On the edge of good and evil, there is only the outcome that matters
"You are currently residing a mansion? Up the hill near the town?" Lifty asked curiously. "How does it come that we never met you here?" Ian scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, actually the mansion looked a little forsaken. It isn´t really mine, I was just homeless and hoped that nobody lives in there…"
"So, you don´t know whether the house belongs to someone or not?" Shifty interrogated further. "Yes, that´s exactly the point…" He admitted, blushing a bit. "But I didn´t know how to help myself differently… Do you want to accompany me?"
The twin brothers looked at each other for a short time. Even if the mansion is still resided, it won´t hurt to try and hope that they´re the only ones in there. "I guess we can. We don´t have much of a choice anyway." Ian smiled warmly at them. He secretly hoped that they would say that.
"Fine then!" With that said they went on as Shifty suddenly falls to his knees, groaning in pain. "Fuck! My ankle…" Lifty rushed to his brother's side, stabilizing him, Ian does the same at the other side. Shall I heal him? I can´t expose my gift to anyone so frivolously, Ian thoughts to himself.
"Well it is not that far as I already said, we should be there in a few minutes…" He said reassuringly. "So… where do you come from Ian?" Lifty wondered. "I am rather confused that the cycle of death in this place is so confusing you, like, you really don´t know about it?"
Ian ignored the first question as he admitted meekly "No… I don´t have any idea about it…" Now it was Shifty who got perplex. "So, you wanna tell us that you never actually died?" What kind of question is this? If I would have died I wouldn´t be here… Although I would have welcomed death multiple times sometimes…
"No… I can´t recall any day I actually died… Lucky me I guess?" The twins are left with an open jaw, but it was Lifty once again breaking the ice. "Yeah well in this place death is rather a common occurrence… But it isn´t that bad because every time you die you will be resurrected at 8am in the next day."
"You can describe it as some sort of curse we´re actually suffering right now." Shifty added. "Nobody actually knows its origin, but it had to start somehow maybe hundred years ago…" Now it was Ian's curiosity which was rising. "So, the curse is reviving you every other day if you died the day before?"
"Yes, but not only that." Lifty replied. "It prevents us from aging either, making us somehow immortal. We even have a single infant in this town, doomed to stay so for who knows how long." Ian doesn´t know what to make out of this. "This sounds somehow derogatory…"
The brothers shared another look at each other as they admitted in unison "It mostly is, no one really can prove this but sometimes we have the feeling that this curse is triggering some events on purpose just to see us perish. We already had an unpleasant encounter with its force."
"You already encountered it? How did you manage to do that?" But the moment he asked that, Ian got the feeling that he went to far as he could recognize their expression darkening. "Let´s just say that… we had to overcome some things involving it…"
"I´m sorry, I didn´t mean to dig too deeply…" Ian feels a bit guilty for opening fresh closed wounds. "No, its fine, if you really never encountered any of it we can understand that you´re curious. But you didn´t really answer our question, care if I try again? Where do you come from if not from here?"
The grey furred coon feared this question to come up. He reminisces the happenings, his face paling. "I… don´t really know… I don´t even know how I got here…" His sudden introverted demeanor is rousing the brother's suspicion. "If you say so…" Lifty says, getting an odd feeling about their new-found companion.
"I really don´t want to annoy you but… How far is it now? My ankle is killing me…" Shifty grumbles, irritated by the burning sensation emitting from his foot. "It isn´t that far anymore… You can see it already if you look up there." And the fedora wearing rodent could indeed see the shape of a rather big looking house.
"Don´t tell me that we really have to go up that hill…" As he sees the hill's acclivity, Shifty gets more than only not amused by the fought to struggle up there. "Oh, shall I carry you up there, bridal style?" Lifty teases his brother, smiling smugly but got surprised when his brother suddenly throws himself around his neck.
"Oh yeah thanks bro, that is such a benevolent offer from you to carry me up there." Shifty purrs, resting his head against the chest of his now dumbfounded brother, he smirks at him. "Now move, my muscular hero…" He teases, clinging his arms around his brother's neck so that Lifty would think twice about just dropping him.
"You´re impossible…" Lifty said, realizing that his joke backfired. Ian couldn´t help but chuckle at his predicament. "If you two weren´t brothers, someone could think you would be an actual couple…" Lifty blushed deeply at this comment.
"Well, sometimes we enter into a purposeful relationship, isn´t that so my lovely-brotherly husband?" He ridicules his brother further, stroking his cheek to tease him further. "Shut… *pant* up…*wheeze*". A few minutes later they finally arrived at the mansion.
"So, we´re here finally… Just let me get my keys and…" But the moment Ian touched the door it opened itself once again, right as the moment he first found this building. "This is strange… I thought I would have locked the door… I guess I´m just rather forgetful again…"
But the moment they entered the uneasy feeling faded away once more and they feel awkwardly at home. "This is indeed a cozy place you got here… You´re hopefully right at the assumption that this place is forsaken…" Shifty said as he suddenly got to the ground roughly by a totally exhausted Lifty.
"What? You tired bro?" He mocks him, earning him a middle-finger from the sweaty and panting raccoon, leaning at the wall to regain his strength. "Right to your left is the living room. You can get there I look if I can find something to take care of your injured ankle."
They nodded and got on the oddly clean couch. The lights in every room are off and this entire place seems to be forsaken indeed, but it is so tidy in here that it seems unlikely to be abandoned. "Do you think the kitchen is behind that door?" Lifty asked as he finally caught his breath.
"Don´t know about that." Shifty said nonchalantly. He knows that his brother is hungry, who wouldn´t be after being nourished via an infusion while being unconscious in a bed? But the pain is his foot is too severe to think of something to eat. "I´ll be right back."
With that said Lifty entered the room behind the door. Shifty could see his tail as the door slowly closed itself. "I wonder who lived in here before… I never noticed this mansion…" He looked around, the lights still off but this isn´t really a problem since the moonlight is almost blazing the room with its soothing blue-white gleam.
Only a few moments passed as Ian returned to Shifty, in his hands bandages, a wound disinfectant and an ointment. "I found something useful, do you trust me on this?" Shifty nodded. "You saved our life and I don´t see why I shouldn´t trust you on this.
"This can burn a little…" Ian says as he sprays the disinfectant on the open ankle, causing Shifty to groan a little. He carefully distributes the ointment upon the injury, its cooling trait already relieving the pain a little. Shortly after this he wraps the bandage around the wound, tight but not too tight.
"You´re surprisingly good at this…" Shifty stated, a little struck with awe as he feels the facilitation caused by the treatment. "Thank you, where did your brother go?" With that asked, Shifty began to wonder either. For a short check for a kitchen he´s already gone for quite a while.
"He checked the room behind the door…" Ian turns around in confusion, only to see the kitchen which is connected to the living room. "What door?" Shifty tilts his head to look around him only to see the same thing as Ian. The kitchen, the wall with the door somehow vanished.
"What the… I swear there was a door at this wall! I saw my brother entering it!" Ian stands up and enters the kitchen, looking around the drawers and closets for any doors hidden inside walls or anything like this, only to find nothing like this.
"I can´t see any door Shifty…" He turns back at the couch where the injured rodent was sitting on, but it is empty now. "Shifty? Shifty! Where are you?..." Something is not right. Ian begins to feel very uneasy, as if someone, or something is watching his every move.
He feels a cold hand climbing up his back and turns wildly in panic. "WHAT THE FUCK?! WHO IS THERE?" But as he touched his back there was nothing. The feeling vanished as soon as it appeared. He exits the living room in shock and heads to the mansion's front door, but it is locked as if someone jammed the lock.
"What the hell?!" He tries the door to the backyard but it isn´t filled with more luck for him as it is jammed either. He begins to hyperventilate, panic almost overwhelming him.
"Look at this pathetic idiot! Wheezing like captured prey!"
"Stop it! He is in total panic!"
"Yes, he is! Yes, he is! Much to our bliss!
"What does he even think he is doing here? He will die!"
"He will never die, never decease! Unable to catch death's cold breeze!"
The voices in his head start to swirl up around him once again, forcing him down to his knees. "Please… stop it… I can´t bear this… Please stop it… Please…" Suddenly a paw is grabbing his shoulder, pulling him out of his madness. "Everything ok with you?" Lifty asks
"Wh…What! Where have you been? Your brother is worried sick about you…" But Lifty just cocked his head in confusion. "Me and my brother are sitting in the living room, care to join us? I fetched us something to eat." Ian fails to fathom this whole situation but decides to accept it for now.
On the living room's table, there is a feast prepared with the finest sort of meat, perfectly prepared lettuce and sorts of fish Ian didn´t even know about. "You did all of this in such a short time?" Ian asked with rising suspicion, but Lifty just shrugged.
"Yeah, it was no big deal…" As Ian sat down at the arm chair next to the couch he feels a second sentiment joining his suspicion, a small amount of crawling fear. He observes Shifty who is quietly chewing on some fish, his expression is eerily motionless.
But the more his gaze is chained towards Shifty, the more uneasy Ian begins to feel. It seems that he is eating fish, but it sounds like he is chewing something more solid… Like he is chewing on bones… "You have to eat you know?" Lifty said in an unaccustomed monotonous way.
Reluctantly Ian gets himself a plate which is standing on the table, but suddenly his environment began to flicker for not even a second. "What the?!" He could swear that he saw something like…remains? Anxiety overpowering him he decides to put the plate away and stands up.
"I… Think I should go…" Suddenly Lifty and Shifty are lifting their heads, chaining their gaze towards him, piercing him with their stares. "You want to leave so soon? I don´t think you can do that." Shifty said in a neutral yet threatening way. "I really don´t think that I can stay any longer…" Ian said, getting overly nervous.
But the moment he tries to leave the living room he feels a cold hand grasping his neck, engulfing his entire throat, causing him to emit gargling sounds as the claw is nearly suffocating him. It is the same claw who touched him at the back just a few moments ago.
"Now, you are a smart one, aren't you? I have to say that I´m impressed. Not everyone can sense an illusion I create. Although you did not manage to recognize everything. Your mind is so fragile, just like the other two. Now tell me, what were you three doing in my humble habitation?"
Ian struggles to breath as he tries to open his eyes, only to look in the face of a giant female, which is only recognizable by her voice, warthog. Next to her stands a giant cauldron with boiling concoction in it. To his relieve he sees Lifty and Shifty still alive, but equally shocked as they´re chained at their wrists to the ceiling.
As he looked at the table in front of the cauldron he sees many bones and rotten flesh. He didn´t hallucinate, he was almost about to chew on remains, rotten remains… He observes two gargoyles feasting on the carcasses. Suddenly the warthog grabbed him by his jaw and fixated his gaze right towards her eyes.
"You know it is rather impolite to not answer a lady's question. I give you one last chance. What were you doing in my house?" The moment she loosens her grasp a little, Ian manages to catch the air to speak up. "W…We don´t mean any trouble! We were just lost and looked for a place to live in…"
The witch pushes him against the wall, causing him to groan in pain once more. "And you three just thought that you could just wander in here? I hope you realize that you´re rather in great peril now darling." Although her grasp is still tight, Ian manages to answer.
"They don´t have to do anything with it! I brought them over here, I am the one who thought it would be ok! Please, I´m sorry I didn´t mean to disturb you! If I would have known I wouldn´t have come here!" He pleads, causing the witch to chuckle about the whiny raccoon.
"Well, you say that you lured them into here?" She repeats, turning her gaze slowly towards Shifty who yelps in fear as he notices her stare. She lowers her stare down to his bandaged ankle. "Actually, I need a part of one of you. How about I take his foot as repayment?"
Shifty emits muffled cries of despair, but his mouth is wrapped up as well as Lifty's who hangs unconsciously on the chains. The witch slowly approaches him as Ian shouted in exasperation. "No! Please, leave him alone! You can take mine if you want a body part as repayment."
He has found the correct words, the witch stopped at her tracks and turned slowly around towards him, causing him to gulp. What does he have himself and them gotten into? "You are willingly sacrificing a body part? Marvelous! This way the spell will work even better!"
"What do you mean? What spell?" Suddenly the witch bursts out into manic laughter. "Oh, just a little spell to ward myself from the curse lingering in this place." Ian got perplex but also curious again as he hears about the "curse" a second time.
"You have something to do with it? You cursed this place?" The witch chuckled a bit while grabbing him at his bare chest, pulling him up by grabbing his fur, causing him to groan in pain. "What a delightful thought this is but no. The curse has its origin in a far more powerful existence, out of this world."
He grabs her by her hand to ease the pain, but it is only working a wee bit. But the moment she grabbed him by his chest, she gasps in awe. "You… are something special aren´t you? You are not an easy to kill fella… No, I can sense a different thing in you. You never died once, did you?"
She asked, smiling creepily at him, showing her tusks. But he didn´t answer her. "Well, lets just get straight to business then…" She drags him towards a free table, dried blood staining the rotten wood. He gets fixated on the back, arms and legs spread out from the body.
Suddenly the witch closes up on him with her nose, sniffing his body and armpits. "Ah, the smell of fear… It is utterly arousing me…" She rhapsodizes before she slowly digs her claws into Ian's ankle, slowly digging deeper into his flesh, piercing his skin, gristle and bones.
Ian screams in great pain. "Yes! Let me hear your agony! Let me feast on your tantalizing pain!" Ian screams at the top of his lungs, tears pouring down his cheeks. Shifty witnesses in horror as he must watch Ian's ordeal and the sensation of someone sacrificing himself for him once again.
This stranger didn´t even know them and yet he is so devoted to save them? Sure, he lured them in, but he also mentioned that he is unsure whether this house is already inhabited or not. They took the risk as well and would have acted the same way if they were about to find this place after they saw their former home in ruins.
So why is he going through this for him? There isn´t even a guarantee that they will be allowed to leave after this! A spurting sound is hearable, and a foot is falling to the ground. The witch grabs it without saying anything, leaving a whimpering Ian tied to the table.
She throws it into the cauldron while speaking a sort of chanting in a language Shifty cannot understand, sounding like gibberish nonsense. The moment the witch is finished she is engulfed in a dark and green light. After a few moments the glowing surrounding her body stopped, she turns back to Ian who is still sobbing.
"Now… You really have done me a great fav…" The witch was stopped as she witnessed something, striking her with awe. The stump under Ian's shin which was spurting blood just a few seconds ago was now a closed wound. But as if that isn´t enough, the part which was ripped away is rapidly growing back.
In a matter of seconds, Ian's foot has fully regrown. "My my…You really are something special, just as I sensed. But never could I imagine witnessing something that marvelous. You never died because you are unable to die, am I right?" She asked, her tone turned from smugly threatening to somehow teasing but somewhat kind either.
But to her surprise, Ian seemed to be in a different place somehow, muttering to himself. "Please…stop…please…just shut up!" Witnessing this the witch slowly approaches him curiously.
"You deserve this! You deserve every pain!"
"Give him peace! Give him solace!"
"Tranquility can´t be achieved through stupidity!"
"Oh, you poor poor little raccoon. Suffering from voices inside yourself? You´ve done me a favor, let me repay this kindness…" She untied him, he curls up right after it, totally giving in into his insanity. She grabs him by his throat and grabs his scalp with the other hand.
Suddenly she begins to pull hardly at him. At first sight, Shifty thought the witch would tear him apart but on a sudden he can see an ethereal figure emerging from him. She pulls slowly, raising her hand step by step until the energy takes the form of multiple faces, screaming wildly at sixes and sevens.
The witch has now a puddle of screaming, ethereal faces surrounding her wrist. She begins to glow in her green light once again, causing the faces to vanish into vapor. Now the only thing left is silence. Ian stopped shivering right at the moment the faces vanished and stared at the witch in a mixture of shock and awe.
The witch drops him to the floor, bruising his butt a little. "What did you do to me?" He asked, still utterly perplexed. "I freed you from the voices in your head. Too many voices are limiting your choices, you know?" She said yet smiling.
Ian could not believe that. He got rid of the voices that easy? "They will never return?" The witch chuckled a bit at him. "No, unless you´re getting on my nerves. I can return them to you any moment if you want…" Ian gave her a nervous smile. "I don´t think that we will pester you again…heh…"
"I´m sure of that… but it was heartwarming to see that you care so deep for your family…" Shifty, as soon as he removed the ribbon covering his mouth, asked curiously with Ian in unison. "What do you mean with family?" Both blinking in obfuscation.
"You don´t know? Strange… I always thought brothers would know each other…" Now it was Shifty who asks alone. "Wait, you mean we three are related?" Without a warning the witch dashes towards them, cutting the wrists of the two and a still unconscious Lifty.
She drips the blood on her palm and licks it until her hand is clean again. After a few joyful moans, she grins wildly at them. "Undoubtedly… You three share the same blood, the same parents definitely…" Ian tended his wrists as Shifty spoke up "Hey! That did hurt!" The witch chuckled at this.
"Well, ask your grey furred brother to heal your injury." Now the hat wearing coon was even more surprised. "You can do that?" Ian just laughed sheepishly at that but healed his wrist and injured ankle shortly after this using his gift and leaving Shifty flabbergasted. They turn to the witch, telling their farewell.
"Oh, we will cross our ways again definitely. Just make sure to get on my good side. Now, please be so kind and leave my house." Without a word Ian freed Shifty and a still unconscious Lifty. Somehow, they are brought to the front door in a rather rapid way.
Shifty is carrying now his brother the same way his brother was carrying him. They run down the hill as fast as they can as Lifty suddenly awakes. "Ow, my head hurts…" Shifty noticed his brother. "Ah you are awake! I´m glad I don´t have to carry you anymore."
But the moment he was about to drop his brother he feels his arms wrapped around his neck as Lifty rests his head on his brother's chest. "Nah, I´m still tire. Besides, you´re really good at this." Shifty knows without even looking at him that he is grinning widely at his retaliation.
"You´re enjoying this huh?" He grumbled, but Lifty only replies giggling. "You bet I am!" Ian chuckled at their demeanor as they suddenly cross Handy's path. "Ian! Nice to meet you again. Wow Shifty, I didn´t know you guys turned gay towards each other."
Lifty and Shifty blush and share an embarrassed look at each other as they part away. "Hi, Handy…" He greets him back. "What are you doing out here?" handy wonders. "Well, we three are homeless and are looking for a place to live in…"
"You can stay with me." Handy said, surprising Ian. "What? We can stay with you?" But Handy shook his head. "No, you, but not these two. I have some troubles letting people live inside my house who once left me to rot in a prison after stealing my car."
Before Ian could say anything, Lifty took two steps forward towards handy. "Handy, I know you may hate us for that, and I totally understand that. I don´t expect you to do anything for us but please know that we are truly sorry for what we´ve done."
"You really mean it?" He asks, still hiding his hands behind his back. "Yes, we truly mean it." Shifty assured. "If I´m about to believe you two you have to come closer, come down to my face." They looked at each other in confusion but did as they were told, holding their faces directly at Handy's.
Suddenly, Handy takes a forceful swing and punches the raccoon twins in their face, injuring their nose badly. They yelp in surprise as they fall on their back. "Now we´re even. You need a place to live in?" Shifty, holding his aching nose. "How in the world did you get your hands back?" But Handy only pointed towards Ian who is once again laughing sheepishly.
"You have much to explain as soon as we´re sheltered…" Lifty said. "Now, my home isn´t far from here. Could you three do me a great favor as soon as we´re there?" The three shrugged. "Sure, what is it?" Lifty asked. "Could you please take a bath? You three stink worse than Disco Bear after his futile gym-sessions."
