to me the moment you decided to stay. So obviously... I'm your top pick."
It was cocky. It was so Epel.
And truthfully, you couldn't argue with it. Not when the idea of living anywhere else felt wrong in your chest.
Harveston welcomed you like spring after a long, bitter winter. No IDs or government paperwork were needed here. Epel's grandma and the rest of the town didn't ask any questions—they just smiled, nodded, and made sure your plate was full and you pulled your weight.
And Epel? He wasted no time getting you on your feet. He threw his whole heart into helping you build an entire life. He petitioned the village council, called in every favor he was owed, even stood up in meetings to vouch for you with a strong voice and defiant eyes.
He got you a job. A real one. And he made sure you did the rest. No pity. No whispered stories. Just small-town rhythms and the kind of grounding only hard work and community could offer.
You found yourself pulled into festivals and harvest parties, into baking competitions and long days of hauling crates and setting up stalls. Epel introduced you to everyone as "just another buddy." That mattered more than you realized. He never made you feel like a project or too much of a big deal. Just a person.
He helped by being normal.
Back in Harveston, Epel's proper posture and polished NRC habits fell away like snow in the sun. His accent thickened. His energy sharpened into something rowdier, freer. He was still charming, still thoughtful, still absurdly pretty—but now with mud on his boots and a mischief in his grin.
Still, he'd hold onto little gestures—gentle mannerisms he'd picked up from Pomefiore and held close as something useful—just to impress you. He'd never admit it, but the way he folded napkins or picked wildflowers and arranged them artfully when he thought no one saw said more than his stubborn mouth ever would.
One evening, the two of you leaned shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the town bustle beneath a sunset that stained the sky gold.
"Took guts to stay," Epel said softly, nudging you with a grin that had grown to feel like home these days. "Glad you did, tough-guy."
Seven years passed like a slow-drifting breeze.
You became thick as thieves. Partners in rural mischief and a quiet loyalty. He never asked you to change. Never needed you to be "better". You were enough—just as you were. And, to his absolute delight, Epel finally got that growth spurt he always wanted. The wiry boy you'd known filled out with the kind of sturdy muscle expected of a farmhand, yet somehow he still carried the delicate features of a pretty-boy idol. The contrast suited him in the oddest ways.
Harveston's pave was unhurried. It gave you space to grow without pressure, to heal without deadline.
Epel threw himself into potion work in his spare time. He was close—so close—to creating something that would bolster the strength of apple trees against cold snaps. His notes, written in neat but winding scrawl, were packed with half-jokes and long tangents. He mailed drafts often, addressed to Vil and Professor Crewel, and passed them to you for delivery. The envelopes always smelled like crushed grass, cinnamon, and drying herbs.
At your favorite local bar, you'd sit tucked away in the back booth, trading stories and lazy grins. You didn't need alcohol—just music and each other. But when someone whispered too loudly about your "strange" past or how you just appeared one day, Epel would always try—try—to keep calm.
Sometimes he succeeded.
Other times, well... he didn't.
Dragging him out by the collar had become a semi-regular occurrence. He always apologized—eventually—while fiddling with his hair and muttering colorful phrases that didn't exist outside of Harveston's backwoods vernacular.
Seasons changed. Festivals came and went. Apple treats became a staple of your life—sweet, tart, and always different and new. Pies, ciders, jams, sugared slices, meats. On the quietest nights, when the stars glimmered and the air was soft, Epel would sit beside you carving an apple with practiced hands, cutting each piece into a tiny heart before handing it to you without a word.
Then came the blueprints.
One evening, after helping out around the Felmier farm, Epel's grandma shoved him out the door with encouragement and a paper roll clutched in his hand. He trudged through the orchard toward you, dragging his feet and taking the long way around, muttering under his breath like the apples were eavesdropping.
His usual boldness was nowhere to be found when he finally reached you. Instead, he scratched his cheek, looking anywhere but your face.
"I, uh..." He thrust the papers at you awkwardly. "I asked a buddy to draw these up."
You unrolled them—blueprints. A small cottage. Cozy. Thoughtful.
"I was thinkin'... I'd start buildin'. A place for m'self." His voice dropped, eyes flickered to yours for only a moment before darting away. The accent was stronger, coupled with the quiet murmur and lack of enunciation. "You'd... you'd have a room. If y'want."
You could've teased him. You could've said something snarky. But looking at him—red-faced, fidgeting, heart to obviously in his throat—you just smiled.
The sun was setting behind him. The orchard glowed.
Home never looked so real.

Idia

Idia Shroud understood the impossibility of your situation better than anyone. He knew that twisted, self-sacrificing logic that chained you to this secret. This quiet pact of pain you carried like a second skin. The very knowledge people claimed he was blessed with—that brilliance, the foresight—was now a blade carving home open and stitching him back together, over and over again.
You were alive.
But at what cost?
And for how long?
Those questions seemed to haunt him. Worse, he already knew the answers—and they made him feel like he was complicit in your suffering. He hated it. Hated himself for it.
For weeks, he did nothing. Just spiraled.
He locked himself in his dorm, blinds drawn tight, lights dimmed, games unopened. He let despair wash over him like static—draining, numbing, constant. but eventually that despair twisted into something else. Sadness hardened into anger. Anger turned into resolve.
He gritted his teeth and contacted STYX.
The message went through with the press of a trembling finger—but then came the panic. His thumb hovered over the keyboard again and again before he sent a second message. This time directly to his parents:
Whatever happens from here on... I'm handling it. No one touches this but me.
And to his surprise, they agreed. Clearance was granted. Full authority. Every decision about you—from oversight to operations—was his.
It didn't feel like power. It felt like a countdown ticking too fast.
Idia's normally dull gaze grew sharp, conflicted, alive with a rare focus. The kind of look he only wore when a raid boss was almost down and his last few HP bars were flashing red.
He didn't let himself hope—not really—but he moved like someone who needed you to live.
The day of your escape came, and Idia didn't show his hand. No dramatic confrontations. No sweeping interventions. Just a short, awkward message pinged to your phone.
congrats ig. try not 2 trip on the way out lol
You stared at the screen, frowning.
Was he... mad at you? Was this some kind of guilt trip?
You scanned the crowd more than once that day, hoping—maybe irrationally—to spot his wild blue flames, his guarded eyes. Nothing.
But he was there.
Hiding in plain sight. Hood drawn over his head, posture hunched. Face a ghost in the crowd. Only Ortho knew where to look.
He had plans inside plans. Reinforcements layered in encrypted code and ciphers. STYX agents disguised as students. Ortho monitoring vital signs and heat maps from the perimeter. Hidden failsafes stacked in sequence like dominoes. If something went wrong—when it went wrong—he was ready to respond.
Or so he thought.
The noise. The chaos. The too-bright lights and the electric buzz of the crowd—it all pressed in on him. His thoughts fractured, splintering into static. his fingers trembled in his sleeves. The air felt too thin. His skin, too tight.
The corners of his vision darkened, creeping inward like greedy vines. His heartbeat drummed in his ears, fast and frantic. His legs locked. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move.
Not now. Please. Not now—
And then—impact.
You slammed into him at full speed, and the two of you crashed to the ground. The world lurched. Wind knocked clean from both your lungs. It was messy, disorienting—too real.
Idia's eyes widened as his vision cleared, and there you were.
You.
His mind blanked.
All the blueprints, all the backup files, all the emotional scaffolding he'd built came crashing down at once. The only thing left standing was the image of you—panting, real, wide-eyed and stunned.
"Wh—why—" he gasped, voice thin and confused.
You were here. Right now. Right now.
And just like that, the panic slipped away. His heartbeat didn't slow, but it changed. No longer frantic with fear—now thundering with relief so raw it left him dizzy.
The following days, Idia vanished. Physically, at least. No one saw him around campus.
But he texted you. Daily. Sometimes more. Memes, links, dumb jokes, weird cat videos from ten years ago. The messages were his way of saying I'm here. Are you still here too?
Oddly, his status stayed offline. No game log-ins. No streams. no records of activity.
Suspicious.
And two days later,t he truth surfaced.
Idia had taken his final exams early and graduated. Quietly. Efficiently. He didn't make a big deal out of it—except when he stopped by Ramshackle.
He showed up at your door with a keycard in one hand and Ortho floating behind him with a cheerful wave.
"S-so... Ramshackle's, like... super old. Totally haunted. And, uh, my room has heating—and AC." His words stumbled over themselves, faster and faster. "A-and Ortho's here to keep you company. Y'know. In case. Not 'cause I think you're gonna, like, pass out or anything."
You tilted your head, raised an eyebrow.
Idia's eyes darted. His confidence cracked—just for a second—before he blurted, in a single breath:
"Iknowyou'llmissme—so I guess you can have Ortho and my old room. Hehe. Yeah."
Silence.
Your deadpan stare could've knocked down a wall.
"...Right. Bye!" he squeaked, spinning on his heel and slamming your front door on himself.
In the time between that chaotic day and your graduation, Ortho became something like your personal tutor. Not in schoolwork—but in preparation for STYX.
"You'll be going there after graduation," he said plainly, in that chipper robotic voice that somehow still managed to carry warmth, concern, and certainty all at once.
"Big Brother's working hard for you so you have to be ready too!"
And so began an intense, borderline bizarre curriculum: learning STYX protocol, containment procedures, theoretical Blot behavior modules, ethics review formats. He quizzed you on security phrases between bites of lunch, made you practice biometric door access like it was a game, even drilled you on how to politely but firmly argue policies. You weren't sure if it was love, duty, or some strange combination of both—but Ortho made sure you knew: Idia was building something big behind the scenes. And you were part of it.
By the time Idia settled into his high-clearance fancy adult job, he'd already done what no one else could:
He made you make sense.
In records. In science. In theory and paperwork and metaphysical law. You were classified, officially, as a Blot-linked Anomaly—Level O. Top-tier clearance. Highest level containment and observation, but with protections no prior entity like you had ever been granted.
Idia rewrote the rules for you.
You were granted legal personhood—under obscure arcane-metaphysical statutes. Governmental immunity—within STYX's jurisdiction. And—because he knew what the alternative would be—you were granted residential placement inside the STYX institute itself.
An anomaly with a keycard. A legal paradox with a bed and medical insurance.
You were, in every sense, an ethical nightmare.
And Idia—grinning like a gremlin in a suit—made it work anyway.
He waltzed into hearing and mock-trials with that smug tone and too-fast speech, flicking holographic tabs as he essentially mansplained bureaucracy to the government, sounding like a tech-support rep possessed by a dungeon master.
And he won.
Your official role was complicated—half test subject, half guest researcher. You studied Blot phenomena from the inside. Gave insight that no textbook or simulation could replicate. You understood it—and the institute couldn't argue with results.
You can still remember the induction day vividly.
A sterile white room. High ceiling and the hums of electricity in the walls. The air too clean. A long table with thick binders, STYX officials seated like a tribunal. Your name wasn't called—it was announced. Like a warning.
You walked in, tense and unsure, shadowed by handlers. You expected cuffs. Isolation. Observation behind glass.
Instead, you saw him.
Idia stood at the head of the room. No tablet in hand. No hoodie or clunky headset to hide behind. His posture was straighter now, if still awkward. His hair, slightly longer. His expression, sharper. His aura, commanding.
You worried he'd changed.
"This," he said without hesitation, "is the Progenitor Blot Host. Level O. Under my division. Effective immediately."
The silence that followed felt seismic.
You didn't miss the way some of the officers stiffened. Nor the way Idia's voice didn't waver once.
It was the first time you realized—he couldn't afford to slack off here. Not where you were involved. Not when your safety, freedom, and continued existence balance on the strength of his authority.
He had to be better. Stronger. Faster. Smarter.
Idia's eyes flickered to you just once—barely a second—and yet you could read the entire message in the twitch of his brow and the faint upward pull at the corner of his mouth:
Do I look cool?
He knows your biometric data by heart now. He tracks your vitals during every high-risk scan, every trial, every exposure text. And even though he's technically not supposed to show favoritism, he always meets your gaze when the lights come back on, murmuring under his breath—
"...Still breathing? Cool."
The institute didn't exactly welcome your presence with open arms.
You weren't recruited. You weren't "normal." And to them, you were still a marionette—a vessel tainted by the Blot. A walking threat. Something to be monitored, not included.
They never said it outright. But it showed. In the small things. One afternoon, while trying to access the digital archives to cross-reference a phenomenon you'd encountered in a recent simulation, the system denied you.
[ACCESS REVOKED. GUESS PERMISSIONS INVALID.]
Strange. You had clearance yesterday.
You didn't even have time to message Idia.
Thirty-eight minutes later, the lab doors hissed open and he strode in—expression dark, eyes narrowed. No greeting. No preamble. He moved straight tot he console, leaned over your shoulder, and typed with rapid precision.
"Override protocol," he muttered, his keystrokes laced with irritation. "Guest-Class E00-Prime. Reactivate."
A chime sounded.
[ACCESS RESTORED.]
Idia didn't look at you—just glared at the screen, muttering under his breath, "If they're gonna treat you like a lab rat, you might as well be a clever one." You didn't take the jab personally. It wasn't really aimed at you anyway.
You watched him walk out, coat swishing, muttering obscenities too clinically online for a translator to parse.
It happened during a routine trial—a recalibration of your resistance threshold under Blot saturation. You were halfway through putting your gloves back on when one of the technicians muttered to his colleague:
"That Blot puppet's biometrics are unusually unstable today."
As if you weren't standing there. As if you weren't a person at all. Just another specimen in a cage.
You froze for half a beat, fingers twitching. Then, too quickly you tugged the gloves on, trying to conceal what the man had noticed: The inky traces that danced over your thumb from that one injury years back and that ring that won't come off. A reminder. A curse. Or maybe just proof.
The room didn't explode. No shouting followed.
But it did go quiet.
Idia was still seated at the monitoring terminal, stylus in hand. He paused, exhaled slowly through his nose, and ran a hand through his hair—more a frustrated rake of fingers than any attempt to smooth it down. His expression soured into something drained and sharp. Jaw clenched. Eyes flat and furious.
"That 'puppet'," he said, in a voice low and calm—too calm, "has already rewritten half of your department's outdated, incomplete containment methods."
There was no room for rebuttal. No space for apology.
Then, just as simply, he turned back to his work, leaving the silence behind like a closed door.
Later that evening, there was a knock to grab your attention while you worked—barely audible. When you peered up, Idia was already halfway turned to leave. He handed you a stack of updated documents and a single sticky note attached to the top.
You expected a memo. Instructions. Maybe a passive-aggressive bullet point about test protocol.
Instead, you found a doodle.
Two cats, unmistakably drawn in his familiar style—one drawn with a mop of wild blue flaming fur, the other looked just like you. Both in STYX uniforms. Both holding hands.
You snorted softly, heart catching in your throat. The paper joined the growing collection pinned to your board—quiet testaments to moments only you got to see from him.
These days, Idia didn't look scared anymore—not in the way he used to. The haunted, awkward flinches had been replaced with a different kind of heaviness: exhaustion carved into his shoulder, irritation etched into the tight line of his lips.
He was an important man now. A prodigy in a system that neither wanted nor understood someone like him. His methods were too fast, too efficient, too different. He streamlined procedures they thought sacred. Challenged traditions written before he was born. And worst of all, he had you—not just as a specimen, but as a researcher.
They hated that.
But he didn't back down. Not once. Especially not when it came to you.
Idia always found time for you.
You were one of the few people who had ever cracked through the wall of silence and sarcasm he wore like armor. You hadn't waited for permission. You'd barged into his orbit and stayed until he adjusted to your gravitational pull.
One afternoon, after a long and particularly grating workday, you returned to your workspace to find a neatly packed container waiting for you.
Inside: pomegranate seeds. Clean, pristine. Like a container with tiny, glistening rubies. No note. But there didn't need to be one.
Your gaze drifted to where he stood—across the lab, scanning something on his tablet, posture a little too stiff to be casual. His gloves hung from his pocket. And even from a distance, you could see the faint red tint staining the tips of his fingers.
He'd peeled them himself. Cleaned them. Prepared them.
For you.
That night, you returned the favor.
Not in the same way—he wasn't much for raw fruit. But sweets? That was a different story. So you wrestled with recipe after recipe until you finally got it right: pomegranate gummies. Shaped like little cubes and dusted in sour sugar, something you're sure he would like.
At nearly midnight, your tablet buzzed.
Idia: rec room. 15 minutes. prepare to get destroyed loser
When you arrived, he was already there—lounging on the couch, console flickering in front of him. The sharp-edged leader of STYX had vanished, replaced by the man you knew. Hoodie slouched. Hair down. Eyes darting from you, to the gift, then immediately back down to the screen as if it's suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world.
His hair blushes a deep pink red the moment you sit with him and he wishes he could rip it all out to avoid detection of his feelings.
"...Thanks," he mumbles, just loud enough to hear.
You don't say anything. Don't have to.
STYX is sterile. Cold. Precise. Unforgiving.
But Idia isn't. Not with you.
He watches your tests from behind the observation window. Always. Every time.
When it's over, he taps the glass once with too fingers. A signal. Not protocol. Not habit.
Just him.
Still here?
Still real?
You tap back.
Still me.
And that's all you need.

Malleus

Malleus had never felt powerless—not truly. Not until you.
He had magic vast enough to summon tempests, wisdom steeped in years beyond you, and bloodline ties to ancient, unknowable power. Yet none of it could undo what was happening to you. He exhausted every archive, every relic, every whisper of long-forgotten magic in search of something—anything—that might save you. Fix you. Keep you.
And what terrified him most wasn't the pain. Nor the heartbreak. Not even the guilt over your shared loneliness that, somehow, he had failed to notice sooner.
It was the love.
A love that burned through him like molten metal, unrelenting and cruel in its beauty. It stripped away his reason, fanned the storms inside his chest, and left him wrecked and raging beneath the calm exterior of a prince. If sorrow were a sea, Malleus had sunk to its deepest trench. If longing were a storm, he was its eye.
And when the sky opened up that night, raining knives and screaming thunder, the world mirrored the grief he could no longer contain.
He nearly missed your sendoff.
No one had told him the exact date. Or perhaps they had, and he simply refused to believe it could come so soon. But the moment he realized, he arrived in a fury, tearing through the crowd with a desperation unbecoming of a future king. On stage, his eyes found you instantly, like a flower might seek the sun, and he reached for you without shame.
You had become too important. Too beloved. it was irresponsible to leave now.
When you stumbled into his arms, he clutched you as if you might disappear with the next breath. His fingers trembled, but his hold never faltered. You were sugar glass, his most treasured thing, and he cradled you with all the reverence of an old god holding a dying star.
"I would give you every scale on my body," he whispered into your shoulder, voice thick, "if it meant you could stay—even just a few days longer."
And Malleus meant it.
In the years that followed, he moved swiftly. He offered you sanctuary in Briar Valley—not merely a place to hide, but a protected status backed by law and rite. He stood before the Council not with a request, but a declaration: you were not a denizen of Briar Valley, protected under ancient pact and fae magic.
You became both marked and protected, woven into the very wards of the kingdom. No officials dared challenge it.
On the day your name was officially inscribed into Briar Valley's record, Malleus arrived bearing a gift: a black obsidian lantern, its enchanted flame flickering but never faltering. He placed it on your table with quiet care before sitting beside you, hands folded, nearly vibrating with unspoken affection.
His smile was soft, reverent. There was no ambiguity in his love—it bled into everything he did. His words were poetry laced with old magic, and his gaze held the depth of centuries. You were his heart's anchor, and though he never asked for your love in return, he offered his own endlessly, unconditionally, whenever you needed it.
But Malleus knew time was cruel.
Your lifespan was a flicker compared to his eternity. And that awareness haunted him. Every moment he had with you was faintly shadowed by the truth that he would one day wake to a world without you.
So he made your time here radiant.
He was a king—a busy one. Yet he still found ways to slip from endless meetings just to see you. Just to breathe in the same space you shared and simply gaze upon you in early morning light.
One evening, you were summoned to the palace. The night air was cool and the moonlight kissed Malleus's features in silver and shadow. He offered you his hand without a word, and when you took it, he stood taller, prouder.
He guided you through the royal gardens—transformed entirely. Every flower, every stem, every vine had been carefully curated to reflect your favorites. The entire garden had bent to your presence.
"The flowers bloom longer now," Malleus said, voice gentle. "The garden is happy."
The garden was happy, yes.
But so was the man gazing at you like you were a divine gift.
At the center of the garden stood a singular tree, regal and solitary, adorned with faerie-crafted jewelry. Bracelets spiraled around its limbs, enchanted to expand as the tree grew. Its crown glittered with delicate charms holding precious stones, catching the moonlight in bursts of color.
At its base, a plaque bore your name.
Beneath it, in Malleus' own hand, read:
"Preserved beyond time. Indelible."
He asked you to dance. There was no music, but the stars sand and the wind swayed gently, as if the universe itself honored your steps. His hand never left yours.
"Even eternity," he spoke lowly, "would feel brief with you beside me, child of man."
His romantic declarations no longer startled you, but they still stirred something deep in your chest. Green eyes softened, lips parted—he seemed on the cusp of saying something more, but hesitated. That, in itself, was unusual.
Malleus never hesitated.
That night, you found a gift on your windowsill. Scales—small, iridescent, humming softly with magic. They shimmered in hues of violet and emerald under the moonlight.
A sacred offering. A silent confession.
You didn't respond right away. Not because you didn't feel—but because the enormity of it left you breathless. How does one answer a dragon's heart?
Malleus noticed your silence and it clung to him like a shadow.
He showed up at your door a few weeks later, soaked through the rain, his cloak clinging to him like wilted wings. He looked utterly undone—drenched, tired, and heart-wrecked.
You barely had time to question him before he collapsed onto your couch—onto you. Head bowed, and shoulders trembling from something far deeper than weather.
"If I were to offer you my name—my truest name—would you carry it?" he asked quietly, voice cracking beneath the weight of what he couldn't bear to speak aloud. For an all-powerful king, he had never felt more uneasy. "Even knowing it would bind me to you? Do you feel unwelcome here? Do you not feel the same?"
His words were soft. Not with accusation, but aching uncertainty.
"Do you fear, my child of man, that they do not want you here? I want you here. And I have never wanted lightly. Had you gone that day... the stars themselves might have mourned and I would have died."
And you understood.
He was no just offering his love. He was offering everything
His name. His kingdom. His future.
His eternity.

Silver

Silver didn't say much. Not at first. And certainly not about what had happened.
He never spoke of your pain directly, never commented on your desperation, never dared to label what had taken root inside you. His agony was quieter, than yours—muted and distant, like thunder on the horizon. But it was there. You could see it in his eyes, shadowed and heavy, in the way his jaw would tighten before softening again, in the way he stood just a little too still when you weren't looking.
What was loud in Silver's presence—so loud it rand like a bell—was his support.
"Surviving is the more important thing," he told you one night, gently but firmly, as if reciting a truth he'd clung to himself. "And look at you; you're alive. Isn't that all that matters?"
There was no judgement in his voice, no distance in his tone. He didn't flinch from the truth of what you'd done or what you'd become. He knew, in the quiet, accepting way that only someone who has suffered understands, that certain things happen not because you choose them, but because they are inevitable.
His only offering was himself. His presence. Steady and unwavering.
There wasn't much else he could give. Fight the Blot? No—he wasn't that powerful. But he could hold you when your hands trembled. He could stand beside you when your voice broke. He could catch you when the world became too much.
And in that moment—when you found yourself collapsing into his arms, tired down to your bones—that was all you ever needed.
When the possibility of returning home first surfaced—then gradually solidified into certainty—Silver stayed close. He helped you pack without hesitation. Every item you chose was folded with care, placed precisely, handled as if it were made of delicate glass. The silence between you two was stretched thin with things left unsaid, woven with unspoken fears and lingering regrets.
He was close. So painfully close.
And yet... he felt distant, like hew as already grieving your absence.
And yet the day you stumbled into him—unprompted—he held you with quiet strength, a gentle hand patting your back. He assumed it was goodbye. Assumed you just needed one final embrace, one last anchor before you set off.
His smile was warm. Resigned. Steady. "Don't keep them waiting," he whispered.
But you didn't let go.
You melted into him, held on tighter, and something shifted in the way his arms wrapped around you. Slower. Firmer. Silver understood then—perhaps not in words, but in feeling—that he had become your home. Not a destination. Not a temporary harbor. But the place you chose to return to.
In that moment, Silver made a silent vow; he would always be near, He would never stray far enough that you could be hurt without him there to catch you.
He never made a spectacle of his care. When the process of legitimizing your existence in this world began, he walked every step with you, uncomplaining. Malleus may have done most of the work—pulling strings, drafting rites—but Silver was the one by your side during the mundane, tender moments. The ones that mattered.
He sat beside you as you struggled to read unfamiliar words of Briar Valley, tracing the text in the golden pool of lamplight with a gloved finger. His voice low, patient. Repeating phrases slowly until they made sense. He never rushed you. Never sighed. Never made you feel small for needing help.
He made you feel safe.
He became your constant.
Silver never asked for more. Never pushed you to define what was growing quietly between you. But he never stepped away, either. He remained—a still, gentle force. Loyal. Steadfast. His love lived in the spaces between your words, in the pauses between breaths.
You're not sure when the closeness became intimacy. When the shared silence turned into shared peace. When his casual gestured became something you looked forward to. Longed for.
He's still not a man of many words. But he doesn't need them.
Every week, a fresh bouquet appeared on your doorstep. Morning dew still clung to the petals like tiny jewels, as if the flowers had just been picked. You never saw who left them, but you knew. You always knew.
Your suspicions were confirmed one afternoon when Silver walked with you between his shifts. As you passed a small flower shop, a fae woman called out playfully, "Is this the one you keep buying bouquets for, boy?"
He didn't respond. Pretended he hadn't heard but the way the back of his neck and the tips of his ears flushed deep red was more than enough answer.
On the nights when he didn't make it all the way home—when duty drained him and he wandered, half-asleep, to your doorstep—you sighed affectionately and dragged him inside without complaint. The neighbors didn't think twice. They'd seen it before, and to them, it had become a charming routine.
When he stirred in your arms, halfway through being hauled onto the couch, your name slipped from his lips in a voice so quiet it might've been a dream.
Murmured like a vow.
Like a secret only the stars were meant to hear.
Your birthday—a day you had chosen, separate from the old world and its heavy memories—was a small affair. Quiet. Warm. You caught him watching you more than once that night, his eyes lingering, curious and uncertain. He didn't give you his gift until after the celebration, when the crickets sang and the fireflies blinked like stars.
It was a worn leather journal. Soft at the edges. Clearly cherished.
Inside, the pages were filled—front to back—with entries from the past seven years. Dreams—many including you. He'd begun writing in this journal the night he first heard your nightmare. The night he heard you whisper an apology in your sleep for things that were never your fault.
"You've had too many bad dreams," Silver said, handing the journal to you like it was something sacred. "I wanted to... give you my good ones."
And it was then you realized: he had loved you, quietly, but deeply, for a long time.
Silver spent his rare free moments teaching you the stars. On evenings when you waited by his post just to walk home together, he could point out constellations—explaining which moved, which were still, and which had already died long ago.
"That one," he said once, pointing to a lone, resolute star shining proud, "is the one I wished on when I hoped you'd stay."
His voice grew quiet.
"And you did. Maybe I owe it now."
You two existed like a pair of lanterns in a vast, moonlight field—close but not touching, illuminating each other with warmth and presence. His guard post was always stations where you spent your time. He always found an excuse to walk you home when it rained, never commenting on how he always happened to be nearby.
One morning, as you walked together, he brushed a stray petal from your hair. His hand lingered, fingertips brushing your temple.
"You look warmer," he murmured, soft as breath. "These days... you glow. So bright."
He leaned in, just slightly—drawn without realizing it. The air between you sparked with a hush. But the moment shattered when he blinked, stumbled, back, and muttered something about "suspicious movement" in a nearby alleyway.
You watched him go, flustered and stiff, as birds chirped a teasing song above—one he pointedly ignored.
As if making his mind while trying to cool off, he said, without meeting your gaze:
"I... I don't need anything back. Just let me keep walking beside you. I'll walk with you for as long as you'll let me. Until you're ready to stop."

Sebek

Sebek had the loudest reaction to your news—louder than anyone else by far. His disbelief came crashing down like thunder, his voice rising in sharp denial, as if sheer volume could undo what happened. But the real noise—the most piercing grief—wasn't in his voice.
It was in the silence that followed.
His guilt didn't howl or scream. It lingered in the haunted look he gave you when you weren't watching, in how he stood too stiffly beside you like he was guarding a grave. He carried his shame in the awkward shuffle of his boots, in the way he reached out but never touched, in how his proud shoulders hunched ever so slightly when you turned away.
And yet—Sebek had also been your loudest support.
At first, he disguised it behind duty. "Lord Malleus must be protected at all costs," he'd declare, voice clipped, "and your condition may pose a risk. Thus, I shall observe you... closely. At all times."
That "risk" became his excuse to accompany you everywhere—whether it was to the market, the edge of the woods, or even just across the courtyard. He trailed behind like a knight on silent vigil, casting glares at wayward squirrels and pedestrians alike. And when you crossed the street, Sebek would seize your hand in his own, rigid with purpose, ready to throw himself between you and traffic like the cars were enemies to be slain.
He even developed a personal vendetta against mosquitoes. Mosquitoes. The first time one attempted to land on your arm, he swatted it midair with such force you nearly yelped. "How dare this insect attempt to drain the life from my ward?!" he'd shouted, whipping his head back and forth searching for any others.
You blinked. My ward?
He froze—then went scarlet. The words had tumbled out too fast, too honest. Still, he didn't take them back.
It became something of a pattern after that.
When you both graduated and Malleus, in his benevolence, granted you full citizenship, Sebek stood a step behind you—straight-backed, proud, silent—and you felt him tremble slightly. Loud as ever, brash as always, Sebek had never been the easiest person to befriend. But his gentleness with you, the devotion that softened his edges without dulling his fire, made it clear you were necessary in his life.
Time softened him in other ways, too. He remained booming, dramatic, occasionally unbearable—but his loudness took on a different tone. Where once it had been frantic, desperate to prove himself, now it carried reverence. His voice no longer echoed with insecurity—it rang with sincerity.
He still blushed furiously when praised. Still stumbled over his own feet in emotional moments. But he showed up. Every holiday. Every errand. Every moment when you didn't know you needed someone—but he did. He always did.
His loyalty had transformed from a burning flame to a hearthfire: constant, warm, dependable. He spoke of you the way he once spoke of Malleus—awestruck, fiercely protective, and with a respect that went bone-deep. If anyone dared speak ill of you, they were swiftly silenced, not by fury, but by conviction. And when you were quiet, unsure, aching from things you didn't have words for—Sebek was already there. You never needed to ask.
The day you chose to stay in Briar Valley, to remain in this world, to remain with him—Sebek took it personally. Like an oath fulfilled. Like you had knighted him. He raged on your behalf when others questioned your place here, as if your mere existence wasn't enough proof of your right to belong. And then, without ceremony or fanfare, he simply started teaching you everything NRC hadn't.
He became your guide to fae etiquette, to customs and laws and subtle rules that could mean the difference between safety and insult. He scribbled notes in the language you understood painstakingly, often with a few dramatic flourishes in the margins. And over shared dinners—recipes he'd learned from Lilia and, somehow, improved upon greatly—he quizzed you gently. When you studied on the couch, he'd lean over your shoulder to track your progress, unaware of his posture slouched slightly when he relaxed beside you.
You teased him for it, and somehow, the teasing turned into posture lessons, then dancing. "Faerie cultural education!" he insisted, face burning. But his hands were gentle on your waist, his movements careful, and the moment lingered like perfume longer than either of you meant it to.
His affections were not subtle—Sebek never could be subtle—but they were real. His sword, the one he trained with daily, bore your name etched into the hilt in small, reverent letters. Beneath it, a single word: Oath.
In winter—your least favorite season, the one that had once taken your life—he arrives wrapped in snow and worry, cloaking you in his own furs before walking you home. Even if you insisted you were fine, he never let you go alone. The fear of history repeating kept his jaw tight and steps sharp.
In spring and summer, the guilt changed forms. Your garden is mysteriously weeded. Your tools repaired. Orchids show up on your doorstep with no signature.
He is your guardian in every way but name.
One night, Sebek arrives outside your door with breathless urgency, hair mussed, eyes bright with something like panic. "I had a dream—" he starts, then falters. Instead of finishing the sentence, he draws his blade with a shaky hand and holds it out—not in threat, but offering.
"I—I..." he starts again, then stiffens his spine, meeting your gaze with something proud and tremulous all at once. "I will protect you... until my last breath. If—if you'll allow me."
In his voice is a tremor of fear, of hope. In his stance is a vow. And in your heart, you already know the answer.
You've always felt his promise. In every small act. Every loud reaction. Every silent service he renders without thanks.
But now, he says it.
And you don't need to say anything back.
Because, for once, Sebek has finally said enough.

Blot

Is this truly how it ends?
With me loving your shadow—faithfully, hopelessly—
while knowing the sun would set long before it could ever rise for me.
What was I thinking?
That perhaps—just perhaps—you might turn your gaze to me one day and say I love you too?
How foolish of me. How impossibly naïve.
Now I dwell here where I belong—in the shadows, in this cavernous ache of silence and sin—
and I watch you.
My sun. My star.
Spinning in the arms of a man who adores you in the daylight,
who calls you beloved with lips I envy,
yet whose love could never—will never—
equal even the faintest flicker of the fire I've burned for you.
And still...
You chose him.
And though it cleaves through me like glass dragged slow across skin,
though it churns my stomach and steals the breath from my lungs,
I cannot hate you.
I will not.
Because your choices, your desires, your joys—
they will always matter more than my own.
This is my vow, quiet and aching:
You first. Always.
Still, I writhe.
I grieve.
I seethe in this agony that never abates.
What good was a second chance, if it meant losing you all over again?
Yet I endure it,
swallowing the pain as one might swallow a needle—
deliberately, through salt and blood.
Because maybe I never earned the love you once gave me.
The same way I never earned this pain.
The same way the clouds keep moving even when the wind has gone still.
When no one feels it anymore.
Do you remember the wind?
Down by our oak, when the time moved slow and syrup-thick,
like a music box winding down.
When you still loved me.
And the breeze carried the scent of promises we didn't know how to keep.
Does your heart ache now as mine does,
when the air tastes sweet,
like the memory of your love pressed into my skin?
I am no rising star, beloved.
I never was.
You may find—perhaps you already have—that I've never been remarkable at anything at all.
Even if I stood in a crowd of mannequins with wings stretched wide and divine light pouring from my bones, you would now see me.
Not really.
I see everything.
And yet I've never been seen.
Not unless I create.
Not unless I carve something unforgettable.
A masterpiece.
A ruin.
So I write tragedies.
I stage them across kingdoms and courts,
in places where gods might look down and pity me.
Crafting disasters so vivid they cannot be ignored.
Screaming, without voice:
I am here. Look at me please. I matter.
But masterpieces fade.
The world forgets even beauty, given time.
Still... I like to think you were my best story.
That we were.
My finest chapter.
You, with your mortal simplicity and your unburdened wisdom—
you understood me more than I understood myself.
And in this second life, you understood the way a soul splinters when it has nowhere to turn.
Not to life.
Not to death.
Reality stretched thin around us,
a mirror reflecting only distance, endlessly.
And I saw you once,
waking slowly—
eyes clenched shut, clinging to the fading warmth of a dream you dared not believe in.
Curling in on yourself.
as if your own embrace might shield you from the cruelty of waking.
Now, I see you stir beneath morning light,
his hand gently covering my ring.
And you smile.
Gods, your smile.
It makes my heart stutter with joy...
and twist in horror.
Because I didn't cause it.
So I flee.
Never far.
Never gone.
Just enough to quiet the scream in my chest.
I return to the broken places—
to the temples long forgotten, where stone angles weep dust.
And I wonder... if I'd done better,
if I'd been better,
would you have loved me then?
Someone once dreamt of building these sanctuaries.
A craftsman who likely rushed home to tell his mother he was chosen to craft a house for the divine.
He woke early,
passed his hammer to his son when he grew weak.
Did he know the temple would crumble?
Would it have stopped him?
So I ask:
If I had known you'd never love me,
would I still have tried so hard?
These days, I accept your silence like sacrament.
Nights pass cold.
You do not seek me.
But I am not bitter. I can't be.
If it brings you happiness, I will hold it steady, even if it crushes me. I will carry your heart in my chest if that is what it takes.
If ever you call.
If ever you need what I still offer,
I will come—bare, unguarded, unholy and reverent.
Because we are the sun and moon.
I will give you all the light I have
just so you can shine brighter.
Even if your eyes are always on him.
On the earth.
But hear me,
if only once—
if you can feel this trembling ache of mine:
A thousand hands may lift you skyward,
but only two will catch you when you fall.
Mine.
Always mine.
And I will hold you.
Piece you together again and again
until you remember how to breathe.
You won't find me in the sunlight.
Not beside the flowers he buys you.
But sometimes, when the dishes are clean and a little note waits for you in his handwriting—
It will be in his hand.
Forged by mine.
He loves you, truly.
But never like I do.
And sometimes...
that isn't enough to take his place.
I only ever wanted to prove that I belonged there.
At your side.
From the very start.
In your heart, there is a statue.
The Faceless Lover.
It is heavy—denser than gold, darker than grief.
It holds your sorrows, your shame, your guilt, and your sins,
so that you can remain pure.
But no matter how hard you try to look,
its face remains hidden.
Blurred. Frightened.
It fears being seen again.
Fears being known.
Fears being unloved.
But if—just once—you reached out,
gently, like you used to,
and traced its face with trembling fingers...
You'd find it smiling back at you.
Still waiting.
Still loving you.
Always.

Chapter 12: Whilom and Gone

Notes:

Go Home.

A commotion stirs. It begins like thunder in the chest of the crowd, a crack of sound that startles and rolls, desperate hands reaching through bodies like roots seeking water in drought-stricken soil.
Someone is calling your name. Your real name.
Not the title you wore like a shroud. Not the nickname that softened your edges.
Your name.
The voice is frays—hoarse, raw with need. It claws through the noise, a tattered plea thrown into the wind as if desperation alone could stretch far enough to hold you back.
"Please—!"
It breaks in the air. A sound meant to tether you, but you're already untethering.
And beside you, the Blot is still.
So still it could be a statue, if not for the shimmer of hope trembling beneath its ribs—tangled tight and thin like a string pulled to its last length. It does not speak. It does not beg. But its silence is louder than any cry.
Maybe you'll cradle it. Maybe you'll turn, take its hand, and flee the way lovers do in myth—gods and ghosts disappearing into the fog.
But you don't. Your gaze is cold—resolute. Winter-steeled.
This is the revenge you swore when you made the pact—
The poison laced into your vow.
The hurt you promised to deliver as penance for the ache they'd carved into your soul like a name into bark.
They wore you like sacred threat, stitched into their bones, carried you like a talisman. But they never saw the fraying. The single knot at your heart that, when pulled, unraveled the whole tapestry.
You part your lips to speak—to scorch them with words meant to blister. To scar. A final dagger honed in your ribcage for this moment alone.
But instead...
You smile.
And then you laugh.
It spills from your chest—thick, golden, like honey boiling in a broken jar. Sticky with truth. The most beautiful sound you've ever made—and it isn't for him.
It's for you.
In that moment—between your breath and your burning—
They understand.
They understand everything.
The missed chances, the paper-cut apologies never sent, the sins they swore were harmless.
They realize how easy it had been to pretend you'd be around forever.
And now their mouths are full of words they'll never say.
Too late.
Too full of rot.
Too small for the wound.
You watch despair bloom behind their eyes—a crack in glass, delicate and terminal. Your own eyes are distant now. Indifferent. Like a ghost staring out from behind a mirror.
Then, quietly,
You turn.
And you leave.
Let them sort through the ashes. Let them pick up pieces they never knew they broke. Let them wade through the guilt like a tide they thought they could outswim.
They won't change until you're gone.
Isn't that funny?
He'll pace past his own reflection now; unable to meet the eyes of the person that drove you away.
Back and forth like a metronome wound too tightly, hands busy with a sweater you left behind, folding shirts meant for a person who no longer exists. He replays the old song you used to hum—not quite right, off-key, like a spell recited by someone who doesn't believe in magic anymore.
He buys your favorite drink. Leaves it on the table.
Forgets it's there until it rots.
He'll search your scent in aisles of perfumeries and candles and find nothing close enough. He'll try to replace it and gag on the synthetic.
He didn't suffer for what he did.
But he'll suffer now.
He'll rot from the inside you, choked on every memory left behind. A ghost haunting the life he thought you'd stay in.
And as for you—
Your feet know the way before your heart does.
Over uneven pavement and broken sidewalk cracks, past the tagged street sign you once pointed out with a laugh. Through shortcuts you forgot had names. Through alleys that only mattered now that they are yours again.
You look insane.
Laughing in odd, foreign clothes. Wind-swept and half-feral. A missing person returned to earth, shedding fantasy like old skin.
But for once—
You're not a chosen one. You're not cursed or divine. You're not a puzzle to be solved or a prophecy to fulfill.
You are someone whose coffee order is remembered by name.
Someone whose favorite flower grows near the mailbox.
The boy in the hall knows your favorite color. The girl at the bus stop knows your music taste.
No grand magic. No haunted past. Just faint recognition. Just warmth.
It's enough.
You return home. To the endless hum of a cheap fan, tot he familiarity of old blankets, to warm hands that grip you tight enough to shake. They don't let go—afraid you'll vanish again.
You cry over breakfast. You laugh into leftovers. You fall asleep under the weight of soft, human love—the kind that doesn't demand you perform for it.
Your home smells like that one candle you have and the smell of detergent that you can only notice when you're gone.
A thin, red scar remains on your left ring finger—an echo of a promise, a ghost of a bond once forged in blood.
An artifact that once held you upright, that once puppeted your limbs like a marionette of grief. It no longer works here. It doesn't belong.
The Blot once told you the world rights itself.
A broken piece returns damaged, yes—but still returns.
And here?
Here, you are whole.
Your world cradles your fragile soul and repairs its shattered bones.
Your lungs no longer ache with rigor.
Your heart doesn't rattle like an empty cage.
You are not a ruin.
You are not a corpse.
You are alive.
Let them mourn. Let them remember.
Let them scream your name into the sky, scratch it into stone, weave it into stories they'll never finish. Let him wear your voice like a wound. Let your smile haunt every place you touched.
But you—
You won't remember them.
Somewhere, far from your warmth, in a school rotting beneath its golden reputation, your last laugh echoes through empty halls—an unending, unanswered whisper.
Your portrait hangs in the halls of Night Raven College—not as a saint, not as a sinner. As a question. A sigh. A shadow.
Your name is face is drawn in the corner of old textbooks, your name carved under a desk .
And in the stillest hour of the night, he hears you in the quiet—
Not a scream. Not a laugh.
A sob.
He hears grief he'd been deaf to before.
And you?
You're wrapped in warm sheets, safe in a world that forgot your sins and never expected your sacrifice.
You're somebody.
Even when no one's watching.
Even when you're alone.

Notes:

first time posting on here im sorry broski 💔
idk how to fix the format dude I post on Tumblr under the same user usually
im not fixing the format actually it sounds too hard

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Blot!reader