Yuno knocked on Tsubaki's door. She was wearing her standard white T-shirt and green shorts.
"Come in."
She opened it and closed it behind her. Tsubaki was wearing her new purple robe, her red bow, and her glasses. Her robe covered up her tattoo of a green Japanese dragon that was crawling up her back.
"Hey, um, Tsubaki?"
"What is it, Yuno?"
"I know you're probably busy with the election and everything..."
"Oh, that's not for a while. And I must thank you and Yuki for your support."
"Well, um, you're welcome. Who else has said they'll support you?"
"Well, there's you two, Yomotsu, Ai and Marco, Kamado, Keigo, and of course, Aru."
"That's nice to hear. Listen, Tsubaki, I need your help. You know about my dreams, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, lately, I can't help but feel there's something...darker about them. But the problem is, I don't know what exactly's dark about them, because I can never remember everything about them. Do you think there might be something...I dunno...occult about it?"
"It could be possible. I know some methods of analyzing dreams. But they're kinda...weird. Like, really fucking weird. And, uhm, it might be kinda dangerous."
"I'll try anything at this point."
"Then let's do it. By the way, did you hear about Kamado's orphanage getting an extra room?"
"No, I don't think I did."
"Alright, first we'll have to go down to the basement. Like, really far down."
Later, the two girls were in the darkest, deepest, and coldest part of the basement. There was a large opening in the wall, resembling a tunnel. A large, old wooden box was laying on its side on the stone floor.
"Sit down on the box, turned away from the tunnel."
Yuno followed Tsubaki's instructions.
"First, I'll explain some of the meaning behind all of this. You see, there's this cult called the Church Of Starry Wisdom. It's very small, but still potentially dangerous."
"Okay."
"Now, the Church, uhm, well, they believe in this world of dreams, the Dreamlands. It's been suppressed by reality, and the Church wants to restore it."
"Alright."
"You see, uhm, in remote or buried places, like this basement, without anyone around...well, uhm, the idea is that different things can happen. Different things can...y'know, exist," awkwardly explained Tsubaki, who was wondering how the fuck she was gonna explain the following events to Yuno. That is, assuming Yuno was still was conscious, relatively sane, and/or alive.
"Got it."
"Okay, like, uhm...I'll try to keep explaining this the best I can...by coming down here, we've sort of entered a hypnotic dream state. Reality and the Dreamlands have, uhm...merged, I guess you could say. But only for a little while."
"Understood."
"Now, I'll be going into the tunnels and bringing a part of the Dreamlands...uhm, back with me, I guess. You stay here, and, uhm, please don't look around. It's better that way."
"Okay, you do whatever you have to do."
Tsubaki walked into the tunnel. When she returned, she was holding the hand of...something. The creature had to be at least eleven and a half feet tall. It resembled an unholy mockery of both dog and man, much like a werewolf. The face, perhaps one of its worst features, was deformed just enough to be recognized as canine in appearance, yet human in shape. Arguably, one could make a comparison between its face and the face of someone who had been choked to death, perhaps by being hung from a noose. It had large, pointed ears. Its skin, having once been pale in its youth, was now a sickening darkish green, with an unpleasant rubbery appearance. Its nose was flat, and its glowing white eyes were bloodshot. Its hands and feet had a sharp, scaly claw on each finger and toe. However, its feet also partially resembled hooves. The lips were human-like and drooling. Its body was covered in small patches of mold in various, seemingly random spots. Its hair, or perhaps more accurately, fur, followed a similar pattern, making the creature mostly hairless, but just hairy enough (mostly on its limbs) to remind one of the werewolf again. Most of its forehead was hairless, with the hair on its head being mostly in the back. Its teeth were sharp, perfectly designed for ripping flesh.
It was also somehow circumcised, with a flaccid, human-like penis of about six inches, but that's not important right now.
Tsubaki and the beast sat down on a row of stone connected to the tunnel's entrance, across from Yuno's back.
"There. That's, uhm, that's good. You sit there..."
"LIKE THIS, YES? SIT LIKE THIS."
Yuno felt like she was about to throw up merely from listening to the abomination that she had still not yet seen.
"Yuno, this is, uhm, this is King George. He's from Boston. You can, uhm, you can ask him anything. King George, this is, uhm, this is Yuno. Yuno's here to talk to you, and that's all."
"YES. I LIKE YUNO. YUNO HAS PRETTY HAIR. IT IS PINK ONES I LIKE SECOND-BEST. RED IS THE BEST."
Yuno felt a primal fear enter her mind.
"Uh...I, uh, I mean..." began Yuno, "Wh...wh-what are you?"
"King George? Yuno wants to, uhm, to know what..."
"I KNOW. I KNOW WHAT YUNO WANTS. YUNO, WE ARE BOYS. WE ARE BOYS WHO WORK DOWNSTAIRS, YES? I AM A GOOD BOY. I AM A GOOD BOY, WHO WORKS HARD. DO YOU WORK HARD, YUNO?"
"W-well, I...yes. Yes, I do," she said, thinking of her attempts to improve her mental health. "I work hard. K-King George, wh-where...where do you come from?"
"FROM BETWEEN MOTHER'S LEGS, YES? YES. THAT IS FUNNY. BUT TO NOT BE FUNNY, WE ARE DOWNSTAIRS FROM WORLD, UPSTAIRS FROM DREAM. WE ARE HALFWAY IN MIDDLE."
"I-I see," said Yuno, desperately trying to gain some confidence in the face of this unknown monstrosity. "And how many...how many boys like you are there?"
"OH, MANY. MANY GOOD BOYS. MORE THAN FIVE. THIS IS UNDER BOSTON AND JAPAN ONLY, YES? IN WHOLE WORLD, IS MANY, MANY MORE. IS AS MANY AS...AS MORE THAN FIVE! BUT IN BOSTON, WE ARE HAPPY. ARE YOU HAPPY IN JAPAN, YUNO?"
"I...no. No, I-I don't think I'd be happy anywhere right now."
"Yuno's had some, uhm, some bad things happen. Remember when I told you about the thing with her parents? And now, something's been going wrong with her dreams. Like with that Robert Blake fellow in Manchester almost a century ago that I heard about, he, uhm, he was the one who met the little Waite girl...remember?"
"OH. OH, YES. THE OLD MAN WHO IS ANOTHER OLD MAN WHO IS A GIRL WHO IS OTHER PEOPLE, YES? POOR ROBERT. POOR YUNO."
Yuno's fear grew by the minute.
"YUNO, IT IS BAD THAT YOU ARE NOT HAPPY. THESE ONES WHO HURT YOU, THEY ARE YANKEES, YES? THEY HAVE MANY THINGS, AND THEY DO NOT WORK HARD. THEY DO NOT WORK HARD LIKE US, YUNO, AND ALWAYS WE ARE BENEATH THEM. BUT ONE DAY, WE EAT THEIR BODIES. YOU MUST SMILE, YUNO."
"Y-yes. Yes, thank you. I will. H-how much do you know about what goes on up above, in Japan, and in Boston, and in the rest of America and the world?"
"Well, uhm, King George has been there a long time."
"OH, YES. LONG TIME. MISTER REVERE IN HIS STOCKINGS, PLUMP LITTLE LEGS. OH, YES. EVERYTHING HAPPEN IN BOSTON, WE KNOW WHAT IT IS."
"S-so you keep up with current events...?"
"WE DO BEST WE CAN. THERE IS THE NO-POLICEMAN FIGHTING, YES?" he said, referring to the recent Black Lives Matter protests. "ABOVE, THEY SAY MORE THAN FIVE ARE MADE DEAD. WE KNOW OF MORE THAN THIS, YES? SOME DEAD THEY ARE NOT FIND. THIS IS HAPPY TIME, BUT NOT MORE GOOD THAN SWEET TIME."
"Sweet time? What's...?"
"King George, is, uhm, is talking about the molasses explosion in, uhm, in 1919..."
"OH, YES! YES, AFTER COLD FESTIVAL, WE ARE SO HAPPY WE DO NOT BELIEVE! MANY, THEY ARE DEAD. SOME THE FACE THEY DO NOT KNOW, WHERE IT IS COVERED IN SWEETNESS. EVERYWHERE THERE IS CANDY..."
"Then you...you really eat dead people? I-isn't that cannibalism?"
"NO. NO, YUNO, YOU ARE WRONG. IF I EAT MY BROTHER GEORGE WASHINGTON, THAT IS BAD. EATING UPSTAIRS DEAD, THAT IS WORK. AND ALSO, WE DO NOT SEE THAT YOU ARE USE THEM FOR ANYTHING. WE SAY 'UPSTAIRS PEOPLE DO NOT MIND'."
"B-but, I mean, if they knew about you..." Yuno felt like she was going to scream and run at any second. "Wh-why do you trust Tsubaki not to reveal you? Why are you trusting me?"
"YOU ARE GOOD GIRLS. TSUBAKI, SHE IS TO US LIKE OUR FAMILY, YES? AND YOU, YUNO, YOU DO YOUR WORK, AND THEN YOU ARE GONE," he said, referring to the possibility of her committing suicide. Tsubaki talked with him often, and mentioned her suicidal tendencies due to her depression. "OUR WORRY IS FOR YOU."
"F-for me? So...so is this my unconscious, voicing buried anxieties?" asked Yuno, desperately hoping for reassurance that none of this was real.
"Yes, it's, uhm...King George?" Tsubaki looked up at him. King George was standing. "Where, uhm, where are you going? I thought we'd, uhm, we'd agreed..."
"NO. NO, TSUBAKI. YOU ARE NOT BOSS. YOU ARE ONLY LITTLE GIRL. I LIKE TO TALK TO YUNO. AND I LIKE TO SMELL HER."
"Y-you...you really don't need to...I-I mean..." Yuno felt like she was going to have a heart attack.
"Yuno, it's, uhm, it's alright. Just, uhm, just sit still..." said Tsubaki quietly, as her eyes widened in horror behind her glasses. Ghouls were usually non-violent scavengers, but in extreme cases, such as the Pickman incident, they had been known to attack humans.
"YES, YES. IT IS ONLY FOR SMELLING AND TALKING. IT IS NOT FOR WORK. YUNO, I MUST TELL YOU THAT IN ROT IS A GREAT COMFORT, YES? WITH ROT IS ALL THE WORLD MADE..."
"Ohh. Ohhh..." This was the closest Yuno had felt she had ever been to death.
"IT IS ONLY NOTHING DO NOT ROT. MEAT ROT. WOOD ROT. STONE ROT. IN BOSTON AND AMERICA AND ALL OF WORLD IS ROT. DOWN HERE, THE ROT WE EAT. AND UP ABOVE US, YUNO, YOU HAVE PEOPLE WHO ARE WORK FOR NEWSPAPER, MAKE STORIES OF BAD PEOPLE, YES? ABOVE, THE ROT YOU EAT."
Yuno whimpered and started to cry.
"YUNO, LISTEN. WHEN IN CEMETERIES YOU ARE SAD, REMEMBER TO US THEY ARE FARMS, YES? THEY ARE ORCHARDS. EVERYBODY HAS THE LIFE WITH PURPOSE, YUNO. NOBODY IS GO TO WASTE. THE ONES ALONE AND WITHOUT LOVE, AT LAST THEY ARE ENJOYED. YUNO, YOU ARE GOOD GIRL. IN THE ROT, BE HAPPY, YES?"
"Yes. Yes, I will. I'll be happy." Tears were flowing down her face.
"GOOD. GOOD GIRL. NOW WE ARE HAPPY ALL OF US. TSUBAKI, I AM GO NOW DOWN FOR TELL OF YUNO TO MY BROTHER MARY PICKFORD. I HAVE EYEBURN WITH THIS LAMP," he said, talking about the single lightbulb in the ceiling. He turned away from Yuno. "GIVE ME YOUR HAND BACK TO MY OWN GOOD DIRT, YES?"
Yuno wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Uhm, yes. Yes, of course. Yuno, I'll, uhm, I'll be back in just a moment. Please stay where, uhm, where you are. The, uhm, the entrance is a step in front of you, King George..."
"YES. YES, FEEL DRAFT. SO, TSUBAKI, TELL ME NOW. IS YUNO SISTER OF OTHER PINK AND WHITE ONE?"
Tsubaki muttered something in an indecipherable language as she led King George back into the tunnel. She came back out shortly after.
"There. It's, uhm, it's very cold down here, isn't it? Shall we, uhm, shall we go back upstairs?"
Note: So that, um...happened~ In case you're wondering, this whole chapter is a reference/parody/homage/blatant rip-off to Alan Moore's Providence #7~ Reviews and questions are appreciated~
Name: Kamado Ueshita/The Eighth
Age: 40
Species: Human
Ethnicity: Japanese
Sexuality: Hetero
Alignment: Neutral Good
Born on May 14, 1976, Kamado runs the Mother's Village Orphanage, and is probably the nicest Diary Holder. She was raised in a family of nurses and doctors, and always wanted to help people. Despite loving children, she is unable to have any of her own. Her biggest flaw is trusting people too much, often being too much of an optimist. She views Yuki, Yuno, Rei, Tsubaki (despite her idealism clashing with Tsubaki's cynicism), Marco, Ai, Aru, Hinata, Mao, Moe, Ouja, Yoi, Orin, Taro, and the orphans are surrogate children. She is friends with Keigo, Minene (despite clashing with her for the same reasons as with Tsubaki), Yomotsu, Rea, Naoko, and Maken. She dislikes Takao, Karyuudo, and Murmur, but is too nice to admit it, and would still help them if they needed it. She is attracted to John, but would never admit it. She is grateful that Deus has given her the chance to help people.
