In Vortices of Febrile Dream
[Worm/Warhammer]
Summary:
Four chortling Powers. Eight winds of magic. One teenage girl. Thirteen has never been a more unlucky number.
IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD.
Chapter I
Belching quietly to himself, a swollen toad clambered atop Emma's head. "Say, you're Taylor Hebert, aren't you? Jolly good! Pleasure to meet you," he burbled cheerfully. The diseased-looking creature left a trail of ooze and slime in his wake, as he finally flopped his putrid greenish-yellow belly down and squatted on Emma's beautiful (but now extremely filthy) red hair.
I stared back and forth between the talking toad, and the three girls that surrounded me. Emma, Sophia and Madison had been in the midst of their usual routine of greeting me when I arrived at school in the morning - i.e. sneering at me, calling me disgusting nicknames and making snide remarks, occasionally pushing me around in a literal sense, and so on. Like I said, the usual.
But then, just like that... They'd stopped. Completely frozen up. Not talking, not moving... Not even blinking or breathing, as far as I could tell by looking at them.
"Um... Have we met before?" I waved a hand in front of Sophia's unresponsive face, careful not to get too close to the sickly-looking toad that was leaking indeterminate fluids on Emma's head.
"Why, I'm your biggest admirer!" Mr. Grody Toad chuckled, ending his sentence with a wet coughing noise. "Your resilience and steadfast determination is truly inspiring!"
Wide-eyed, I gaped at him. "...Admirer? S-seriously?"
"Oh, absolutely," he said with a smile and a nod. When he moved his head, a couple of his numerous pustules burst, gushing out small trickles of vile-smelling glop. "When I think of all the woe and hardship you've endured, at the hands of your former best friend, and the authorities meant to protect you..."
The toad straightened and balled a tiny fist, tapping himself on the chest with a moist schlorpp noise. "...Why, I gets me right here! Oh, but it does, Miss Hebert, it most assuredly does," he cried. When he lowered his hand - well, front leg - again, it was dripping with a generous dollop of pus from his newly-popped buboes. Settling down on Emma's scalp, he didn't even seem to notice when his hand ended up smearing the goop on her forehead.
"Erm..." I swallowed. "T-thanks, I guess..."
Gagging, I struggled not to throw up as I watched the rivulets of yellow pus slowly oozing down towards Emma's open, unseeing eyes.
"Did you do this?" I waved at the three girls, who still stood as unmoving as statues. "Made them just... stop, I mean?"
I yelped and jumped back in fright - luckily, not towards Emma and the grody toad - when a huge, red dog leapt out of nowhere and landed on Sophia.
"Hear our words, Taylor Hebert," the hound growled. "We will brook no interference as we speak our piece! Not even from your own dreams and nightmares!"
Breathing a small sigh of relief, I studied the huge, savage-looking canine. Somehow, he managed to balance on top of Sophia's head and shoulders, without knocking the immobile teenager over. "So, this is just a dream? Of course it is... That makes a lot more sense."
"Mmm... You're quite the fast learner, pet," crooned a purple lobster. She slithered her way up along dream-Madison's trouser leg, disappearing under the back of the lifelike mannequin doll's t-shirt for a few seconds - well, "disappear" is probably the wrong word. There was still a large, visible bulge in the back of the shirt, shuffling up along the girl's spine; eventually, the lobster squirmed out of the shirt's neck hole, somehow managing to squeeze through the tight opening without ripping the fabric. Dream logic, I suppose.
"I can see why my siblings are so... intrigued by you," the lobster purred, curling up around the top of Madison's head like a living crown. The creature's limbs undulated oddly when it moved, seeming more like worms or short tentacles than the legs of a crustacean.
"Looks like we're all here, then," cried a large crow, swooping down through the school corridor's ceiling like the building was as insubstantial as smoke. The bird landed on Principal Blackwell's scalp - when did she get here? - and mussed up her ugly haircut with his claws. Blackwell seemed not to notice, standing just as still as the other three statues in the hallway.
"Splendid! Just, dare I say..." cackled the bird, preening and adjusting his dark blue feathers with his sharp beak. "...As planned."
I turned in a slow circle, trying to keep an eye on as many of the weird animals that had surrounded me from all four cardinal directions, as possible. Oddly, I felt more comfortable - well, less un-comfortable - having the snarling canine at my back, than with the lobster in the same position. For some reason, my instincts gave me the impression that the dog would be far less likely to ambush me from behind than the eerie crustacean would be. Those long, dismal months that I'd gone through, putting up with Winslow High's chronic bullying epidemic, had been useful for teaching me that much, at least.
"Let me guess," I said, eyes flickering between the creatures perched on Madison and Blackwell's heads. "You're infernal emissaries from the darkest pits of the Abyss, and you've come to offer me a Faustian bargain: You can fix all my problems, easy-peasy, in exchange for my immortal soul."
Glancing around at the dumbfounded beasts, I planted my fists on my hips. "Well? How am I doing so far?"
The red dog stared at me, his burning eyes looking as wide as saucers. "How did she...?"
"What'd I tell ya? Huh? She's a smart one, she is!" Giggling like an exuberant woodpecker, the crow nudged the lobster with his wing. This was quite impressive, considering the three feet of distance between them, compared to the bird's wing being perhaps a foot long, at full extension. Dream logic again, probably.
"Oh! How absolutely delicious," gasped the lobster, writhing and squirming excitedly on top of Madison's head. "With a mind like that... Oh, such ideas she might cook up!"
Quickly, the hound's shocked expression turned back into an angry scowl, as he glared at the other three creatures. "Alright, 'fess up! Who told her?"
The toad chortled, scratching at the weeping sores on his side. "None of us have talked to her before now, dear brother. She guessed it on her own, it seems. Why, one might say that she's so sharp, she might gut herself!"
He concluded his laughing statement by slapping himself on his distended stomach. I choked down my nausea, and looked away. Emma had been frozen in place with her smirking mouth half-open, caught in mid-insult, and the slow trickle of filth and putrescence emanating from the toad on her head had almost reached her lips.
"It wasn't difficult to guess," I shrugged. "I remember reading a book on the more Hollywood-esque versions of Satanism, in comparison to paganism and various occult practices, before I went to bed. Clearly, my subconscious mind got hooked on the power fantasies about instant gratification through demonic assistance."
The purple lobster moaned again. "Mmm, hooks... Instant gratification..."
"We prefer 'daemonic', with an A-E," said the crow nonchalantly, buffing its iridescent blue wing feathers on its chest. "It sounds more impressive, that way."
"Erm... I said: So sharp she might gut herself," mumbled the toad, glancing around anxiously as it slapped its belly again. "Get it?"
Rumbling with satisfaction, the hound nodded at the crow, ignoring the antics of the other two beasts. "Well, that saves us from having to explain the situation. Let's get on with it, then."
"Y'see, it's funny because we looked into her future," the toad went on. "Remember that scene, where she volunteered to be gutted, figuratively speaking? Oh, and all those scenes with literal disembowelments?"
My eyes widened. "...Wait, what?!"
Flapping his wings in a placating manner, the crow shushed the others. "Uh, never mind that. Just, eh... One of my brother's little jokes, pay no attention to him. Oh, he's such a japester, haha!"
"That's right," chuckled the toad. "And I very much appreciate your sense of dramatic irony, Taylor Hebert... After all, when it comes to necrotic organ loss: Go-nad or go home!"
The lobster rose up on Madison's head and leaned closer, holding one pincer up by its mouth to whisper conspiratorially in my ear. "For the record: I simply adore your creativity, but... Rotting off a giant lizard-man-thing's third leg? Really? That's just sooo last century!"
"Uh..." I tried to back away from the lobster, without getting in biting range of the huge, scowling dog on Sophia's head. "...His what?"
Somehow, the lobster winked at me. "Y'know, his ding-dong? His de-virginizer? His dangly bits? His 'dowment? His dribbly doodad?"
Howling ferociously, the red dog reared up atop Sophia's shoulders. "Stop saying random words that start with the letter D!"
"Oh, there's no such thing as too much D," giggled the lobster, before growing a little more sombre. Sighing, she shook her head sadly. "It just seemed like such a waste, rotting the whole thing off, just like that! It barely took a few seconds, no time to enjoy it! Why, he wasn't even so much as tumescent when it dropped off!"
"...C-could we go back to talking about potential future disembowelling?" I squeaked.
"That's quite enough of all that," said the crow, ruffling his feathers and spreading his wings proudly. "Taylor Hebert, take heed! You are in the presence of the Four Great Powers, who represent the full spectrum of human existence! We are-"
I frowned at him. "No, you're not."
The bird paused, wingspan drooping a little in confusion. "...Huh?"
"Oh! This is priceless! I haven't seen you caught off-guard like this in a long time, brother!" Grody Toad guffawed at the crow's bewildered look, before his own scab-riddled face creased with a befuddled expression. "Wait, what aren't we?"
"Well, you can hardly claim to represent a full spectrum, can you?" I pointed at them, one after another. "Green toad, blue crow, purple lobster, red dog... I mean, A+ for effort on colour coordinating your sales pitch, but you're a few shades short of a full rainbow."
Sniggering, the lobster waved its claw coyly. "Well, that's probably the nicest way that anyone's ever told me off for being off-colour."
Peering at me suspiciously, the crow scraped a claw over Blackwell's ear. A droplet of blood fell down her cheek. Blackwell didn't so much as flinch. "Rest assured, Taylor Hebert," drawled the crow. "All colours are found in me."
Folding my arms, I stared defiantly at the creepy bird. It was a lot easier to tell people off when you knew it was just a dream. "Ahem... 'Richard of York gave battle in vain'. Ring any bells? Because you skipped the 'of', and the 'York'."
"Battle?" Clifford the Big Red Hell-Hound perked up. "Where?"
The crow rolled its eyes. "It's a mnemonic."
Growl, growl, snarl, went the dog. "I don't care where it is, just lemme at 'em!"
I sighed. "Your 'spectrum' doesn't have any orange or yellow, is what I meant."
They stared at me in silence for a moment. Then, without warning, the large hound burst into flame.
Quirking an avian eyebrow, the crow watched the canine's yellow and orange conflagration for a second. He smirked, spread his wings, and lit up in a bonfire of his own. This one, however, was a true rainbow of colours, a riotous swirl of coruscating bright hues and kaleidoscopic patterns.
"R-right," I muttered. "So, you represent the, uh... The whole spectrum. Sure."
"In the interest of avoiding further interruptions," rasped the crow, burning rainbow bright. "Let's cut to the chase, shall we?"
"Choose one of us as your patron, and gain great power," purred the lobster. "An inquisitive soul like yours will, of course, seek the most versatile and... flexible patron. You'll enjoy life as my Champion."
A copious amount of loud barking and airborne slobber accompanied the red dog's response. "Silence, snivelling cur! Taylor Hebert desires the strength to remake the world as she sees fit!"
He turned his burning gaze on me, staring me in the eyes as his flames continued to consume Sophia's dark hair. "Swear fealty to me, and you will crush all foes who would dare oppose you."
Grody Toad laced his crooked fingers over his bloated belly. His pockmarked face lit up in an avuncular smile. "Oho? But clearly, Taylor Hebert has already made her choice. Enduring her suffering, finding the strength within herself to withstand adversity... Truly, that is the path travelled by one of my Champions."
He let out a good-natured laugh, leaking fresh pus that dribbled down and landed on the side of Emma's nose. For a moment, she looked like she was crying yellow tears.
My attention was drawn back to Blackwell and the blue crow, when the fizzing rainbow bonfire winked out. Spots danced before my eyes - I must have stared too directly at the bright flames, I guess - and for a moment, the principal's features looked warped and twisted, like a mocking parody of herself.
I blinked, several times. Blackwell looked like her usual, unpleasant self.
"Oh, please," huffed the crow. "We all know that Taylor Hebert will be my Champion, and walk my path - a mortal who values forethought and cunning as highly as she does, could choose nothing less."
"Erm... Are you sure you picked the right bullies to sit on?" I gestured between the toad and the crow. "I mean, if you're aiming for a theme, then Sophia is probably an excellent choice for, uh... Clifford the Big Ragin' Dog, over there..."
The large hound bared his teeth. The other three laughed and jeered.
"Khlifforne!" Ms. Purple Lobster cheered and applauded with her pincers. (Ap-claw-ded?)
"...But if you wanted someone to symbolize the concept of 'enduring', and things staying the same, then Blackwell would be a better choice," I explained. "She's the one who's ultimately responsible for the bullying situation going on for so long! She always refuses to listen when I tell her about it, she's too busy maintaining her precious status quo to allow anyone 'rocking the boat'."
Grody Toad whistled quietly. "Is that so?"
"And then there's Emma," I said, glaring at the redhead. "One day, she just changed completely, going from being my best friend to becoming my worst enemy! I've never known her to be so full of plans and schemes, before - but she's certainly putting a lot of effort into tearing me down!"
The toad and the crow glanced side-long at each other. I got a sudden premonition that I'd just passed some sort of test, without realizing it - and that it was a kind of test that I'd have been far better off failing.
"See?" Blue Crow laughed. "And you nincompoops thought she wasn't Princess material!"
I frowned at that remark. The other beasts seemed to understand what he meant, but... 'Princess material'? Was he insulting the way I looked? I liked my hoodies just fine, thank you very much!
The blue crow stomped his clawed foot impatiently as he harangued the other beasts. His sharp claws slid down Blackwell's face, leaving red marks behind. Seconds later, a chunk of her skin and facial muscles sloughed off, tumbling down to rest against her blouse like a macabre scarf. My stomach churned, a taste of acid burning at the back of my throat. I didn't want to look, but I just couldn't seem to pull my eyes away from the pattern of red muscle and white bone that peeked out from behind the remaining half of Blackwell's face.
Holy moly, my subconscious had issues.
"Erm, I really appreciate the offers, and the, uh... compliments? Attention? Interest?" I smiled nervously at the talking animals, trying not to look at what was happening to the people they were using as pedestals - or maybe for potty training, in Grody Toad's case. The smell was getting pretty rank. "But, ah... Speaking of paths - could you point me in the direction of the exit?"
There was a flash of multi-coloured light. Blinking away the spots in my eyes again, I discovered that the floor was now scorched in a very simple pattern: Eight equidistant and rather spiky-looking arrows, radiating out from a central point right beneath my feet. It was like a wheel for a car or a bike whose owner had gotten entirely fed up with punctured tyres, and decided to puncture right back.
"Gee, thanks." I muttered. "That's... Really helpful."
Four of the arrows led past the talking animals and their human perches. Those arrows pointed at different symbols, burnt into the ground further away. The glyph behind Emma and Grody Toad seemed to be a bulging cluster of circles and lines; three rings, and three arrows. Behind Sophia and the red dog burning away her head and upper torso, there was an angular symbol that looked a bit like an X with lots of extra lines. Past the bleeding Principal Blackwell and the blue crow was a mark that mostly consisted of a squiggly line. And finally, on the far side of Madison and...
Okay, averting eyes, looking away, etcetera, right now. The purple lobster was... probably just scrabbling around to find purchase on the Madison-statue's head. Or trying to make the frozen figure's hair lie flat against her scalp. Or something. Yeah, that's it. Of course there was a perfectly innocent explanation for... whatever it was the creepy crustacean was doing to the Madison-shaped statue's ear.
"Walk my path, Taylor Hebert," whimpered the lobster. "The path... to ecstasy."
Grody Toad chortled. "To leprosy."
Somehow, despite having a beak instead of teeth, the blue crow was grinning. His 'I-know-something-you-don't-know' smirk was, if not the epitome of smugness, then at least a very close facsimile. "...To victory."
The Sophia-statue's upper half had been reduced to little more than soot and bones and fire, by now. Nevertheless, the few bits that remained of her didn't crumble, despite the huge red dog that sat and howled atop her skull. "To battle!"
Silently, the other three beasts turned and stared at him.
"...What?" The dog shrugged. "My path is the best path."
"Darling, we had a pattern going," sighed the lobster. "If you're going to yammer on about your silly little punch-ups, you could at least have said something about fisting."
"Or something with three syllables, that ends in -y," said the toad, chuckling at the dog's look of disgust. "Like, say... Savag'ry, or hostil'ty, or blood-shoddy."
The large hound seemed deeply unimpressed. "...Blood-shoddy?"
"Yes, of course! It's like bloodshed, you see," sniggered Grody Toad. "Only far less competently done."
"Perhaps, it would be better to pick a word with just two syllables," mused the crow. "Path to something-something... Four of us, four syllables in total..."
"Whatever," grumbled the big dog. "Let's just get this nonsense over and done with."
Paying only partial attention to their bickering, I stared at the blood that spurted quietly from Blackwell's wounds. "...So gory," I whispered to myself.
The crow flexed two pinion feathers. (Flight feathers? The ones at the end of his wings, whatever they were called.) It made a noise like fingers snapping. "Heureka!"
"That's more than two syllables," groused the toad.
Glaring at the revolting creature on Emma's head, the crow clacked its beak. "I meant: I've got it."
He spread his wings like a feathered blue drama queen, clearing his throat. "...Glory!"
The lobster tilted her head. "Glory?"
The four beasts eyed each other in silence. Finally, they all nodded. "Path to glory."
Taking a deep breath to steel my nerves, I shook my head. "No thanks."
All four beasts stared at me, their expressions ranging from incredulous to outraged. "...No?!"
I clenched my fists, trying to sound more resolute than I felt. "T-thank you for the offer, but I'm not interested in power, or... Or a-any of those things. So, uh, if you don't mind, I'd like this dream to end, now. Erm, please?"
"What a shame," drawled the crow. "Oh, well. I suppose we'll just have to find another Champion."
The toad shook his head and sniffed dismissively, dabbing at his runny nostrils with a tuft of Emma's limp, greying hair. "Oh, poor child. To think that you'd give up so easily..."
The dog stared at the crow, clearly confused. "But, you said..."
"I say many things," snapped the crow. "And now, I say that we should give up on Taylor Hebert, and offer our gifts to someone else, who might show proper appreciation."
His words cut me, on several levels. "S-someone else?"
"Indubitably," cooed the lobster. "I'm sure there are many, many mortals on your world, who would be willing to pay a suitable tribute, in exchange for what we have to offer."
Even though I knew this was just a dream, or a nightmare, I still felt a profound sense of sickening dread. If this had happened in real life, if I'd been approached by a group of mysterious, ultra-creepy murder-Muppets, and given this offer... What would I have done?
What would happen if they really could give people powers? What if they struck a deal with a villain, like Kaiser, or Lung? What if they sought out a monster like Jack Slash? What if they found a way to make an Endbringer even more deadly?
On the other hand, what if these strange beasts decided to prey on someone weak, and desperate? Someone with something to lose? As for my own life, well... Emma and Sophia and the Winslow administration had, apparently, joined forces to ruin my existence. Mom was dead. Dad was a shell of his former self.
What choice did I have? What choice was I willing to make?
I took a deep breath. "I'll do it."
The four beasts perked up, smiling at me with approval.
"...But on my own terms."
Three of them - lobster, toad, and dog - looked shocked and enraged at my audacity.
The blue crow giggled. "Well, then, Taylor Hebert," he said, crouching low on Blackwell's gore-spattered head. "Name your terms."
I gritted my teeth, and started counting on my fingers. "I'll be your champion, but only if I'm your only champion. Erm... An exclusive deal, I mean. You don't pick any more champions on Earth Bet."
As a mental image of the Simurgh floating in outer space popped into my mind, I hastened to add: "O-or in the rest of this solar system!"
The lobster tutted at me. "Sorry, pet. I do almost anything, often repeatedly and with great enthusiasm..."
"Ain't that the truth," grumbled the large hound with a sour grimace.
"...But I don't do monogamy."
"We accept," cackled the blue crow, beating his wings energetically enough to make Blackwell's semi-detached facial skin-flap dangle and dance.
"What?! Outrageous!" Grody toad wailed, gobbets of brown-green mucus and phlegm flying from his cracked lips. "You cannot speak for all of us!"
The big red dog howled with affront. "We came here looking for more followers, who would worship us directly! You would toss all of those future servants aside, and have us cater to the whims of one single mortal?!"
"Not cool," whined the lobster, waving a claw at the crow in admonishment. "Paring is caring!"
I glanced at the purple creature that lay wiggling on top of Madison... Erm, on top of her head, rather. "Don't you mean: 'Sharing is caring'?"
"Nah," murmured the lobster. "I meant 'paring'. Y'know? The way you do it, is that you take a person that you want at your party, but someone else also wants to bring to their party, right? And then you take a paring knife, yeah?"
"Ah, my dear siblings," sniggered the blue crow. "Aren't you forgetting an important detail?"
The lobster gestured with its claws to illustrate its explanation: "And then you go: One peel for you, one peel for me. One peel for you, one peel for me..."
"After all, if Taylor Hebert becomes our one, single Champion upon this world," the blue avian crowed. "Then we will all - each and every one of us - have Taylor Hebert as our Champion."
The other three beasts turned and eyed me with renewed interest. I did not like the way they smiled. I did not like it one little bit.
"Oh, yesss," breathed the lobster, tearing out a clump of Madison's hair in excitement.
"So many skulls for my throne," growled the large dog in a (by his standards) low voice.
Grody Toad nodded, but still shot a displeased look at the crow. That might just have been his habitual animosity towards the bird, though. Those two seemed to get along just as poorly as the other pair, the dog and the lobster, did.
"Wait, hang on," I said, taking an involuntary step back, before I remembered that I was currently surrounded. "W-what was that about skulls, and a throne?"
The big red dog glanced down at the charred, skeletal remains of the unmoving Sophia he was using as a seat, and then looked back up at me. He patted his paw on her jawbone a few times, for emphasis.
"That's settled, then," drawled the lobster. "Taylor Hebert shall be the Champion of all four of us."
"Undivided, as it were," said the toad, pulling something out of Emma's mouth and popping it into his own maw. Judging by the crunching noises that followed, I don't think he stole her bubble-gum.
The crow bobbed up and down in a full-body nod, jostling Blackwell's skin flap again. "One for all, and all is war."
"T-that's really not how that saying goes," I whimpered.
"Well, it should," snarled the red dog. "Now, speak! What are the rest of your mewling pleas, that you bring before us?"
"Better hurry up, pet," the lobster purred. "Otherwise, he'll start using words like 'beseech', and those multiple sibilants always make him spray spittle everywhere."
The large hound rose up, foaming at the mouth and bellowing at the crustacean. "Bite your tongue, knave! You dare criticize my skills of rabid oratory?! You wallow in every fluid you can squeeze from a corpse!"
"Squeeze, tease, make some cheese," said the lobster in a sing-song voice. "You're such a dull, dull dullard, you can even take the fun out of a phrase like 'prostate yourself before me' - and there are sooo many ways to interpret that order!"
I held my arms protectively in front of my face, wiping a stray bit of dog slobber off my cheek with my sleeve. "Uh, m-my second demand," I stammered, struggling not to lose my nerve. "Erm, is that you c-can't do any Monkey's Paw business. No creative misinterpretation of my wishes, to screw me over."
The four beasts looked at me. They looked at each other. Then, they all burst out laughing.
"Gadzooks, she's out-foxed us! Next thing you know, she'll out-pox us!" Grody Toad guffawed, whooping and hiccuping loudly, until a bruise-coloured lump of spongy organ tissue flopped out of his mouth, dangling around like a floppy, deformed tongue.
...Well, even more deformed than his actual tongue, at least.
He coughed, and drooled. Thick droplets of stomach acid dripped down, leaving smoking trails of withered skin along Emma's face. "Blaft! My foddin' lung," he mumbled, cramming the organ back into his mouth and swallowing. "That'f the fecond... Glrk! The second time this week."
"What does that have to do with monkey paws, though?" Red-Rum asked, scowling in confusion. "Chimpanzees are admirably aggressive, you know. Strong fingers, sharp nails..."
The purple lobster giggled. "Personally, I prefer bonobos."
"I'm sure we can accommodate your desire, Taylor Hebert," cackled the blue crow. "Tell you what: Just to show that we're not always indulging in spiteful, ironic retribution against those who have slighted us..."
Purple Lobster winked at him. "Speak for yourself."
"...We'll make sure that the first mutation we bestow upon you, won't involve monkey paws," said the crow. He bit off the Blackwell-statue's nose with his sharp beak and held it up, peering at me through her severed nostril. "From now on, there will be no paws for Taylor Hebert."
Grody Toad shook his head and snorted, blurting out a loud noise that was equal parts disapproval and phlegm. "Such an amateurish pun."
I blanched. "M-m-mutation?!"
The purple lobster giggled. "Well, if you're asking for it..."
Before I even had time to blurt out a denial, or anything at all, there was a flash of multi-coloured light. Thousands of voices cried out in a maddening chorus, and then-
...I sat up in bed, heart hammering in my chest as I stared blindly into darkness.
"No!" I gasped. "No... N-no way..."
Slumping back on the mattress, I grimaced at the sensation of the sweat-soaked pyjamas. On closer inspection, my bed sheets hadn't fared much better, either.
"...I had more demands, dammit."
I swept a hand over my clammy forehead, wiping away even more perspiration. "Just a nightmare," I whispered with an anxious huff of air. "Awful, gruesome, and far too realistic... But still, just a nightmare."
Lowering my voice to a gruffer pitch, I muttered: "Talking to yourself, Taylor Hebert? Truly, you walk the path to the funny farm, where the walls are padded and the jackets help you hug yourself."
Pressing one hand over my mouth, I tried to muffle my hysterical bout of giggling, until it passed.
Once my breathing and heartbeat had settled down a little, I gritted my teeth and clambered out of bed. I did what I could to avoid making noise - evidently, I'd woken in the middle of the night, and I didn't want to wake up Dad, as well.
The darkness seemed odd, though. Even after I'd located my glasses and put them on, there still seemed to be a weird, coloured tint to everything I saw in my darkened room.
I recalled my dream - the rainbow flames dancing over the flayed Blackwell, and the sickly hues spreading down Emma's sunken cheeks from where Grody Toad squatted on her scalp - and shuddered.
As quietly as I could manage, I stumbled out into the silent house. Certain biological issues needed to be dealt with, and the bathroom beckoned.
Flicking the switch, I blinked my three eyes against the sudden, bright light that flooded the room. Schlepping over the tiled floor towards the toilet, I started to-
...Wait.
Waaait just a gosh darn minute, here...
Three eyes?!
With great trepidation, I turned towards the sink, and stared into the bathroom mirror. A familiar face looked back at me: Wide mouth, large eyes behind not particularly fashionable glasses, fairly nice (but currently dishevelled and sleep-rumpled) hair, terrified expression... Yep, that was my ugly mug, alright. Probably an accurate image of what I looked like at school. Even the messy hair could have been a product of Sophia pushing me down the stairs.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I gripped the hem of my pyjama shirt, and raised it a few inches.
I blinked, seeing clearly with my third eye for the first time.
Blooming across my belly were eight lines of blackened skin, like crude arrows jabbing outwards from my navel. Giving in to morbid fascination, I poked one of the arrows. It felt hard and tough, covered in tiny, coarse hairs. It made me think of animal hide, or maybe an insect's carapace.
At the center of the eight-pointed blemish... Well, I guess my belly button was well and truly an outie, now.
Cramming a fist in my mouth, I stifled another wave of hysterical laughter. I blinked my third eye a few times and practised making it roll around inside my navel.
Briefly, I wondered how to tell Dad about this. Were there any of those "So your teenage daughter just hit puberty" books that offered tips on this kind of situation? ("Hey, Dad? You know how some girls ask their parents for permission to get their belly button pierced? Well, guess what...")
Maybe that was why I'd perceived colours in that odd way, earlier? When you covered one eye, your brain tried to compensate, right? My new eye had been looking at the world through the fabric of my pyjama shirt, so...
I was starting to hyperventilate. I needed to calm down. Breathe, Taylor. Just... breathe.
This wasn't... I couldn't... No.
Grasping wildly across the wall, I eventually managed to flick the light switch. Blessed, soothing darkness returned. There! Now, I wouldn't have to see myself. Not yet. I'd bought myself some time to-
...Ah. Hm. Right.
Note to self: New, extra navel-gazing eyeball can see in the frickin' dark.
I staggered over to the toilet, adjusting my clothes as necessary in the dark before I slumped down on the seat. I needed to sit down, or my wobbly knees might give out under me; besides, my bladder was getting pretty insistent.
I cradled my head in my hands, bracing my elbows on my knees. What was going on?! Was this just another part of the nightmare?
Doing the traditional check, i.e. pinching myself on the arm, confirmed that I could feel pain. Could I be hallucinating, then? Psychotic breakdown caused by prolonged bullying? Did Sophia or Emma slip slow-acting drugs in my lunch, somehow?
Sighing, I reached for the roll of toilet paper. I groaned when I belatedly noticed the strange texture of the pieces I'd torn off the roll. Did Dad buy the cheapest, coarsest brand of toilet paper he could find? I guess it would be churlish to fault him for wanting to scrimp on the household budget, when the whole city was in an economic recession, but honestly... Even Winslow had less sandpaper-y toilet paper!
...Come to think of it, their toilet paper didn't have a face, either.
The rectangle of leathery, grey, parchment-like material felt warm in my hand, as it blinked up at me. It had a large, solitary bulbous eye; my new dark-vision couldn't quite discern colours properly, so it was hard to comment on the toilet paper's irises, but the pupil was the same eight-pronged star of arrows that I'd so quickly come to know and loathe. Underneath the eye was a twisted mouth, filled with crooked teeth and sharp fangs.
The toilet paper grinned up at me. "Surprise!"
When I started screaming, the toilet paper squealed louder.
IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD. IVoFD.
A/N:
As you may have realized from the not-so-subtle hints in the first chapter, this story is a crossover between Worm and Warhammer: Path to Glory.