Disclaimer: Daisuke Ishiwatari owns Guilty Gear, Zappa, S-Ko, Pooka, Raou,
the chatterers, the sword, the centipedes and all other spooks featured
within, as well as the souls of excess of a million gamers. And I'm not
him.
Wake up! ________________________________________________________________________
"We were in love."
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP
The kaleidoscope of the spectrum freely flew around the massive interior of one of Australia's more popular spots, a magnet to the tourists and a haven for the locals. A sea of writhing bodies, slaves to the rhythm, sold their souls as the drumbeats commanded them to dance. Through the sweat, the fatigue setting in and the alcohol flowing like water, a man stood the center of attention in a circle. Clad in a tight white bodysuit with a heart on the front, baggy cargo pants and chaps and sporting another heart on his headband, his brown hair flung around his eyes, dripping with his perspiration as he melted in with the music. The girls wanted him, the men envied him. Then from another side of the dance floor, another thing began to part the clientele like a shark through the water.
"He betrayed me."
Slowly but surely, the music began to die down and the medley of madly flashing colors came to a stop. The man dancing carried on for a few seconds after until he realised that the rails he ran on had been removed. Then with a look of surprise, his eyes bulged open to see the entire area was desolate and alone, save for one other person. Standing only a few feet from him, she wore little more than a ragged, soiled dress that reached to her knees. Her face was covered by a wet cloud of black hair than sunk to her chest, dripping all over her and the floor. She was barefoot too, and looking very pale.
"The well was cold."
The man looked down and yelled in horror. At his feet and now strewn across the room as if they appeared from out of thin air, the dancers lay, unmoving. As he looked around, he now noticed more beings present. none of them human.
A soot-black dog scampered cross the floor, picking a scantily clad female out of the crowd. With a wet, moist, slick noise, it opened the cavern of a mouth and in a vulgar movement, coughed up a skull, followed by a stream of vertebrae. No blood or muscle followed, just bleached bone. The regurgitated contents then snapped up on their own accord and began to snake towards the girl's leg. The teeth sunk into it and began thrashing around like the leg was a freshly delivered newspaper.
"Nobody fed me."
The man turned away in horror and tried his best to inhale, managing to squeeze a little air in through the shrunken gap of his throat. Greeting him as he turned to hide from the dreadful sight was a trio of identical specters, their faces mere symbols of faces rather than anything we could call anatomically correct. Each one swam through the air, their arms bound to their sides by a series of buckles and straps, their legs nonexistent and replaced by a trail of vapor. Each one chattered a different, indistinct monologue to itself as it inspected the man closely.
"They said we talked too much."
His attention was once again ripped from him as a loud crackling noise erupted behind him. A surge of adrenaline gushed throughout him as he, as though on a reflex, jumped for his very life as an entire row of lights was brought crashing down inches away from him, smashing pieces of glass and sending a shower of sparks in all directions like a white-hot splash of water. The cause was revealed as the man looked up to see what looked like a razor blade, unsupported and unaided, tearing up the roof. Cracks of moonlight pierced the holes it made on it's aimless rampage. With eyes it did it have, he razor flashed through the air and brought itself to the man's side. One part of it looked to be cut away diagonally and one end even had a small cylinder sticking out. a handle? A sword that looked like a razor, slashing things randomly while it flew about? The man saw his terrified reflection among the scarlet, dried stains on the blade.
"I used it, but I liked it too much because it helped me escape."
The man's next shock came as a rapid clicking like that of someone on a typewriter, or the pitter-patter of hundreds of footsteps. Before he could turn to guess the origin of such a sound, his entire spine plunged into a deep freeze as a strange sensation wriggled upon his back, tickling him with small, sharp stings. Then a pair of bright pink eyes as big as dessert dishes stared into his own, accompanied by wriggling, wavy legs danced in front of his face. The scream he tried to project failed and ended up in only opening his mouth wide enough for the eyes. and the next pair. and the next pair. and the countless pairs after to slip inside his mouth and down his gullet. After an agonizing feeling had churned inside him, he finally heard three voices at once from inside his head.
"Good morning!" "Good morning!" "Good morning!"
He felt the same feeling now moving inside him, underneath his skin like muscle spasm, not painful but deeply unnerving. Then something pushed beneath his skin and his back experienced a feeling never felt before, as a visage of inhuman nature opened up on the surface of his clothes, spitting a green lump of slime out.
"I ate all the wrong food."
The face disappeared as quickly and shockingly as it had shown itself. The man then felt his torso changing again, bending backwards like a rubber toy. With no choice, he complied to the position and found himself looking upside down at the world, supporting himself by his hands which were arched over his shoulders. In the bridge formation, he scuttled like a spider across to the woman in the dress. Despite his manner of movement and twisted demeanor of standing, he could still not see her face. All he could see was her bony finger pointing behind him to something else, accusingly. Without consent, he suddenly stood up sharp, right into a blue and green phantasm that paralyzed him with fear. A face composed of just a huge mouth with plenty of gum and very little teeth greeted him. An azure aura flickered around the legless wraith, which hulked a pair of gigantic arms rhythmically up and down. Although it looked far from needing it, a set of roman looking armor spanned the torso of the ghost. Electrical pulses coursed all over it, not that the man had any intention of touching it within the next hundred years.
"I was careless with the Old World's technology."
The man was then pulled back down by his disobedient spine to face the woman in the dress. Slowly, the sideshow of apparitions and ghoulish wonders gathered around her, as though led by her. Even the great electrical nightmare took his place behind her. The black oil slick of hair slowly parted as she lifted her face up, revealing a torn pair of lips that sliced across her face into a smile. Yellow ochre teeth, decayed and rotting told of pleasure in her mind as she knelt down, next to his face. Her cracked lips and waterlogged skin drew closer to his. Helpless, he could only go where his spine would allow him, which was nowhere. His throat finally opened and as their faces were only a few inches apart, the scream that had built up finally shattered the barriers of his silence.
~
Zappa jerked up like a steel trap to ensnare an animal. Drenched and soaking in his own fluid of perspiration, he tried to slow his breathing down as best as he could.
"Doctor Faust." he whispered partly to himself, partly to his savior.
A voice spoke then, not an answer to his question but needless information. The cathode ray had done it again.
"Oh, how stupid of me to leave the TV on. I must have slept through a horror movie!" he confided to himself. His hand fished for the remote control by his side, then picked it up and turned the intruder off. With a sigh of relief, Zappa wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his pajamas and closed his eyes for a moment. His hands dropped to his sides idly.
.
.
.
.
and onto some coarse fur on one side and a cold, smooth surface on the other. His eyes shot open again as he looked to his left to see a black dog with red stains on the lower lip and jaw, then to his right, seeing his remote control laying on top of three feet of scarlet blade. His body then betrayed him again, snapping his head to look directly forwards.
into that yellow decaying grin once more.
"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
Wake up! ________________________________________________________________________
"We were in love."
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP
The kaleidoscope of the spectrum freely flew around the massive interior of one of Australia's more popular spots, a magnet to the tourists and a haven for the locals. A sea of writhing bodies, slaves to the rhythm, sold their souls as the drumbeats commanded them to dance. Through the sweat, the fatigue setting in and the alcohol flowing like water, a man stood the center of attention in a circle. Clad in a tight white bodysuit with a heart on the front, baggy cargo pants and chaps and sporting another heart on his headband, his brown hair flung around his eyes, dripping with his perspiration as he melted in with the music. The girls wanted him, the men envied him. Then from another side of the dance floor, another thing began to part the clientele like a shark through the water.
"He betrayed me."
Slowly but surely, the music began to die down and the medley of madly flashing colors came to a stop. The man dancing carried on for a few seconds after until he realised that the rails he ran on had been removed. Then with a look of surprise, his eyes bulged open to see the entire area was desolate and alone, save for one other person. Standing only a few feet from him, she wore little more than a ragged, soiled dress that reached to her knees. Her face was covered by a wet cloud of black hair than sunk to her chest, dripping all over her and the floor. She was barefoot too, and looking very pale.
"The well was cold."
The man looked down and yelled in horror. At his feet and now strewn across the room as if they appeared from out of thin air, the dancers lay, unmoving. As he looked around, he now noticed more beings present. none of them human.
A soot-black dog scampered cross the floor, picking a scantily clad female out of the crowd. With a wet, moist, slick noise, it opened the cavern of a mouth and in a vulgar movement, coughed up a skull, followed by a stream of vertebrae. No blood or muscle followed, just bleached bone. The regurgitated contents then snapped up on their own accord and began to snake towards the girl's leg. The teeth sunk into it and began thrashing around like the leg was a freshly delivered newspaper.
"Nobody fed me."
The man turned away in horror and tried his best to inhale, managing to squeeze a little air in through the shrunken gap of his throat. Greeting him as he turned to hide from the dreadful sight was a trio of identical specters, their faces mere symbols of faces rather than anything we could call anatomically correct. Each one swam through the air, their arms bound to their sides by a series of buckles and straps, their legs nonexistent and replaced by a trail of vapor. Each one chattered a different, indistinct monologue to itself as it inspected the man closely.
"They said we talked too much."
His attention was once again ripped from him as a loud crackling noise erupted behind him. A surge of adrenaline gushed throughout him as he, as though on a reflex, jumped for his very life as an entire row of lights was brought crashing down inches away from him, smashing pieces of glass and sending a shower of sparks in all directions like a white-hot splash of water. The cause was revealed as the man looked up to see what looked like a razor blade, unsupported and unaided, tearing up the roof. Cracks of moonlight pierced the holes it made on it's aimless rampage. With eyes it did it have, he razor flashed through the air and brought itself to the man's side. One part of it looked to be cut away diagonally and one end even had a small cylinder sticking out. a handle? A sword that looked like a razor, slashing things randomly while it flew about? The man saw his terrified reflection among the scarlet, dried stains on the blade.
"I used it, but I liked it too much because it helped me escape."
The man's next shock came as a rapid clicking like that of someone on a typewriter, or the pitter-patter of hundreds of footsteps. Before he could turn to guess the origin of such a sound, his entire spine plunged into a deep freeze as a strange sensation wriggled upon his back, tickling him with small, sharp stings. Then a pair of bright pink eyes as big as dessert dishes stared into his own, accompanied by wriggling, wavy legs danced in front of his face. The scream he tried to project failed and ended up in only opening his mouth wide enough for the eyes. and the next pair. and the next pair. and the countless pairs after to slip inside his mouth and down his gullet. After an agonizing feeling had churned inside him, he finally heard three voices at once from inside his head.
"Good morning!" "Good morning!" "Good morning!"
He felt the same feeling now moving inside him, underneath his skin like muscle spasm, not painful but deeply unnerving. Then something pushed beneath his skin and his back experienced a feeling never felt before, as a visage of inhuman nature opened up on the surface of his clothes, spitting a green lump of slime out.
"I ate all the wrong food."
The face disappeared as quickly and shockingly as it had shown itself. The man then felt his torso changing again, bending backwards like a rubber toy. With no choice, he complied to the position and found himself looking upside down at the world, supporting himself by his hands which were arched over his shoulders. In the bridge formation, he scuttled like a spider across to the woman in the dress. Despite his manner of movement and twisted demeanor of standing, he could still not see her face. All he could see was her bony finger pointing behind him to something else, accusingly. Without consent, he suddenly stood up sharp, right into a blue and green phantasm that paralyzed him with fear. A face composed of just a huge mouth with plenty of gum and very little teeth greeted him. An azure aura flickered around the legless wraith, which hulked a pair of gigantic arms rhythmically up and down. Although it looked far from needing it, a set of roman looking armor spanned the torso of the ghost. Electrical pulses coursed all over it, not that the man had any intention of touching it within the next hundred years.
"I was careless with the Old World's technology."
The man was then pulled back down by his disobedient spine to face the woman in the dress. Slowly, the sideshow of apparitions and ghoulish wonders gathered around her, as though led by her. Even the great electrical nightmare took his place behind her. The black oil slick of hair slowly parted as she lifted her face up, revealing a torn pair of lips that sliced across her face into a smile. Yellow ochre teeth, decayed and rotting told of pleasure in her mind as she knelt down, next to his face. Her cracked lips and waterlogged skin drew closer to his. Helpless, he could only go where his spine would allow him, which was nowhere. His throat finally opened and as their faces were only a few inches apart, the scream that had built up finally shattered the barriers of his silence.
~
Zappa jerked up like a steel trap to ensnare an animal. Drenched and soaking in his own fluid of perspiration, he tried to slow his breathing down as best as he could.
"Doctor Faust." he whispered partly to himself, partly to his savior.
A voice spoke then, not an answer to his question but needless information. The cathode ray had done it again.
"Oh, how stupid of me to leave the TV on. I must have slept through a horror movie!" he confided to himself. His hand fished for the remote control by his side, then picked it up and turned the intruder off. With a sigh of relief, Zappa wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his pajamas and closed his eyes for a moment. His hands dropped to his sides idly.
.
.
.
.
and onto some coarse fur on one side and a cold, smooth surface on the other. His eyes shot open again as he looked to his left to see a black dog with red stains on the lower lip and jaw, then to his right, seeing his remote control laying on top of three feet of scarlet blade. His body then betrayed him again, snapping his head to look directly forwards.
into that yellow decaying grin once more.
"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
