Ellegaard, apparently, stared at Jesse wordlessly.
Jesse stared back.
Negative energy... they'd seen it like smoke, before, dark trails of flame against stormy clouds, and they supposed in the form of Endermen, but nothing like spiderwebs of darkness devouring the person involved.
And nothing that seemed to just totally consume the person at the center.
After a moment, Ellegaard turned her attention back to her blueprints on the floor, scratching words out silently onto them in ink that smeared and blotted and made her handwriting look like spidery runes and symbols, rather than English.
Actually, Jesse was in Cosmos. Who knew what demons wrote like; for all they knew they weren't even speaking English right now and there was some weird magic at foot to help Jesse understand everything and it was negated here, or something.
Never mind that observation, then.
Jesse edged closer for a look. The negative energy seemed to be whispering, every spiderweb of dark ooze and string vibrating insanely and creating a low, horrible humming at the very back of Jesse's mind.
They shoved it further down. Now was not the time to be worried about that.
"So, um... what are you making?" they asked Ellegaard, after a few more horribly awkward moments had passed and stretched, to the point where Olivia had given an awkward, quiet clearing of the throat.
"Block."
If Jesse had been in perfect health and not sniffling and sneezing and trying not to blow their entire nose off onto the floor, they might just have gotten up and bolted right out of there, right then and there, at that one word, all the way back to the others, never mind if they fell the whole way down the stairs.
Ellegaard's voice was terse and stern (like a teacher who was pissed off at her students) as she muttered that at Jesse, but that wasn't why Jesse wanted to bolt.
No, that had to do with the strange echoing cacophony of her voice, the dark strings chaining her to every available surface, all of them vibrating at different frequencies and echoes and practically screeching in chorus with her quiet, terse voice until it was overwhelming and unstoppable screaming with hate and despair and loathing and nothing but darkness and-
Jesse proceeded to shove down their fear and look at Olivia.
She blinked back at them.
"Um... has she been like this for a while?" they asked her, wiping their nose slightly. Start with the basics, right?
(Something in the back of their head thought amusedly, just for a moment, that they sounded like a doctor or something.)
Olivia crossed her arms. "She did mention a negative energy issue the day before she started acting like this, and she did sound nervous... but that was a few weeks ago..."
A few weeks? Had the negative energy spread and then started consuming this demon baroness like she was a snack? Or had it been so abrupt that Olivia had been unable to do anything? Surely she would've tried to fight back...
... unless she was scared of it?
"She's been like this since that. I can't get within ten feet of her without her freaking," Olivia mumbled, biting her thumbnail worriedly.
Despite how guarded she'd seemed with Jesse at first, they could tell she was really worried about the woman.
There was a tiny warm feeling in their chest at that.
They wished they had someone they could worry for like that.
(Without them hating Jesse.)
"I see..." Jesse glanced at the strings. Maybe they could... rip it off? Though it did seem to be absorbing through the skin...
Maybe Jesse could still rip them off anyway, if they did it really quickly?
They had a few moments where they shuffled and pondered the downsides, before inching closer in an attempt to try it, poking a hand out from the blanket that they still had wrapped around themselves for lack of a jacket that fit, kept them warm, and didn't overheat them all at once.
They hadn't taken three small, hesitant little steps forward before they were rapidly retreating and snatching their hand away.
The moment their hand had come within tripping distance, the whispers had intensified into wicked little clawed voices, excited and giggling and eager to consume Jesse and strip the life from them and hollow them to create a vessel, frothing at the bit and hissing and tittering like some kind of demented monkey to get at Jesse.
They swore they'd seen the strings, stretched taut and thin and unable to move and flex and reach, begin to sway towards Jesse, like curtains in a cold breeze.
A few steps back, and the sound turned back into a malevolent humming that was all the more unsettling now.
Jesse realized they were grinding their teeth from how much they were trying to stop chills from shooting up their spine. They'd never grinded their teeth before.
Reuben whined, pawing at the ground nervously.
"Oh, hell, that's bad," Jesse mumbled through half-frozen lips, "no wonder you couldn't get close enough to rip the strings off."
Simply wandering close enough to the strings caused a wicked chorus of desire and malevolence and horrible intentions and energy throbbing and seething and frothing to create a soul- a twisted, horrible thing in place of something that had been perfectly fine- to spring up, for invisible hands to push the strings close and almost touch Jesse's hands.
They had the feeling that simply touching a string would snatch their soul away and hollow their body out enough to make a vessel where the dark energy could flood in and seal their soul in eternal torment until someone destroyed the vessel again- upon which it would restart the cycle, over and over and over for eternity and a day.
Olivia glanced at Jesse at their half-audible remark. Her brow creased.
For a moment, Jesse's entire chest seized in fear- had they said something wrong somehow? Was she going to throw them down the stairs or something?- but then they realized her brow hadn't creased in anger, or displeasure.
No, it was creased in confusion.
Jesse made to clarify what they had said- their voice had been quite low, and soft, so they couldn't blame her for missing it- but she cut them off before they could.
"What strings?"
A/N: happy early new year! i hope i can update again before then, but if i cannot, late merry crimbo and hap news year
I swear, I've gotten less coherent the more I write. Too exhausting, I guess.
A guest on FFN won the contest! Good job, dude. However, as they requested, the second person in line will get the prize, so good job, Savannah-the-Caracal, you get the prize! xP Feel free to DM me on Discord about the oneshot.
RQTC: What is the worst thing ever?
Trypophobia and lotus seeds in combination. Euuuugh, the holes terrify me.
Am robot. Reviews are batteries. I have enough to last a whole day.
Responses to reviews!
Northern Goshawk: That will make the answer obvious (to a point). / Nope, just negative energy. / Pffft, yeah. / Haha, that's neat. I just lose circulation to a point; so my hands and feet can end up freezing.
WW: Haha, yeah. / Well, it is Hadrian, so I understand the wariness jfkd;a / Eventually one day we'll die and the way we reincarnate or reach the next stage of the afterlife is like a billion stairs. / Haha xD / No, you did a good job. You also won, so xD Good job!
Happygoluckymegami: It's not very great about sending emails, lol. / Nope, just negative energy. / I can never hate bullies; I just get annoyed with them ffjkd;a / That's fair haha.
Syra Nyth: Pfft, yeah, poor Jesse xD / You are right on that! / I will say that it's not unrelated. / I'm glad!
Darkbeast Dend: Oof, yeah xD
Toni42: It's not that he wanted to go, but he is contractually obligated to do what Ivor said. Ivor told him to go to where a problem was announced (with Jesse, to avoid them being hurt on their own in the infirmary) or his help was asked for by the others. / oof / Noooo, you're the cutest. / PFFFT / Hehe xD
TheAmberShadow: I'm not drawing a blank yet. The penultimate series of puns is yet to come, so pencil in the date (which I don't have, which is sketchy on my part, so sorry about that) and don't throw shade at me. / To quote: "Ivor considered this, biting his lip for a moment as he considered the options before nodding. "I think Jesse can go with one of my assistants and provide assistance where necessary. He's not a contract," he remarked quickly..." Ivor mentioned this in Chapter 57; Hadrian HAS to bring Jesse. Last two times Jesse got left on their own things went south pretty quick. / Hehe, had to stick him in. / She did the first time she met Ellegaard, but she's been with her for a while now. / Not Withersickness; just negative energy haha. / Pffft
bungaMawar001: Not at the moment jfkd;a / That's valid haha. / No, he's not a unicorn. I don't think there's such a thing as a pig unicorn xD
Saran: Haha, glad you liked that
That's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
"Today's omake is brought to you by Jesse," Jesse read off the notecard, then looked up. "Well, since I can't write, a fun fact about this: Hadrian's plotline was originally more connected to the original storyline of MCSM, since he ran some games that Jesse- that's me- got caught up in and had to beat. But since there's-"
Much static fills the air here as Jesse goes on at length and intense detail about these intense spoilers for a few future chapters. Boy, anyone who can't hear them now is really missing out.
"- the author eventually decided that it was kind of repetitive and chucked the idea out, since it also ruined the whole idea of the large time limit for the party and all that. Oh, also, you should join the Discord if you can, because the author's going to do a reading of October Children on her server or on the Minecraft: Story Mode Unofficial Discord server sometime next weekend. Also, the author puts some spoilers or possible future snippets on there, and there's other stuff too."
Jesse paused. "Yes, I know, I'm offering the link. It's here with some spaces: discord . gg / U9jAuAa ."
Jesse paused again, thinking. "Also, how would you guys like to do a general MCSM trivia Kahoot? Ariza's thinking about doing one sometime in the future."
