This story is also over on AO3. My moirail and I have been working on this project for a while and have finally started editing chapters. Feel free to go over and check out her tumbler. She's parasitoidentomologist
We're answering questions about the story over there because I have refused to get my own tumbler as of right now. Anyways hope you enjoy.
You stare out the windshield at the dreary landscape around you. Grey house after grey house pass you by, and you don't recognize a single one of them. You haven't recognized a single house, street sign, or tree for over half an hour at this point. Great. Just fucking fantastic. It is time to call it. You are lost. Totally and inexplicably lost. Pulling out your phone you stare at the little screen. No service.
"For fuck's sake!" You throw the cell at the passenger seat. "Fucking piece of shit..."
You pull the car to the side of the road. Perhaps you have a map in the glove compartment and could find out where the hell you are. Clicking the compartment open you rummage through the loose pieces of paper. Your fingers grasp at the thicker paper of the map and you quickly unfold it. Looking out the window you read the street sign just ahead of you.
Farland Dr. and Keeve St.
It takes a good minute of searching but you finally find the intersection on the map. Thank God! You aren't very far from the main road. It's only a few blocks from where you are currently sitting. Hastily you pull back out and drive in the right direction. Glad to find your way out of the seemingly abandoned neighborhood. But after the first two blocks you come across a barricade.
Road closed.
God damit. You make the only available turn and grab the map again, pulling it up onto the steering wheel you try to find a detour route. You take your eyes off of the road for all of five seconds when your car makes contact with some object.
"Holy shit!" You slam on the brakes and look out at the hood of your car. A man's body lays splayed across the dark paint. Opening the door you step out onto the asphalt.
"Holy shit! Are you alright? Sir?... Sir?!"
The man looks to be a hobo. His cloths are covered in dirt and grime. You can smell the filth of him as you rush over to see if you will be charged for involuntary manslaughter or not. You know it's a horrible way to look at things, and you should probably be more concerned with the fact that you may have just killed someone, but you just got the life you wanted and 'easy come easy go' is not a thing that can happen. As you draw near, your throat sinks to the pit of your stomach. Shit. The man's torso is... not attached to his pelvis. OH HOLY FUCK! HOLY FUCK YOU'RE GOING TO ROT IN PRISON! HOW... HOW DID YOUR CAR EVEN DO THIS? You run your hands nervously through your thick hair. Fuck what are you going to do?
Footsteps run up behind you followed by panting and you jump at the sudden presence. Oh fuck there's a witness!
"Oh for the love of Hadeth!"
A young man is suddenly beside you with wide eyes, leaning over the man you just hit. He's wearing a dark blue shirt with dirt stains matching the mutilated man on the ground. Do they know each other? The legs of his jeans are hidden as he kneels down and his beige trench coat bunches on the ground beneath him. He turns hateful eyes onto you.
"What have you done?" He hisses.
"I didn't see him! I looked down at my map for all of three seconds and there he was! I swear to god that it was an accident! I... I... Fuck!" Your hands move to cover your face.
He grabs you by the collar and drags you to your feet, forcing you to drop your hands. He pulls you to him within an inch of his face. This close, his visage looks terrifying. He has a wane face with elongated features. Slight fangs are peaking out at the edges of his frowning lips. His slanted, glaring eyes are almost glinting with fury. They are a light crystalline blue, like cold ice. You gasp as the dim street light catches his right eye and you realize that your previous observation was wrong- very wrong. One of his eyes is a bright, bloody red, pupiless.
He growls at you.
"You little thit." His tone is deadly despite the lisp. "Now I have to thtart over. I thpent all night with thith one and it wath my latht athignment before my promotion. I only needed thith one goul and YOU KILLED IT!" He shouts in your face.
"Oh god! I didn't... Don't hurt me!" You raise your hands. "It was an accident!"
His grip tightens and he shakes you once, jerking you around for emphasis.
"I don't give a fuck what it wath! You owe me a ghoul or your life tho pay up!
"What?!" You look from the man in your face back down at the one on your car.
The body's legs slide onto the ground with a thud. Dark globs of some substance splatter onto the road around them and you feel like throwing up. The man throws you to the ground in disgust and goes to inspect the body again. He prods at it with a long finger, swearing under his breath. This isn't making any sense to you. What was he talking about? Where the hell are you?
You try to fight the rising panic in your chest as the man turns his attention back on you.
"Well?" He stands and walks around to the open door on the driver's side and slams it hard, shaking the car. He waits for you to answer with growing impatience. You look around with a dry mouth, not even able to stammer out the confusion and shock swirling around in your brain. He growls again in frustration.
"Get up."
Somehow you manage to find your feet and comply to the demand.
"Sir I... Look I'm lost. I have no idea how I got here. I was just trying to find my way back to the main road. I don't know what you were doing with that man, but I swear I won't say anything! Just let me go."
He laughs darkly and shakes his head.
"Let you go? I think what you thould be doing ith begging for me to let you live. Your life belongth to me until you repay your debt or I decide to kill you. You don't thcrew over a necromancer and expect to walk off thcotch free." He crosses his arms and eyes you.
You feel your own eyes go wide.
"A what?"
"A nec-ro-man-cer." He emphasises each syllable. "You know, raither of the dead? Ath in the ghoul you jutht ran over with your car?" He quirks an accusative brow at you.
You can feel your jaw drop. Vaguely you recall one of your old friends, who had been into the whole magic scene, talked about necromancy. You thought it was all for his stupid game, but looking back at the body you guess that it wasn't. The panic in your chest begins to rise and suddenly your heart is in your throat. The thought that comes to you comes out of nowhere and despite some nagging sensation in the back of your mind, you turn and run... but you don't get far. No more than a few steps to be completely accurate.
The guy grabs you by the back of your shirt and tosses you back against the hood of your car, his hand still gripping your shirt. You are laying next to the open mouthed head of his ruined ghoul, your face pressed into the warm metal of the running vehicle.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" He asks flatly. "What'th your name?"
"V-v-vantas... It's Karkat Vantas." You shut your eyes and try to cringe away from the corpse. The smell of rotting flesh is overwhelming from this close. Some small part of your brain begins to wonder why you hadn't smelled the body when you first got out of your car, although the man hissing in your ear takes precedence over your thoughts.
"Okay Karkat, kith the ghoul." He points to the dead body.
He has to be kidding. There is no fucking way that you are going to put your mouth on that thing. You crack open your eyes and look up to find that red eye staring down at you. His face is serious, albeit a little amused.
"Kith him and thay you're thorry." He shoves you a little closer with a toothy fanged grin. "Do it."
You screw your eyes shut as you find yourself right next to the thing's face. You try to fight off the urge to vomit from the stench and you don't make any movement to do as you're told. However, the man manages to convince you when he lifts you up and slams your chest back down on the hood. Despite your best efforts you whimper a little from the shock. Pursing your lips, you lean until your mouth makes contact with something cool and musty. Instantly you recoil from the corpse and try to spit the taste of it from your lips.
"Good." He laughs. "Now tell him thorry."
"I-I'm s-sorry." You stammer.
He picks you up slightly and holds you at an uncomfortable angle, leaning over to be head level with you. You can feel his breath on your ear.
"Alright Karkat, thith ith how it'th gonna go. Your life ith mine and you don't get a choice until you repay your debt. From now on, I'm your mathter. And if you dithpleathe me, I'll kill you. Got it?"
Nodding you murmur a quiet "Yes." Still too afraid to open your eyes.
He lets go of you and walks around to the drivers side door opening it and reaching inside. He emerges with your keys and pockets them. Oh god. He really was intent on keeping you around. You don't think you're ever going to make it to John's house. Fuck him for giving you those shitty directions in the first place.
"Do you have anything of value in the car? If tho, grab your thit cauthe we're leaving."
Your mind races. What did you have? Your phone, a map, and some shitty CD's. Most of your stuff was still packed away in boxes at your apartment, you haven't had the time to even unpack yet. There were some legal documents in the glove compartment, but what good are those going to do you now? You decide that your best bet it to just take the phone and the map, they're the only two things you can think of that might help you escape the madman... if you ever got the chance. The pit your stomach ties in a knot and you get the feeling that you can't count on getting such an opportunity. Running to the passenger side, you reach in and grab the items anyways. Better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.
The tall man watches you close the door and quirks a brow, wondering if you are satisfied with your recovery. But he doesn't give you time to answer or even collect your thoughts. He turns his back to you and drops down into a crouch. What the fuck is this psychopath doing? You lean to the side to get a better view. He's drawing something on the ground with some kind of... sidewalk chalk. He's drawing on the ground with pink fucking crayola sidewalk chalk.
You squint, trying to get a better look at the symbol. It looks to be some kind of pyramidal diagram. Strange runic letters circle around it. As he writes the last of the letter, the entire image starts to glow. He sheaths the chalk and stands up, examining his work. The light intensifies with a sudden burst and the image vanishes, leaving a faintly glowing man sized hole of magenta umber on the asphalt. He turns back to you.
"Get in." He jerks his head back to the hole.
You don't hesitate to approach, but as soon as you're within an arms length of the hole you stop. Cautiously you peer through the entrance and see nothing. The hole goes down about a foot and then is consumed by complete darkness. The closer you lean towards it, the more you can feel a sort of gravitational pull, almost as if it were some kind of black hole in space. Well it was a black hole... in the ground. You feel slightly idiotic for making such a comment, considering your situation.
"Before we're potht mortem Vantath."
The necromancer huffs impatiently and knocks you over with a shove. You gasp as the hole expands in your vision and you fall head first into it. All the rollercoasters in the world had nothing on this feeling. You close your eyes and scream as you tumble further and further into the abysmal opening. This goes on for several minutes before you realize that the feeling has gone as soon as it came and you were no longer falling, but resting on your back, looking up at a magenta sky. What the fuck just happened?
"Welcome back princeth. Did you have a nice nap?"
Your eyes shift to the side and you can see the necromancer kneeling over you.
"I... Wha... What the fuck was that?!"
He sighs looking bored.
"A portal."
Your mind struggles to catch up to you. A portal, a ghoul, and a necromancer... What the fuck are you dealing with? So many questions fight for dominance in your mind and after a moment, you settle on one.
"Who the hell are you?"
He stands up, stretching lazily with his lanky arms extended out above his head.
"Tholluxander Ovidiuth Captor, Necromancer thecond clath of the Collegiate Order of Divination." He smirks and shrugs, having finished with his stretching. "Not that it matterth to you. Ath far ath you're concerned, I'm jutht the Mathter."