Rewritten as of January 20th, 2025
Fluids involuntarily spilled from the depths of her stomach as she collapsed onto her hands and knees. Her insides found a way to stain the murky liquid that now pooled beneath her into an even more sickly shade. Even when she had no more left to expel from her trembling form, Taylor still found herself heaving at the mere memories that now plagued her unraveling psyche.
The tears that had trailed from her burning eyes were next to fall, almost invisible in the eerie crimson hue that illuminated her new surroundings.
The sea of black beneath her stretched into a fog of shadows no amount of squinting could pierce, only interrupted by pillars of white that stabbed into the horizon, arranged into endless rows that conjoined into a ribcage-like structure looming high above.
No—it was a ribcage, Taylor quickly realized even from her hunched-over position, able to see where individual vertebrae linked together to create the gargantuan section of the spine that vanished into the darkness with no visible end in sight. It had to have been thousands of feet long.
It was then where she expected to find solace in the end of her functioning mind she instead discovered that her barest of instincts had yet to abandon her.
The skulls of a horned beast piled up in the hundreds before her, the thorned mountain easily towering over her feeble form as she had yet to find strength in her legs to even dare stand before it. But it had not been the skulls and their hollow sockets that had struck her so deep that even the barest of breath had become that of a wailing scream to her ears.
Four unblinking eyes ripped into the intangible flesh of Taylor Hebert's quivering mortal soul.
This man wasn't human.
"Insect." The singular word reverberated throughout the air itself, shaking Taylor down to the very core of her being as she was unmistakeably addressed by the man.
"I do not recall giving you permission to raise your head." Taylor's neck snapped down on mere instinct alone, not even giving a second of thought to her actions as she practically kissed the vomit-splattered liquid at her feet.
The drumming of her own heartbeat is the only thing she can hear over the echo of her shallow breaths, the combination of sounds an unrelenting orchestra solely conducted by a man who had yet to even shift in his seat.
His face was covered in black markings, too dark to be called tattoos. His white and black clothing was draped over his body like a gown, seeming several sizes too large for someone of his stature. Yet, it was his eyes that had Taylor frozen, two seemingly normal pairs matched by a smaller set that rested just beneath them.
"Is he a Parahuman?"
"That has to be the explanation for this."
"There can't be anyone normal that could make someone feel like this...right?"
"How repulsive," he spat. "To think your body is the one I am now held within." Even the man's half-hearted scoff found a way to elicit a flinch from her. "Perhaps I'll just take my chances with the next one," he droned. "Even if it takes more centuries of waiting."
Taylor couldn't stop herself from gaping at the mere implications of what he had just said. Her head jolted up, "Y-You can't—"
Her outburst was silenced with a splash of blood and the excruciating pain that followed.
Taylor fell face-first into the murky liquid when her right arm came free with a torrent of crimson. The taste of copper found her tongue as she opened her mouth to scream beneath the tides.
She was unable to do little more than thrash about while palming the gaping wound with her still attached hand, sending searing stakes of pain up her shoulder as fingernails dug into burning flesh.
Her eyes drifted to the man, still somehow able to see him despite how quickly the edges of her vision were darkening.
He only watched with a frown as she shrieked and wailed all the while writhing in unimaginable pain. Eventually, she began to slow, even the slightest movements through the depths a herculean task. Her arm went limp shortly after, splayed out before her, palm absolutely drenched in a deep red color.
"H-Help..." Taylor could only gasp to no one in particular, the word dying on her tongue even as she spoke it. She found hardly even a breath could grace her lungs even after her screams had so readily filled the air.
Then, from within her limited vision, she saw what appeared to be the man's expression twist to one of pure disgust. It was as if her plea alone had somehow offended him beyond her ghastly wails from a mere dismemberment.
"Be glad, your begging has granted you a swift end at my hand," the man announced. From his seat—no—throne, he slowly raised a singular digit, an index finger pointed directly at Taylor. Then, with an almost lazy motion, he swept it through the air, and across her body.
Taylor had no clue what to expect from such an action, but the chilling touch of Death slowly dragging its fingers down her spine had her assured even a twitch of this man's fingers was something to cower from.
But nothing ever came. Only the silence that had once permeated the hellish realm Taylor found herself within.
After what felt like an eternity of darkness, she found herself opening her eyes to a brighter world, having wrenched them closed in anticipation of well...instant death.
Instead, she found herself sitting comfortably in a booth of all things. A quick glance and flexing of fingers had her confirming that her abruptly severed arm was now firmly attached to her body.
Taylor looked to her right to see an empty diner and then to her left to see a ghostly town, the only movement she could see being the snow gently falling from the clouded sky.
Her voice cracked. "What the fuck is going on?"
She collapsed onto the table in front of her, burying her face into her arms as tears began to freely roll down her cheeks. It was only the ringing of the bell resting above the front door that roused her from her misery.
When Taylor peeked out from the crook of her elbow, she found someone was now sitting across from her.
It was a man. A tanned man with brownish-blonde hair and a striking number of scars streaking across his face. He wore mostly black, long sleeves and baggy pants covering most of his body, but a red hoodie seemingly layered underneath his overshirt.
He spoke before she could even collect a singular tangible thought that didn't involve more crying and screaming. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize what was happening until it was far too late."
Taylor felt the slightly table lower in his direction as he rested his elbows on it, bringing both of his hands up to his mouth while he leaned forward with a hardened expression.
"There's little I can do to make up for the pain that you went through, but I can at least clear up the confusion you must be experiencing." His words had Taylor rubbing at her eyes and sitting up, even if it was the understatement of the century.
He patiently waited for her to blow her nose with the napkins placed by the window, his eyes tracking her every movement as she struggled to pull herself together. Two globs of snot and three damp napkins later, Taylor was slouched over the table with a crinkled-up, half-used, napkin clenched between her hands.
His brown eyes bore into Taylor's, unflinching in the staring contest the two had somehow found themselves in.
"What's happening to me?" Taylor blurted out, shattering the silence with little fanfare.
The man lowered his hands, giving her better visibility of the patch of scarred skin at the corner of his lip. "To put it simply, you've been cursed."
"What?"
"Though I suppose haunted might be a better way to describe it for you," he seemed to ponder, shifting his eyes to the window momentarily.
"That doesn't tell me why the fuck my arm got chopped off!" Taylor suddenly cried out. "Or why I'm just sitting here like nothing even happened! I don't even know where the hell I am!"
The man didn't seem to mind her sudden outburst, keeping the same static expression all throughout, even as she eventually winded down with slow and heavy breaths in the silence that now filled the room.
"Do you believe in the supernatural?" Was all he said in response, a question that seemed almost completely dismissive of her questions.
"What kind of question is that?" Taylor snapped, still riding the emotions of her previous words.
"Just tell me, it'll make things a bit easier for me to explain."
Taylor leaned back in her seat with a huff. She'd have to play along for now.
"No, I don't believe in ghosts," she answered with a hint of annoyance.
"I'm not just talking about ghosts when I say supernatural," he explained. "What you're dealing with is a whole lot bigger than some lingering spirit."
"Enlighten me."
He began to speak with a tone that could probably slash clean through solid steel, leaving little room for Taylor's skepticism. "What you now have resting within you is something incredibly dangerous. A monster countless people over the centuries have attempted to put a permanent end to."
Taylor's mind drifted to the other man she had seen.
"He was known as a deity to some, a four-armed and two-faced demon god who feasted on anyone whoever dared cross his path. But to me..." He trailed off, averting his gaze to the window once more. Night had somehow already fallen, streetlights illuminating the untouched sheet of snow that covered the empty streets.
"He's my prisoner, my responsibility," he said, almost seeming more directed at himself than her as he turned back to face her. "But now he's attached to you, someone who doesn't even know the basics of Sorcerery."
"Sorcerery? Like wizards? Are you fucking with me?"
He sighed. "I know you probably won't believe me at first, but most of that supernatural or paranormal stuff isn't too far off from reality."
"No, no no no," Taylor began to rise from her seat as she spoke. "What the hell is this? Are you a Parahuman? Are you trying to Master me?"
"Parahuman? Like a superhero?" He asked, appearing a little taken aback.
Alarm bells were ringing in Taylor's head as she stepped out of the booth. Unless a portal to another alternate Earth had spontaneously opened at the bottom of her locker, there was no way someone hadn't heard of Parahumans, something was definitely wrong here.
She slowly stepped back toward the door, not so subtly eyeing the winter wonderland just outside.
"Please sit back down, there's nothing out there. I'm only trying to help you." His words fell on deaf ears as Taylor burst through the door in a full-on sprint not a second later.
Snow crunched underfoot as she ran down the unfamiliar street. Each harsh breath filled her throat with needles, making every step laborious in a way she'd felt only a scant few times before. No matter how far she went, nothing looked recognizable in the slightest, just an endless row of buildings that stretched into the foggy darkness.
Taylor eventually came to a stop at the edge of the sidewalk, hardly able to take another step. She must have been running in a full sprint for several minutes at least. It was only the heart-stopping rapping of knuckles on window that drew her attention to the building next to her.
When she turned, the scarred man sat right where he had been in the last diner—no—upon closer examination, it was the last diner. Taylor took a shaky step back, mind struggling to wrap around the fact she had somehow looped around to the exact same place after running in a completely straight line.
She was trapped. This was the only thing she could truly understand.
"What do you want from me?" Taylor asked, hardly able to keep her voice even when seated across from what was clearly a Parahuman.
He sighed. "I'm just trying to help you."
It appeared as if his patience was running thin, the perpetual frown painted across his face slowly deepening with each minute. Perhaps if Taylor were to keep stalling this illusion or dreamworld would eventually expire.
"Then let me out of here and I'll believe you," Taylor hissed all the while her nails deepened their grip on her knees.
The man only stared at her, his unwavering eyes in the process boring a hole into her head.
After a moment of pure silence, he simply raised his hand, fingers loosely hanging as he draped his limb just above the table. Without warning his hand was burst into translucent blue and black flames. Taylor lurched from her seat, jumping towards the counter as the man sat there unfazed.
"This," he said as he raised his palm toward her, "is Cursed Energy."
"The fact you are even able to see it makes you unique, as it means you possess a substantial amount of Cursed Energy in your own right," he continued to explain despite how deeply Taylor leaned away from him and his glowing hand.
"Because of the man who you first saw, Sukuna, who is now trapped within your body, you will be forced to utilize it if you wish to not only protect yourself but those around you."
The flames vanished as quickly as they had appeared, not even a singe on his hand or the table he had hovered it so carelessly above.
"We only have so much more time before Sukuna does something rash, so I'd like to teach you what you need to just survive if you don't plan on fighting Curses."
Taylor slowly inched forward.
"You...can teach me how to do that?"
He nodded.
"I—" Before he could get another word out, the ground shook, a tremor that nearly knocked Taylor clean off her feet and sent anything not bolted down airborne. Plates and empty glasses shattered on the floor while stray silverware bounced across the diner.
"What the hell was—?!" Taylor was cut off when the man suddenly rose to his feet and hastily marched toward her.
He stopped a little more than a few inches in front of her before speaking. "Stay close and be quiet. There is only so much I can do to protect you if push comes to shove."
His intense glare as he gripped her by the shoulders had Taylor shakily nodding before she even realized what she had agreed to.
A crack seemed to appear in reality itself, a pitch-black jagged mark appearing at their feet and quickly climbing into the air itself. It wasn't long before it completely enveloped them in a web of cracks before giving away with a sound akin to a symphony of shattering glass.
It was then Taylor found herself standing ankle-deep in a murky pool of liquid once more, only this time it was churning around her more like an ocean, swirling waves lapping at her calves with a very tangible heat. The liquid was boiling.
"Of course you'd waste your time mending her soul. I wouldn't expect any less from someone as soft as you, brat," a familiar voice echoed above the chaos, somehow making such a dull tone appear murderous to those it was directed toward.
The unmistakable chill that swept down Taylor's spine had her visibly shaking as she slowly turned her head to face what she knew all too well what the source of such malevolence was.
And when she turned, she found the scarred man's back before her instead, his body standing tall while she cowered behind it.
"It's not wise to be speaking so highly Sukuna," he said with not an ounce of fear audible in his voice, "not when that chain around your neck is still so tight." He then raised his left hand while a literal chain materialized into existence, appearing to be embedded into his palm.
She peaked around the man to see the chain disappear beneath the crashing waves, then trail toward the throne of skulls where they vanished beneath that man's clothes. But a four-eyed glare had her swiftly ducking back behind her human shield.
"With someone you seek to shield l'd say your tongue is one the one that needs holding, brat," he snapped back as the chains faded away. "Our vow never required her safety."
Taylor was barely holding onto a buoy in the middle of a hurricane. She couldn't make any sense of what they were talking about despite hearing every word uttered over the storm brewing beneath her, the rapidly rising tide brushing against her thighs now.
"Don't," the man in front of her suddenly commanded, visibly tensing with a shifting of footing. Before Taylor could decipher what that could have possibly meant, an unexpectedly harsh wind blasted past her face, causing her to flinch away and instinctually shut her eyes.
When the gust had passed, she found the man that had once been in front of her had moved to her side and was now shakily holding the wrist of the one he had called Sukuna, their hands mere inches from her face and that man's razor-sharp purple nails even closer. Taylor could only gape her mouth open and closed like a fish in the face of what might have been her instant death.
With a movement Taylor could hardly follow, her protector blew him back with another shockwave of wind blowing past her, sending him sliding across the surface of the dark waves. When he came to a stop, there was a visible red mark at the comer of his lip, only to vanish between a flicker of Taylor's eyelids.
"Did all of that time sitting on your ass finally make you rusty?" The man said with an almost audible smirk, finding time to mock the man who had come a hair's breadth away from gouging Taylor's eyes out.
Sukuna responded with a slowly lengthening grin that didn't fail to send a shiver down Taylor's spine. "Don't get ahead of yourself brat."
Taylor had been cut, a thin yet painful thing now leaking blood down her left cheek. Her hand went to touch at it in disbelief, coming back with fingertips stained red.
Without warning, a surprisingly warm hand clamped down on Taylor's shoulder. The man's hand was glowing with a translucent white light now. Taylor could somehow feel the light as it seeped into every nook and cranny of her body, rejuvenating her to a point where she imagined even her cells were jumping for joy.
The pain from the cut vanished as soon as he had laid his hand upon her and another tentative touch across her cheek proved that he had indeed healed her.
Taylor felt her eyes widen.
"Had he-?"
"Cursed Energy is fueled by negative emotion," he suddenly began to explain, his tone far lower than it had been before, "focus on a negativity you can control for now and spread it throughout your body, I'll explain the rest of it to you later once this is over."
"What?" Taylor could only blurt out dumbly in response.
"Just try okay?" He asked, moving in front of her once again before giving her a thumbs up. "You've got this. I believe in you."
Despite the danger they were clearly in, Taylor swallowed, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.
Focus.
Block out the noise.
Block out the heat.
Block out the fear.
Taylor had plenty of negative emotions, they were practically crawling beneath her skin, just waiting their turn to tear their way to the surface. Years of pain, despair, and silent suffering tended to do that to a person. But he had said a controllable emotion, one she could harness—whatever that had meant.
A flash of pain almost forced her to open her eyes, the familiar pain of a cut arcing across her skin. But before more blood could mix with the waves below, a hand once more found her shoulder, filling her with an unfamiliar warmth.
It was the direct opposite to negativity that she was currently bathing by merely being in the presence of Ryomen Sukuna, yet she somehow realized this energy flowing through her was not born from positive emotion, but an inverse of negativity itself.
If she could somehow reverse engineer this feeling...
No, she needs to focus on his advice. Just find an emotion that fits the parameters.
With the floodgates now opened, buried emotions raced to flood her.
The betrayal she felt when Emma stabbed her in the back and ruthlessly twisted the knife.
The anger that roared through her body when she finally found the flute.
The hate that coursed through her veins whenever the trio stood over her, smiles plastered across their faces like her life was just some big joke.
"Focus. Find something you can control."
She delved deeper, searching through her memories for the answer, brushing past the still-open wounds inflicted by the trio.
The fear that shot through her veins when she got lost during nature camp.
The sadness that sank into her when she saw her father cry for the first time.
She finally found it.
It sat deep and heavy in her heart, still prying at her years later. It was the emptiness she had felt when Annette Herbert was pronounced dead at the scene of a single-vehicle collision.
Years later her mother's death still haunted her, a piece of her torn away the moment she left her and her dad's life. It was something that had threatened to tear her apart when she first encountered the feeling.
But it was a feeling she had become familiar with, one she wasn't going to burst at the seams at when it came bubbling up to the surface. Taylor reached out and grabbed it.
When Taylor opened her eyes, twin flames burned in her hands, blue and black embers completely enveloping her palms.
"I-I did it," she muttered, unable to hide her amazement at what should be impossible. Impossible for anyone who wasn't a Parahuman.
"Good," she heard the man breathe out, pushing her drifting thoughts to the background. He was on a knee now, his body visibly raising up and down with each labored breath that filled his lungs.
Meanwhile, Sukuna stood tall despite a number of injuries. The most pressing of all was the oozing crater opened into his chest with an array of cuts in the clothing surrounding it. But he still somehow stood, fists clenched while a snarl was now permanently fixed upon his face.
"Now I can see about getting you out of here." The man rose on unsteady feet, raising his hands.
"My soul still thrives after thousands of years of stagnation. What gave you the illusion yours could ever overrule mine?" Sukuna growled, even as his ribcage became more visible with each word spoken.
The man laughed, a sound more joyful than Taylor had expected. "Let's just say I'm taking inspiration from one of your previous victims."
At that, Sukuna's eyes widened, but it was too late.
He uttered something incomprehensible, sounding far too much like a foreign tongue than the English he had been previously speaking. Beneath him the waves broke, giving way to a snow-covered sidewalk before shifting into a white light Taylor had to tear her eyes away from.
"Go!" The man shouted, planting his feet on either side of the hole.
Without a moment of hesitation, Taylor lurched toward him. Even if she was less than ten feet away, each footfall felt like sinking her feet into concrete, her ankles feeling on the verge of snapping clean off every time she tore them free from the black tar swirling beneath her.
"Too slow!" Sukuna cried out, bursting forward with his hands outstretched and eclipsing Taylor's sluggish movements in the blink of an eye.
"No!" The man roared, spinning on his heel in an attempt to follow Sukuna's movements.
With a sickening squelch, a hush swept through the King of Curses' soul. The tides lowered to the ground, no more deep than a puddle after an hour of rain. The black pool became so still that even the droplets that spilled onto their surface rippled as far as the eye could see.
Taylor's heart skipped a beat, only noticeable in the deafening silence that hung in the air. Then it skipped another. And then another.
Taylor let her eyes drop to her chest, where she found the ailment that had gripped her heart in such a way. Four eyes blankly stared into her own as the clawed hand wrapped around her heart snapped shut in a bloody explosion.
Sukuna's hand vacated her chest not long after, leaving her to stumble backward as crimson rivers spilled into the black lagoon at her feet. Taylor's hand reached for the monster before her, empty eyes locked onto the dark red patches still stuck to his hand, grasping at the open air.
Every plead was a gasp of air wasted, only leading her to the ground faster than if she hadn't tried at all. She saw the man at her side, his warm, glowing hands resting on her, but not a drop of it she could retain.
Someone was screaming.
Countless lights were flashing in her eyes.
She was weightless.
Everything went white.
When she opened her eyes white flooded her vision. She heard a groan as her hand came up to shield her eyes. It slowly came into focus against the light.
She blinked several times and the blinding light turned into ceiling lights, surrounded by white ceiling tiles.
Her feet shot out of the side of the bed she now realized she was lying in.
"What was that?"
Her mind struggled to capture the images that flashed through her mind. A seizure-inducing slideshow filled with blood, snow, and black oceans. Taylor groaned again, gripping her head as she welded her eyes shut to little success.
While the splitting headache subsided she opened her eyes to take in her surroundings.
She was in a hospital. A hospital she recognized.
Her eyes trailed to the window. It was dark outside, the artificial lighting of the city she had lived in for her entire life staring back at her.
She rose to her feet and something pulled at her hand. Bringing her arm up, she almost leapt out of her skin. If it even was hers.
Either someone had just grafted the arm of an MMA fighter to her or she had started going to the gym in her sleep. Taylor wasn't sure which was more probable.
Hurriedly tearing the IV out of her wrist and the heart monitor off her finger she walked towards the nearest door, the sound of the machines flatlining behind her.
"Mirror...I need a mirror," Taylor mumbled as she almost ran through the wooden door. She paid no mind to the odd looks and occasional words that were thrown her way as her eyes frantically searched for a bathroom sign.
She burst through the nearest restroom and latched onto the sink, the door swinging shut behind her. Her eyes slowly looked into the small square mirror hung above the sink.
Lean, but muscular arms gripped the porcelain as her eyes raked over her body, still covered in a spotted, blue hospital gown. She didn't need to tear it off to know she'd find hardened abs underneath it.
She had to lean down to get a good look at her face, finding several inches had tacked themselves onto her already noteworthy height.
Her long curly brown hair remained, but her eyes had a slightly lighter hue to them now, something almost no one would notice. But what she doubted people would ignore were the scars beneath them.
Two thin lines just beneath her eyes.
Her hand was about to reach up to touch them when she felt something shift in her stomach.
"Watch your hands, brat," a deep, familiar voice echoed in the empty bathroom.
Her body went rigid.
Her mouth hung open as her eyes trailed to her cheek in the mirror, where a small mouth with a single eye above it had appeared.
"If a spineless brat like you is to be my vessel I won't have your pathetic hands defacing my eyes."
Taylor screamed.