a/n: Loosely based on Neal Shusterman's Creeping Darkness.
1. gastly
It begins with a dream—it always does. He floats higher and higher, sailing in the cold blue expanse of the morning sky. Then, once he looks back, he can see the little girl lying in bed. Except it is not a girl anymore. It's an empty body, fingers curled like dead spiders, the memory of a teddy bear inside that little palm.
He feels no guilt, no remorse—just the clouds passing cleanly through his soul. Only the minor discomfort of leaving flesh behind.
And he lets go.
The forest dims to a mere face, the proud chateau gracing it with a white picket smile.
(You must go.)
An innocent girl in a linen dress and velvet stockings will be awakening soon. Nobody will catch him; nobody will notice anything different about her—except she will never, ever be the same again, as something is missing…
"Thank you," he whispers, and leaves.
2. litwick
Follow me! Follow me!
You, yes you, lost in that spindly tower—follow me! I am the light, the one thing you so desperately need to pass. Do not worry. I will protect you from harm. Stay close to me, but don't snuff my flame, poor as it is, into a wisp of smoke.
Are you following? Good. Stay close now. You're confused? That's okay. I knew that you were thinking about leaving, and then decided that I, a candle with the impish smile, am stupid and trustable enough. That's what you're thinking right? Don't look so mortified!
I know that I haven't turned around all this time to look at you, yet I know everything you're thinking, trainer. Put away that pokeball. You don't want to catch me. Don't. Just don't.
Follow me! I am moving faster now, refreshment seeping into my wax. That means you are following. Excellent.
Please ignore the darkening world, as it is nothing but the lack of light. Please ignore any weightlessness you feel.
Please do not think you are following me to your death. No, not at all.
3. drifblim
I should have realized something was wrong that day.
There were jokes before, of bullets and meaningless threats to take you out in a second before, but no one really thought this would happen. You see it on pixelated screens. You might've seen gruesome images and teary-eyed parents and you exchanged a look with your friend, smiling that clueless mouth only capable of spreading lies. That's what voices are for, right? Spreading lies.
(Right now, I am living in one.)
Disasters always seem to happen on regular days. I ate the frosted flakes, yawned, and said goodbye to my parents, saying things like have a good day and see you in the evening. I was lucky. Not many people get to say goodbye.
When the first shot cracked, people ran. They screamed. That morning my friends asked me if I wanted to go to the library at break. I had said yes. Big mistake.
There were people huddling beside me, underneath those tables.
Two kids with cherry-red guns peeked down at me. There was a mighty roar and a shattering of wood and screams. Then something hot and silver passed through me, and in an instant it was gone.
So was my body.
So was the bright and clear sunlight.
I saw my body slumped, a blank expression on my bloody face. Except I wasn't in there anymore. I was floating, expanding, wider and wider like a kid's lollipop smile.
Like my smile.
I became a balloon, then stretched even wider to become a blimp. I wasn't lonely; the nine other souls who went on that day kept me company.
All I have to do is fly.
All I have to do…
You know that invisible tap on your shoulder? That someone is calling your name but when you look back, no one's there?
Truth is, I – we – are there, and we vanish when you notice us. It's what they call commensalism. You don't get harmed; we feed on your scraps.
And don't worry—it's been a good death so far. A person learns to forget the past, because their family and friends have long faded from their mind.
4. cofagrigus
A week into the job, you realized that grave robbing was a tricky business.
There's the risk of getting caught, sure, and then there's the risk of getting eaten. You think about your wife and twin children. They beg for you to please stop, that her grandparents can give enough money until you find a new, legal salary, and please daddy don't go.
This isn't about money. It's about the thrill and losing yourself to the red haze. You sometimes wished that Unova's construction sites had never imported machops from other regions. You wished that you had never dropped out of school, never discovered an entire tomb underneath desert sands.
You wished that you couldn't have been so damn stupid.
Maybe you were cleverer than those other robbers who disappeared underneath the mazes and never came back. After all, you hauled back silver jewelry, bronze plates, and brass armor, sneaking past the policemen busy battling with trainers. By morning you always came back with full wallets and very much alive.
But as you said before, it wasn't about money—dollars were only for silencing your family and any suspicions. You wanted the gold.
You wanted to be first at something for once.
One afternoon after a particularly good haul—still no gold—you announced that you had found a job working on building Nimbasa's theme park. Your job hours would be from nine to four—at night. Your family congratulated you, found nothing weird about your work times, although your little son looked suspicious.
You could still feel his gaze lingering on your back when you went to grave rob the next night.
But in the end, you thought nothing about it, and you patted yourself mentally for coming up with such a good story. You could finally find the gold in peace.
…
At Nimbasa you didn't pay a glance at the theme parks and sparkling lights and drunken kids. You wondered which ones will drop out of school like you did.
You descend the cement steps of the subway terminal, grudgingly admiring the immaculate handiwork of the machops. That only made you even more determined to find the gold.
"Ticket, please?" the guard asked.
You smiled and handed him your ticket to the desert resort. First class.
"Enjoy your ride," he said, and let you through.
You didn't even notice a little shadow following you through the silver grilles and blending in with the other trainers on the train.
…
At the desert you rubbed your hands eagerly, and you made sure the trainers distracted the few guards. You navigated the tomb's halls with vigor, flashlight bobbing. Your footsteps might've echoed a little too much, but once again chased the thoughts away.
As you approached the road break, branching into a hundred different directions, you decide to take the one on the far left tonight. You grabbed a few coins that snaked down that path and examined them. The coins were gold! You must be getting close now.
You scooped up more coins, all the while thinking why haven't I noticed this before?
That's when you heard the wailing. Sometimes you would hear them before, but the sensible part of you crushed the imagination down. But this time…
This time it wasn't your imagination.
"Daddy? Is someone sad?"
Panicked, you whirled around and there he was, your curious George.
"You've been following me?"
"Daddy, one of my classmates told me that Nimbasa's theme park was already constructed."
"How smart of you!"
"Daddy, I decided that I would follow you, to make sure you will be alright."
"How wonderful!"
"So," he said, grin toothy, "can I come with you?"
You ruffled his hair fondly, and replied, "Of course."
The two of you followed the path down and around totem poles, which were amazingly still intact. There weren't simply random designs on those—each pole was a scene. What appeared to be smudge of yellow and brown was actually a creature eating a human. There were eyes on the carvings too, and after a while you begin to feel they were all looking at you. No, not you, you corrected.
They were staring at George.
You stumbled a bit in your step, and peeled your eyes from those faces. Once you looked back, they were just ancient carvings again. No gazes. No bloody scenes.
Just your imagination again.
By the time you are out of that hallway, your son had dashed up ahead, out of sight.
And behold, your flashlight caught a glint of yellow, of gold. You scrambled to reach it, realizing that the treasure wasn't some goblet or armor.
It was a coffin.
So beautiful.
So captivating.
The golden coffin started screaming.
You put two-and-two together and noticed that your son was in there!
"I can't get out! Daddy!"
You almost had to get him out. Almost. You crawl to the coffin, where two arms had sprung to life, indifferent to the panic brewing inside. You could see that, despite being all glitters and gold, the thing did look like a creature. That's when you noticed your son's cries were getting weaker.
You could've tackled the thing to the ground, prying open the lid, kicking, fighting... But you also wanted your treasure.'
How very tempting.
…
"You're home!"
"Daddy, you're home!"
"But aren't you guys wondering where George is?"
"George?"
"Your brother. Our son."
"I never had a brother."
"We never had a son."
"Are you alright, Daddy?"
"It's just a…story I made up. Not a real one. My imagination runs wild, so only I would know if he existed."
"Yeah! Only you could think of that, Daddy."
5. banette
It is an hour before dawn now. Butterfly always sets out when everything is cold, dark, and still, and she shivers, wondering what's she's doing out here in the ice water. She watches as her hands prepare the boat. It's an old fishing boat, its hull crusted with barnacles. Faint block letters from another time and place.
Her hands are not her hands, and it's not her that's setting out by the time dawn arrives. She is on the boat, yes. She is on the boat, no.
"Today's going to be a great day," she hears herself saying. "I'll make sure you catch a big one. Don't worry—my lips are sealed, Butterfly."
Something strokes the anxiety from her soul, cold. In a second her clammy hands are suffocated, and her arms somehow find the strength to push the boat away from the wooden dock.
Row, row, row your boat…
…
When she looks back, the shore behind her—them—is just a thin line of gray on the horizon. Her other self has never taken her out this far before. Never.
"Stop. Head to that tree line." She stares as her finger points. "We'll take a rest soon, I promise."
The black tidal waves prevent the boat, now filled with miserable puddles, from reaching land. Then she's rowing as hard as she can, against the wind, the waves.
"No. Do it gently down the stream..."
She obeys, and the rocky surface of shore soon claws at the barnacle crusts.
The next minute, she's back on the boat again. But her hands are not empty. They clutch a colorful bouquet of wildflowers, foraged deep in the forest.
"Every funeral needs flowers, you know," her other self says, snickering. She glances down at the bouquet, then plucks one out. "Pretty, you think it's strong like a lion, when in truth it's hopeless."
She crumples the flower in her hand and flicked it with her fingers into the water. "There. Drown. Destroyed by one hand. Or should I say two."
Then they set out again, merrily cackling all the way.
…
The waves begin to get rough, rolling up and down like fleshed roller coaster. There is no delicate skeleton, no seatbelts, only the big bad storm. She crawls to the shelter, chokes back puke, and discovers that it had flooded.
"It's leaking," she says. "There's water—"
"Quiet—"
"We're going to die—"
"At least—"
"We're going to die—"
"—we have funeral flowers—"
"Who are you? Why am I here?"
Lightning flashes in the distant horizon. She casts her line out, shoulders shaking as the hook sinks deeper and deeper.
Her hand muffles her mouth. But when lightning flashes again, she sees her reflection in the glassy water and even that cannot muffle her scream.
A wisp of smoke coils out. The thing is ugly and gray, sleepless yellow eyes filled to the brim with pity. It drops beside her, and flops around, releasing an awful giggle.
That's when she sees the tail. It's chewed up, a ketchup stain at the tip.
"You are my toy."
It laughs. "Well, seeing as how the boat is sinking and a storm's coming, it looks like you are my plaything."
A wave lifts the boat high and proud. Her stomach drops as the boat pitches and tumbles. Water pours in from the side.
Her fishing rod clicks, right as her cute puppet floats over her head.
"Looks like you did catch something big. I was right." Again that hysterical laughter.
She tries to toss the fishing rod over the deck, but the line is tangled between her fingers. Somewhere below, she hears a rush of water as something from very, very deep forces its way toward the surface, tugging her along for the ride.
"Help!"
"You need me now?" Her toy grins. "That wasn't what you said when you threw me away…"
Hopefully this will be anything but a dream.