I Named Her Hunger

by mummydust

Summary:

When psychology student Azazel begins noticing a pattern of unsolved murders in her town, she can't look away. The victims are unconnected. The killer - or killers - are ghosts in the system. But one thing repeats every time: a circle slashed through by an X, carved like a brand into the scene.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

And the satisfaction happened to be a certain woman assigned to teach Azazel a lesson. The line between obsession and truth blurs as her dreams bleed into waking life, and her sense of control starts to rot.

Chapter 1: Prologue

“Alright, listen up.”

The sound of chairs scraping and lazy murmurs filled the lecture hall until the professor’s voice cut through it like a scalpel.

“Your assignment for this semester is a complete psychological breakdown of a real criminal case. Doesn’t have to be solved. Doesn’t even have to be recent. What matters is how you analyse the mind behind the crime. Justify the criminal’s actions. Study them and find as many diagnoses as you can.” He paused, eyes sweeping over the students. “No dramatics. Just facts and behavior.”

Azazel tapped her pen against the edge of her notebook, half-doodling, half-listening. Her notes from last week were a mess. Fragmented phrases scrawled in cursive and crossed out aggressively could barely be read, but she already knew what she had wrote. Impulse control, ritualistic staging, post-mortem mutilation. Studying the habits of serial killers was disturbing, especially when a tired mind decided to make up sounds and scenarios that would send a child into heart arrest.

The professor raised a finger. “Warning: if I catch any of you using that Wikipedia nonsense or steal studies from other authors, it’s an automatic fail.”

A student raised his hand. “Any other restrictions?”

Professor Armand smiled. “Only one. Don’t get involved.”

The class laughed. Azazel spared an amused glance towards her friend, who only smiled in response.

 

***

 

The rustling of papers and soft humming filled the dimly lit room. All of these cases were kinda boring. After a call with her friends from the same course, apparently all of them took big cases such as Ted Bundy, Casey Anthony, Jeffrey Dahmer. So, what other case could Azazel study if not the recent crimes involving the same sign?

Her fingers paused over another case - mutilated bodies, drained blood, that symbol. The circle with the ‘X’. It made her chest tighten, made her skin feel too small for her body. There were no names. Only the victims could sometimes be identified. Whoever the killer was, they sure knew how to hide and be discreet.

The buzzing of her phone made her almost jump out of her skin. A look at the screen and Azazel almost answered instantly. Rowan.

“Hey, Ro! What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just bored and decided to call you. Have you started doing your assignment yet?”

A very methodical person. That was Rowan. He was a year younger than Azazel, majoring in forensic anthropology, and always eager to help Azazel. Although, he seemed like this simple major took the life out of him.

“Actually, yeah. I was just looking over some cases regarding the recent crimes. You know, the ones that are said to be involving some sort of cult.” The sound of humming came from Rowan as she put her phone up so Rowan could see her while she worked. “It’s pretty gruesome.”“It sure is. I’ve read into them. It’s a hard thing to study, Az. Are you sure you want to choose these cases?"

“Yeah, I guess. It’s nothing I can’t handle. Maybe I’ll impress professor Armand and he’ll give me a higher score.”

They both laughed at that, but Azazel didn’t notice that his smile didn’t make his eyes close like usual.

“Just be careful. Don’t get obsessed of these things. It’s the worst thing you can obsess over.”

Don’t get involved.

 

***

 

“This is a breaking update of the series of crimes that have left the town in shock. Authorities have confirmed the discovery of two more bodies in the past week, bringing the total to seven. The victims have been identified and are under autopsy for further investigations.”

Pause.

Until now, the authorities haven’t been able to track down any suspects, but the same sign - a circle cut by an ‘X’ - was spotted near the crime scene and on the corpses.”

Static. The screen stutters. The image freezes on the blurred outline of a bloodied body bag. Azazel shifts in her seat. The hand on her nape tightens, forcing her to remain in place. She swallows, saliva thick in her mouth as another wave of uncomfortable heat comes over her once more.

Scared.

“…Why are you making me watch this?”

The gloved hand doesn’t move, and neither does that masked person next to her. No answer. The news continue, as if answering in her stalker’s place.

“Local authorities have declined to comment on any potential connections between the victims. However, the recurrence of the symbol is leading many to believe this is the work of a single group - or worse, a single individual.” The symbol flashes briefly in a sketch: a crude circle, split by an ‘X’. “Some believe it is the symbol of a cult, yet no one has proved to know anything related to it. Authorities suggest that anyone stays inside after nightfall and ensure that they are safe in their own house.”

A whimper escapes the blonde as that mask-covered face leans down next to her head. Hot tears left streaks upon her cheeks, the skin reddened by continuous wiping of the salty liquid. A gloved finger wipes one away, as if mocking Azazel. She could hear the heavy breathing, the intense eyes staring holes into her very being. Static filled the room once more - no, it filled her. Her body, her mind. She could faintly feel the buzzing beneath her skin, but one could so much as be aware of existing when some sort of divinity was taking control of one’s body.

But when she was forced to look up, she didn’t see white. She didn’t see that creature standing tall before her, forcing the woman with nothing but Its mind to look at Him until she couldn’t no more. Instead, she met green eyes, blown wide in madness behind the mask, a shadow falling over them.

The buzzing refused to stop, turning into static and then a high pitched sound that had Azazel imagining she covered her ears. But The Operator wouldn’t spare her of the annoying sound, because she could not move of her own accord. Like a puppet controlled by its master. Her eyes rolled back painfully, mouth falling slightly open as she fell back against the backrest of the couch, blood going down in a slow rivulet from her nose and down to her chin.

It had spared her.

“Please stay inside and announce any abnormal activities to the police. You have watched…”

Chapter 2: 1. Oh well, whatever, nevermind

She's over-bored and self-assured 

Oh no, I know a dirty word

 

The thing about studying psychology is that you never actually know what’s going on in someone’s head. As much as one hopes they tell the truth, some don’t confess their real intentions and what led them to do something.  Although, serial killers seem to have a certain greed when it comes to ending lives. It satisfies some of them, no matter the situation that has led to such an ending. But killing someone out of pure anger isn’t the same as killing someone who has wronged you. One feels guilt, the other feels relief.

That’s what Azazel managed to learn over her time studying criminal minds. They’re complex and difficult to understand. But not impossible. Azazel had learned to look past the blood and violence, into the silent rage hidden between words. The ones who smiled too easily. The ones who cried at the wrong time. Guilt could be faked. Grief, rehearsed. But motivation - that was harder to mimic.

She found herself drawn to the ones who claimed they felt nothing. But, unbeknownst to them, their body made uncontrollable movements. A twitch in the eye. A crack in the voice. A memory that was very clearly mulled over. A lie. The eyes never lie though. As uncomfortable as it gets, Azazel forces herself to keep eye contact with everyone. That way she knows the other person has her full focus. And she’s reading them like an open book. In those moments, she takes advantage of how much she can coax out of someone. And she isn’t afraid to listen. Or to look.

That’s why she chose the unsolved murders for her assignment - not necessarily because she thought she could solve them, but because the case simply pulled her in.

“Ew,” she muttered to herself, clicking between pictures of the same mutilated body taken from different angles. The woman’s jaw hung crookedly, a smear of dark red trailing down her neck where the skin had been peeled like fruit.

Mara Hensley. A young woman, the same age as Azazel. She worked as a barista and was found missing after a night shift. It took the authorities a few hours to find her, her body left near a dumpster behind an apartment complex. The photo was grainy, but there was no mistaking what it showed.

The victim lay twisted in the dirt, limbs splayed at impossible angles like a broken marionette. Flesh had been flayed from the arms in long, clean strips, exposing tendons that looked almost surgical - disgustingly clean. The eyes were gone. Not closed, not gouged - gone, leaving behind two dark pits rimmed in raw red and peeling scabs of dried blood. Azazel blinked, jaw tight as she zoomed in. The cut across the sternum had been deliberate, deep enough to expose the ribcage beneath.

And the unmistakable symbol carved onto her face.

“Jesus Christ,” with a click she closed the tab on her browser, taking a moment to look over her notes. And, honestly, Azazel couldn’t figure out shit. She needs a break.

The clinking of a glass as it’s picked out of the cupboard is what brings Azazel back from her thoughts. At this point she’s doing things on autopilot, thinking of what could she possibly do when there were no suspects. Who was she supposed to read like a book if there was no one to see? Looking at her reflection in the glass, she tries to read herself like she reads others. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Her blonde hair was tied up messily, strands stuck to her face like cobwebs. She looked tired. Not just physically - emotionally. Like someone who had stared at ugly things for too long. Emotionless, maybe. Definitely drained of her vigour. The running water was a sharp, clear sound. It grounded her. Until she noticed the slight tremble in her fingers.

“Shit…” she whispers to herself.

Turning the water off is like a scream across her mind from the squeak the tap lets out. Azazel can’t study herself. It’s almost hard to judge how pathetic she looks in the first place but to try and analyse herself internally felt like a chore. Like a chore she hated. The cool liquid felt like a balm against her dry throat. She figured it would be better if she just started her day and stopped looking at corpses. Mara’s friend agreed to let Azazel interview her for maybe some insight into what could have caused the sudden murder.

 

***

 

Buttoning up her shirt, Azazel took a long look at herself in the mirror. Compared to how unkempt she looked that morning, now she was more collected. The shower had done her good. Her hands worked in practised motions - button, tuck, straighten. Just like her mother had taught her. The more presentable you look, the more people trust you.

Keep a gentle look on your face, Az . Your patients will think you’re mad at them.

Azazel ran her fingers through silky strands of her hair and then leaned closer to the mirror. Her make-up was done nicely, just to cover anything that she didn’t like. Professionalism, for her, meant looking like your best version. No imperfections, no slips. Just composed and cleaned. And annoyingly organised. A messy mind meant a messy person, and that was Azazel described in a few words. 

One last glance toward her laptop on the desk. The image of Mara Hensley’s missing eyes flashed in her mind again. Focus. This wasn’t about that now. This was about Kayla McBride, Mara’s best friend and former roommate. The girl who found Mara’s shift schedule still taped to the fridge. Who’d insisted the barista never walked home alone. Who’d shown up at the police station three times demanding justice. And who, for some reason, agreed to speak to a psychology student about her best friend’s murder.

Now that she thinks about it… Kayla agreed because she wanted someone to understand her. Policemen probably considered her pushy and crazy for insisting on further investigations. Maybe talking with someone who understands humans better would help the woman in some way. Someone who wouldn’t judge because what was psychology without a bit of abnormality?

Azazel grabbed her notes and keys, shoving both into her bag. She wasn’t sure what she expected - tears, rage, maybe even denial. But whatever Kayla had to say, it might be the only emotional clue tied to the case that wasn’t cold and disgusting. As she stepped outside, the wind bit against her skin, sharp and brisk like something watching.

 

***

 

They meet at a café. Somewhere safe and private. It’s warm inside, the scent of coffee bitter and strong in the air. Kayla missed Mara, which led her to choose a café. That was easy to figure out, but maybe Kayla wanted to be as obvious as possible. The bluenette before her was looking down at her cup of coffee, mulling over her answers. Azazel never forced answers out of people who weren’t involved in the murder. They were just people who cared for the victims and had to suffer because of some cruel satisfaction.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I know this is hard for you.”

Kayla shrugged. Her fingers tightened on the mug. “It’s not like I can do anything else about it.”

She’s dead already . She can hear Kayla think that.

There was a beat of silence. Azazel looked at her reflection on her phone.

“Is it okay if a record? Just for accuracy.”

Kayla nodded. “Sure. I don’t care.”

Very cooperative, Azazel thought. Depression clung to her. But she wouldn’t pry. It wasn’t her place to do so. If Kayla wished to talk about her problems, she would. Azazel didn’t dive in. Not right away. Instead, she observed.

Kayla’s eyes kept drifting - to the door, the window, her mug. Never at Azazel for more than a few seconds. Her leg bounced beneath the table. Her nails were short, bitten to the quick. It felt like Azazel was intimidating her. She hoped that was not the case.

“How long had you and Mara known each other?”

“Three years,” Kayla replied quickly. “We met in college. Roomed together by accident. Got along better than either of us expected.”

Azazel nodded. “Was she the kind of person who made friends easily?”

Kayla’s jaw clenched. “She was the kind of person who tried. Even with assholes who didn’t deserve it.”

“Mhm,” Azazel hummed, looking at the notes she had written down in her notebook. Motivated. Friendly. “Did she have any hobbies? Maybe something you two had in common?”

Kayla gave a small, mirthless smile. “She loved photography. Street stuff. Candid moments, you know? Said people showed their truest selves when they thought no one was watching.” Her voice cracked faintly at the end, and she took a sip of her coffee to cover it. “She had this old film camera she carried around like a limb. Even had a name for it. Don’t ask.”

“I won’t,” Azazel said gently, lips twitching at the corners. “Did she ever capture anything strange? Or… unsettling?”

Kayla’s brows furrowed slightly as she thought. “She… used to say that the same guy seemed to appear in many of her photos. I believe this started after she developed some sort of obsession with this thing called.. Marble Hornets, I believe?”

Azazel’s pen paused mid-word.

“Marble Hornets?” she echoed carefully.

Kayla nodded, her gaze still on the steam curling up from her mug. “It’s some old YouTube horror thing. Weirdly edited tapes, guys in the woods being stalked by this faceless figure. Creeped her out, but she couldn’t stop watching. Said it felt real somehow.”

Azazel filed that away. People didn’t just randomly associate fiction with real life - unless they were looking for something in it. “Did she ever show you any of those photos?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Kayla’s fingers drummed once on the ceramic. “It wasn’t anything special. Just a guy in a hoodie. Mustard coloured, I believe. I can’t remember.”

“Do you have the pictures?”

A scoff, then a long sigh. “I wish. It’s almost like everything just vanished after her death. I looked through the stuff - her camera, her laptop. I couldn’t find anything. Her phone was found smashed next to her, so obviously I couldn’t check it.”

A chill slipped under Azazel’s skin.

“Did she go to the police?”

Kayla huffed. “About a man in her photos? Come on.” She shook her head, bitter. “They already thought she was nuts. Especially after she said she thought someone had broken into our apartment - nothing was taken, but her closet smelled like blood."

“Blood? Maybe halucinations.”

“She..” Kayla seemed sceptical to answer that question. “She claimed it was someone who she referred to as 'him'. I’m not sure what could have made her so anxious.”

“Did anything else happen before…” she trailed off, not needing to finish.

Kayla’s throat worked as she swallowed. Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. “She stopped sleeping. Kept saying she saw something outside her window, even when we lived on the third floor. Started drawing symbols. I asked her what they meant. She just said she didn’t know, but they made her feel safer.”

Azazel’s hand slowed over the paper. “Did they look like this?” she asked, flipping to the page where she drew the said sign among other things she deemed important.

Kayla’s expression crumpled instantly. She slapped her hand over her mouth and looked away, tears brimming. Clearly, it made her sick.

“That one,” she choked. “She drew that one everywhere.”

Azazel leaned back in her seat, heart hammering in her chest beneath her composed exterior. Stay calm. “It’s a reoccurring symbol that is found at those unsolved murders. No one knows what it means or where it was taken from. And, Kayla, I think you just helped me find out something really important.”

Kayla didn’t respond. Her shoulders had hunched inwards, like the memory physically hurt. Azazel gave her a moment, her pulse steadying only after she pressed the record button off. She gently slid the notebook closed.

“I’m sorry if that was too much,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Kayla shook her head. “No. No, it’s okay. I’m… I’m glad someone’s asking the right questions.” Her voice was raw, scraped. “You don’t talk about the way someone changes before they die. People just want a motive.”

Azazel looked at her carefully. “And you don’t?”

“I want them to remember her as someone alive. Not just… a fucked-up photo on the internet.”

A pause. The café around them hummed quietly-milk steaming, cups clinking. Someone laughed from a table near the door.

Of course. Unfortunately, Azazel would probably remember Mara as a fucked-up photo on the internet as well. Just like her professor used to say. You can’t look at bodies like that and stay normal. You just learn to look longer than most.

Azazel stood. “Would you be comfortable if I reached out again?”

Kayla gave a shaky nod. “If you think it’ll help.”

“It might.” Azazel offered a small smile. “And Kayla? You were a good friend.”

That seemed to break something in Kayla. She nodded again, quickly, and looked away. Azazel turned to leave, her fingers brushing the edge of the notebook inside her bag. But Kayla’s voice called out to her.

“Hey-”

Azazel glanced back. Kayla was staring into her coffee, hiding her expression like Azazel didn’t already know she was crying. “She used to hum. All the time. Especially when she thought she was alone. But in the last few weeks, she stopped.”

Azazel’s brows furrowed. “Okay?”

Kayla looked up at her, eyes rimmed red. “Except… the night before she died, I swear I heard someone humming in the apartment. And it wasn’t her voice.”

That silence returned - thick this time. Azazel stood frozen a second too long. Then nodded once and slipped out the door, the bell overhead jingling like a warning.

 

***

 

The walk home felt torturous. Only because Azazel was thinking at probably a hundred miles per minute. It was messy, so messy she accidentally bumped into someone.

“Oh- I’m so sorry!” She quickly apologised, looking up to meet the gaze of a ginger woman. Her notebook had fallen from her hands, remaining open on the page with that cursed symbol drawn upon it.

The woman’s eyes flicked down to the notebook, then lingered. Azazel noticed. For a heartbeat too long, neither of them moved. Then the stranger crouched down slowly, picking up the notebook with careful fingers. She didn’t speak - just stared at the symbol, her brows knitting ever so slightly.

Azazel cleared her throat, reaching to take it. “Thanks. It’s… for a project.”

Her anxiousness quickly dissipated as the woman only smiled at her. “It’s no problem. Be careful with your things.” Then she walked past Azazel with hurried steps.

Weird..

Looking down at the notebook in her hands, Azazel stayed in place for a few seconds before resuming her walk back home.

 

***

 

By the time she got home, her nerves were shot. She dropped her bag on the floor, slid her coat off with a shaky sigh, and fell onto the couch. Her hands trembled slightly as she pulled her phone from her pocket.

A moment of hesitation. Then she tapped on Rowan’s name. It didn’t take long before the video call connected. Rowan’s face filled the screen with messy curls, an oversized hoodie, and that ever-so-slight smirk that made him look like he already knew something she didn’t.

“Tired?” he asked, raising a brow.

Azazel exhaled through her nose. “Mentally wrung out.”

“That bad?”

She nodded, turning the camera slightly to show the notebook in her lap. “Kayla confirmed the symbol. She claimed that Mara tended to draw it everywhere lately.”

Rowan leaned closer to his phone, eyes squinting as he read over the scribbles in Azazel’s notebook. “That’s the same one you showed me last week, right? Still haven’t found where it’s from?”

“Nope. No origin, no culture match, nothing in occult forms. It just.. exists, I guess.”

Rowan rubbed his jaw. “Anything else that could be related to the case?”

Azazel nodded, shifting uncomfortably on her couch. “She said that Mara liked photography. But, after some… I suppose research, some guy started to show up in a bunch of her photos. Not all of them, but still. It weirded her out.”

A pregnant pause, and then Azazel spoke again.

“Mara was seeing things. I believe it could have been Schizophrenia. Maybe the stress and paranoia made her start hallucinating.”

“Look, Azazel, you’re overthinking things.” Rowen tried to convince her. “Weren’t you supposed to study criminal minds? At this point, I feel like you’re digging way too deep. Remember, Professor Armand said not to get involved.”

“Yeah, I know.” She cut in, voice clipped. “But.. how am I supposed to understand someone if that someone is unknown? Maybe if I solve this case the police will give me some money.”

A long and tired sigh sounded from her phone speaker. She could see Rowan rubbing his forehead in clear exasperation.

“Curiosity killed the cat, Azazel.”

“And satisfaction brought it back, Rowan.”

A laugh, and then Rowan finally looked back at his phone. “You’re a bad influence for anyone close to you.”

“And you don’t know your sayings.”

Rowan chuckled again, but there was a tightness behind it now - subtle, but there.

“Seriously though,” he said, voice softer, “you don’t look so good. You’re not sleeping, are you?”

Azazel glanced away from the screen. “Define sleeping.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The silence between them stretched, comfortable and strained all at once. Rowan was one of the few people who knew how to talk to her when she was like this. Or when this started becoming normal. He leaned back, hoodie bunched up around his neck. “Look. I know this stuff matters to you. But don’t lose yourself in it. You’re already on the edge.”

Azazel stared at her notebook again. That damned symbol stared back, carved in her handwriting like it meant something. Like it had always meant something.

“I’m fine, Rowan. Really.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “That’s what you said last time. And the time before that, too.”

She didn’t answer right away. The silence sat between them again, only broken by the occasional rustle of fabric from his side of the call.

Finally, Rowan sighed.

“Alright, Az. I gotta hang up. I’m going out.”

Azazel raised an eyebrow, looking at the corner of her phone to check the time. “This late?”

Rowan nodded then answered. “Yeah, we’re going to a club.”

It was Azazel’s turn to sigh, long and bored this time. “Alright, Ro. Take care, don’t let the scary symbol get you.”

“Oh, shut up, blondie.”

Both of them chuckled, then said their goodbyes. The call ended with its usual sound, leaving Azazel alone in silence. Maybe she needed a dog or something.

“God, I need sleep,” she muttered, setting the phone down as her gaze drifted towards the open notebook on the coffee table.

How ridiculous! Why draw such stupid things? She gets it. She does. It’s cryptic, it’s probably cool for its creator. But why make it? To confuse everyone? Maybe it’s a way to throw the authorities off.  Her mind suddenly settles. The decision is final for Azazel. Thinking too much about this would stress her out, which is not good for her at the moment. So, instead of trying to burn her brain, she gets up from the couch. Her assignment could wait some more. She still has a few months left of this semester.

The feeling of being watched suddenly hits her. It’s like the faintest ringing in her ear, announcing to her that someone’s gaze is fixed straight on her. It reminds Azazel of the good old times when her coach used to watch her train, but he was loud and always corrected Azazel. Now it was just silence.

It’s probably because I’m tired , she thinks, brushing it off. Definitely, because she’s tired.

 

***

 

As she’s getting into bed after a thorough self-care, it’s almost as if her mind decides to be active once more. Her laptop was set on the nightstand, playing a boring series of baking she liked to watch. It was enough to help her fall asleep and make her mind quieter. Could the victims have something in common? Maybe all of them had something to do with that symbol. Could it be some form of obsession? The chances are, some of them could have developed a stupid obsession with it. The human brain would always find things that could entertain it.

Kayla also mentioned the YouTube channel Mara used to watch. She’ll have to look into it. Maybe it will give her some more ideas of what could be behind this symbol. As her eyes drifted closed, the thought of her current assignment disappeared, replaced by an odd silence in her head.

Unusual. But not unwelcome.

Notes:

Hey heyy

This is my first work in years so I apologise if it lacks spark. I decided to add most of the tags the book will contain from now as I am not sure if I should add some of them, so read at your own risk.

I hope I didn't butcher the grammar as English is not my first language. Also, any opinions on the work are welcomed!! Positive or negative!! Feel free to critique me if you wish so, I want to make that into my friend :) I also don't have much knowledge in psychology, in my opinion, but I am trying to improve through this book

I will try to keep the updates as consistent as I can, and if I manage to, I will make a schedule for every chapter!! Have fun reading!!

Chapter 3: 2. She bruises, coughs, she splutters pistol shots

The fear has gripped me but here I go

My heart sinks as I jump up

 

Watching some weird YouTube channel proved to be more time-consuming than Azazel would’ve liked. The videos weren’t long, but they were numerous and so well done it made her replay important scenes over and over again. From what she had figured out until now, these guys managed to get themselves buried neck-deep in shit. Yeah, anyone knows what happens when you mess with weird, supernatural creations that show clear hostile behaviour. Whether fake or real, the series itself was quite captivating. No wonder Mara liked it. But it seemed to have affected her mental stability, given her current status.

Azazel has been looking over anything Marble Hornets-related for the past few days. At first, she couldn’t figure out much, but as soon as her interest was piqued by the presence of the symbol and a new character, some tall being who cannot be described as ‘human’., the wheels inside her brain started moving. And that’s what brought Azazel to her current situation. There were too many theories, and she couldn’t choose. It was even worse that she decided to drag her friends into her investigations.

Faye sighed next to her, shaking her head at the messy notes scribbled into Azazel’s notebook. As her best friend, she couldn’t judge. Especially because they have known each other for years. This was nothing new to her. She’s just worried.

“Are you sure, Az? I mean, as good as these theories are, I can’t help but think that you’re just overthinking this.”

Azazel smiled at her friend. Faye was a beautiful woman of colour. Black eyes, long lashes, skin clear like a summer sky. “Believe me, Faye, I am not crazy. There has to be some sort of connection between all the victims. Every single one has the same symbol engraved on their body.”

A slender finger pointed to show at said symbol, the manicured nail tapping on the paper.

“You said it means ‘no face’, right?” Mira asked from her side, white eyelashes batting at her in curiosity. The albino woman seemed eager to know more, compared to how worried Faye was. “And since it’s connected to this faceless man,” her finger moved to point at the printed picture of said man. “Then that means that probably they have watched this series, the killer included.”

An understanding hum came from Azazel, her gaze settled on the page. This felt like solving one of those unsolved crime games, except everything was made up by a kid.

“This whole thing feels like a rabbit hole,” Faye muttered, arms crossed as she leaned back into the couch. “Like, one day you’re watching YouTube videos, and the next thing you know, you’re drawing creepy symbols on your walls and whispering about people watching you from the woods.”

Azazel snorted. “I mean… you’re not entirely wrong.”

Mira, ever the enthusiast for things that should probably stay buried, leaned forward with a glint in her eye. “But isn’t that the point? If it is real, and someone was inspired by this whole Marble Hornets thing, then maybe the symbol isn’t just symbolic.” She grinned a little too widely. “What if it works like a mark, a calling card or a beacon?”

Faye groaned. “Okay, I’m officially done.” She stood up and headed to the kitchen. “Someone better start making dinner or I’m calling your mom, Az.”

“Please don’t,” Azazel replied automatically, still staring down at the notes. Her fingers drummed over a sentence she had underlined earlier:

They start seeing him after they notice the symbol.

Coincidence? Or conditioning? She flipped the notebook closed, letting the soft snap of the cover serve as punctuation. “Let’s just hope I don’t start losing time or waking up with scribbles all over my walls.”

Faye returned from the kitchen with a bag of chips, rolling her eyes. “Great. Just jinx it harder, Az. Maybe chant the symbol a few times while you’re at it.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

As the three of them shifted into lighter conversation - talk of dinner, stress from classes, Mira’s latest failed date - Azazel’s gaze drifted to the window, and she could’ve sworn she saw something move. Was it always open, anyway? She can’t remember, so maybe one of the girls opened it. Her room was pretty warm anyway.

The next morning came heavy. Her eyes stung from sleep she barely got, and her limbs ached with the weight of tension she hadn’t realized she’d carried all night. Still, she forced herself up. Coffee, shower, and ignore the symbol she’d doodled on the corner of her notepad without remembering. It was probably old. She’d done that before. Right?

Downstairs, Mira was already awake and scrolling through a forum thread titled “The Operator: Real or ARG?” Her expression lit up when she saw Azazel.

“Did you know,” she said, “that some people think the Marble Hornets symbol acts like a sort of binding? Like, the moment you start looking into it, it knows. That’s why they start seeing him. He sees them back.”

Azazel poured herself a cup of coffee and took a long, slow sip.

“Wonderful. Can’t wait for my unsolicited cryptid meet-and-greet.”

Mira smirked. “I think he’d like you.”

Azazel stared at her. “You’re not helping.”

Faye, passing through with a toothbrush in her mouth, gave a thumbs-up. “Love the descent into madness, girls. Real fun breakfast topic.”

 

***

 

Okay, Azazel was going insane from lack of sleep. There’s no way she would suddenly get a stalker. Right? Maybe it was just a homeless person who preferred this neighbourhood. Such a bad time, buddy, she thought the first night. I was just beginning to lose my mind because of some eldritch creature that doesn’t even exist.

At first, Azazel decided to completely ignore how creepy things had gotten in the past few days. While her life was still ordinary, the constant feeling of being watched never left. As if someone decided that every move she made was the most interesting thing on Earth. It unsettled Azazel to no end, and the more she dived into the mysterious crimes, the more she felt watched. Which led to her abandoning her work for a day or two so she could get a break. Rowan had agreed to meet with her and keep her away from anything that dared to make her spiral into anxiety.

She sits on a bench in their favourite park, waiting for the man to arrive. The weather is nice compared to how it was for the past few days. Sun rays shone through the leaves, making shadows and spotlights dance across the paths in the park. Birds chirped happily above her, keeping her focused on their melodies. Her phone buzzes on her lap, directing her gaze back to it. Rowan was never punctual. His tardiness was one of his greatest traits.

Rowan: u still breathing or did the youtube demon get u???

Rowan: ill be there in like two minutes by the way

Rowan: also I think I’m getting followed?? lmao idk maybe im just paranoid

Azazel’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, genuinely concerned about her friend’s well-being and also his capability to remain so calm.

Azazel: Are you shitting my dick rn or is there someone actually following you??

Azazel: Don’t scare me like that dumbass

Rowan seemed to have shoved his phone somewhere up his ass because suddenly he wasn’t answering her messages anymore. Annoying… Just as Azazel was about to type a new message, hoping to get Rowan’s attention back to his phone, someone’s hands settled on her shoulders, heavy and rough.

“Boo!”

With a gasp the blonde jumped a bit in her seat, turning around just to meet the blue eyes of her friend. He was smiling ear-to-ear, clearly amused by her reaction.

“You dick! I should’ve known!”

Rowan plopped down beside her, stretching his arms dramatically and tossing his bag between his feet. “Aw, come on. Admit it, I got you good.”

Azazel scowled, brushing imaginary dust off her shoulders like his touch had somehow cursed her. “You almost got elbowed in the gut.”

Rowan leaned back with a snort, eyes half-lidded against the sun filtering through the trees. “Worth it.”

The park was steadily filling up with people - joggers, kids chasing each other, someone walking a dog so small and full of fur it looked like a mop on its legs. The world, for once, felt calm. “Nice day,” Rowan said after a moment, glancing sideways at her. “You look like you haven’t touched those crimes in, like, twenty-four hours. I’m proud.”

“I haven’t,” she replied with a dramatic sigh. “I’m trying to rejoin society. You know, sunlight, trees, normal human interaction.”

Rowan nodded solemnly. “Touching grass. Brave of you.”

Azazel only scoffed, rolling her eyes dramatically. No matter, both knew her reactions were only to bring a smile to people’s faces. And she succeeded, making Rowan laugh at her once more. “So, where are we heading today? You asked me out.” Azazel asked, turning to look at him expectantly.

“Mm, maybe get a coffee, definitely eat something. If you’re feeling brave enough to spend a lot of money we could buy some books as well. My cousin asked if I could find a book his girlfriend likes.”

She grinned. “I like this plan.”

The two of them sat in companionable silence for a while, letting the sounds of the park settle into the space between them. For once, Azazel wasn’t thinking about symbols or victims or eerie sightings. Just Rowan, the breeze, and a gentle kind of peace she hadn’t felt in weeks. It felt like breathing again.

Their first stop was a tiny, locally-owned café tucked between a florist and a vintage record store. The place smelled like roasted espresso and cinnamon, with mismatched chairs and jazz humming quietly from a speaker above the window. Rowan immediately ordered the sweetest drink he could find - some kind of caramel monstrosity that made Azazel cringe.

“You’re going to rot your teeth,” she muttered, sipping her much more modest cappuccino.

Rowan took a loud slurp, eyes glinting. “That’s the plan.”

They sat at the corner table by the window, people-watching as the late morning rush passed them by. Azazel found herself sketching in the margins of her notebook - not symbols this time, but doodles. Cats with sunglasses, Rowan’s ridiculous curls, a loaf of bread for some reason.

“Hey,” Rowan pointed at it. “That’s a good loaf. You’re evolving.”

That earned a raised brow.

They ended up wandering through the record store next. Rowan combed through the bins like he was looking for a buried treasure, humming along to the overhead music while Azazel trailed behind, flipping through a section labelled “Obscure Finds.”

“Hey, this one looks like it’d summon something,” Rowan said, holding up an album with an ominous black-and-white cover.

“Put that down before it follows you home.”

They laughed, and it felt easy.

Lunch was at a food truck near the park that served bánh mì sandwiches. They sat on the grass, cross-legged, chewing and chatting with bits of cilantro stuck to their mouths. The sun was still high, casting sharp shadows from the trees, but the heat wasn’t unbearable. It felt like a real break - like the weight of all the dark things pressing on Azazel’s mind had lifted, even if just temporarily. Later, they stopped at an old bookstore Rowan insisted was “criminally underrated.” Azazel found herself drawn to the psychology section, of course, while Rowan ended up reading from a worn copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray in a terrible British accent.

“You’re making Oscar Wilde turn in his grave,” Azazel said dryly but didn’t stop him.

She doesn’t mention the way her heart stops beating for a second when she sees that symbol she’s been trying to stay away from lately. With practised ease, she hides how scared it makes her feel, dread creeping up on her.

It shouldn’t be in one of the books.

Rowan doesn’t mention how pale she looks, then how her skin flushes from distress.

By the time the afternoon began to slip toward evening, their arms were full of secondhand paperbacks and half-eaten pastries they hadn’t finished at lunch. Rowan offered to carry her bag, slinging it over his shoulder dramatically like he was going off to war.

“I better get credit for being the responsible one for once,” he said.

“Sure, Ro. This one time.”

 

***

 

Rowan decides to walk Azazel home, finding the excuse that there are many creeps out at night when, in reality, neither wants to go home and call it a day. If Azazel wasn’t so tired already, she would invite Rowan for a sleepover.

Rowan stretched his arms over his head with a yawn, then slung her bag off his shoulder and handed it back with a crooked grin. “Well, blondie, I have officially reached my daily limit of socializing. My reward will be three hours of sleep and five hours of doom-scrolling.”

“Thanks for dragging me out today,” she said, turning to Rowan and smiling at him. “I needed it.”

“Hey, if it gets you back to your usual self, I don’t mind. I had fun as well. See you at uni?”

His fist bumped with Azazel’s, their little way to say their goodbyes at the end of the day.

Azazel smiled, appreciating the friendly gesture. “Yeah, see you at uni.”

Six minutes later, Azazel was lazily shrugging her jacket off and kicking off her snickers, sighing as she turned to switch on the light in the living room.

What made her stop dead in her tracks was the feeling of something cold being pressed against her temple, and Azazel could’ve sworn that, for a second, she felt like death had taken her away. The sound of heavy breathing came from her side, not the one where the object came from, but the other. That was the only thing that could be heard in her house apart from the low hum of her fridge and cars passing by on the street; not one, but multiple windows were opened.

“Don’t scream,” a deep voice came from the side of the heavy breathing. “It’s no use.”

Shit, man… I don’t even feel capable of doing so, she thinks. Truth be told, Azazel was scared. So scared that her voice got stuck in her throat and formed an invisible knot that took her ability to speak. Her hands felt clammy yet cold, and her mouth had run dry. Tears were brimming in her eyes, threatening to spill over, any restraint left in Azazel gone. Only weakness. Pure, disgusting weakness.

The metal object pressed a little more into her skin as if forcing an answer out of her. The only thing Azazel could muster up was a nod, and if her neck could it would creak, given how her joints refused to let her head even move. Like a newborn trying to move properly. A shaky hum left her, meek and too soft for her usual self.

Something shifted. A subtle change in air pressure. The breathing moved slightly, brushing against the shell of her ear now. Whoever it was had leaned in. “Walk,” the voice instructed. “Slow. Don’t try anything.”

Her legs almost gave out under her as she took a step forward. She hadn’t realised that her knees seemed locked in place, refusing to listen to her command. A gloved hand shoved her forward, causing her to stumble towards the couch. With her back turned, she wasn’t able to notice the annoyed glance the weapon wielder gave the other.

The metal was back against her temple, pressing hard into the skin as she moved shakily towards her couch, albeit a little slow as she tried to figure out where exactly she was at the moment. Once on the couch, a bright light was turned on. The once so cosy lamp in her living room had turned into a blinding light. As her eyes began to adjust, Azazel felt her eyes widen in horror without meaning to. You’ve got to be shitting me..…

She wanted to refuse what she was seeing, but there was no need to. It wouldn’t make sense. The two masked figures before her were very real and quite present. One wore a white mask with slightly feminine features - black painted lips and dark around the eyes with cartoonish eyebrows drawn right above as if mimicking a surprised expression. He was burly, black hair falling over the top of his mask since it was overgrown. That was supposed to be that Tim guy… No, fucking… Masky??

The other one was much taller, wearing that unmistakable black balaclava with a saddened expression sewn with red thread. The hood of his mustard hoodie, covered in brown splatters of dried blood, was pulled over his head, adding to his creepy appearance. Brian. Or, by the other silly name, Hoodie.

Seriously, why these names?

He was also the one who was currently pointing a gun directly between Azazel’s eyes, his stance stiff and unsettling. She could feel his eyes boring into her through the material of his mask. The panic that threatened to consume her tried to burst forth, but she bit it down, clenched her jaw, and focused on not passing out from hyperventilation.

“Listen here and listen good, girlie.” The brunette spoke first, approaching Azazel and grabbing her face in his palm - big, rough, crushing. “Don’t start crying or I swear I’ll get annoyed real quick,” Tim growled, tilting her head up with little care for gentleness. His eyes, shadowed beneath the mask, were impossible to read, but his grip told her all she needed to know. He wasn’t bluffing.

Azazel whimpered involuntarily, breath catching as her fingernails dug into the couch beneath her. Her mind raced for logic, for context, for anything that would make this make sense. These weren’t just fans of the series. They weren’t cosplayers. This wasn’t a joke. These were the monsters she had only seen through a screen, and they were here - in her living room.

Brian hadn’t moved, but the weapon stayed exactly where it was: steady, intentional. That made it worse. He wasn’t impulsive, wasn’t twitchy or uncertain. He knew what he was doing and he made it clear.

“Now,” Tim muttered, his hand finally dropping from her face, “you’ve been poking around things you shouldn’t. We’ve seen it. Every note, every search, every damn page you’ve printed.”

“You got guts, I’ll give you that. But you’re about to learn that guts mean jack when you’re messing with things older, meaner, and a hell of a lot less patient.”

Azazel tried not to move, tried not to breathe too fast. Her body wanted to collapse in on itself, but her mind was screaming at her to remember every detail: voices, shifts in the air, appearances. She wasn’t sure if it was her natural fight-or-flight or all the late nights studying trauma response that kept her from falling apart. But the way he managed to intimidate Azazel like that made her fear what the other would make of her. His silence instilled fear in her, making shivers run up and down her spine whenever she risked a glance. Plus, the gun being directed at her only worsened the situation, fearing that he would pull the trigger if she even dared to blink.

“Tell me,” Tim hissed, lowering himself until he was face-to-face with Azazel. “Did you think this was a game? That this was all made up?”

At first, her head started to shake no. Not because that was her actual answer, but because she couldn’t really think. It was like her mind stopped having thoughts. Like it was impossible for her to conjure up sentences that would make sense. A tilt of the head from Tim was enough to change her answer, instead nodding and making her feel humiliated and stupid for actually thinking that this wasn’t real.

Tim gave a short, mocking laugh. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

He stood up straight, cracking his neck as he gestured lazily to Brian, whose hand never once wavered from the weapon trained on her. “She gets it now. Look at her. All those nights thinking you’re the smartest bitch in the room, huh? Got a little too confident.”

Azazel didn’t answer. Her throat felt like it had been sewn shut. The fear still roared behind her ribs, but something else was pushing against it now - a seed of clarity. Survival. Even with her limbs trembling and her skin ice-cold, her mind began crawling out of the fog.

“Look where all of this got you,” Brian finally spoke, his voice raspy and deep. “You shouldn’t have been so reckless. But… if you manage to listen, maybe we’ll be nicer. You’re already too deep in this, and He had said that you would be quite useful since you’re so smart.”

Azazel gulped in fear. He? Who was this ‘he’? What bullshit were they saying? They’re not alone in this?

“And if you don’t…”

The white-masked man smirked, reaching behind him to pull something from a small drawstring bag. He threw it at her feet. It was a photo. A blurry shot of Rowan, walking along the street. Today. From this afternoon. Headphones in, bag slung over one shoulder. Laughing.

Azazel’s heart dropped into her stomach.

“Just a little reminder,” the brunette said, his voice sing-song now, mockingly sweet. “That we’re always watching.”

Brian turned and walked toward the door first. “Come on, she’ll be pissed if we take too long.”

The back of Tim’s own pistol collided with Azazel’s temple, hard and with clear intent. She dropped unconscious on the couch right after. He finally followed after Brian but stopped just at the threshold, turning back with a final look. “Sleep tight, Azazel.”

Silence follows his words.

 

***

 

A set of double doors stood before her - tall, old, and unnervingly grand. They loomed not in reality but in that abstract plane reserved for Him alone. His domain was not a place, not truly. It was a fracture in the fabric of thought, a corner of the psyche twisted into obedience. His little refuge. That’s what she called it. These meetings were rarely scheduled. Most were ambushes - psychic intrusions that left her reeling. But not this one. This one, at least, came with the grace of anticipation.

She didn’t knock. That wasn’t how this worked. Instead, she stood still, eyes trained on the carvings etched into the black wood - symbols older than language, writhing faintly beneath her gaze as if they recognized her. Her presence alone was enough. He always knew when someone was thinking of Him , and unlike others, she had been trained to think of Him with clarity.

The silence shattered.

“Come in.”

The voice crawled across her skin like the hiss of an old radio, full of static and pressure. For a moment, it made her ears ring. When silence returned, it was heavier than before. She reached out and touched the door. It didn’t swing open, instead it dissolved, folding inward like a thick layer of dust being drawn into a vacuum. And she stepped through.

The space beyond was barely a room. The architecture bent in impossible ways: corners that didn’t meet, light that had no source. He never showed His full form, only fragments. Today, He wore the shape of coiled shadow, reclining upon a throne that shifted with each blink.

She bowed her head out of instinct, even though she knew He didn’t require it.

“You wish to speak with me. What happened, hound? I hope you taking from my precious time is worth it.” He spoke, firm and almost condescending as she stood before the being. As much of a ‘favourite’ as she was, her requests for meetings were never timed perfectly. He deemed them unimportant, knowing she was capable enough to take care of most things. She was trained for it, after all. “It is worth it.” She spoke, head still bowed as she didn’t dare gaze at the creature before her. Some sort of an apology for her urgent matters. “I saw a woman today. She had the symbol drawn onto her notebook.”

There was a pause. A deep pause. The kind that pressed down on the lungs and slowed time.

“A curious dog?” He asked finally. “Or a moth, drawn to the flame?”

“I don’t know yet,” she answered. “But she wasn’t afraid of it. Curious, perhaps. Focused, I’d say. I watched her in the university library. She lingered over the old files and dug through local murders. She doesn’t know yet… but she’s trying to. She’s following the threads.”

A coil of shadow shifted on the throne. Not anger. Not surprise. Something else. Amusement?

“And you think this warrants my attention?” He drawled, the last word dripping like tar.

“No,” she admitted, finally lifting her gaze just enough to catch the edge of His form. Her voice was quieter now, tinged with something unfamiliar. “But it warrants mine.”

He didn’t answer immediately. His silhouette stretched into the darkness, tendrils swaying like kelp in black water. Then: “Very well,” He said, the words slithering like a knife down her spine. “Watch her. Follow her. Learn what you can. And if she steps beyond her bounds…”

His voice lowered, to something closer to hunger.

“Devour her.”

“You are not to make contact,” He said. “Not yet.”

A pulse of dread slammed into her chest.

“But—”

“I said not yet.” His words struck like iron against glass, and for a brief moment her vision fractured. She gasped, caught herself, lowered her head again until the spinning passed. “You will watch,” H e said, voice returning to its slow, awful hush. “But from distance. Intervene only if the threads twist too far.”

“…Yes.”

She had no choice but to obey. The room began dissolving around her, melting into black static and vibrating silence. His presence receded, but not before a final whisper curled inside her skull, colder than before.

“Be careful, hound. You’ve grown fond of broken things before.”

And then -

Nothing.

Chapter 4: 3. Oh, who is she?

Oh, who is she?

A misty memory

A haunting face

Is she a lost embrace?

 

The café that was close to the university was always too warm and packed with students. No matter the time, finding a free booth or table was almost impossible during school hours. It was like everyone decided to take refuge there. While it was understandable that everyone wanted to get out of that institution, it wasn’t so pleasant to hear so many voices at once.

Azazel sat tucked into the corner booth, her laptop open but untouched. The air smelled like espresso and stress - someone’s coffee was burning on the warmer, and students were scattered at mismatched tables, hunched over slideshows or whispering about group projects. The overhead lights were too yellow. It reminded her of late afternoons in childhood, when everything looked like it was melting.

Her fingers hovered above the keyboard. The screen glowed: “Memory distortion in trauma survivors: narrative reliability and the limits of perception.” The paper was due in two days. She’d written exactly twelve words.

“You look like you’re contemplating homicide,” Rowan said, dropping into the seat across from her.

Azazel blinked up, half-smiling. “Only minor property damage. Maybe.”

Rowan set his drink down with an overdramatic sigh. “This class is going to kill me. Have you seen what he wants us to do for the final?”

“I stopped checking after week three. I’m relying on denial.”

Rowan snorted. “Healthy.”

Azazel watched the steam curl off their cup, let the sound of the café swallow her focus. The world here was small, bright, safe. She liked it when it felt like this - when the background hum of unease in her chest quieted down enough to pass as normal.

Not even two minutes later, Mira and Faye sat down with the other two, looking just as cranky Azazel would expect. No one liked the physical education professor.

Mira dropped her gym bag with a groan loud enough to turn a few heads. “I swear he makes us run just to watch us suffer.”

“Same,” Faye muttered, sinking into the booth beside Rowan. “He actually laughed when I fell. Laughed. Like it was funny.”

Azazel shook her head as Rowan laughed, bowing over the table. OF course, nothing new from the Marcus Bartosz. He was the definition of a P.E. teacher: moustache, bald, short, and overweight. Which led to the conclusion that he got this job with some money and a will to laugh at nonathletic students.

Mira grumbled, reaching across the table to snag a napkin and wipe sweat from her forehead. “I’d rather write three research papers than run another timed mile.”

Azazel arched a brow. “You’d rather write my research paper?”

“No. God no. I said three papers, not a descent into madness.” Mira squinted at the screen in front of Azazel. “Is that trauma psych?”

Azazel nodded and closed the laptop a little too quickly, pretending to stretch. “Yeah. Not going great.”

“Everything’s about trauma in that department,” Rowan said. “Sometimes I think they’re trying to traumatize us on purpose.”

“You’re not wrong,” Faye said, already halfway through her pastry. “Professor Beaumont talked about survivor’s guilt last week and then left us with fifteen case studies. I think I have survivor’s guilt now.”

They all groaned in unison.

For a few minutes, the conversation dissolved into complaints about professors, assignments, and the ongoing mystery of whether the vending machines on the second floor were cursed. Azazel leaned back, letting their voices wash over her, grounding herself in the dull ache behind her eyes and the scent of cinnamon sugar from Mira’s stolen muffin.

It wasn’t until evening that Azazel left campus.

She parted ways with the others at the front steps, waving off Rowan’s offer to walk her to the bus stop. “I need the walk,” she said, “and my head is full. I’ll be fine.”

The sun was low, slanting orange through the trees as she cut through the usual path near the biology building. It wasn’t the most direct route, but it was quieter - lined with oaks and fenced-off research plots, usually empty after five. Her boots crunched over old leaves. Wind picked at her hair, tugging strands into her mouth. She tucked them behind her ear, brow furrowed in annoyance.

It had been a few days since the… visit. She had continued her investigations but slowed down a little, trying to drag things for as long as possible. The feeling of being watched remained but at least Azazel managed to get some silence and peace, although she had to gaslight herself into thinking that she wasn’t being watched.

She had spoken to another person related to a victim, asking them the same questions she had asked Kayla, but this time she knew exactly how to pry more answers. From what she figured, everyone who had this symbol carved onto their corpse meant they had some sort of obsession with the actual secrets behind it. From Marble Hornets fans to curious and easily fooled humans, they all ended up the same. Dead. And the process to ending up like that was long and torturous, dragging every bit of life out of someone’s body until they were a hollow shell with a brain that kept repeating ‘Him’.

Whoever this ‘Him’ was seemed to corrupt minds and feed on the attention it got from innocent souls.

She wasn’t sure when she had started noticing the pattern. A symbol scratched into a classroom desk. A name - always the same one - mumbled by a patient during a psych interview she’d helped with. A woman who vanished after claiming something watched her from the tree line. A murder victim who had drawn spirals into the margins of every notebook she owned.

And the tapes.

God, the tapes.

She had found them in a university archive tied to an unsolved missing persons case from 2008 - unmarked VHS recordings catalogued by a student assistant who had since gone off the grid. The quality was degraded, all grain and distortion, but there had been something behind the static. A figure. No features. Just that suit, that tilt of the head.

The Operator.

That’s what one of the patients had called Him, before tearing her own eyes out in a psych ward in northern Massachusetts. Azazel had cross-referenced local disappearances, pulled police reports, tracked scattered journal entries uploaded to obscure blogs and forums that hadn’t been touched in years. There was no straight line to follow. It was like trying to solve a riddle whispered through a dream. But she was starting to see the outline - like a negative space burned into film.

He wasn’t a man. Not a killer in the usual sense. He didn’t stab or shoot. He bent. Warped. Distorted.

Those closest to Him fell apart first. Sanity unraveled like yarn caught on bramble. They saw things - heard whispers, grew paranoid, turned violent. And then they vanished. Not like they ran. More like they were taken. Forgotten.

Of course, Azazel wouldn’t be able to find all of these if it weren’t for someone. Who? She didn’t know. It could be Tim or Brian. Or Him. Whoever it was, they left a few letters at Azazel’s house, telling her places where she could go. All of them provided Azazel with new information.

 

***

 

The apartment door clicked behind her with the soft finality of a sealed vault.

Azazel kicked off her shoes with a sigh, bag sliding down her shoulder and thudding softly against the floor along with the laptop bag. Her limbs ached. Not with pain, but with the weight of thinking too much. The walk hadn’t cleared her head like she hoped. Instead, it left her quite overstimulated.

She moved on autopilot - coat hung, keys tossed into the ceramic bowl by the door, lights flicked on with the edge of her knuckle. Everything was just as she’d left it.

Until she entered the kitchen.

Azazel instantly spotted the person, at first hidden behind the fridge in the half-open kitchen, now clearly in sight and literally just making tea. No wonder she didn’t see them.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed, stepping back and raising her arms in defense. Who the hell was that?

The masked figure turned at the sudden outburst, but made no move toward her. No weapon. No threatening posture. Just a quiet, still presence - like they had been waiting, like they belonged.

Azazel’s chest heaved. Her brain scrambled to catch up, trying to fit the image before her into any rational box it could find.

A woman, maybe. The build was lean but tall, clothed in a black turtleneck and faded black cargo pants. A quick look down and it was confirmed that their shoes were off. Are you fucking joking? She asked herself, taken aback by the very respectful gesture.

A pair of black gloves sat on the counter, revealing their hands. Short nails, freckled skin that stopped just above their knuckles, and an ugly wound that was stitched. They also bore a simple black mask with androgynous features, dark in contrast to their unhealthily pale skin. Like they lacked any sun exposure. They had ginger hair, pulled presumably tightly into a ponytail before it ended up looking so messy.

An intense pair of green eyes stared at Azazel with what she would interpret as malice or maybe caution. She’ll go for the second option, given the person before her seemed to hesitate to even take a defensive stance.

“Don’t scream,” the masked figure said quietly. The voice was low, steady, and unmistakably female. There was no panic in it. No tension. She might as well have been asking Azazel to pass the salt.

Azazel didn’t scream. Not yet. Her mouth opened, closed. “Who the fuck are you?”

The masked woman reached for the kettle - gently, like she was finishing what she started - and poured hot water over a teabag in the mug she’d found. Her movements were careful. Practiced. Like she’d done this before, in someone else’s kitchen. Maybe dozens of times.

“I didn’t come to hurt you,” the woman added. “If I wanted to, I would’ve.”

That wasn’t exactly comforting.

“Then what the hell are you doing in my house?”

The masked woman seemed to pause at that, like she was choosing her words very, very carefully. “I wanted to see you. Alone.” She placed the cup on the counter and turned toward Azazel fully now, hands lowered, open. “No threats. Just a conversation.”

Azazel’s pulse roared in her ears. “That is not how you ask for a conversation.”

A beat passed. Then, almost surprisingly, the masked woman nodded.

“Fair.” She didn’t explain herself further.

Azazel swallowed. She noticed now how still her visitor was - how every movement was purposeful and quiet. There was control in every gesture. The mask made it impossible to read her, but her tone carried no panic, no wildness. Just certainty. And beneath that… something else. Something she didn’t want to name yet. Familiarity, maybe? No. That didn’t make sense. This wasn’t someone she knew. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that the woman knew her.

“And what - what is this? Are you one of them?” Her mind raced. The symbol. The disappearances. The proxies. Was this one of them?

The masked head tilted just slightly. “Define them.”

Azazel didn’t answer.

“I’ve read your research.” Her words caused Azazel to go rigid, watching the ginger as she passed by her, walking towards Azazel’s bag on the ground. “You’re smart, kid. I’ll have to give that to you. Most crumble before they have an inkling of what is happening.”

As the woman crouched down to probably go through Azazel’s bag, the other woman took that as her chance. To Azazel, she looked unarmed and a great opponent, so the fighting instinct that still remained in Azazel told her to pounce on the intruder.

Azazel surged forward in one swift, desperate movement - her hands out, aiming to tackle the woman to the ground before she could get her hands into the bag. Years of sparring, muscle memory, adrenaline - all of it kicked in, one clean burst.

They both landed on the floor with a loud ‘thud’, Azazel on top of her ‘guest’ in an attempted chokehold. It proved to be a complete failure after a few seconds as the woman beneath her quickly gained the upper hand. Now it was Azazel’s turn to be held down, her arms bent awkwardly behind her back and being held by the wrists while another hand was pushing Azazel’s head onto the floor. The woman on top of her put all her weight onto Azazel’s lower back, keeping her down with a threatening snarl. Now that seemed to piss the intruder off.

“I told you I’m not here to hurt you. What made you think you would have the upper hand, anyway? You’re pathetic, Azazel. Don’t fucking piss me off or I will get rid of you.”

Pained sounds left the woman beneath her. She was scared and helpless. No matter what she did, how much help she seeked, it was like every evidence would vanish. Like the pictures on Mara’s computer, or the disappearances of a few individuals. She was stuck in a loop of torment.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” She exclaimed in hopes of receiving mercy, but the ginger didn’t seem to enjoy her pleas. For a second, Azazel saw white before her as her head was slammed against the wood floor, meant to knock her out. Good luck with that, she thought to herself. Her train of thoughts disappeared on the second hit.

 

***

 

Meliora had been around long enough to know the difference between someone like Azazel - caught in the storm of their own curiosity and madness - and those who were just mindlessly following the tide. The pressure on Azazel was growing, she could see that. But the question still lingered: Why keep going?

A soft sigh blows through her nose, filling the quiet space for a second. She’s up onto her feet quickly, disregarding the unconscious form of Azazel on the floor as she picks up the woman’s belongings, dumping the contents inside of them onto Azazel’s coffee table.

She didn’t scramble, neither did she glance nervously toward the door or windows. She simply sorted. Notes, folders, a worn leather notebook, USB drives. a student ID half-cracked at the corner. The papers rustled softly in the stillness.

The notebook was first. She opened it carefully to reveal pages of dense handwriting. The first page greeted her with what seemed to be Azazel’s first case study, given the date written in the corner. Something about a patient in a psych ward who had gone crazy after the death of his parents. Half of it seemed to only include things a normal psychology student would write, until the first page with the symbol was flipped.

The pages were lined with carefully annotated details: names, locations, strange symbols that repeated across seemingly unrelated events. Tape times. Phrases overheard from interviews. Police report fragments rewritten in ink. Margins were filled with questions, and certain sentences were underlined two, three times. A few had been circled and tagged with small sticky notes, faded with time. The deeper she went, the more erratic the handwriting became - like Azazel had begun pressing harder with the pen, like the thoughts had started racing faster than her hand could follow.

    March 5th

Zoe mentioned that every doctor said the victim had hysteria. Maybe some sort of psychosis is affecting the ones who managed to get exposure to the files or tapes involving the same ‘faceless individual’. Although the patient was not showing aggressive behaviour, two weeks before her death others heard her mumbling about killing people and herself.

Her death was caused by overdose, which is impossible due to the fact that her meds were not given to her as per protocol. The bottle was found empty in her room, but when the police looked through what the CCTV camera caught, there was no evidence of her stealing the bottle. The video missed three minutes worth of recording, but the authorities decided to leave it like that.

A page was flipped.

    March 8th

Every victim has the symbol drawn on them. It means ‘no face’ and seems to be referring to the creature that plagues their mind. Must be its way to claim, kind of like the graffiti artists who write “X was here” onto the walls of buildings, or the carvings on benches.

The more Meliora read, the more she could see the pattern, feel the connections forming between each case, each detail Azazel had uncovered. It wasn’t just a psychological investigation - it was an unraveling, a dive into the dark underbelly of something far older and more insidious than either of them could comprehend.

Smart. Azazel was undoubtedly smart. Not everyone was capable of figuring out this much. And to still remain sane? Impressive. She’ll have to report that to Him. But He probably knew already how smart His new interest was.

 

***

 

“You’ve been busy,” the Operator’s voice whispered, soft but laced with something far colder. Their words slid through the air like a breeze, but there was no mistaking the edge beneath them. “How is she?”

“Curious. Very curious. And also easy to crumble. Her sanity is degrading by exposing herself to so much violent content.” Meliora answered, keeping her eyes low. He preferred submission anyway. Azazel’s current mental state made it easier for Him to corrupt her. Albeit slowly, as He had said. He deems her useful. Rendering her to a vegetable was not in His plans.

A static hum filled the space around them. “I truly hope you’ll manage to get her to submit. As much as I wanted to trust Brian and Tim that they made her listen, I can’t help but think that she was forced into submission. I want her to do it willingly, Hound.” “She will. Trust me. She’s easier to bend than others think.”

“Then I suppose she wouldn’t mind a visit.”

Notes:

If anyone is interested, I have some Pinterest boards made for the main characters and the book itself. The link probably won't work, but the username is _mummydust

https://pin.it/2oyNq74Sx

I also have a notion page with character analysis regarding who will be involved in the story:

https://invited-rainbow-68e.notion.site/I-Named-Her-Hunger-1e8b969ccdb08031a612c101f5b08f53?source=copy_link

Chapter 5: 4. I thought it would be fun and games

I feel the reason as it’s leaving me

No, not again

It’s quite deceiving

As I’m feeling the flesh make me bad

 

The world came slowly back to Azazel as the muffled sound of her alarm pierced the silence. It became clearer as she finally opened her eyes, wincing as the weak throb of her head intensified the moment sunlight hit her face. Whoever cursed her to wake up like this must have had it out for her. The couch beneath her felt coarse against her cheek; she shifted, and a metallic taste blossomed at the back of her tongue. For a moment, she couldn’t remember how she’d ended up here - hair mussed, clothes rumpled, the world silent around her. A hand reached up weakly to clutch her head, her palm rubbing against something quite rough that was stuck to her skin, falling off in brittle red crumbs on the couch. Blood..?

“Oh my God,” She groggily mumbled, staring at where a scab had fallen from her forehead. It suddenly came back to her what had happened. The events of last night made her cringe. Now that she thinks about it, her attempt at immobilising her intruder was pathetic. So pathetic it disappointed Azazel how rusty her skills had got.

Her alarm rang again, the screen of her phone lighting up once more to let her dismiss it. Grabbing the device with little to no grace, she stopped the annoying reminder that she had to get ready for class. Her limbs were heavy, probably because, once again, she kinda got a reset in her brain. Getting knocked out was quickly becoming a theme, and she hated it. Getting up proved to be hell as her head throbbed, and even after she iced the little swollen spot and swallowed a pill on an empty stomach - bad idea - the pain seemed to only dull. She had to find some stupid excuse for her friends as she put a bandaid on the small wound. It wasn’t big, just enough to piss Azazel off because she couldn’t put makeup on. It was either look like a clown or look like a clown but worse. Concealer was her only salvation.

Her things were scattered onto the coffee table, and it pissed Azazel off. How nice of her guest to leave such a mess. Not only that, it was clear that she had looked through Azazel’s room. Her desk drawers were slightly open, the contents rifled through. Even the framed photos of her parents and an old class trip were misaligned. Creepiest of all, her plants were watered. She didn’t even remember the last time she watered them.

Azazel grits her teeth, stuffing her charger into her bag and jamming her phone in after it. The violation twisted in her gut - whoever that woman was, she hadn’t just broken in. She had studied her. It’s not like Azazel had anything valuable, so her intruder looked through her things to learn more about Azazel. What a fucking creep.

God, what am I supposed to tell Rowan? she thought, pulling on her shoes. That I tripped and fell into a concussion? That I’ve been stress-watering my plants in my sleep? She paused with one boot half-on, staring blankly at the door. No. Too weird. Get yourself together!

The longer she stood there trying to lie to herself, the more she felt it - that lingering sensation of being watched like the echo of someone else’s breath still hung in the apartment. She shoved the thought aside, yanked on the other boot, and grabbed her coat. Outside, the chill of the morning air slapped her awake. The city moved on around her, indifferent to her bruises. The walk to campus was mostly a blur - just the clack of her boots on the pavement, the hum of cars, and the tightness in her chest that refused to ease no matter how many deep breaths she took. Every shadow made her glance twice. Every sound behind her made her spine stiffen.

She was twenty minutes late when she finally spotted Rowan sitting under the familiar maple tree just outside the university. He always got there early, always picked the spot with the best view of the courtyard, and always had something warm in his hands - today it was a paper cup of what looked like chai.

“Goddamn Az. What the hell happened to your face?”

So much for easing into it.

Azazel forced a weak smile and walked over. “Good morning to you, too.”

Rowan stood, his brows drawing together as he examined the bandaid on her temple. “Azazel. Seriously. That looks like blunt-force trauma. What - did you walk into a wall?”

She chuckled at that, quickly regretting it as pressure built up in her head and made it throb. With a weak wince, she covered the bandaid with her hand. “I hit my head this morning right on the corner of my nightstand. I think I need to get a smaller one.”

“Well, no shit. Your mom keeps telling you to buy that round one and you keep refusing.”

He only received an eye roll as a response, Azazel finding the need to give bitchy teenager attitude even when she probably had a concussion. “Yeah, and everyone knows I’m stubborn when it comes to changing furniture.” She muttered, looking away.

Rowan handed her the chai without asking. She accepted it, hands warming instantly around the cup. He stood next to her in silence for a long moment, just watching the crowd filter past the courtyard. Then he asked, quietly, “You sure that’s all that happened?”

She hesitated, the question slicing a little too cleanly through her. For a moment she thought about telling him. But Rowan was steady. Safe. Normal. And she wasn’t ready to shatter that.

Azazel sipped the chai. “I’m sure.”

He didn’t believe her. She could tell. But he let it go - for now. “Come on,” he said finally, nodding toward the campus building. “Professor Choi’s already pissed. Let’s at least try to sneak in before she goes full banshee.”

***

By the time her last class ended, Azazel’s head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. The campus was starting to empty out - students scattering off to dorms, coffee shops, and late shifts - and the early spring sun had already begun its descent, casting long shadows between the buildings. She hadn’t said much during the lectures. Took half the notes she normally would. Her focus was shot, her nerves raw. Now, the sky was just starting to turn gold. Her boots thudded on the stairwell as she descended toward the side exit of the building. Her plan was simple: get home, eat something with actual nutritional value, and pretend the world wasn’t unravelling at the edges, but when she reached the bottom, her eyes caught a folded paper on the ground. Small. Square. In the middle of the way towards the door. She couldn’t just ignore it, not when curiosity always gets the best of her. Bending down, she scooped up the paper and unfolded it. She quickly folded it back up.

No. No, no, no.

That damned symbol was drawn messily onto it. Azazel refused to acknowledge it, quickly throwing it into the closest garbage, jaw tight as she pushed open the door and stepped into the dying light. She didn’t make it far as she made eye contact with a certain blonde man.

“The fuck happened to your face?”

Casual, amused, and unmistakable. Theo leaned against the bike rack, one foot on a pedal, hoodie half-zipped, and a cigarette lazily held between his lips. His blonde curls were messier than usual, blown about by the insistent wind, and his backpack hung from one shoulder like it weighed nothing.

Azazel exhaled, part relief, part irritation. “Why does everyone keep greeting me like that today?”

“Because you look like you lost a fight with a drunk man.” He pushed off from the rack and started walking with her, wheeling his bike beside him. “A drunk man with brass knuckles.”

She gave him a sideways glance, lips tugging into a faint smile despite herself. “I hit the nightstand. Nothing dramatic.”

Theo snorted. “Right. And I’m the Pope.”

They quickly fell into step, the sound of his keychains jingling from his belt loops providing a familiar sound for Azazel. This guy always had to make some sort of sound. Whether it was him whistling, or the jingle of how many chains he got attached to his belt, it made him interesting and very noisy.

“I was gonna hit the corner store,” he said after a beat. “Need energy drinks, and maybe something microwaveable that won’t kill me. You coming?”

Azazel hesitated. There was still a knot in her chest. She hadn’t forgotten about the note she had found. It stayed in the back of her mind, reminding her of her current situation. But Theo was safe. And right now, she needed to feel safe. Plus, the guy was huge. He’d take anyone who dared mess with them. “Yeah,” she said. “Some junk food sounds good right now.”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

The corner store was only a few blocks away, tucked between a laundromat and a vape shop with flickering signage. The bell above the door jingled as they entered, a too-cheerful sound that made Azazel flinch before she could stop herself. Theo didn’t notice - he was already beelining toward the back refrigerators. “Alright,” he called over his shoulder, “help me decide between death or heart palpitations.”

Azazel trailed behind, eyes scanning the aisles out of habit. Her nerves hadn’t calmed, not really. Every aisle felt a little too narrow, and the lights a little too harsh. Still, there was comfort in the routine. She grabbed a bag of spicy chips and a cold canned coffee, her version of self-care, then turned the corner to find Theo standing in front of the energy drinks like they were fine wine.

“You know,” she said while approaching him. “I doubt it matters anyway. The Egyptians believed the most significant thing you could do in your life was die.”

Theo gave her a deadpan look, shocked that she still used that reference. “Azazel, quit it. It's old, grandma.”

“I know. Get the summer redbull.” The answer she received in return was a happy ‘yummy’ as Theo put the can of future heart palpitations in his basket, snatching the bag of chips from her hands. What a gentleman.At the register, Theo chatted with the clerk like he always did - commenting on the weather like he was a bored retiree instead of a six-foot-something boy in a hoodie with fucking Hatsune Miku. Azazel watched them with her cheek resting against the edge of the gum rack, too tired to stand up straight, the fluorescent lights buzzing faintly in her ears.

God, she felt ancient.

“Don’t fall asleep while standing, grandma,” Theo nudged her lightly with his elbow, sliding a pack of gum onto the counter with a grin. “I still need to get you home, y’know? No, I am not carrying you.”

“I’d punch you but there are cameras here.”

“Oh no, scary.” He pulled a dramatic face and then added more quietly, “You good though? You seem off.”

Azazel froze for half a second - just a flicker. She hadn’t expected him to say it aloud. She glanced at the clerk, who was half-listening and half-scanning their snacks. “Yeah,” she said, her voice a little too even. “Just a long week.”

Theo didn’t buy it, not fully. But he let it go, which was maybe the most Theo thing he could do. Outside, the sky had gone a deeper gold, tinged with orange. Traffic hummed at the intersection. A couple walked past, laughing. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked twice and then went quiet. Her friend was sipping on his energy drink while making sure his bike didn’t bump into trashcans. They fell into a comforting silence, letting the sounds of the city be their background ‘music’. It had become routine for her friends to walk her home. Mostly because their houses were in the same direction, but also because she had a bus stop close by. She valued these walks more ever since her life took a bad turn. Those guys took pictures of Rowan. What would’ve happened if she was alone?

“Alright Miss Cortney, this is where our last stop together is. Any tips for the carriage man?”

His antics were only met with a scoff from Azazel and a raised brow, staring at him expectantly. For a few seconds, neither said anything, and finally, Theo gave in and handed her the things she bought that were kept safely in his backpack.

“You’re no fun…” he grumbled, feigning offence like Azazel would fall for that.

“I’ll get you a pack of Red Bull cans next time, carriage man.” She patted him on the bicep, passing by him to walk on the short path that led to her front porch. “Thanks for walking me home!”

“Anytime, Az! Don’t forget about your promise!”

“I never said promise!”

Entering her home had to be the most adrenaline-inducing thing ever. At this point she expected some fucker to jump at her or wait for her to realise that she had company. Nowadays people forget about pleasantries and simply scare the lights out of you once you’re home. She should get cameras just for the sake of knowing when someone breaks into her home. Tossing her keys in the ceramic bowl like usual, she stood still for a bit. Nothing. The only sound in her house was the hum of the fridge. No other presence seemed to disturb her peaceful home. Her eyes scanned the living room automatically, flicking from the coat rack to the corners of the ceiling, half-expecting to see someone waiting in the dark. Finally, some time to herself.

She let out a slow breath, forcing her shoulders to relax as she set down the bag of snacks and grabbed the canned coffee from it. Dinner was just two slices of toast she scarfed down while standing, in a rush to get in bed and watch her favourite show. Her next lecture was in the afternoon so Azazel could wake up later than usual. Sleep took her rather quickly. Exhaustion was recently weighing on her whole body and, compared to how restless she used to be, now she would fall asleep faster than usual. A blessing and a curse.

***

Waking up with a dry mouth and the need to pee had to be one of the worst ways to wake up. Really, what was this recent thing for Azazel to have terrible mornings? Groaning softly, she sat up, blinking through the dark. The room was bathed in faint blue light from her laptop screen, paused on the Netflix home screen. Her throat felt like sandpaper and her eyes burned from too little rest, too much screen time. She checked her phone: 4:03 AM. The world outside her windows was silent. No cars. No crickets. Just silence.

Azazel rubbed her face and got to her feet, shivering at the sudden cold that clung to her skin. Her house was always a little drafty, but this felt worse - like the kind of cold that settled into your bones and whispered you’re not alone. She tried to ignore it, padding to the bathroom and flicking the light on. The fluorescent bulb flickered once before settling. Her reflection stared back at her in the mirror: puffy eyes, bandaid on her temple, hair an absolute mess. She looked like hell.

The sink gurgled as she splashed some water onto the small wound on her temple. Maybe she was just spooked. The note had rattled her more than she wanted to admit, even with Theo distracting her earlier. Maybe her brain was just creating shadows where there weren’t any. Typical paranoid mind. That’s what too many crime scenes do to you - and a bunch of motherfuckers pestering you. Now, she either was going insane, or her ears really started ringing for no reason. Like the kind of ringing when someone watches you. She wiped her face with a towel, wincing at the throbbing in her head that was slowly intensifying. One look in the mirror after she made sure no water was going to sting her eyes and Azazel froze.

She wished she could scream, but it felt like one of those shitty nightmares where you can barely talk above a whisper and all strength leaves you. It felt like her body refused to listen to any of her commands and it unnerved Azazel. There, behind her, stood a tall creature. Something Azazel had seen only in those entries from Marble Hornets, although it didn’t seem to be this tall. Her breathing sped up. Although it had no eyes, it was clearly staring at her. Waiting for some reaction other than her remaining on the spot. At this point she should start playing dead like those animals. Some sort of static started to fill her mind, pressure building up in her head like it was about to explode. Breathing also felt hard, and it wasn’t long before her brain, although almost like a whisper, thought that maybe she was having a panic attack.

It was there. No… He was there. Silent yet so deadly it could kill Azazel with just His presence.

He didn’t move. Not like it was needed. He simply was, standing in her dimly lit hallway - limbs too long, neck craned slightly like He was observing her from some cruel, inhuman angle. His featureless face seemed to tilt, and it was like the room itself recoiled around Him. The lights flickered once. Twice. Then steadied. Azazel felt like she was in those Poughkeepsie tapes, but instead of some creature crawling to her, said creature was standing in her hallway and waited. Waited for her to do something. The Operator remained where He stood, but something in the walls began to hum - that nauseating, mind-numbing static growing louder with every second. It wasn’t just sound. It was inside her. Inside her skull. Under her skin. A pulsing, droning frequency that made her teeth hurt and her vision blur at the edges. Like her very thoughts were being tuned by something alien.

Then - a flicker and he was gone. Azazel collapsed to her knees, gasping like she’d been held underwater. The nausea hit next, sharp and gut-twisting. She clutched the edge of the sink, half-expecting blood to drip from her nose. None came. Only silence again. Then her mind went blank as she passed out.

***

Pant pant pant

Leaves crunched under the force of thundering steps, boots decimating the poor nature as she ran through sharp tree branches in hopes of escaping from whoever was chasing her. Did she know who it was? Hell no. Just their silhouette alone was enough to send the woman into a frenzy and have adrenaline pump through her veins. They laughed and gasped for breath behind her, clearly out of breath just like her. But something was weird about this. They were both so slow. Some things were twisted weirdly, some were going against the laws of physics. What the hell was going? A scream was torn from her throat as she almost ran into a dangling corpse, tied by their legs. Their abdomen was cut open, rotting guts spilling from the cavity. She could see the ribs poking out of the opening, tainted in dried blood. No smell invaded her nose. But she could only imagine it.

She tumbled back and right into the arms of her chaser as they almost growled in her ear, holding her still as she struggled weakly. Since when was Azazel this weak? Unable to wriggle free out of some sicko’s grasp.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you,” He growled, his voice deep and raspy, his breath hot against the shell of her ear. “How could I steal such a perfect kill from our precious Meliora?”

Meliora? She didn’t have time to ask who that was because in front of Azazel appeared her . Tall, emotionless, powerful.

“Azazel.”

“Sto- what… What is going on? Let me go! Please!”

Behind this Meliora, viscera covered the ground and trees, hanging from the branches like the velvet shedding from a deer’s antlers. Except everything belonged to humans.

“You’re so much prettier when you’re terrified.” Meliora stepped closer, slow, and Azazel could see the glint of a knife held in her hand.

“No. No, no, no, no… Please! Please!” She begged, the person behind her laughing hysterically at her pathetic attempts at getting some mercy. “M-Meliora! Please!””

Meliora stopped inches from Azazel, tilting her head. Then her hand shot up and plunged the knife into her abdomen. She didn’t feel pain - only cold. Pure, gut-deep cold that spread outward, numbing her spine, crawling into her lungs. She choked on a breath and looked down. Blood oozed out of the gash and stained her torso like ink..

“Shhh,” she cooed, cradling her gently as Azazel sagged forward. “Just a dream, right?”

Right?

The forest dissolved into black, and the laughter followed her down.

***

“Uuugh…”

Her ears rang as consciousness slowly came to her, finally ready to greet the world again. Moving was the first thing that her instinct said and wanted, but Azazel’s limbs were too heavy, as if she was ill and her whole body ached in that dull way. As out of it as she was, she managed to crack an eye open and realise that she was on her bed, the covers messy and definitely not on her, given how cold she was. She could tell it was morning by how the sun barely shined through the gap in her curtains, its rays falling upon her chilled skin to warm it. Comfortable. She felt really really comfortable. Even if the metallic taste of blood remained in the back of her mouth, or how disgustingly sweaty her skin was. Experiencing such a nice morning after she just saw God had to be the best. At the very least, she was alive and, at the moment, admiring the pretty sigh of her curtains allowing the April sun in. Her eyes squinted and slowly, painfully, she lifted herself onto her elbows. Her muscles trembled under the effort, and every breath felt thick, like she was still under whatever haze had dragged her down.

“Finally.”

The voice came from somewhere to her left. Calm. Detached. Azazel’s head turned sluggishly, like it was filled with water. Her stalker stood in the corner of the room, arms folded, leaning against the wall like she’d been there forever. No concern in her face. No softness. Just those ever-watching eyes. Azazel blinked, throat working uselessly before she managed a croaked, “Huh…?”

“You passed out.” She didn’t move. Her voice was flat, low. “Do you always look like that when you sleep? Twisting. Sweating. Whimpering like a dog?”

Azazel stared at her, breathing shallow and uneven. She touched her stomach - half expecting to find a gaping hole there. But it was intact. No blood. No guts leaking. Just the memory of it burning behind her eyes. The warm feeling of something trickling from her nose caught her attention, making Azazel wipe the liquid from her philtrum thinking it was snot - expecting the worst from how hellish her trip to the bathroom was. Looking down at her hand, she gasped as she found blood smeared onto the back of her hand, fresh and bright. A headache hit her as well, making her head throb under the pressure of the pain. A groan left her, closing her eyes tightly like that would fix whatever trauma she had. Maybe it was from her nasty fall in the bathroom.

“What’s happening to me?” she asked, more to herself than to the other woman.

She didn’t answer right away. Then, “You wanted answers. This is what it costs.”

No warmth. No comfort. Just facts delivered in the voice of someone who had already seen too much. Azazel swallowed hard, gaze drifting down to her trembling hands.

Also… she could’ve sworn she knew what her stalker’s name was.

Chapter 6: 5. My blood is red and unafraid of living

I’m liquid smooth, come touch me too

And feel my skin is plump and full of life

I’m in my prime

Being the victim of a control freak eldritch creature was the most exhausting thing Azazel had experienced. From what the other woman told her, this was just the mild shit he could do. In fact, he barely did anything to her. Only ‘presenting’ himself and making sure Azazel was aware of his existence and his intentions as well.

“He’s studying you.”

She had explained after the student was a little more aware of her surroundings. It only proved to make Azazel shake in her boots. Just the surface of his actual intentions and capabilities to bend the mind to his will and preference.

What she had learned from all of this was that his visits always had after effects. Nosebleeds, headaches, coughing. Probably this being her first ever visit, her symptoms were worse. A nosebleed like the one this morning was something to be worried about. A window popping up on her laptop screen suggested otherwise.

“It’s normal. The bleeding will stop.”

“You will not die.”

How nice of her to be the main source of information for Azazel.

She stirred her coffee, watching the spoon spin in a slow, hypnotic loop. Movement for the sake of movement. Her eyes burned, not from tears, but from the weight of sleeplessness and knowing. That sick kind of knowing you couldn’t unlearn.

Rowan’s voice cut through the quiet. “You’ve been doing that for ten minutes.”

Azazel blinked, as if waking up mid-thought. “Yeah.”

“Talk to me,” Rowan said, not unkindly. “Please.”

There was a long pause.

“I think,” Azazel began slowly, “I’m being…. uhm, studied?”

Rowan raised a brow. “By who?”

“I don’t know, Ro. I’m so tired.”

There was silence again, but this time it was heavier. Thicker. Rowan leaned back, fingers tapping a slow rhythm on the side of his mug.

“Tell me everything,” he said. “I mean it. Everything. Don’t protect me from whatever you think I can’t handle.”

Azazel hesitated, her eyes flicking to the counter where a sweet looking lady stood and waited to serve more customers. “It’s like…” She inhaled. “Have you ever felt like you were being prepared for something? Not warned. Not guided. Just… made ready.”

“Azazel…” Rowan muttered, a pitiful expression on his face greeting Azazel’s desperation. It only made her feel even worse.

“Azazel!”

A cheery voice greeted her as the warm arms of Mira engulfed the blonde in a warm hug. Azazel flinched at the sudden touch, not expecting her to have such a loud entrance. Dammit, Mira. Sweet perfume invaded her nostrils, engulfing the woman in one of her favourite scents that Mira owned.

“Hey,” She mumbled, returning the hug half-heartedly. “Don’t scare me like that, girl.”

“Mira, for the love of God, stop running like that whenever you see your friends!”

Ah, Faye. She was starting to ask herself where she was. The brunette appeared in her line of sight and sat down next to Rowan as she placed two cups of coffee on the table. The steam curled up from the ceramics and, maybe if Azazel wasn’t so damn hyper focused she would get hypnotised by them.

“You look like shit,” Faye said, tilting her head to the side. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

“I’m not sure I’m up for anything,” Azazel admitted, brushing her hair behind her ear. “But if I stay home, I’ll rot. So…”

As response she only received a nod, scooting to the left on her booth to let Mira take a seat next to her. Bad idea, but a little optimism wouldn’t hurt. Especially now. After that whole encounter she felt quite anxious and paranoid, always looking at the corners and doorways in case a certain someone decided to show up again. She doubted He would make an appearance in public, but her mind told her otherwise.

It was cloudy when they left the café. Not the kind of cloudy that promised rain, but the kind that dulled everything. Typical April weather. At least it wasn’t raining. None of her friends had brought an umbrella and none had a car.

Going to eat at this terrace was one of their traditions. Every month they would make time to meet up like this and spend their evening together. It had become something akin to an escape from reality, being allowed to forget about any external stress and focus on their little outing.

Azazel sat down at a free table, right at the edge where the earth met a pretty lake. The water was still, a perfect, glassy reflection of the pale sky above. Trees lined the far shore like silent sentries, unmoved by the breeze. Mira and Faye where quick to claim the other seats as Rowan had went to greet a relative at a table close-by. They chattered as they set their bags down, scanning the laminated menus like it was the most important decision of their week. Rowan took a chair across from her, leaning back like usual as he, once more, chose the chair that kept Azazel in his direct line of sight.

“So,” The albino woman said, already smiling in that sharp, mischievous way. “Do we go full comfort food, or pretend we’re respectable human beings?”

“I’m voting for fries and beer,” Azazel said. “We deserve that much.”

They all hummed in agreement, a chorus of approval laced with exhaustion. Shared fatigue from a semester that had already frayed everyone’s nerves at the seams.

Azazel chuckled softly, resting her chin in her hand as she watched the water shimmer in that dull, diffused light. The breeze carried over faint laughter from other tables and the occasional clink of glassware. For a second, she could pretend things were fine. That the spiraling sensations hadn’t dug their claws into her. That her mind wasn’t becoming more fragile with each passing hour.

“You seem better,” Mira said suddenly, her eyes soft but searching. “I mean… last week you kind of disappeared on us.”

Azazel hesitated. “I had to sort through some stuff.”

“That stuff being academic or personal?” Faye asked, raising a brow.

Azazel gave a half-smile. “A bit of both.”

They ordered without much thought, the comfort of routine guiding their decisions. Mira flirted with the waiter. Faye rolled her eyes. Rowan made some dry comment about being stuck with “immature people”. It was easy. Familiar. Like a scene she could step into and out of, wearing a version of herself she almost remembered being.

“Do you remember that weird guy from Lit class? The one who said Kafka was overrated and then got into a full debate with the professor?”

Faye groaned. “The one who brought up comic books like it was a valid counterargument?”

Mira was mid-story - something about that guy - when a flicker of movement caught Azazel’s eye. Across the terrace, near the corner closest to the alleyway and out of range of most conversation, sat three men. They weren’t looking at her. That’s what made it worse.

One of them had a calmness that clung to him like oil - slow sipping of his drink, gaze half-lidded like he was barely there at all. Tim. Another leaned forward on his elbows, chewing his lip as if nervous but smiling all the same, like he wanted people to see his teeth and the gap between the two in the front. Brian. The third, twitchy and talkative, played with his straw. This one, she didn’t know who he was.

Azazel’s fingers tightened around her glass. Her blood ran cold, then hot, then cold again. There was no reason she should recognize them. Not like this. Not out of context. Not without the masks. Stay calm. They can’t hurt you in a public place. Especially unmasked. Brian stared at her, his smile still stretched upon his face.

“Ooh, who’s that, Az? He’s cute,” Rowan asked, glancing back to where Azazel was staring, making Brian’s eyes dart between the two people now staring back at him.

“Like hell I know, Ro.” She answered, keeping her voice levelled although her heart was hammering against her chest.

Rowan hummed thoughtfully, clearly entertained by the tension. “Well, he’s either into you or plotting a murder. No in-between with that smile.”

Azazel didn’t laugh. She couldn’t. Her nails pressed into the soft flesh of her palm, hidden beneath the table. It grounded her, barely. The hum of conversation around them dulled as if she were underwater, her vision narrowing just slightly. The air felt denser. Too warm. Too still.

Mira leaned in. “Okay, you’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“That thousand-yard stare like you’re about to drop a prophecy or explode.”

Azazel blinked and pulled her eyes away from the men. “No way I do that.”

“Yes way,” Rowan said, not accusing - just observant, like always. “Is that someone you know from the case?”

Her lips parted slightly. The lie was right there, polished and easy. But something stopped her. Maybe it was the way Brian hadn’t stopped smiling. Maybe it was the way Tim finally leaned back in his seat, stretching like a predator pretending it wasn’t watching prey.

“No,” she said after a pause. “But I think they’re extroverted. Your type, Ro.”

Mira didn’t buy it. “If this is about that weird shit you were researching, maybe take a step back for a while.”

Azazel wanted to. God, she wanted to. But it was already too late. The noose was around her neck; it just hadn’t been pulled tight yet. “I’ll be fine.”

Lies again. Thin, shaking lies. Across the terrace, Tim raised his drink in mock salute - right at her. Slow. Smirking. Azazel felt her blood freeze. He knew she saw him. He wanted her to.

Rowan turned again, catching the tail end of the gesture. “Okay, that’s creepy.”

“Yeah,” Mira agreed, frowning now. “Let’s just ignore them. The waiter was better.”

They all burst into laughter, bringing Azazel’s mind back to the situation. She was forever thankful for how her friends always managed to bring her back to Earth.

The sky had darkened into black by the time they left the terrace, the kind of dusk that told everyone to go home. The check had been split, half-hearted jokes made about who owed who from last time, and the group had finally decided it was time to head out. Faye stretched her arms over her head with a long, content sigh. “Ugh, I needed this. Even if Mira tried to get the waiter’s number again.”

“He was into it,” Mira shot back, nudging her friend with an exaggerated wink. “Besides, flirting keeps the blood flowing.”

“I can think of other ways to keep the blood flowing,” Rowan muttered, hands in his pockets. His tone was flat, but his smirk gave him away.

Azazel offered a tired smile, just enough to pass for normal. Her body ached in a strange, soft way - as if her nerves had been plucked like strings and left to quiver. The unease hadn’t left since she saw them. It just burrowed deeper.

The walk back to the main road was slow and full of conversations. They moved in a loose cluster, shoes crunching on gravel and soft dirt. Mira complained about the cold. Faye offered to let her borrow a jacket and was immediately refused. Rowan lit a cigarette. The smoke curled up into the chilled air, sharp and fleeting. She stayed just a little behind them, her head bowed as if in thought. The encounter with her probably stalkers had shook her. She expected to see them the moment she entered her house.

“Hey, are you alright? Do you want me to walk you home?” Rowan offered, slowing his steps so he could let Azazel catch up with him.

She looked up at him, unsure of what to say. Of course, having some company while going home felt heavenly, especially after fear was once more instilled in her.

“Yeah, I’d like that.” She finally answered him, giving him a half-hearted smile. “You know, I was actually thinking of getting a dog.”

Rowan raised a brow, amused by her change of subject. “Really? That sounds very unlike you, I thought you hated how much saliva dogs leave all over the floor.”

That silenced the woman as she glared at Rowan, jokingly unhappy that he was pointing out her past words. “Maybe I changed my mind,” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Whatever you say, blondie.”

The others peeled off in different directions with waves and tired goodbyes. Only Azazel and Rowan remained, walking in silence for most of the way. When they finally arrived, Azazel agreed to text Rowan if she felt uneasy or if anything happened. Ever the gentleman he was. 

 

***

 

Azazel turned the lock, then the deadbolt. Then she checked both again, pressing her palm flat against the cool wood for a second too long, like she could will it into a barrier strong enough to keep the world out. She turned on the light quicker than she would like to admit, feeling pathetic of doing such things, but her assumptions turned true. Three motherfuckers were in her living room. The same ones from the terrace.

Oh, piss off.

They’re sat so leisurely around her space, the twitchy guy lounging on her couch, Tim perched on the armrest like he owned the place, and Brian standing by the bookshelf while he flipped through one of the books.

“Seriously?” Azazel sighed, furrowing her brows. “You know, I would’ve let you in if you knocked and asked nicely.”

Brian huffed, clearly amused by her reasoning. Obviously they weren’t going to be nice and enter like normal people. They weren’t normal people anyway. The twitchy guy bounced his leg, drumming his gloved fingertips against his thigh in invisible rhythms.

“You have great snacks,” He commented, his lips stretching into a smile.

“I’m sorry? Who the hell are you anyway-” She tried to question with a grimace on her face, clearly disgusted by his words, only to be interrupted by him.

“Toby!” He exclaimed a little too enthusiastically.

Okay, bitch. Learn some manners, I guess.

“Mkay… How did you get in? I changed the lock.”Tim shrugged. “Locks are shitty. Especially yours. Plus, we have an expert.” His thumb motioned towards Brian, who gave Azazel a sinister smile. Fuck that tooth gap. Maybe if he wasn’t a criminal and didn’t look so sickly he would be attractive.

Azazel’s fingers twitched toward her phone. Still in her jacket pocket. No way she could reach it before one of them intervened.

“We’ve been informed you already have a… babysitter. I didn’t know Meliora would take the job so easily.” Tim said, fiddling with a knife he took out from his pocket. “You’re pretty easy to stalk anyway.”Meliora? Why did she feel like she already knew this name?

“Meliora? Is that the ginger one?”Tim burst out in laughter. “No way you didn’t know her name. Secretive, isn’t she? At least she was easier to get information from in the first few days, but you? Maybe you’d be easier to get rid of than we thought.”“Ugh! What the fuck? Is this how you foreshadow things? You’re as shitty as my locks.”

Tim cackled, clearly pleased with her disgust. He twirled the knife between his fingers like it was just a fidget toy and not a tool meant for something much worse.

Toby kept bouncing his knee, grinning like this was just some game. “You’re funny. I like you. It’s too bad.”

Azazel narrowed her eyes. “Too bad what?”

Toby leaned forward, eyes wide like a child about to share a secret. “Too bad this isn’t just a social call.”

There it was. The turn in tone that dropped like a stone in her stomach.

Tim straightened, slipping the knife back into his pocket with a slow, deliberate motion. “You’re smart, I can’t deny that. You’ve pretty much done all the shit we’ve told you to do. You figured out we were guiding you into more trouble, but you kept going.”“Dumb move, if you ask me.” Brian commented, finally leaving the bookshelf alone.

“And what? You just show up and… what? Tell me I’m stupid?” Her tone was acidic now, defensive heat bubbling up from the pit of her anxiety. “That’s your big play? No fuckass threatening like last time?”“You’re not really scared enough,” Tim replied, his voice suddenly flat. “That’s the problem.”

Brian took a slow step forward. Azazel flinched despite herself.

Tim smirked. “See, now you’re starting to get it.”

“He had already visited you. You know what you’re dealing with. There’s no escape now Azazel. But don’t think we’re on equal ground.” The blonde man said, coming forward to stop next to Tim. “You’re probably going to end up as a meal, anyway. Less end up alive than you think.”

“Keep going,” Tim encouraged Azazel.

It was some sick game, she figured. They found pleasure in seeing people end up like them or even worse. Over time, of course they would develop such a mentality and thirst for blood. They were the more aggressive synonym to what the government is. They live well and without worries and smile whenever others grovel at their feet.

“See where all of this gets you. It depends on her anyway.”“Her?” Azazel echoed.

Brian just smiled again. This time, he didn’t look amused. He looked hungry.

Toby gave her a wink. “Say hi to Meliora for us whenever she comes by.”

Ewgh…

They walked out the door just like that, throwing Azazel’s keys onto the table, not even in the ceramic bowl, right before they left. Azazel stood frozen in place, her breath caught in her throat. Say hi to Meliora for us. The name echoed through her mind like a curse. She didn’t even realize the door had closed until the silence pressed in around her.

Why did her name sound so familiar?

Chapter 7: 6. Come from way above to bring me love

Her eyes

She’s on the dark side

Neutralize every man in sight, every man in sight

Meliora had never meant to care.

At first, watching Azazel had been methodical - just another assignment. Track her, study her, and keep her from interfering. But now, as she watched the girl through the grainy lens of a hidden camera, something twisted inside her chest.

Stalking people was something Meliora was very good at. He assigned her most of these jobs, but she preferred the shorter ones. Brian took the longer missions. He had to have a weird kink or something. But now that Meliora has taken interest in Azazel, it was quite hard to abandon the task. Plus, she knew too much about her, right? What would the benefits be if she just… gave up on such an interesting person? None. The only thing she could get in return if she kept going was a new companion. This time, someone who was actually not some sick fuck. She knew every rhythm of the blonde’s life now. Her classes, her routines, her friends. Everything. The way she keeps looking over her shoulder recently is a great indicator of the fear The Operator had instilled in her.

This wasn’t part of the job. And yet - here she was. A part of her hated it. Hated how soft she’d gotten. How fascinated. How drawn she was to every little vulnerability Azazel didn’t even know she was exposing. She told herself it was strategy. It wasn’t. Delete

From the bushes in front of Azazel’s window, Meliora watched like a hawk. Crouched, still, and focused. Azazel’s window was open and the curtains were gathered to one side.

Such a dumb move. She knew some people loved to just enter and leave her house whenever they pleased yet she invited them inside like this. It practically screamed “Come in and terrorise me!”

She was inside, sitting on the floor in her oversized hoodie, hair tied back messily, a blanket draped over her shoulders in hopes of comfort. She was laughing at something on her laptop. Laughing like nothing was wrong. Like no one had broken into her home. Meliora’s nails bit into her palms. She hated that laugh. Not because it was ugly. Because it was beautiful and unburdened. Like a version of Azazel that hadn’t yet been touched by all this. She wanted to walk through that window. Just… knock, maybe. Ask her what was so funny. Sit, breathe the same air once more instead of watching from the dark. Delete

It wasn’t planned. Meliora never meant to be seen. But Azazel bumped into her by the counter, arms full of takeout trays, and they both froze like animals caught mid-snarl.

“Shit, sorry -” Azazel said, nearly dropping her drink.

Meliora caught it before it could tip. Their hands brushed. Azazel blinked up at her.

“Thanks…”

“You’re welcome.” Meliora handed it back. Her voice was too soft these days. She’ll have to keep herself in check.

“Do I… know you?” Azazel asked slowly.

“No.”

Meliora walked out before she could hear the response. She didn’t need to. Azazel was already turning around, the moment fading behind the clink of glass and hiss of milk steam. But Meliora’s hand still burned. Delete

Later that night, she stood in the kitchen of her own house, waiting for her soup to heat up as a radio struggled to catch signal.

She hadn’t noticed the cold creeping in behind her. The air grew thick. Viscous almost. A presence oozed from the walls like wet rot.

“You linger,” the voice said. Not quite heard. More… felt.

Meliora didn’t move. “I’m doing my job.”

“No. You’re doing more than that now.”

Meliora turned slowly, jaw tight. “You’re welcome to replace me if you think I’m compromised.”

Silence.

Then: “No. Not yet. Let it grow. Let’s see what your heart is worth. I’m sure you won’t disappoint me.” Delete

“So, what’s with the mask? Are you ugly or something?”

Meliora sighed heavily, not feeling in the mood for stupid questions from Azazel. “Quite the opposite, I would say.”

The blonde woman gestured with her hand, urging her to answer her first question. No escaping this, like usual. Azazel proved to be quite annoying when her questions weren’t answered. Like a child that never took a break from pestering their parents. The same question about her mask was thrown onto the table multiple times. Yes, she understood why the blonde was curious about the reason she kept her face hidden. The other three showed up maskless without much thought, so why shouldn’t Meliora do the same?

Simple, the mask meant safety. It meant she was secure under the thick plastic of it.

“Think of me as a thief. I wear my mask and no one knows who I am.” Azazel’s mouth fell open as Meliora took off her mask. “And when I don’t wear it, everyone knows me.”

***

“Jesus fucking Christ, you are pretty!”

Were the first words Azazel managed to muster up, admiring the view in front of her. If she had known that her stalker was this attractive, then damn, Azazel wouldn’t have complained so much!

“Uh, wait, didn’t I see you a few days ago?”

Fuck. I’m going to get in trouble. He’s gonna be pissed. Delete

“ You are playing with fire, Hound.”

The voice boomed inside her head, reminding Meliora of her current situation. He had appeared in her head suddenly, then she was staring up at Him as he lectured her about the things she shouldn’t be doing.

“I am afraid to say that this may hinder your progress. What if you soften and your aptitudes get worse, Meliora?”

He never asked ‘what if’. It was not only erased from his vocabulary, but He never needed to question it. His little playthings were more than capable of handling things which allowed him to sit back and, sometimes, enjoy what he was given: satisfaction.

So, being asked ‘what if’ by the epitome of some god unsettled her. He was, supposedly, all-knowing. You could ask something and the answer will be given in a matter of seconds because He knew .

“ I haven’t softened,” she thought back sharply. “ I’m handling the job. She’s being watched, isn’t she?”

A pause. A twitch in the shadowed mass that passed for His face. Then:

“You were supposed to observe, not hover. You were supposed to keep her under, not… lean toward her.”

Another pause. “You think I don’t see what you’re becoming?”

Meliora clenched her fists. Her knuckles popped. “I’m in control.”

“No. You’re infatuated .”

The air seemed to still around her. A pulse of static settled at the base of her spine. Her breath hitched. “I’m not.”

“You are curious when you should be cold. Gentle when you should be distant. You stand too close. You hesitate.”

“You even talk to her casually now. Do you remember what I told you about attachments?”

Meliora’s throat was dry. She didn’t respond.

“She will rot you from the inside out,” the Operator murmured, almost sweetly. “So go ahead. Stay close. Touch her hair again. Let her look at you like that.” He leaned closer, even though He wasn’t really there.

“Just know this - when she takes something from you, it will be everything.”

Meliora bowed her head, now feeling ashamed for even harbouring such humane emotions.

“I expect you to bring her here. Do not pamper her. I want the girl weak.”

And then He was gone. 

***

Something was off.

No, it wasn’t Meliora walking around her kitchen in search for snacks. Azazel had gotten used to the woman rummaging through her stuff. At least she was a woman, unlike those three disgusting guys who kept pestering her. There wasn’t something distinct that felt off. It just… did? Meliora always seemed to carry this certainty with herself, so having her look so silently agitated put Azazel on edge. She wasn’t outwardly expressing her emotions. Hell, she was so damn calm, but she wasn’t taking her time, she wasn’t analysing anything. She was rushing.

Azazel sat on the couch, one leg pulled up under her as she scrolled through her messages. Her phone buzzed, but she didn’t really read any of the texts. She was too aware of Meliora behind her. The soft sounds of her breathing, the fridge door creaking. The way she hadn’t said a word since stepping inside.

“You good?” Azazel asked, not turning around.

Meliora’s voice was calm - calmer than it should’ve been. “Fine.”

Azazel looked up, meeting her eyes as the woman leaned against the counter, a granola bar in one hand, the other braced behind her. She was watching Azazel in that unreadable way again. Not hostile. Not cold. Just… studying.

“You sure?” Azazel tried again, rising slightly from her slouch. “You’re doing the thing where you stare like you’re gonna say something and then don’t.”

Meliora raised a brow, unwrapping the granola bar. “Maybe I’m just admiring the view.”

Azazel snorted, but her cheeks warmed just a little.

“Careful,” she said, brushing her fingers through her hair. “I might start thinking you actually like me.”

Silence.

“We need to go.” She finally said in return, her cold façade back upon her face.

“We? Who’s ‘we’?”

Azazel was standing up from the couch when Meliora approached her and grabbed her hand with her free one, the other limb busy slinging a backpack over her shoulder. “Come on.” She said, dragging Azazel towards the door.

Azazel dug her heels in. “Whoa - wait, hold on. Where are we going?”

Meliora didn’t stop, just glanced back with a quick, sharp look. “Somewhere.”

“That doesn’t answer anything,” Azazel protested, trying to tug her hand free. “Where is this somewhere?”

Meliora didn’t answer. She opened the front door with her shoulder, her grip never loosening on Azazel’s wrist. The air outside was crisp, the kind of cold that only made you shiver a little.

“Meliora -”

“Trust me.”

The tone wasn’t begging. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t even angry. It was absolute.

Azazel blinked as she was ushered down the front steps and toward the curb, her heart hammering in her chest. Meliora’s car - a matte black, unassuming sedan Azazel didn’t remember seeing before - sat waiting under the dim orange halo of a streetlamp.

Meliora opened the passenger door and motioned her in. Azazel hesitated.

“Please,” Meliora said this time. The word didn’t come easy. But it came. Azazel got in.

The moment the door shut, the outside world disappeared. The interior of the car was quiet, but not peaceful. Something inside Meliora vibrated with contained urgency. She moved around the front, slid into the driver’s seat, and shoved the key in with mechanical precision. Azazel buckled her seatbelt slowly, watching her the whole time. “You’re not going to explain anything?”

Meliora didn’t meet her gaze. She started the engine. “To Him, kind of.”

Azazel squinted her eyes at the driver, unhappy with the answer. Mostly because her encounter with Him only managed to instill fear in her. Hell, she was basically sick for a week after seeing that thing.

They pulled off the curb and onto the road. The streetlights stretched past them in long, flickering lines. Azazel recognised the route instantly, remembering it from one time she and her friends went camping.

“I don’t even know what to expect from Him,” Azazel said finally, voice barely above a murmur. “Is it some sort of meeting again? Don’t tell me. This is my last time seeing the outside world before I die in some musty basement.”

Meliora’s hands tightened on the wheel. “You’re not going to die. You have some sort of potential, Azazel.”

“That still doesn’t explain this,” Azazel snapped, gesturing to the road, to all of it. “You barge into my house after like a week of no signs of being alive. Then you have the audacity to look through my things! And now we’re rushing somewhere like we’re late for a plane.”

A few moments of silence pass between them. Azazel is angry, Meliora is unnervingly calm and too secretive. The mention of Him was enough to have the student worry for her well being.

The silence pressed down on the car like fog. Heavy. Muffled. Azazel crossed her arms and sank deeper into the seat, the fabric cool against her skin. She was still wearing her house clothes - soft joggers, loose shirt. Unarmed. Unprepared.

And still Meliora said nothing.

The road curled ahead, winding past rows of empty trees and pockets of fog that looked like smoke from a distance. Azazel kept glancing at her, half-expecting a smirk, or maybe that usual dry sarcasm. But Meliora’s jaw was tight, her eyes narrowed at the horizon like it had offended her.

“…You said I had potential,” Azazel muttered.

Meliora gave a single nod.

“What kind?”

“That’s the part we don’t know yet.”

Azazel let out a breath. “Helpful.”

Meliora’s hands relaxed a little on the steering wheel. “Something… Something’s coming.”That shut Azazel up. The hum of the engine and the wheels on the road filled the silence again. Trees rushed past them like ghosts. Meliora continued, voice quieter. “I couldn’t have possibly prevented Him from taking an interest in you. It’s kind of the whole ordeal.”

“What does he want?” She questioned, turning in her seat to look at the ginger properly.

“You..” She paused, trying to find her words between a few unsure hums. “Or, what you will become. Specifically, what he will make of you.”

How comforting.

“You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

Meliora finally glanced over, her expression unreadable again. “Somewhere He wants. Somewhere He can speak.”

Azazel’s chest tightened. “You mean like - speak directly?”

“Yes.”

“And you thought now was the time to take me to your weird meeting point for a heart-to-heart with a fucking Eldritch god?”

The woman chuckled. She chuckled. If Azazel wasn’t pissed before, then now she was. Yeah, Meliora. Go on! Chuckle some more, you bi-

“It’s technically my house.”

“Oh.”

***

The rest of the drive blurred into silence.

By the time the car crunched to a stop on gravel, the world outside had shifted. Less streetlights. No traffic. Just woods - tall, skeletal trees lining the road like sentinels. Azazel stirred, blinking at the dense black stretching out around them, lit only by the car’s headlights.

She hadn’t realised how long they’d been driving.

Meliora stepped out first. Her boots crunched softly as she moved around the front of the car, opened Azazel’s door, and waited.

Azazel slowly stepped out, arms wrapped tight around herself against the bite of cold. Her gaze swept across the space. The house - which was actually a cottage - was hidden from the main road. Modest, but clearly reinforced. Everything about it was quiet, isolated. Safe in the way that didn’t exactly promise comfort nor in the way someone would appreciate its aesthetic.

“I wouldn’t take you for a cottage kind of person.” She decided to say so the silence would finally disappear. Her words were only met with a hum as the other woman handed Azazel her backpack.

Meliora led her toward the front porch, unlocking the door with a smooth twist of her wrist. Azazel lingered behind her, eyes still wide and jaw tight.

Inside, it was unexpectedly warm.

Not homey - no pictures, no clutter - but not cold either. There were books stacked on the shelves in careful towers, blankets folded over the couch’s back. The faint scent of citrus and cedar hung in the air, oddly reminding one of Christmas. Azazel stood just inside the doorway, taking it all in like she was waiting for the floor to drop open and swallow her.

“This is where you live?”

Meliora nodded, tossing her bag down by the door and flicking on a lamp. “When I’m not shadowing you, yes.”

Azazel raised a brow. “You have a couch and yet you’ve been lurking in my trees like a horror movie cryptid.”

Meliora smirked faintly. “It’s part of the job.”

Azazel didn’t laugh. Instead, she sank down onto the couch, suddenly exhausted. The weight of what just happened - being taken from her home, driven into the dark, handed to a person she barely understood - was starting to settle in her chest like a stone.

“…You’re not gonna kill me, are you?”

The woman sighs heavily. God, give her patience. Azazel could sometimes be such a pain in the ass.

“No. I’m not.” She answered while looking up from unpacking something on the kitchen counter.

“That’s not a very comforting no.”

Meliora didn’t argue. She stepped closer instead, kneeling slightly to Azazel’s level - not touching, but close enough that her presence was steadying.

“You’re not in danger here,” she said. “At least not from me.”

Azazel stared at her. “But from Him?”

A pause.

“…Maybe.”

Azazel let out a breath, sharp and shaking. She leaned back against the cushions, pressing her knuckles to her mouth. “I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”

Meliora sat back on her heels. “Neither do I.”

For some reason, that made her feel less alone. If only by a little.

“Alright,” The ginger concluded as she stood up. “Let’s get you something to eat. You need rest and fuel. It won’t be easy.”

Azazel blinked up at her, still half-sunken into the couch. “That… sounds like the setup to something terrible.” Meliora didn’t deny it. She moved to the kitchen, pulling open a cupboard and rifling through its contents with practiced ease.

“You’ll need your strength. There are things coming.”

Azazel sat up straighter. “More than just Him?”

Meliora didn’t answer. The silence made her stomach knot tighter than hunger ever could. Azazel hated when she was silent. Eventually, Meliora returned with a bowl of something steaming and a glass of water. She handed them over wordlessly. Azazel stared at the food for a moment before taking a small bite. It was… good. She hadn’t even realized how long it had been since she’d eaten properly.

“So… You live out here alone?” she asked between bites.

“Yeah.” Meliora leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Well, you’ll be living here for a bit so I suppose not anymore for the time being.”

Azazel paused mid-spoonful. “Ah, I see. I won’t guarantee I’ll be the best house mate.”

Meliora’s eyes flicked to her. “As complicated as you are I doubt you’ll be a pain in the ass.”

That only earned a side glance from Azazel, as if she was urging her on to keep saying bullshit. Not a pain in the ass? Might wanna think again, ginger.

Meliora was kind enough to keep a conversation with her guest, slowly easing her nerves and showing her the room where she had to sleep. Well, it was Meliora’s but the woman insisted she will sleep in the living room since ‘unwanted visitors’ tended to come by. It was plain and didn’t provide Azazel with any comfort. A knitted blanket sat atop the bed, the rough material reminding her of the times her grandma used to knit Azazel sweaters. The rest of the furniture seemed old: a desk cluttered with papers and a closed laptop, a dresser, and a bookshelf filled with, obviously, books.

Also, this place reeked of mold.

Well, she might as well get used to it. Hopefully she’ll get back home soon.

Chapter 8: 7. Animal? Cannibal?

Notes:

Warning!!!! This chapter contains rape, gore, cannibalism, cat-calling, swearing, the list probably goes on!!!! Please be careful reading this!!

I bite at the hand that feeds me

Slap at the face that eats me

Some kind of animal cannibal

Animal cannibal

 

The human mind is a fragile thing. It bends, molds, reshapes itself in order to accommodate to certain situations. Push it too much and you will learn what happens when too much stress is forced onto it. Keep it understimulated and you will find out what it creates in the dark. No one is ever safe from the inventions of the mind.

It defends, rationalises, and censors. It either tries to create the worst scenarios, or it rewrites memories to make them less painful. Without even noticing, the edges of fear are dulled until all you feel is a weird sense of calm even when your palms are cold yet sweaty and closes doors when the truth behind them is too ugly.

But what does one do when that door is kicked down and some weird guys tell you that you’re in deep shit?

Well… nothing, really. It’s not like she can magically make Him disappear. She did get herself into this, and Azazel wasn’t one to shy away from all her problems.

Lying on an unfamiliar bed that didn’t feel quite real, Azazel wasn’t sure if her thoughts were her own anymore. His presence proved to be there at an given moment, if that made sense. You couldn’t see Him, hear Him, or physically feel Him. Since she was in a lot of distress caused by her anxiety, her thoughts were mostly about the bitchass who found it amusing to create that horrible buzzing beneath her skin every time she even thought about a certain faceless creature. Not exactly faceless, more… featureless.

Meliora was kind enough to sleep with the hallway light on, which illuminated the living room too much to let the ginger sleep peacefully in Azazel’s opinion. But, as childish as it sounded, Azazel couldn’t bring herself to sleep in complete darkness. Due to the dense forest, barely any light from the moon managed to penetrate through the leaves. It had to be past her preferred bedtime, but she could still hear Meliora shuffling around the living room. Every small thud caused Azazel to open her eyes and make any sleep go away. This was going to be a long night…

***

The next morning came slowly. It barely even felt like morning because there was barely enough light for Azazel to notice that she barely got a wink a sleep. Opening the window was a no anyway. What if some fucked up sicko decided to climb into the room?

Oh my God, she was paranoid as hell.

Her head throbbed with fatigue, but her nerves wouldn’t let her drop fully into rest. At some point, Meliora had passed out on the couch - yes, she looked - arms folded, boots still on, one hand resting near something Azazel couldn’t quite see, but could only guess it was a weapon. That didn’t help her state of mind.

Azazel sat up quietly, glancing around the room. The cabin - or house, or whatever this place really was - had a kind of organized sparsity to it. Not very personal. The kitchen was neat, the surfaces nearly bare. There were no pictures on the walls, the hallway was long and dark, but she remembered there was a door toward the back that Meliora had locked when they came in. Meliora stirred midmorning, her face slightly reddened and the crinkles from the pillow imprinted onto her skin. Cute.

What the hell? No, don’t think that!

Leaving aside the fact that Azazel just pretty much mentally complimented her stalker, she was hungry as fuck. The kitchen was too close to the living room, and after dropping a few things on the ground she decided to just stay put and wait for her host to wake up. Waking up someone who could potentially kill you with pots clunking as you try to cook is not the best thing ever. Truth be told, Azazel feared Meliora. Even after she proved that no, she wasn’t going to kill her, cut her apart, and throw her into a fire, uneasiness still clung to Azazel like a koala to its mom.

Anyway, back to hunger. Meliora was nice enough to start her day with some coffee - making Azazel some! - and cook breakfast while the student watched with curiosity. The woman before her was clearly tense. Maybe because she was used to watching, not the other way around. Exhaustion clung to her which made Azazel doubt that she was actually sleeping while her guest was whispering curses in the kitchen earlier that morning. Also, she looked kinda cute when tired. Although the bags under her eyes were ugly and worrisome, somehow that completed her whole look.

Was it weird to shamelessly think that about the woman who watched her sleep almost every night? Probably yes, but Azazel was a woman and, honestly, she hasn’t had any action in a while. Although she was blessed with a pretty low libido, one could only go some much without a stress relief other than sleeping, which proved to be a hard thing to achieve lately.

She wondered how were her friends. Probably worried because Meliora had the shittiest wifi. Well, there wasn’t wifi to begin with.

“When did you learn how I like my coffee?” She dared to ask after taking a sip of the brown liquid. Not too much milk, not too much sugar.

“I’ve watched you more times than you can count. There was no way I wouldn’t memorise the way you make your coffee.”

Oh, yeah. Stalking and all that shit. The thought alone sent a shiver down Azazel’s spine. No matter how long you’re being watched, you just don’t get used to that creepy feeling.

“Right… uh, so what’s in plan for today? Meeting with your boss, a walk in the woods, feeding deer?”

“I don’t know. If He so wishes, He would make you wait the entire week. Just don’t try to piss Him off. Catching Him in a bad mood isn’t ideal. Stay inside and you’ll be safe.”

Safe? What, were vampires going to suck her blood if she dared to step out? As hot and sweet as she was, Azazel doubted anyone suspected that she was in some random cottage in the woods and planned to pounce on her the second she stuck her foot out the door. Plus, she knew self-defense. How bad could things get?

“For your sake I’ll be extra nice this year, Santa Claus. Can I have my present now?”

A plate with sunny side up eggs and some bacon was placed in front of her. Basic. At least she was being fed. That was her present for Christmas this year. And a pretty lady right in front of her.

***

When had Azazel been careful of the shit she does? Well, most of the time. There were a few moments when she completely disregarded what people warned her of. Really, who was dumb enough to expect Azazel to stay inside? Especially when Meliora deadass sat on the couch and remained unresponsive for about ten minutes. That was enough to send Azazel out of the house. It wasn’t hard, anyway. Meliora was careless when she was distracted. Azazel remembered the woman pulling her phone out with a huff the night before and tossing something metal onto the kitchen counter. A set of keys, one for the car, two for the house.

So, with her heart beating wildly in her chest, Azazel left. Stupid. Very stupid. Unfortunately for her, the car was not an option. Failing to get the driving license twice made her decide that she could walk to uni or take the bus. Some fresh air wouldn’t hurt anyone. Especially after the whole ‘kinda-abduction-but-not-really-because-she-complied’ bullshit from the night before. Her mind was foggy and she craved some time away from the person to constantly causes her heart to stop for a second.

The forest wasn’t quiet. The leaves rustled, the ground teemed with bugs as they hummed. Some birds could be heard singing their lullabies. Wind slipped through thick branches and what escaped in wild strands of hair from the loose braid. It managed to calm her mind, although not fully.

With each step, her mind drifted - not to the right things. Not to escape plans or where she was going. No, her brain, in all its unhinged glory, decided now was a perfect time to recall Meliora’s face when she handed her the eggs. Tired, stoic, but soft around the edges. There was something about that face. Something that made Azazel feel… watched, but also seen.

God, she was so screwed in the head. How do you start catching feelings for the person who literally kidnapped you for your own safety?

Safety from what, though?

From the same person who could mercilessly kill her swiftly? She’d pull the trigger without a second doubt and enjoy the sight of her cold and lifeless body. Honestly, Meliora seemed to be romantic in a weird way. What most would find disturbing, she would call it beautiful. She’d say something along the lines of “You’re the rotting flesh that flies adore” and keep walking like she didn’t point out to a deer in the stage of decaying and crumpled to the ground.

Her arms hugged her own figure, releasing a shaky breath as she looked around. She’s been walking for barely five minutes maybe, but the forest seemed to go way too deep. It’s forest, dammit. She didn’t fear the animals. At least they would kill her and not some cocky boy who probably got off on seeing others scream in pain.

Maybe she should go back.

She turned - and froze.

Behind her, the woods were still empty. But there was that feeling again. The buzzing. The pressure at the base of her skull, like she’d been thinking too loud and something had finally noticed.

“Nope,” she whispered, turning back and pushing forward.

Better keep going, then!

At one point she stopped walking and sat down at a creek. The sound of running water was perfect ambiance for the few minutes she spent there. What did fuck up her peace was a scream. It pierced through the forced and, to Azazel’s horror, she realised it was pretty close to her. She froze. Her hand clenched around a rock without meaning to, like it would help. It wouldn’t. But it was smooth and heavy, and her body needed to feel like she had something to fight with.

“NO! Leave me alone!”

From the voice she could tell that was a woman, quite young. The screams gurgled midway, like liquid got stuck in the woman’s throat and rendered her to a pathetic state, most likely choking on her own blood.

Her body didn’t get the memo. Instead of running away like a normal person would, she went towards the source of the sounds. Cries filled the air along with pained moans. Sounds she couldn’t describe. A sick chuckle accompanied the cacophony of disturbing groans and gurgled cries. Once close enough, her eyes caught the sight of said woman, sprawled on the ground with her legs contorted in the wrong ways and blood splattered onto the once green grass. It took Azazel a hot minute to figure out what the person above her was doing. Her pants seemed ripped open, while his were barely pulled down.

“Ah, shit,” he sighed, his voice hoarse and and scratchy as he rocked into the slowly dying body of his victim.

Azazel didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her fingers had gone numb around the rock, pressing so hard into it that she thought her skin might split. There was blood - so much blood - and not the kind you see in staged crime scenes or filtered horror movies. This was real. Wet. It pooled in the moss and soaked into the dirt, thick and black under the trees. The girl’s eyes were open, her mouth too. Her body spasmed once, twice, then went still, except for the way it was being forced to move by the man above her.

She was beyond mutilated. Her mouth hung open especially because the skin and muscles were torn apart from the corners of her lips up the ears, exposing flesh and a bloody mouth. Cuts littered her body and more were formed onto it by a knife traced with disgusting gentleness across exposed skin. It tore through clothes and nipped at her flesh, glinting perfectly in the light that dared to shine through green leaves.

“God, you’re no fun anymore,” he muttered, pulling back and staring down at the body like it offended him by dying too early. “You’re not supposed to die that fast, y’know? Where’s the sport?”

He ran a hand through his matted black hair and glanced behind him at the subtle sound of a shaky breath, making Azazel gasp loudly as she noticed the same kind of forced smile upon his face. This was no man. His skin was definitely rotting, looking too pale to even be humane. Worse than Brian’s - that man looked sick, tired. It was peeling in thin layers from place to place, exposing the meat beneath.

Her chest seized as they locked eyes.

“Well, well, well,” he said, like he’d just found an extra present under the tree. “Another one. This day just keeps getting better.”

She dropped the rock. It landed with a dull thud beside her foot. His smile didn’t falter. He stepped over the body without care, like it was roadkill. Blood smeared across his jeans and hands, and something darker clung to his fingernails. He had cuts on his arms - long, deliberate ones. Decorative. Maybe trophies. His eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were blown wide, either from adrenaline or from drugs. She guessed both.

“Let me guess,” Jeff drawled. “You got lost? Out for a walk? Needed some me time?” He was walking slowly, too slowly. Like he wanted her to run, maybe have some fun with her like the stupid victim she had become.

With each step he took forward, she took a step back. Her foot caught onto a rock, but thankfully only tripped and remained upright. It felt impossible to run. Her legs felt like jelly, threatening to make her crumble to the ground. Fear clung to her like wet clothes, forcing her body to take slower steps due to how heavy it felt.

His eyes flicked to the ground beside her. “You dropped your rock,” he said, with mock concern. “Tsk. That’s not very smart. Didn’t your mom ever teach you not to come into the woods alone, little girl?”

Azazel’s mouth was dry.

“I’m not little,” she whispered.

He laughed - full, sharp, terrible.

“Sure you’re not,” he said. “You’re just right.”

And then he lunged. That was her sign to run and run she did, finally listening to the orders her brain was giving. Adrenaline pumped through her, making every scrape of the branches on her skin dull until she couldn’t feel anything else. Fear turned into a boost for her to run faster, push harder so she could escape this maniac. Behind her came the sound of rapid, heavy footfalls and laughter. That kind of laughter. Unhinged, delighted, vicious.

“You’re fast!” His voice rang out behind her, much too close. “But not fast enough!”

The forest blurred past her in slashes of dark green and shadows. Every second her feet hit the ground, she expected a hand to grab her hair, a knife to slice through her back, or worse - his voice right next to her ear. So close. Her breath tore out of her in shallow bursts. Her lungs burned. She tripped over a root and stumbled hard, palms scraping raw on the forest floor, but she scrambled upright, leaves sticking to the blood on her hands.

Don’t stop. Don’t think. Just move.

“You’re making this fun,” he called, giddy. “You gonna cry next? Scream? Pleeease scream -”

A sharp turn. She didn’t even see the incline until it was too late. Her foot hit uneven ground, and she tumbled down a short, muddy slope, thudding into a half-rotten log that knocked the wind out of her. Pain cracked through her side. She tasted blood in her mouth. But she didn’t hear him. No footsteps. No voice.

She laid there for half a second, listening to the pounding in her ears, chest rising and falling too fast.

Snap!

A twig behind her. Azazel twisted and scrambled backward, slipping in the mud, chest heaving. And that’s when she saw him again - at the top of the slope, outlined like a specter between two trees, smiling down at her with wide, blood-flecked teeth and empty eyes that burned.

“There’s my girl.”

But before he could descend, something moved behind him - a darker shadow in the woods, wrong in the way it absorbed the little light that made it through the canopy. A scent hit her nose then, metallic and thick. Like meat left too long outside on a hot summer day. He paused. His eye twitched.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

What… the fuck was she staring at? The man’s posture shifted - not with fear, but with irritation. Like someone whose game had been rudely interrupted. His knife twitched in his hand, his neck craning slightly to the side. Whatever stood behind him didn’t reply, didn’t move,only loomed. Watching like Him.

“You’re gonna screw this up,” The brunette hissed, fiddling with his knife. “She’s mine.”He got no response in return, but the air thickened, or it did for Azazel. She pushed herself up, clutching her ribs, forcing herself to stay quiet and small. If they were distracted - if the brunette was distracted - she had a chance.

A low, wet click echoed from behind the other figure. Not quite a growl. Not quite human either.

“Eyeless freak. Thought you only showed up for kidneys.”

That did it. The shadow stepped into view. Azazel’s breath caught in her throat. A navy blue mask covered its face and its eyes - god its eyes - they were not there in the first place. Tar-like liquid oozed from the empty sockets of the mask, glinting in the flickering light dancing across their figures. Its hoodie hung low, wet with dark splotches on it that she could only guess it was blood.

Jeff didn’t look scared, but his stance adjusted; sharper now and less cocky. That was her chance.

She turned and ran - again. No time to check where. She barely registered the way the forest swallowed her again, her vision doubling from the ache in her side. She slipped more than once. A branch cut across her cheek. She didn’t care. She just moved, every breath jagged and painful, the image of that thing’s eyeless face burned behind her eyes.

What the hell was this place? What was she even running towards?

***

She’s been walking for a while now. That much she could tell. The soles of her feet stung from all the running and walking. Seems liker her sneakers weren’t as comfortable as she thought. Her clothes were ripped in a few places, especially her knees and thighs where she had fallen multiple times. Azazel could only bet that she looked pitiful in that moment.

She didn’t feel watched anymore, which was a good sign. Both creeps were gone and, as far as she could tell, she was in no particular danger. The only problem is that she had grown accustomed to the smell of blood, which , in her opinion, meant she couldn’t smell any potential bleeding individual anymore. The smell of rotting flesh lingered in some places where she had seen decomposing animals and, hopefully, no hidden humans who had fallen at the hands of such barbaric beings.

Fog swirled around her from time to time, causing chills to run through her whole body with each cold breeze. The chirping of birds had slowly subsided, which led Azazel to think that she was heading deeper. Fuck, she shouldn’t have run in the first place. Meliora would have been giving her a nice meal by now, but Azazel’s stomach could barely gurgle in hunger as the sight of that woman remained on her mind. Maybe if she had any food in her system she would’ve vomited it by now.

Pausing to look around, Azazel’s ears would twitch if they could as a weird sound filled the air around her.

It wasn’t screaming or moaning like last time. It was… something else entirely? Wet, perhaps. The slick, slow slurp of something. Azazel crouched low, her body going cold yet sweating like crazy as she tried to approach as silently as she could. Creeping forward just enough to see past a thicket of brambles she saw a man kneeling in the clearing.

No, not a man. That guy she saw behind her first attacker. He hunched forward, face obscured by the dark hoodie that clung to his back like wet skin. His hands - long, almost clawed - dug into something limp on the ground. The body. It was barely a body anymore. Ripped open from stomach to sternum, like a cruel autopsy mid-performance. He reached in with both hands, elbows deep. There was a horrible crunch. that followed. Azazel gagged and clapped a hand over her mouth.

The thing in the hoodie paused. Then its head snapped toward her - too fast. Too sudden for a human.

There were no eyes. Just their cavities that cried dark liquid and a red painted mouth.

There was no mask to stare at her. Azazel’s legs refused to cooperate. She stumbled backward into a tree, scraping her shoulder against the bark. She didn’t scream. Couldn’t. She didn’t even have the breath to. The figure rose slowly, unnaturally tall when he stood to his full height. Blood dripped from his hands, staining the sleeves of his sweatshirt. Something - something - hung from his mouth. A chunk of something pink and wet and very, very human.

He stepped forward, silent. Heavy. One foot after another, deliberate. As though she was already his. As if her body had already been opened and laid bare for inspection. Azazel scrambled back on all fours, slipping in wet leaves and mud, tearing her jeans on a rock. Her lungs begged for air and her throat burned. The blood on his fingers wasn’t even the worst part - it was the stillness in him. A patience like he’d stalked prey a thousand times and always gotten what he wanted.

She had to tilt her head up to stare at him, her mouth gaped in absolute disbelief at the behemoth before her. A fucking beast. She wanted to say something, mutter a plea to be left alive and not end up like the cadaver that laid on the forest floor. She couldn’t even figure out if she stared at a man or a woman.

Her finger raised to point at him, hands trembling so bad Azazel couldn’t remember if she was ever this scared. To outrun such a supernatural creation would be impossible. Two of her steps - hell, maybe three - were one step of his.

“…A-Animal?” Her voice trembled as she dared to speak, her words almost hushed and pushed out of her throat with great strength.

Instead of answering first, that thing pulled at the strip of flesh hanging from its slightly sharp teeth, ripping it away and throwing it onto a rock nearby with a wet slap. Then it stepped forward again and, with a deep, gravelly voice, it muttered, “Cannibal.”

Azazel’s legs finally responded, but instead of standing, they backed her against the tree harder, scraping skin, bruising her spine. She didn’t notice. Her eyes were locked on the creature - if it was a creature. It had no mask, no protection, nothing between its rotted face and the world.

She whimpered before she could help it. Her whole body trembled, adrenaline mixing with exhaustion until she felt like a paper doll about to crumple. Her arm raised again, not to point, but to shield. It didn’t stop. AS if a measly human like Azazel could keep it away.

The thing knelt slowly, hands trailing blood through wet leaves as it lowered itself. He - it - wasn’t close enough to touch her. Not yet. But Azazel could see the pieces of skin stuck under its nails. Some still fresh, others dried black and cracked. She saw the veins in its forearms twitch and pulse like something moved beneath the skin - something that didn’t quite belong.

“W-what the fuck are you,” she gasped.

The red smile widened just a little. And then it spoke.

“Hungry.”

Azazel’s scream caught in her throat. It reached up - not fast, not slow - and plucked a small bit of meat from its shoulder. Flesh from the cadaver? Or its own? She couldn’t tell. With two fingers, it held it out to her like an offering.

Her hands flailed back, palms scraping dirt. “Get the fuck away from me-!”

The offering dropped, unnoticed, and the cannibal crept forward on all fours now. Azazel scrambled to her feet, lungs finally obeying. She staggered backwards and nearly tripped again, but the figure didn’t follow like a predator. It only watched.It studied her the way a butcher studies a slab before cutting in. Like it could already see how she’d look from the inside.

Her vision doubled from the pressure in her head. She backed into a tree and turned sharply - running this time. No thoughts. No plans. Just noise and wind and thundering heartbeats in her ears. But even as she fled, she didn’t hear the thing behind her. No footsteps. No snapping branches. Only her own breath and her own blood pounding.

Still, she knew it had seen her. Knew that no matter where she ran in this nightmare of twisted bark and rotting air, she wouldn’t forget that thing.

***

Eventually, her body gave out. Her knees hit the dirt beside another stream - different from the one she sat at before. Or maybe not. Everything looked the same now. Her palms were slick with mud and blood, her chest heaving as if her lungs were trying to escape her body. She curled against the base of a tree, trying to be as small as possible. Heart hammering. Eyes wide. Ears straining for sounds behind her.

“Heeere, kuh-kitty kitty…”

She could only guess who that voice belonged to. That fuckass twitchy guy. Azazel pressed her back harder against the tree, hand over her mouth to stifle her breathing. She didn’t know if he could smell fear, but if he could, she was practically screaming.

“Did-did ya see it?” he crooned, somewhere between amused and delighted. “The show buh-back there? Jeff’s got ss-such weird hobbies. Guy nuh-never learns how to shhh-share.”

Twigs snapped closer. Fast, but irregular - staggered steps like a stuttering machine. Azazel didn’t dare move. She could hear him breathing now. It came in these snuffling gasps, broken and sharp. Like someone trying to sniff her out. Her fingers dug into the mossy ground. She wished she had anything - anything - to defend herself with. Even the smooth rock from earlier would’ve been a comfort. But she had nothing except raw fear and a body on the verge of collapse. A moment of silence stretched long enough to choke on.

Then: “I can smell yuh-ya, you know.”

Shit.

Leaves crunched right beside her. She flinched. But he didn’t lunge. Didn’t touch her. Didn’t even step fully into view. Instead, a low giggle, closer now - just behind the tree. “You really shouldn’t have left the house. Big no-no. Meliora’s gonna be pissed.”

A branch shifted, and she finally saw him. Brown hair under a hood, goggles glinting faintly in the filtered light. He smiled freely, teeth bared, like a kid who just found a lost pet. The gap on his cheek exposed his molars.

“Ohhh,” he murmured, crouching a little. “There you are.”

She flinched when his boots sank into the dirt just a few feet in front of her. He crouched, knees cracking, head dipping to try and see her eyes where she curled at the base of the tree. His smile was hidden now, but the aura of it remained—sick amusement humming off of him like static.

“You look like you just saw a ghost,” he whispered. “Or-or Jeffff. Sss-same thing.”

His hand lifted like he might reach out and touch her, and finally, her body twitched - shoulders shrinking in as she pressed herself tighter to the bark. Not a scream. Not a fight. Just a tremble.

“Oh, don’t worry.” His voice softened, unnervingly sweet. “If hh-he wanted you, you’d already be open.”

Azazel’s stomach lurched.

“But he doesn’t.” Toby leaned closer. She could smell oil and copper on him. “I do.”

She swallowed and, with a voice barely louder than a breath, said: “Why?”

That made him pause. Toby blinked. His head tilted again, as if her speaking surprised him more than a punch would’ve.

“Dunno,” he said finally. “Maybe ‘cause Meliora - th-that bitch! -” Azazel flinched at the sudden yell, “looks out for you. Maybe ‘cause He thinks you’re funny. Maybe you’ve just got a weird face. Doesn’t muh-matter.”

He stood up in a jittery motion, cracking his knuckles.

“You’re not ready yet,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Hah-hasn’t she started training yuh-you yet?”

This guy had to have some sort of disorder. Maybe tourettes?

Then, for no reason at all, he stopped talking. His head turned just slightly. Like he was listening to something Azazel couldn’t hear. The air changed. Like static behind her eyes, buzzing in her teeth. Her vision blurred for a second, and the shadows between the trees pulsed like they were breathing. Toby stood upright without another word. No quip. No twitch. Nothing. Azazel didn’t dare move.

She didn’t need to see Him to know He was there. Behind her. In front of her. All around. The air bent differently when He was close. The kind of pressure that made your bones ache and your nose bleed if you stayed under it too long. She blinked, and Toby was further away now. Standing off to the side. Head bowed slightly, like a child waiting to be reprimanded. Or praised.

The wind stopped. No leaves rustled. No branches creaked. Not even the stream beside her made a sound. The world had gone flat. Azazel’s head throbbed. Blood rushed behind her ears in a dull roar. She couldn’t even scream - only stare into the dark between the trees where something waited.

And then a whisper - but not like someone speaking, more like a thought that wasn’t hers - pressed right behind her eyes.

“There she is.”

Azazel’s jaw locked. A sharp spike of nausea twisted through her gut, and her vision dimmed at the edges. Her hands shook violently, but the rest of her stayed still. Rooted. Toby didn’t move either. He was just watching now. Waiting. The air felt like it might crush her.

Chapter 9: 8. Deus in Absentia

You’re so goddamn frail

Failing for a change

You just had to know all about the world

But you will never know

‘Cause no one ever told you how

Her knees buckled, bringing her to the ground with a muted ‘thud’. Her body didn’t dare to move. It remembered what happened the last time she felt like this. Every nerve screamed. Her stomach clenched. Her fingers curled into the leaves like claws. A hand came up to wipe something as it dribbles from her nose, and Azazel could only guess that the red liquid staining her sleeve was blood.

Slowly, her head raised itself and her eyes landed on… nothing in particular. Just shadows. But the more she looked, the more the darkness started materialising into something she wished to erase from her memory. He stood before her proud and tall, as if waiting for the woman to look up at the creation of shadows before her. His limbs were long and, unlike how he stood back in her hallway, this time she could see Him at His full height. Lanky, really fucking tall, and intimidating.

“Azazel.”

Her breath caught in her throat like a hook had snagged it. His voice was in her head. Clear and loud, speaking in a commanding tone unlike the hushed whisper of her conscience.

“You saw, then followed, like a duckling after its mother. You shouldn’t have done that. I suppose everyone has told you about your… mistakes.”

He leaned closer, though He didn’t crouch or bow. He just loomed. Gravity bent around Him and dragged her down with it. She could smell nothing, hear nothing. See nothing but Him. She shook her head, a weak and trembling motion that did nothing to deny the weight of what she’d seen. Those tapes, them, Him. He was like the cherry on top.

“And you must pay the price. I have to show you what happens when you stick your nose into my business. I hope you are proud of yourself. This is your own doing, Azazel.”

***

Mist hung low between the gnarled roots and tangled undergrowth, curling around a pair of boots that moved too steadily for someone wandering this deep into nowhere. The girl wearing them didn’t stumble. She didn’t hesitate. She walked like a dog on a leash. Azazel’s head was tilted slightly downward, her eyes vacant and heavy-lidded. Her breath misted in the cold air, though her skin remained dry. Her hands twitched at her sides, the fingers flexing rhythmically, like she was warming up for something or maybe her fingers had gone numb around the metal she gripped.

In her grip: a rusty crowbar. Its edge was chipped and rusty. Well-loved, if she must say.

A young man - maybe in his early twenties - moved ahead of her. He looked out of place. His hoodie was clean, new even, and he kept glancing over his shoulder at her with a nervous smile. Probably thought she was cute. Or lost. Or drunk.

“Hey, uh,” he said, trying for lightness, “you okay? You’ve been kinda quiet since I found you back there.”

The lack of answers made his laugh waver.

“I mean, I get it. Weird-ass forest, huh?” He gestured to the trees. “I thought I heard someone screaming earlier. Gave me the creeps.”

Still, she didn’t answer.

He frowned, slowing. “Seriously, are you-”

The crowbar hit him before he finished the sentence. It wasn’t a warning blow. It cracked against the side of his jaw with brutal force, sending him tumbling into the leaves with a strangled cry. Blood splattered the nearby ferns in delicate, arcing flecks. For a moment, the forest paused - wind catching in its lungs. Azazel stepped over his body like it was already a corpse.

He writhed, dazed, one hand rising to shield his face. “W-wait - what the fuck?!”

The second blow silenced him. It came down onto the bridge of his nose, breaking it instantly, and a crunch echoed into the clearing like a snapped bone in winter. His screams were short, animalistic. The crowbar rose and fell with mechanical rhythm. No hate, not even frenzy, just execution.

Her breathing never changed. Above her, branches twisted like they were reaching for her hair. Shadows bent inward. The Operator watched from within her.

Her body moved with inhuman precision - angled strikes, deliberate shifts of her feet to maintain balance as the man gurgled blood and teeth onto the forest floor. His legs twitched. His hands fluttered in the dirt. His brain tried to fire signals that no longer reached the rest of his body. Then, finally, she stopped. The crowbar dripped.

His head was an unrecognizable ruin. Bits of hair and skin clung to the metal. His mouth hung open, as though still trying to form a final word. Azazel stared down at him with expressionless calm. Something like static hissed in the distance, low and growing, as if the forest itself exhaled through broken radio speakers. And slowly, almost gently, her head tilted back. Her eyes - once dark blue - had gone cloudy, ringed with something shadowy and unnatural.

***

“What have you done?!”

Meliora’s voice rang in her ears, finally shooing away the buzzing that had been going on for… hours? Hopefully not that long. She sounded angry and, if the expression on her face wasn’t enough, then the fact that her voice had a growl to it gave away the fact that Meliora was pissed.

“I told you to stay put! Are you incapable of taking orders?! Look at that thing! You did that!”

“I-I…”

“Azazel, pull yourself together!”

Azazel’s voice caught in her throat, her lips trembling, but the words refused to form. Her entire body had started to shake now, belatedly realizing the weight of what she’d done. Blood still lingered on her skin, now dried in splatters.

Meliora grabbed her by the shoulders. Not hard enough to hurt, but with enough force to jolt Azazel out of her spiral. “Oh, no.” Her voice cracked like thunder in the cold air. “You don’t get to cry like a bitch. Not after this.”

Azazel’s eyes finally lifted.

Behind her, the corpse was barely identifiable as human anymore. Limbs twisted, face broken in, torso split open like rotten fruit. The blood had soaked deep into the forest floor, still glistening in places where it hadn’t dried. A brutal sculpture of something once alive—now silent and still.

“I didn’t… I don’t remember it clearly,” Azazel whispered. “It’s like… like watching myself from the outside.”

Meliora’s jaw clenched. “That’s not an excuse.”

“I didn’t want to!” Azazel snapped, suddenly desperate, her hands flying to her head. “He was in my mind! I felt Him. I couldn’t - God, I couldn’t stop it!”

A long silence.

Meliora pulled her hands away from her head and lowered them slowly. “You were meant to stay with me. Where I could keep Him from doing that. But you… you ran.” Her voice dropped to something almost mournful. “And now this.”

Azazel didn’t argue because she couldn’t. It was entirely her fault. The realisation dawned on her once again, her eyes brimming with tears and breaths growing heavier. This is what she had done. Killing someone? While it wasn’t entirely her fault, the weapon had her fingerprints on it. She was the one who sung, but not the one who considered doing it. It was His decision. That damned motherfucker.

“What do I do?! Meliora, please help me! You’re the only one I trust right now!”

Silence hung between them as Azazel’s words downed on Meliora. What the hell was she talking about? Has Azazel gone insane? Trusting someone so easily.

“You’re lucky I don’t usually take advantage of people, otherwise you’d be in deeper shit than you already are. Don’t put your fucking trust in anyone, you hear me? That’s the most stupid thing you could do in situations like these!”

Meliora’s voice cracked with restrained fury, but her hands, still firm on Azazel’s shoulders, remained steady - maybe the only stable thing Azazel had to hold onto in that moment. Her words stung, not because they were cruel, but because they were right.

Azazel blinked the tears from her lashes, her jaw trembling. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t ask for Him to get into my head…”

Meliora exhaled sharply through her nose and let go of her, taking a slow step back. She ran a hand down her face, eyes flicking to the mangled corpse like it was a ticking bomb. “Intent doesn’t matter anymore, Azazel. Look around you. Look at what’s real. This happened. You did it.”

“I know! That’s why I’m asking you for help! I don’t know how to get rid of a corpse!”

Sobs shook her body, her face hiding in her bloodied palms. She felt too much. This wasn’t what she expected from being taken away by Meliora. Ending up as a murderer. Right now she was like the other disgusting beings that dared to lay a finger on an innocent human being. Lesser than a bug.

“Haa… We’ll set it on fire. You will help. Don’t you dare act squeamish after the shit you just did, get it? I’m not fond of crybabies.”

“Yeah, alright,” she managed to sob out, sniffling pathetically as her eyes locked onto Meliora once again.

***

Campfires were always such and enjoyable thing for young Azazel. Eating roasted marshmallows and running around with her siblings while their parents tried to make them calm down and sit on the logs by the fire was a core memory for the woman she was now.

“Småttingar, the marshmallows are ready! Come and sit before a big wolf gets you from how loud you’re being!”

“But papa, the wolf would get scared! The fire is too big for it!” Said little Sasha, his mouth already full of gooey sweetness. Then followed Maja, taking a stick from her father and stuffing a marshmallow into her mouth. Azazel, always in tow, already had a stick from her mother, jokingly shoving Sasha aside so she could stand between her younger siblings.

“Is it good, kids? I hope I didn’t overdo it.” “It’s delicious, mama! You always do them right!”

Ah, where did the time go? When did Azazel grow so much? When did campfires turn into burning a dead body?

The flames crackled in the clearing, but there was no sweetness in the air now - only the sharp sting of smoke, char, and iron. The firelight no longer danced off the giggles of siblings but licked hungrily at the edge of something gruesome and unholy. There were no marshmallows tonight. Only scorched bone. Only flesh curling back from flame.

Azazel stood still, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to shrink into the memory she’d just revisited. Her lips parted, dry and cracked, the ghost of a smile long since buried beneath ash. Her eyes were locked on the pyre in disbelief. Maybe if she stared long enough, the fire would peel back time. Maybe she’d wake up back in that field, sticky with sugar, her mama humming while brushing sugar off her cheeks.

Meliora stood a few steps away, half-silhouetted by the glow, arms crossed, her expression unreadable. She didn’t say anything. It was the same silence Azazel hated.

The body - what was left of it - wasn’t recognizable anymore. That was the point. It had to vanish. No name, no trace. Just smoke in the trees and soot under Azazel’s nails.

“Say something,” Azazel whispered. Her voice cracked. “Please.”

Meliora didn’t look at her. She watched the fire, eyes flickering with the reflection. “What do you want me to say? Lies are useless right now.”

“I don’t know,” Azazel murmured. “I just… I thought if we got rid of him…”

“You think He cares about evidence?” Meliora’s voice turned sharp, bitter. “You think this is a fucking cop drama?”

Azazel flinched.

“This -” Meliora finally turned toward her, pointing at the fire. “- isn’t just something we bury. This isn’t something we burn and forget. You’re marked now. You did what He wanted and he’s satisfied with you.”

“I didn’t want to…”

“But you did. And now He knows you’re not exactly useless. I hope you’re proud of what you did.”

The fire popped, sending a spray of embers into the air like dying fireflies. They scattered between the two women, settling into the dirt. The silence that followed was deafening, a lull heavy with dread and grief.

Azazel looked back at the flames. For a split second, she thought she saw something in them, but quickly shook her head to get rid of the illusion. But that didn’t stop the whisper curling behind her ear.

You’ll do better next time.

***

The way back home was silent. Once they got back to Meliora’s cottage, Azazel was forced to change into clothes that were not stained in blood and then quickly shoved into the car Meliora owned. She drove in silence, most likely still mad at the other woman for acting like that and putting herself in a lot of danger.

The wounds upon her body were only starting to sting and pulse beneath the worn fabric of Meliora’s clothes, making Azazel clench her hands into fists when a particularly harsh throb would overtake any of the wounds. Sleep barely grazed her eyelids, guilt and disgust keeping her awake and gnawing at her from the inside. In all her years of being a psychology student, not once had Azazel thought she’d get to understand what a criminal feels when committing such a crime.

It felt horrible. It was like her stomach was empty yet so full. Like she had swallowed the poor man who had fallen as her victim. Her skin buzzed with the feeling of Him, still lingering in her mind and feeding on how her brain deteriorated beneath His command and presence alone.

Her house looked the same. The porch light was turned on, illuminating the simple doormat that was in need of a good wash. Her neighbor’s bike was chained to the railing of his house, crooked as always. Meliora had left with a simple “I’ll see you another time.”, leaving Azazel in front of her home and fleeing like a father scared to take care of his children. Damn, so much for trying to bond and fucking it up.

The scent of oranges hit her the moment she entered the modest house, feeling only slightly comforted by the familiar smell comforted by the familiar smell coming from her air freshener. She dropped her bag at the door and peeled off her coat, letting it fall in a heap. She walked to the bathroom, not daring to look in the mirror, and turned on the faucet and let the water run until it steamed while she undressed. Once underneath, Azazel let the water cascade down her naked body and scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed.

The blood was gone quickly yet the feeling of it on her skin wasn’t.

At some point she walked into the living room, turning on her phone to see that Rowan was giving her attitude for not answering.

Azazel: Sorry Ro

Azazel: I had one of those ‘no phone’ days

Azazel: I felt too influenced in a bad way by it

She sank onto the couch. Her legs curled up against her chest, arms wrapped around them tightly. She stared at the dark TV screen, staring at her vague reflection.

Azazel didn’t sleep that night, neither did she cry.

Chapter 10

 

O fată mov se-aruncă de pe bloc și
Lasă-n urma ei o dâră albă de scântei și
O cameră în care-o așteptăm
Din care ne uităm cum
Lumea-nghite lumea-nghite lumea-nghite lumea
Și ne lasă fără ea
Și ne lasă fără ea

 

Sleep had become a craving for Azazel. Was she depraved? Not yet, she hopes. But it does come harder for her.

Azazel jerked upright again, sweat clinging to her skin like a second layer, coming with that same, stinging shame. Her breathing came fast, loud in the quiet of her bedroom. The sheets were twisted around her legs, half-kicked off in the night and her pillow was damp. Another nightmare. The same one, maybe?

Actually, no. Not the same. How should she put it? It changed in almost unnoticeable ways. Details that, if it happened in real life when adrenaline pumped through her veins, she’ll completely ignore them until later when her mind is clear. Sometimes it was the boy’s face, stitched back together wrong, sometimes it was her mother’s voice echoing through the woods, begging her to stop, and sometimes it was Him - The Operator - watching in His usual silence as her hands turned red again.

Azazel pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and sat there in the dark, barely breathing, as if that might slow the racing of her heart. But it didn’t. Nothing did anymore. Every shadow in the room looked like it wanted to move. Every creak in the walls sounded like the start of a whimper she couldn’t afford to hear again.

The wounds on her body were healing. Not yet done but almost there. She patched them up herself. Meliora hadn’t bothered to come around ever since what happened in the woods. It was silent on her side and the closest thing to them that happened to Azazel in the past week and a half were inconsistent nosebleeds and a lot of coughing. She preferred to think the coughing was from all that smoke.

She’s expecting Rowan today. His presence was always sought out by her when everything seemed to be against Azazel. A psychologist needed another psychologist from time to time, no? It was in a human’s nature to seek comfort and understanding.

And a shameless part of Azazel craved for Meliora to come and offer her exactly that. In her own way. She wished the woman would try and be closer to her. Why? She can’t get an answer to her own question. Why does she want the other woman to look at Azazel the way she hopes for a woman to gaze at her? Why does she feel this way towards her? Meliora probably doesn’t feel shit towards Azazel. She’s been told by the ginger herself that she feels neutrality towards most people. Since when has Azazel been a hopeless romantic? Waiting and getting nothing of the affection she craved so much.

It was a guilty pleasure for hers. One she couldn’t seem to satiate.

He should be here at any moment. He liked showing up early for more time to spent together and to probably drain her social battery with his talkative self.

Knock knock knock knock

Talk about the devil…

A series of more knocks followed the longer she took to open the door. Wait a damn minute, Ro… I just woke up. Not even a second after she opened the door, Rowan is entering the house, barely greeting her as he instantly plops down on the couch.

“Alright, miss. Your therapist is here. Spill the tea.”

“Wow, not even a ‘hey, how are you’.”

Rowan kicked his feet up on her coffee table like he owned the place. “No time for pleasantries when you look like you haven’t slept since professor Armand bought a new phone.”

Azazel blinked at him, rubbing a hand down her face. Her body still felt like it hadn’t fully caught up to being awake. “Has he?”

He looked at her. “Exactly.”

She shuffled into the room with a soft grunt, collapsing into the opposite end of the couch. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. The room was dim, sunlight barely filtering in through half-drawn curtains. A half-empty coffee mug from yesterday still sat on the windowsill.

“You want the version with jokes or the version where I cry halfway through?” she finally asked.

Rowan studied her face. “Whichever’s fine with you.”

A bitter laugh escaped her, soft and shaky. “Neither, obviously.”

He didn’t interrupt. He had the impressive capability to empathise with her so well it sometimes made her think this guy was not human. Azazel pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them like a child would.

“I’ve been waking up every hour. Sweaty, nauseous, crying sometimes. Doesn’t matter. It’s always the same,” she said. “Blood on my hands, then that guy’s voice screaming for help. And I don’t feel anything in the dream, I just keep hitting him. And it’s so quiet, too.”

Rowan’s brows knit together. “And when you wake up?”

“I feel everything.” Her voice cracked. “Guilt and shame. Like my whole body’s rejecting me. What are the chances of becoming Him?’

“Oh, shush,” Rowan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Azazel, that wasn’t you. You said He was in your head. You were being controlled.”

“I know that. Logically, I know that.” Her fingers clenched into the fabric of her hoodie. “But tell that to my body or brain. I remember how easy it was or how natural it felt. That’s what gets me.”

“You’ve seen monsters, Azazel. That doesn’t make you one.”

She met his eyes. “No. But maybe it makes me easier to turn into one.”

A long silence stretched between them. Rowan ran a hand through his hair.

“Have you told Meliora?”

Azazel scoffed.

“Meliora doesn’t ‘do’ feelings. She gave me a lecture and threatened to burn me with the body.”

Rowan rolled his eyes. “That sounds like love.”

Azazel snorted despite herself. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah. But I’m your idiot.” He looked at her more seriously then.

She swallowed hard. “Thanks. I just… I don’t want to drag you into this mess.”

Rowan gave her a dry, tired smile. “Newsflash, Az: I already dove in face-first.”

Bless Rowan and his heart.

***

“I heard massages help with sleep. Also sleeping with someone can help.”

“Rowan, I am not sleeping with my stalker. You sick fuck.”

Her voice is muffled against the couch pillows as she lies on her stomach, waiting for Rowan to get started with the damn massage already.

He pressed his palms gently into her upper back. “Damn. You’re stiff as hell.”

“Gee, I wonder why. Could it be the murder-induced trauma?”

Rowan didn’t answer right away. His fingers paused mid-press. “You don’t have to joke about it every time.”

Azazel shifted slightly under his hands. “Yeah, well. If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry. And I’ve already done enough of that for a lifetime.”

There was a sigh coming from above her, a sign that Rowan was not going to listen to her bullshit anymore. Good. The massage actually felt good. Apparently having a mom who does massages for a living comes with a lot of perks. And one of them seemed to be ‘putting Azazel to sleep quickly’. Not that it was surprising regarding the fact that she was running on the fact she had to speak until now. Coffee didn’t help in the slightest, only making her sleepier. Damn it.

***

Well, if Meliora didn’t want to visit, then she guesses that these fuckers would. Fortunately for her, it was just Brian. Or Hoodie? He wore the mask, so she guesses that the person was different. Not that Azazel cared, the names were fucking cringe. And so was he.

Kind of.

She couldn’t really joke about it when the fucker was standing in the corner of her living room. What kind of art was this? To stand so still… how often did he do it to master it so well? Actually, she didn’t want to know. The guy was creepy and he should stay the fuck away.

“…Are you gonna say something, or do you just materialize in women’s houses to stare at them until they cry?” she asked, voice flat. The lack of answer didn’t surprise her one bit.

“Cool,” she muttered, rubbing a hand over her face. “It’s gonna be one of those nights.”

She stepped away from the couch slowly, expecting him to lunge, which he didn’t. Brian just kept standing there, head tilted slightly like a dog trying to understand orders from its owner. The mask made it worse. The sadness sewn onto it reminded Azazel of masquerades, except it wasn’t as fancy as she preferred. Azazel walked past him toward the kitchen. Opening a cabinet, she pulled out her favourite mug, casting a long glance toward the shot glasses. If he was gonna haunt her, she might as well have tea. Or whiskey, but that meant going to the store.

“Don’t touch anything. And don’t breathe weirdly behind me,” she said without looking back. “Last guy who did that got a fork in the neck.”

It was a lie but whatever. She poured water, the sound of it louder than anything else in the house. When she turned around again he was closer. Just a little. Of course she’d notice! She stared at him for a good few minutes to memorise his exact position.

Azazel’s face twitched. “Really, man? You’re doing the creepy inching forward when I’m not looking thing? Come on. That’s like too predictable. You unoriginal piece of shit.”

Silence.

“Do you even do anything? Or are you just the spooky PR guy who lets mask boy and split personality handle all the actual trauma?”

Nothing, just that tilt of the head, the slight lean like he was waiting for something. She wanted to throw something at him. A cup, a chair. Shit, even herself! Instead, she exhaled and sat at the counter.

“So,” she said, finally breaking the dead air, “what does Daddy Operator want now?”

This time, there was a twitch. Well, she hoped. She’s not sure if she just saw his finger twitch or not.

Azazel’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “That’s what I thought.”

At this point, she would’ve preferred if he had started walking around and looked through her things. At least he would be doing something! As much as she hated having people look through her stuff, Azazel wanted this creep to do something other than stand there and look at her. Shit, even Meliora stalking her from over the damn fence was better than this. If she strained her ears enough, she’d hear his heavy breathing.

“You’re not even going to tell me what He wants now? Not a single cryptic riddle or weird static flashback? Not even a fucking seizure?”

She stood, slow and deliberate. Yeah, she remembers her seizure. It was too sudden and she’s sure that was her first one. Apart from the regular seizures she’d have as a baby. She was alone at that time and literally woke up feeling like shit, something she’s grown accustomed to in the past few weeks.

“Am I supposed to feel guilty?” Her laugh came out brittle and dry. “Too late. Already checked that off the list. Pretty sure I’m going for world record at this point.”

Her breath caught in her throat as a flicker of the light caught her attention. Then the fucker moved. Her back hit the kitchen counter instinctively. The mug toppled off the counter and shattered on the tile.

“You piece of-”

The mask was inches from her face now, his breathing heavy beneath it and so was hers. Adrenaline filled her body, and she kind of missed it. The way her heart pounded. Shit, why was she thinking about that? Finally, his hand reached up and slipped something into her hand, forcing the woman to move out of her statue-like stance.

“Your mouth is moving a lot. Like a fucking rat. Shut it.”

His head tilted slightly. Was this bitch curious? Was he fucking judging her?! Her lips parted, wanting to tell him to go fuck himself. But, in the end, she chose silence. The last time she told the guy to go and bounce on that tall ass motherfucker’s dick he decided to point a gun right in between her eyebrows. She wasn’t looking for a piercing. Yet.

“Good girl,” he muttered, voice too close to her ear, filling her with dread. Her jaw tensed and something in her wanted to swing. To show him how good her right hook was. She knew she wouldn’t be able to take him down. A trained woman versus a trained man who was significantly taller and broader than her? He’d win. But getting to punch him would make her feel fulfilled at least. No matter the consequences.

She hated this.

She hated that her body remembered the fear before her brain even processed it. That her fingers clutched whatever he gave her like it was a weapon and not another fucking clue in this twisted little scavenger hunt He was sending her on.

He patted her cheek with a gloved hand before finally leaving, vaulting over the opened window and leaving her to stand alone in the kitchen. The mug shards glinted at her feet. her tea soaking slowly into the grout. Her body finally started moving again. She opened her hand only to see a cassette. Fuck, she kinda hated those after all the bullshit she saw on others ones while investigating the cases.

Azazel let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding and closed her fingers around it then threw it onto the counter behind her. This wasn’t over, obviously. He had plans and she had just been reminded of her place in them.

Bzzz

“Shit!”

Azazel scrambled for the phone, nearly elbowing the poor cassette off the table in the process. The screen lit up with a name that made her breath hitch. Mama. The name that had always been saved like that, with a heart emoji next to it from back when she overused emojis. She hesitated, thumb hovering over the green circle. ‘They can’t see me like this. What if they hear my voice shake? What if they know?’ She answered anyway.

‘Azzy!’ her mother’s voice rang out, excited and oblivious to Azazel’s turmoil. ‘Finally! We’ve been calling you since this morning. Your papa said if you didn’t pick up this time, he’d fly to wherever you’re hiding and drag you home by the ears.’

Azazel let out a weak, shaky laugh. ‘He’d break his back trying.’

‘I heard that!’ her father’s voice chimed in from the background, gruff and familiar. ‘Ungrateful child.’

‘Hey, papa,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘Still scaring the neighborhood kids with your war stories?’

‘Still thinking you’re too grown to call your parents, apparently,’ he grumbled, but there was no bite to it, only warmth.

‘You sound weird. What’s the matter, älskling? I hope you’ve been sleeping and eating well.’ There it was, her mother’s worry and instincts. How did she read her so well? ‘I’ll call Rowan if you don’t tell me if something has been upsetting you!’

‘There’s no need, mama! School’s the one kicking my butt! There are too many assignments now that the semester is slowly coming to an end.’

There was a rustle on the other end, and then her father spoke again. ‘You know, busfrö, you don’t have to carry whatever this is alone. Even if it’s big. Even if it’s ugly! You were born into a family. That means something.’

Her chest ached and Azazel simply wanted to get back to Sweden, curl onto her mother’s lap, and let the world behind. Like when she was little and she’d go to sleep listening to her mother singing lullabies and a belly full of homemade soup.

‘I know, papa. I promise I’m alright.’

She missed this. Talking to her parents, joking around with them. Hell, she mostly missed talking with someone who didn’t know the shit she was going through at the moment. They still thought of her as the innocent girl they knew. Their sweet Azazel. Untainted, innocent, right. Oh how she wished they would never change their opinions about her. Not even when she becomes the worst version of herself and changes drastically, too different in her mother’s eyes yet still the same little Azazel she saw with every smile plastered on a now grown woman’s face.

Where did she go wrong?

Ah. Those damned cases. Those were the reason she was slowly deteriorating, becoming one with the psychos she’s encountered in her time as a ‘new potential colleague’ of theirs.

‘We were thinking… how about we come visit one day?’

That startled her, the voice of her younger sister, Maria, breaking the long train of thoughts Azazel had.

‘Ah, but you were here on New Years! Let me at least have a vacation with my friends before you come!’

The last thing she needed was for wanted (but also unwanted) visitors when her current state was deplorable and she had weird people coming in and out of her house like it was for sale and they were coming to check how it looks. Fortunately for her, they agreed and ultimately she was not going to have her family come over.

***

“Haa, what a night.”

She sighed, flopping down onto her bed and staring at the ceiling. Turning her head to the side, her eyes instantly locked onto the cassette that sad pretty on her bedside table. Shit, should she watch it now? What if she won’t be able to fall asleep at all because of it? The least thing she needed right now was paranoia, although she was surely developing it.

Fuck it. She could call Rowan. Or Mira. Or even Faye! And they would come and comfort her just like she had done to them! Just when she was reaching for it, another voice in the room had her screaming in horror.

“Do not watch it.”

“Holy fuck! Meliora, I almost went into cardiac arrest! Are you insane?!”

The ginger only scowled at how loud the other woman was being and simply walked over to her and took the cassette, throwing it onto the floor. Dramatic much?

“Why? Isn’t it important? Brian gave it to me.”

“I know. That’s why you shouldn’t watch it. It’s Brian, don’t you know he likes to scare people shitless. Dumb girl. He’s been watching you all this time. I had to get him away because he had no reason to stalk you in my place.”

Well what a great way to comfort someone! Ay, wasn’t she feeling better already? So much better she could punch Meliora right now! But! Since she was so calm, Azazel decided to just get under the covers and turn away from Meliora, already acting like a pouting child.

“Don’t act so childish. I’ll be here the whole night and then some.”

“Ugh, why? Is your cottage on fire or something?”

That earned her silence, mostly. The rustling of sheets soon greeted her ears and the bed dipped next to her. Oh hell no! Sharing a bed with her potential killer?! Not on Azazel’s bingo list of this year!

Chapter 11: 10. Touch my neck and I'll touch yours

‘Cause it’s too cold

For you here

And now, so let me hold

Both your hands in the holes of my sweater

Morning sunlight filtered through the window, shining down on two women tangled up in each other, drowning them in a too powerful sunlight for them to remain asleep for much longer. A soft breeze caressed any skin revealed to the morning air, chilling it in its path and making the blonde woman softly whine at the sensation.

Fuck, she slept so well. She thought, sighing in contentment as she nuzzled into Meliora’s shoulder. Yes, she knew damn well the position they were currently in. Azazel woke up in the middle of this just an hour ago and decided that, for now, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Some affection like this didn’t hurt anyone, not even Meliora. And if the woman was uncomfortable she would’ve moved. A killer wouldn’t remain asleep through someone literally laying on top of them. Especially Meliora.

So for now, the two remained like that. Azazel’s mind was still muddled with sleep, not really able to get past that drowsy state even after trying to sleep one more hour. Maybe one more? Or two? Surely she would feel better after a bit more sleep. Judging by how chilly it was, the clock was barely striking 8 am.

Yeah, some more sleep would do her good.

***

Meliora woke up first this time, casting an annoyed glance at the woman plastered to her side. Don’t get pissed. She’s just as tired as you were in the beginning. Why exactly was she getting so angry? She wouldn’t get so pissed if the woman next to her was just a fling. Someone to help her blow some steam off.

Was it because this time, it was Azazel relying on her last strip of humanity to give her a semblance of comfort? Was it because she knew that the student had dug a small part in Meliora’s heart and she loathed it? Or was it because Meliora couldn’t actually get angry at her, because Azazel was becoming more and He was allowing it?

‘Let’s see what your heart is worth.’ He had said, and Meliora didn’t take it seriously because she wasn’t the old her. She didn’t know how to love properly anymore nor did she know how she would treat Azazel. Meliora obsessed. She starved herself then ate too much until she couldn’t eat anymore, licking at the hand that fed her and didn’t take portions. Never. She took as much as she wanted and regretted it in the end. She would devour Azazel whole and then form some stupid apology that wouldn’t even be said.

Azazel shifted against her, a lazy stretch that pressed her thigh over Meliora’s hip like she owned the space. It was irritating.

“Warm,” Azazel mumbled, voice barely audible as her lips struggled to move against Meliora’s shoulder.

Yeah, well, so was the sun before it burned you alive.

Meliora stared at the ceiling, willing herself to move - to push the girl off, reclaim her own breathing space. But the weight stayed, her arm even tightening fractionally around Azazel’s waist without permission from her brain. She hated when her body did that, when instinct outweighed thought.

The Operator’s voice wasn’t in her ear right now, but His shadow was always there, curled behind her ribs. Let her. See what she becomes in your hands. Her hand twitched, caught between brushing stray hair out of Azazel’s face and shoving her onto the cold side of the bed. She settled for neither, lying there like stone and staring at the cracks in the ceiling instead. It would be easier if Azazel woke up first. If she broke the moment herself. If Meliora didn’t have to choose between keeping her or letting go. But Meliora already knew she wouldn’t let go. Obsession was slowly overtaking her and she was afraid of it. She was afraid of the fact that The Operator hadn’t bothered to stop her from becoming obsessed.

What were his plans?

***

Wood crackled beneath the work of fire, split apart and burning with intent as the wind blew, intensifying the flames as Azazel stood before them. All grown and full of blood of the innocent. The dried liquid should’ve felt disgusting on her fingers, but why was she barely minding it? Where was the grimace she normally would’ve shown? Why was she suddenly so unbothered by her actions?

She did it. She killed him. His body lay in the flames, barely recognisable as his muscles flexed. A gruesome silhouette in the pit of hell burning in front of her. A sight the woman didn’t want to enjoy like she did now.

The marshmallows she once knew so sweet were charred black and dripping like tar, landing on the grass below her. Her family stood around the fire, but instead of the happy people she used to know, Azazel was met with a sight that reminded her of a cult. Their faces were blank. Actually, their faces were dripping, the skin melting before her eyes. Sasha was mumbling, sounds of pain filling her ears. Unpleasant. She never wanted to hear them make such horrid sounds.

“Småttingar, come sit before the wolf gets you,” her father says, but there’s no tease in his voice, and the skin moves as his mouth struggles to get the words out.

Wolf? What wolf?

Azazel was the wolf here. They should be afraid of her. They should’ve been running by now, yet here they stand. Where Azazel burned her sins along with the man who made the mistake of crossing paths with her. Her skin itched from beneath, like maggots were trying to wriggle out of it and move towards the malformed bodies in front of her. They wished to eat at their tender flesh and taste the metallic nectar that pumped through their veins.

Her head turned, then her whole body. There stood Meliora, normal and not decomposing. With her red hair and marred skin. Green eyes shone a different colour as the fire reflected in them, reminding the blonde woman of her wrongdoings. A calloused hand moved up to grasp at the throat of the guilty human, gripping with enough force to instill fear into her veins.

They both fell, but the ground never touched them.

***

Hours later, the bed wasn’t as warm. Figures. Where once Meliora lay was an empty spot. Azazel should’ve known that she didn’t do lazy mornings.

Azazel dragged herself out from under the blanket, rubbing her face with both hands until the her vision blurred at the edges. Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. Another message from Rowan. Pick up, dumbass. She groaned, flopping back down on the mattress for a second. Too early. Too tired. Too… everything. But if Rowan was blowing up her phone this much, it probably wasn’t just to complain about the weather. And with the way things had been going lately, “not just” probably meant trouble.

Azazel: Hey Ro

Azazel: Why the wake-up call???

Rowan: finally!

Rowan: i’ve got a lot to tell you

Rowan: can i call?

Azazel: Yeah sure

“You won’t believe what I just found!”

Deadass, Rowan, I don’t think I can believe I woke up after the fucking nightmare I just had.

“Ugh, what? I literally just woke up.”

The man muttered something about sending her some screenshots, but Azazel was too busy as she yawned loudly to comprehend what he was talking about. With a few taps of her nail on the screen, the woman turned serious at the situation. Oh, Rowan was not joking.

“Shit, isn’t this the guy I told you about?”

The article was clearly a poorly translated version of another language, but Azazel would recognise the name and the picture of him.

LOCAL YOUTH WANTED FOR VIOLENT CRIMES – POLICE WARNS PUBLIC

Published 14. März 2017, 07:43 Uhr

Tragic end for a family who lived on the outskirts of the town. Of the four members, only one person managed to survive and is now wanted by the police for arson and the murder of his mother and father, whose bodies were found lifeless and mutilated, respectively. The youngest child, Tobias Erin Rogers is on the loose. It is said his outburst was caused by his father mistreating him and, after his oldest sister died in a car crash, his psychologist confessed that Tobias’ mental health had severely degraded in a short period of time.

If you see the boy in the image please call the police and announce them of his whereabouts as soon as possible. The seventeen-year-old will go to the court once he is found.

Please take care and extra measures for your safety.

“Fuck, I almost didn’t recognise him… What a glow down.”

Were her first words, like it mattered how fucked up the guy was now. So, unsurprisingly, he had a criminal record like the Tim and Brian. Killing his own father… Azazel had to keep herself from getting to a serious analysis of his mind, just to understand him better and use his destroyed mind against him in the future. No, she preferred if they didn’t echange words at all.

“Haa… Ro, I think I’m overdosing on murder.”

“I’m sorry,” His tone was soft, clearly feeling bad for dumping even more shit on her. “I thought you needed to hear - er, read this. I researched some more and it turned out he was found be had almost no memory of what happened. he went to jail and somehow got out earlier and, while still imprisoned, he was assigned a psychiatrist. So, to make a fucking long story short, he’s got serious problems. He’s schizo, bipolar, has tourettes, and some condition that doesn’t allow him to feel pain.”

Silence, and Rowan almost wanted to laugh as he saw Azazel’s confused face on his screen.

“The fuck? CIPA? You mean to tell me I can’t beat the shit out of him?”

“Apparently not. He’s pretty fucked up, Az.”

“Yeah, no shit! I saw him in real life not too long ago! He’s creepy as fuck!”

A loud groan reverberated from Rowan’s phone speakers as Azazel flopped onto her side on the bed, rethinking her life choices. A condom could’ve prevented this. And she mean both her existence and those fuckers’ as well. How is it that crazy bastards always find each other so easily? They’re like moths to a flame. And the flame is Him.

“Ro, I’m tired of this…”

“I know Az. I wish I could say that I understand you but… I really don’t.”

“No, it’s fine. Haa, Meliora came last night. Well, after Brian paid me a visit. A rude one at that…”

“I hope you know I wish i had a question mark right above my head right now.”

They both laughed, easing some of the tension that had built up. Yeah, maybe if they were in a cartoon this would be much better.

“Well, he watched me for a while and then… Not attacked me, but he did invade my personal space. And now I’m left with a cassette that Meliora said not to watch. Let’s watch it together. Please?”

“Uhh… I don’t think I can, Az.”

The fuck?

Rowan’s eyes were no longer on the phone, instead they focused on something in front of him before pursing his lips. Something was wrong, and Azazel was growing more suspicious by the second. The fuck was going on? If it was his mom or dad she’d hear them. But only silence and the usual phone static came from his side.

“Ro? You okay?”

She flinched as his gaze snapped back to the phone, his attention back on her.

“Sorry, I saw this big ass spider on the wall.”

“Ew, burn the house down!”

“Azazel, no!”

***

With the living room bathed in blue lights, Azazel fiddled with the remote in her hand, looking down at it as she contemplated the possibilities of getting traumatised. Brian gave it to her. Of course it’ll probably be something fucked up. He himself was fucked up. Azazel was surprised he hadn’t popped a boner while he was watching her. Nevermind, she wasn’t eyeing his dick anyway. And she couldn’t really say he had a small dick because, as cringe as his nickname was, he had big dick energy, so that insult was useless. Alas, the joke was bound to be spat in Tim’s face.

Why’s she thinking about their dicks?

“I have officially gone insane,” She whispered to herself, running a hand down her face. How pathetic she had become.

She’s glad that her mom gave her the cassette player they had at home. Well, it took a lot of convincing and ‘I’ll need it to watch things for uni’ for her to finally give in but here she was now! Getting ready to scare herself shitless! it would’ve been partially better if Rowan was there as well. At least she wouldn’t have to be alone. But after the weird shit he pulled earlier that morning during the call, well… Yeah, it kinda unsettled her. Not to mention Azazel’s paranoia was going crazy recently. She’s been double checking her doors and windows when alone, because who the fuck would attack her if Meliora was at her house.

Meliora, right… She has to make sure the ginger could enter her house whenever she wanted, which probably wasn’t that big of a deal for her. Still, Azazel kinda wanted the events of last night to repeat. She knew they ended up cuddling like two lovebirds, and honestly she craved it. She wanted more. To feel Meliora’s scarred skin beneath her fingers, to trace lines from freckle to freckle like she was forming constellations.

Running a hand down her face, Azazel groaned, realising her current predicament. Liking her stalker! How fucking crazy! To take her mind off of the weird things going through her mind, Azazel finally pressed the play button the remote, watching as the screen finally changed to the video on the mysterious cassette.

Woods. Those damned woods. They were always related to Him. The crunching of leaves resonated from the TV’s speakers, the image of whatever she was looking at shaking as the person recording was heaving behind the camera. She guessed that they were running and, given the person who gave her this, they were probably followed by one of those crazy fuckers. The imaged blurred as they turned the camera to look behind them, their flashlight illuminating the trees and grass below. No one was behind them, obviously.

Huf, huf, huf… Fuck!

Wait, why did that sound like Meliora? Except with much more emotions than the ginger usually expressed. The camera suddenly dropped, switching to night mode quickly and rapid footsteps slowly became just background noise as a much calmer pair walked up to where the camera was, a pair of brown boots appearing in front of the lens. Whoever grabbed the camera seemed to take a good look at it before Brian in his alter persona appeared on the screen, that black balaclava with a red frown stitched onto it sending chills down Azazel’s spine, reminding her how close he was last night. Creepy. Brian was, is, and will forever be creepy.

He was silent for a few seconds before the video stopped, static filling the air and Azazel had to take a look around, scared that the sound was coming from her mind, not the TV in front of her. Fortunately, she seemed to be alone. Safe. She was somewhat safe right now, although she didn’t doubt that Brian was outside her window, watching.

Another video started, this time showing what clearly looked like a younger, more innocent version of Meliora, straddling the waist of a person. She was almost motionless if it wasn’t for her heavy breathing, her chest rising and falling with each deep breath. She couldn’t tell if she was afraid or simply tired. But judging by the person under her, Azazel preferred not to know how did they end up beneath her.

As Meliora lifted her arms high above her head, the image on the screen shifted. For a few fractured seconds, the same woman appeared - drenched in blood, her silhouette haloed by the carnage beneath her. A battered body lay crumpled at her feet. The footage flickered, turning back to the version of her Azazel saw at the beginning of the new recording, hands clenched around an axe, bringing it down with merciless force onto the figure below. The tape stuttered, cutting back to the blood-soaked Meliora as she slowly turned her head, gaze locking directly with the camera that dared to capture her

CRACK!

The sharp blade of the axe landed between the poor man’s eyes, making him scream as it hadn’t managed to land deep enough. She raised the weapon above her head again, letting it land wherever it could. Again, and again… And again. With each ruthless hit, more blood splattered onto Meliora, the man’s brain, skin, hair, and skull flying in different directions in broken pieces and covered the once green grass in a coat of viscera. She dragged the blade down his body after the last hit, and Azazel couldn’t guess what she was cutting into his skin.

Silence followed and soon, the same brown boots from the previous recording appeared before Brian walked towards Meliora, grabbing her by the hood of her jacket, forcing her up onto her feet. She was pushed away, stumbling towards the camera as she reached for it, looking down at the lens. Her pupils were making her eyes almost black, and her eyes were blown wide. She did nothing for a few seconds before the video ended again, this time having no pause before she was greeted by a gruesome sight.

The man who she killed was hung by his neck on a branch, dangling in the air as whatever pieces of meat that hadn’t ripped from his body dripped blood onto the ground below him. His face was mutilated, blown apart like a clicker’s head from The Last Of Us. Onto his chest, carved like onto any other victim from the cases Azazel studied, was the same circle cut by an X, sloppier than the meticulous carvings she’s seen on other bodies.

Azazel’s bare feet slapped against the wooden floorboards of her home, throwing the bathroom door open as she kneeled before the toilet, throwing up whatever food she still had in her stomach.

“Oh my God-” She rasped out, gasping for breath as spit dripped from her lips and into the toilet bowl.

The gore never seemed to end. When she finally thought she had some peace, the horror started again. It worsened with time, like someone was testing her limits. She could’ve sworn she saw a pair of hands reaching for her before her mind shut down, refusing to keep on handling the turmoil she was currently going through.

Notes:

Hey heyy

This is my first work in years so I apologise if it lacks spark. I decided to add most of the tags the book will contain from now as I am not sure if I should add some of them, so read at your own risk.

I hope I didn't butcher the grammar as English is not my first language. Also, any opinions on the work are welcomed!! Positive or negative!! Feel free to critique me if you wish so, I want to make that into my friend :) I also don't have much knowledge in psychology, in my opinion, but I am trying to improve through this book

I will try to keep the updates as consistent as I can, and if I manage to, I will make a schedule for every chapter!! Have fun reading!!