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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:Y2z/wc1f Tue 04 Feb 2025 10:39:11 No.6189372 View View Report

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>Tagalong

"You can come," you add.

Claudia frowns harder. "Really?"

"Really."

"Why? Cuz you feel guilty about leaving me here?"

You open your mouth, but Lottie leans out in front of you. "Be nice, or she'll change her mind! And if you're really mean, she might turn cursed and stab you, so watch your—"

"I'm leaving," you announce. "If you want to come, come, okay? If not, stay here. It doesn't matter. All I know is that I'm going downstairs, so—"

"You're walking downstairs?" Claudia says. "Like, all the way downstairs?"

Is she asking questions to bother you on purpose? "That's where the door is?"

"Yeah, but, like... it's your brain. Aren't you wasting time walking places? Can't you think yourself wherever? The lizard just kinda appeared and vanished. Like... poof." She flexes her fingers for the 'poof.'

"But I'm not the lizard," you say. "I mean, the Herald."

Claudia has spent the last 200 years perfecting her bored stare. "So?"

"So I do have to walk...?"

"You're useless. This place is a total shitheap. Look." She jumps in place and lands hard. The attic floor shakes. Some of the boxes shift. "You can go right through, I bet."

"Uh..." She didn't exactly appear and vanish. And 'right through'? Through the floor? As you watch, Claudia keeps at it, alternating jumping and stomping. After a few moments, Lottie breaks away from your side and joins her. "Come on!"

You don't come on. You watch as the two of them continue (Lottie enthusiastically, Claudia dead seriously), as the attic floor creaks and cracks, as a single box slides off its stack and plummets to the ground and spills open. It wasn't sealed well enough, or maybe at all. Its contents glint. You walk over and pull out a knife. What's the handle like? You know what the handle is like.

"Move over," you say, and inspect the newly wobbly floorboards. They won't be able to do it, you don't think. They're not real. You crouch down, shoo Lottie's feet back, and raise the knife. You slam it through the floor.

Under it, the floor buckles, thins, and tears wide into blackness. You and Lottie and Claudia, all together, fall through.

You fall.

You land. Underground. It is black here. There is a door with a lot of keyholes here. You are unharmed, if dazed, and Lottie is already springing to her feet. "That's it! That's the one!"

Without standing, you reach into your pocket and retrieve the five keys. You flourish them at Lottie. "Go for it."

She hesitates, but takes them. Meanwhile, Claudia's stood, and is already wandering off in the wrong direction. "Where are you going?" you say.

"This is where I was." She rubs her head. "All my stuff is here. I mean, my shit."

(1/2)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:u9XG12Bt Tue 03 Dec 2024 10:22:44 No.6151718 View View Report

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"I never knew you. You know this. You are taunting me. I am not him, and nothing will make me him, not—"

"Who are you, then?"

In that moment, in the dream, you found no answer. Of course you knew. You had a name that was given to you, and you had taken it for yours. But you searched and searched and could find nothing.

"I thought so," Henry said. He extended the knife, blade toward the floor, and offered its mottled brown handle. "Take this. You'll need it."

You took it. You didn't thank him.

-

Then you had gone down stairs and secret corridors, and in the third scene you were there with the knife in an underground chamber. It was furnished sparsely and in traditional fashion, with braziers and a tattered red drape and a lonely altar, and a groove was cut in the floor for the blood. The place smelled of metal.

You heard footsteps on the stair and grimaced, but it was too late already: she pushed the door open. Why hadn't you locked it? She wore a grim dead expression and held nothing.

"Hello, Charlie," you said slowly.

She appraised you and grew a grim dead smirk. She shut the door behind her and advanced.

"You shouldn't be here, primrose. I shouldn't be here. This is a... a wicked place. An evil place. I'm glad you came to remind me. Should we go back upstairs? Was there something you needed?"

"Something like that," she said, and extended her hand.

You looked and you felt the tide and the track and above all else you felt the great spiral of things. The WYRM eats its own tail. You handed her the knife.

"Thank you," she said. Your eyes locked. Then she ushered you over to the altar, so you were leaning against it, and she bade you to stay. You stayed.

She raised the knife, and your eyes locked again. You smiled wanly, to encourage her. "It's okay."

She smiled wanly back and stabbed you in the stomach. Your vision went white. You buckled. "I love you," you managed to say.

She stabbed again.

"I forgive you."

She stabbed again.

"It's not your fault, Charlie."

She stabbed again.

"It's okay," you said, through the agony, and that was all you could say. You saw her glistening eyes and slumped forward. She caught you with one hand and held you up and stabbed you again, again, again, again, to carve it into the deepest tracks of your memory, and you died. And you woke up.

>END IX
>END NIGHTMARES

And that's it for this vignette! I'll have all the NIGHTMARES compiled together in a doc when the thread ends, for easy reference, and I might add one more just so it ends on a nice X rather than IX. Hope you enjoyed these interstitials, even if they meant I wasn't writing the main quest... which is almost done! I expect two or at max three more updates in this thread. Tomorrow for sure.

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:40Q0Ehom Sat 24 Sep 2022 11:30:35 No.5413863 View View Report

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His voice is different. Deeper, and no stupid fancy radio accent. "I— I won't tell."

Your father cracks a smile. "You're a good girl. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, alright? Now, what time is it? I probably ought to—"

"I need your help," you say, before you forget entirely. "With a— with a ritual."

"A ritual?" He furrows his brow. "Like in one of your books? You know your Aunt Ruby told you not to—"

"For the Wyrm."

He falters. "Shit."

"It's important," you press on. "Very, very important. So don't try and talk me out of it. I already know about all that kind of stuff, okay? I just need you to teach me."

"Charlie—" he says, and thinks better of it, and strides over and takes you by the shoulders. "Charlotte Frances, I- I don't know where you heard about any of this, but it's not for you. It's not good for you. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose. There is meaning in life to be found elsewhere. Do you understand? Who told you about this? Henry?"

"Uh," you say. "No. It's— it's not important."

"It's extremely important, Charlotte. I need to know so I can beat the tar out of them. It wasn't me, was it?" He sounds guilty. "Drunk?"

You don't know how to categorize it, actually. "Uh..."

"Oh, hell. Then Charlie— listen to me. Whatever I said, forget it. It's not a fun adventure. It's not like in your stories. There's a lot of suffering and a lot of bloodshed and there's no point in any of it. Please say you understand."

"I— no!" This isn't right at all. This is your father. Where are the arcane secrets? "No. No. I— I need to do this. I don't have a choice, alright? If I don't, someone will die. Richard will die." This is kind of true. A half-truth. "Please teach me. I don't want to be responsible for—"

You stare. Your father has doubled over. "Um, are you—?"

He's clutching his stomach. "Primrose, I'm dying."

"You—" Your throat seizes up. "You're what? No you're not."

"I am." He straightens and removes a hand: there is a stab wound in his stomach. The blood leaking from it is brazen. "See? But it's alright."

"No it's not?" you say.

"It is. It has to be this way. This is how things work out. This is the story, primrose." His eyes meet yours. "I'd like it if you helped me."

"Uh." He is pressing a knife into your hand. A knife with a tortoiseshell handle. "No, I can't— you don't want me to—"

"It's the ritual. Suffering and bloodshed, Charlie. Carving away. This is what you want." He gently folds your fingers around the knife's handle. "This is what you need to do. It's for the greater good."

"You want me to stab you," you say weakly.

(4/???)

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