TWs for unreality and body horror
The cool midsummer breeze ruffled her hair. The shade of the beach umbrella muted their colorful drinks. Sand billowed up from beyond the boardwalk and pricked her feet. She smiled as her friends lively chatter buzzed in her ears. They tangled and wove together in streams of words while she sipped her orange soda. As she stared into the glass, the ice cubes drifted apart. Their voices grew louder. She gently drummed her fingers against the table. She sat in silence.
"-And then Mom and Dad had nothing but red and white bean paste for leftovers, again! It's always those two, I'm so sick of it. Just looking at the stuff makes my appetite disappear."
"You're just exaggerating because you care more for sweets than real food Honoka. There are other things to eat."
"Well I want more than two flavors for dessert Umi!"
"Now now Honoka, it isn't good to stress and make a fuss over things you can't control. It'll throw your energy off balance."
"There goes Nozomi, always knowing what to say."
"I try, Elicchi."
"I guess I shouldn't…"
"I wish I had so much as any dessert. You try feeding three rowdy kids by yourself on a shoestring budget then we'll talk."
"Niko that's not fair, your families are nothing alike."
"What's that supposed to mean, Maki?"
The table fell silent. The churning tide of the distant waves echoed deafeningly loud. She nudged away her drink and darted her eyes around the circle. Her finger drumming stopped. The others faces were stiff as boards with taut frowns and furrowed foreheads. Nausea flung her stomach around with violent swings. Slowly Maki replied, her voice blunt yet quiet as if tip toeing.
"Because, you know…your mom and dad aren't home."
"…Excuse me?"
"The two of you need to settle down-"
"This doesn't involve you, Eli."
Their voices morphed into shouts and snarls, crossing like dueling blades. The sun vanished behind a mask of clouds. The wind stopped. Stale air flooded her lungs one tight breath at a time. The argument became unintelligible as she stared with her jaw hung and eyes like pilot lights. She leapt from her seat and threw out her hands poised to cry out- though no words came. Instead she stood bolted to the floor posed like a heraldic lion. Her face distorted with shock. In seconds the screams devolved into venomous hissing through gritted teeth. Then before she could blink, the yelling was snuffed out by laughter. It resounded hollow and echoed hammering into her jellied brain. She touched her forehead and winced. A stabbing pain hammered through her skull. Tentatively she looked down through bleary eyes.
There they sat, their heads thrown back and their bodies shaking in an uproar. She grit her teeth and slammed down her hands atop the table. It rattled violently. The laughter continued, distorted. Her voice cracked to a thousand pieces as she shouted. Her throat split with cracking fissures of desperation.
"This isn't like any of you! Stop this!"
She watched in horror as her plea drifted over their heads into oblivion. The howls faded like dying embers. They bloated into bubblegum peppy gossip, lifeless. The echo remained as she thrashed about, shouting.
"What's going on? Snap out of it, please-"
"So when's next practice Eli meow?"
"I'll have it ready this Friday, I couldn't let everyone slack just before the weekend."
"Aww! You work us so hard…"
"Eli's got the right of it, you all need to stay in shape. Especially you, Honoka!"
"Me again?!"
She watched their mouths gush forth words akin to geysers. One by one the features of their faces vanished like a slow fade in old films. Something tightened in her chest with a vice grip. Her stifled breaths fell to panting. She clutched herself as her lungs constricted. The blood blazing at a thousand miles an hour in her veins scathed and itched. She gasped and blinked bug eyed as steam rose off her skin. As she shot up her head, her lips curled to scream, she watched as the blank canvas faces of wooden puppets carried on their polite conversation. She saw them sit, paying her the attention of ignorance, and the dull shock as her kneecaps hit the ground left her unfazed. Her head slid back.
The sky cast a matte grey barrier that seemed to stab into her eyes. Raising her hands, she fought for air. The steam drew a veil over her face.
"Help…help!"
Frantically she clawed toward them. Not one stirred.
"Help me!"
Sound was snuffed out from her ears. From the corner of her eye, the sight sunk her stomach. She shook in horror as twisters of steam replaced her arms. The currents whirled and untangled painlessly. Her hair whipped about her face and her jaw dropped. In one blink it spread to her shoulders; in two she watched her chest cave in, then vanish. Like the derelict husk of a factory collapsing on it's rotted foundations, she folded over as her legs went next. Her breathing came in shallow bursts. Each sprinted after the last. Sweat trickled to the ground off her brow. The tip of her nose gave way. She squeezed her eyes shut and let the end come.
Empty, alone, forgotten. Nothing's changed, her thoughts whispered with the last of her consciousness. The world grew blank, the shadows drew near-
Her eyes snapped open to her dimly lit ceiling. A shiny film of sweat poured over her body, dampening her clothes like a flood. She panted, her chest heaving up and down with panic. Sprawled onto her mussed sheets, she lay rigid. The buzzing calls of cicadas beat against her open window. As the curtains fluttered, the night chill made her shiver. Slowly, she wiped her clammy hands across her face, tangling them into her scalp. She took a deep breath. The scent of spent incense and earthy plants lingered on her tongue. Her eyes drifted around the walls, running across her cupboard; then lingering on her potted flowers. Finally, they fell upon a framed photo on the nightstand.
The smiles of her friends posed with youthful joy in their eyes stared back. One by one they scrutinized her fear in silence. She saw her own face among them, beaming. Tears bubbled, then slid down her cheeks. Hiccups shook her and tumbled from her chest. With a choked sob she let out a sharp cry and buried her face into a pillow. Rolling onto her side, her body trembled like a frightened newborn. The muffled sniveling fought the cicada song, then drowned it. She bit her lip until the tang of blood filled her mouth. As she shut her eyes, her mind stabbed scenes of her childhood into her brain. The barren, cold dark of eating dinner alone, the shield of a paperback a day against other children. The passing phases of birthday cakes she'd purchased with spare change paraded before her. An old hollowness throbbed in her heart. Quietly she rasped out words as if they were forbidden, seething with longing.
"Don't leave me."
A/N: I wrote this years before I got into The Magnus Archives which is funny because going back to this made me realize- it sounds a lot like The Stranger and The Lonely are at work here. I don't know if I'll commit to it because I have other WIPs besides moving old stories, but I might crossover LL! with TMA. Picking which Entity Nozomi would serve was tough since there's good options. It was a tie between The Corruption, The Spiral, The Web, The Stranger, and The Lonely. Ultimately I went with The Lonely because while those other entities are also perfect fits, I feel like they're symptom behavior of Nozomi's core conflict being her loneliness. Also if I went with Corruption!Nozomi I'd just be writing Jane Prentiss lol, they're almost exactly the same character. Lonely!Nozomi bullies Peter Lukas and can't stand him, send tweet. She uses Vanishing in and out of his shitty little captain's office just to torment him on 'The Tundra' lmao.
Side note, if you look up who Jane is without just diving into TMA on spotify or something, MASSIVE trigger warning for trypophobia, like enormous, huge, do not try to know Jane Prentiss unless you don't mind dozens of small holes pls- it's important to her character arc but still. In fact Rusty Quill the producers of TMA have official TW lists for all its content as well.