The Master

Anorrack

SCP-7890
Author Page
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The buzzing of the yellow light seemed to almost drown out all thought, as David stared blankly at the anatomy book he had scrounged up from behind the desk, his phone near-useless on low battery. The page showed a cut-away diagram of the skull, emphasizing the massive space of the nasal cavity; where every other causeway into the body met and mixed. A big, empty room where nothing happens. Sort of like a receptionist's desk, he idly thought as his gaze wandered over the vacant chairs and tables on the dirty-gray linoleum of the waiting room.
He wasn't exactly a receptionist, as it would be strange for a morgue to have one, but he monitored the comings of goings of staff, medical professionals, and cops, took messages, directed vistors, and generally maintained a disposition of “hurry up and wait.” For the most part, it was a boring job. The only thing that really broke through his malaise was the arrival of new bodies.
As they were drawn up on their gurneys, zipped up in white body bags, he would often try to guess who was underneath. Whether they were young or old, how they died, and how long they had been dead. Some were easy, based on either the cloying smell they left behind—sometimes like burnt pork or soggy spoiled bread—or the terribly small size of the bag, both of which made David's stomach clench in recollection. He would often try to connect the body bag to something he had heard on the radio, like the missing swimmer they found, or a pile-up on the highway. But he couldn't pry. Legally and morally. Just theorized in his head, a private game to while away the hours until he finally punched out.
He had had this job for a while, summer break and some of the winter near Christmas, and he was starting to get a sense of the ebb and flow of death that occurred throughout the year. Higher near the Super Bowl and other holidays, lower during summer months. As the leaves had been showing signs of yellow, and the wind seemed just a bit more biting, David knew there was going to be a slight uptick again, more bodies rolling through those double doors.
He was jolted out of a half-trance—rolling a pencil stub on the cheap desk—by the slamming open of the double doors, a gurney barging against the heavy oak, being pushed by two grim EMTs. They were hurried, and without even the usual greeting they sped past David, the gurney's wheels squeaking, into the sterile hallways to the morgue proper. But he could hear snippets of their frantic conversation held in undertones.
“Damn psycho…”
“…Buried under his house for how long…”
“…All chained up, all medieval like that…”
“Christ…”
David sat up, cursing to himself. He didn't get a good look at the body bag. He leaned back and flicked on the radio, twiddling with the knob, and cruised through the stations, but there was nothing on the air but interest pieces and bluegrass.
Reluctantly, he turned back to the anatomy book, keeping half an eye on the blue-tiled hallway, his mind nibbling at the gossip he overheard. Victim of a serial killer, maybe? Roleplay gone wrong? Might be an out-of-towner. Couldn't be anyone he knew, he would've heard about it. No Amber Alert, either.
Time passed, and David mused. Finally, a far door swung open down the hallway, and the EMTs exited, in deep discussion with the chief ME, Lefner, their shoes clicking against the tile and echoing down the empty hallway as they walked. David tried to catch their eyes, but a withering look from one of the EMTs stopped him. They finished their conversation with a brisk handshake each from Lefner, before leaving, the heavy oaken doors silently sliding back into place in their wake.
Lefner stood still for a moment, staring through the window towards the parking lot. David leaned forwards. “I'm not normally one to pry, but what's the story with the new body?”
The doctor didn't acknowledge the question. “Theo will be replacing you for the night shift in…“ He checks his watch. “An hour. EMTs are going home, and I, for one, have enough on my plate as is. Don't have the energy to deal with this John Doe tonight. You alright holding down the fort?”
David nodded his head and leaned back, disappointed. “Uh, yeah, yeah, of course. I'll be fine. Still have more reading material.” He gestured to the shelves of medical journals behind the desk.
Lefner doesn't crack a smile. “Have a good night.” With a flurry of his white coat, he, too exited through the double doors.
Silence fell in the morgue again, except for the buzzing of the yellow lights. David rolled the stub of the pencil in between his fingers, pensive. His question wasn't answered, and he didn't get a good look at the body. He opened the medical textbook, and forced himself to read.

Page 400-something-or-other, about metatarsals and phlanges. David was bored out of his skull. He looked out the window. With an empty waiting room on one side of glazed glass and the occasional sugar-high costumed kids across orange-lit streets on the other, there was nothing interesting to be seen. His phone buzzed. Anna, his girlfriend.
Coming over tonight?
He noted the battery percentage slipping into the single digits.
Maybe. Finishing shift in half hour. See you at 11?
U know it :)
David was in the middle of typing a reply when his phone stuttered and froze, the screen turning black and flashing the low battery icon. He let the phone clatter to the desk, frustrated.
He couldn't focus on the book, and his phone was dead. He half-heartedly scanned the bookshelves, but nothing grabbed his attention. The clock ticked away softly on the wall, the red needle jerkily moving in its circular orbit. An hour, Lefner had said. The ticking of the clock, the buzzing of the lights, the soft whirring undertones of the ventilation. He was bored out of his skull.

But underneath it all, there was something else. There was a noise underneath the buzzing of the yellow lights, something quieter, more irregular. The sound irked David as it danced at the edge of his hearing, a formless sound that just barely evaded definition. But, as he strained his ears, he was finally able to put a finger on the sound. Tapping. Inconstant, arrhythmic. The sound would stop, maybe for minutes at a time, and he would almost forget about it, but then it would start up again. It wasn't constant, a regular beat, and that somehow annoyed David more than the droning of the lights or the whirring of the ventilation.
The lights he could get used to, a white noise that disappeared into the background, like the cicadas that were omnipresent just weeks before, now nothing but empty chitinous shells on the ground. Again it waned in strength, and David began to read again, but just as he got to the second paragraph, it reappeared, the faintest of drumbeats on his ears, and he took a deep breath.
With a grunt, he lifted himself out of his seat and looked down the hallway. It sounded like the tapping came from the morgue proper, down the blue-tiled hall, with its clean, white walls and smooth metal doors. David looked at the clock on the wall. 9:30. Half an hour left. He rapped his knuckles in staccato against the desk, thinking.
David looked at the clock again. The minute hand hadn't moved. He was energetic by nature, maybe a front desk job wasn't the best fit for him, but it was walking-around money. He was also impatient. Curious. Jittery. He couldn't wait.
David got out of the chair and walked slowly down the hallway, painfully aware of the squeaking of his sneakers against the blue-tiled floor, echoing down the empty corridor. The soft tapping slowly became louder. David felt irrationally tense, like he did when he was a kid, and had to get a drink of water in the middle of the night, peering down that long hallway from the safety of his bedroom, just to make sure there were no monsters hiding in the dark. But this hallway was evenly lit, with not a shadow in sight, everything washed out by the yellow, buzzing light. So how come he felt so tense, as if a shambling skeleton were to waltz around the corner?
He walked a bit more. Louder. He could pick out the detail of the tapping now. It sounded like a doctor, tapping a metal syringe full of poison. A loose tooth, pried out of a rotted jaw to chisel a way out of a metal box. Or maybe just a loose screw, rattling in the air ducts. The sound faded a little bit. He paused, and walked backwards for a moment, ending in front of the door the John Doe had entered but never left. The door the EMTs had come out with such grim expressions.
David tapped his foot rhythmically on the blue tile, his hand hovering over the handle. As his hand brushed against it, he drew back, looking up and down the hallway, and spotted a fire extinguisher. He leaned over and grabbed it out of its alcove, holding it at the ready as he again reached out with his free hand for the handle. David licked his lips. He'd never actually gone into the morgue proper before, in his year of working there. David had only observed the corpses and doctors entering and leaving. "C'mon, it's not that spooky, you bastard," He muttered to himself, as he adjusted his grip on the extinguisher. For some reason, he wasn't encouraged by the sound of his own voice.
He quietly, slowly, leaned on the handle, slightly pushing the door open, just wide enough to fit his head inside. Cold air blew against his face as he looked into the fridge.
No movement at all. The smell, dampened by the cold, tingled his nostrils. A sickly sweet, extremely specific smell, that for all his life David could not draw a comparison to anything similar. He adjusted his grip on the handle as he contorted his head around the door, still holding it half-way shut. He just noticed the tapping had stopped.
He slowly swept the room, extinguisher in both hands. He felt foolish with it, but at the same time comforted, a large blunt club as a security blanket. The room was large and cold, the ventilation hard at work keeping the bodies at a low temperature. Gurneys were organized in rows, with long, narrow white bags on top. A meat locker.
He crept up the rows, trying to look up at the walls and ceiling, for whatever was making that tapping sound. But his eyes were drawn to the bags, lined up like cars stuck in traffic, and the writing on the slick white exterior.

Roth, R. GSW.

Allen, W. Auto Accident.

Doe, J. Unknown.

He stopped, and suppressed a shudder. The bag for this one was unzipped, and the arm of the corpse had fallen out of it, laying on the metal edge of the gurney. Lefner and the EMTs were talking about it, maybe they examined him and forgot to close the bag back up. He wanted to grab that arm, shove it back into its bag, and run back to his desk. But another part of him pulled him back, pointing out the gray coloration of the skin, the slimy texture of it. The sickly smell that plagued the other bodies was more potent on this one, more pungent. Off. Like it had already begun to rot.
Even lost in thought, David couldn't have missed it. In the empty room, in the empty morgue, with blue-tiled hallways that make the smallest shift, the smallest cough echo, even with the rattle of the ventilation and the buzzing of the lights, he couldn't have missed it.
The tapping.
The rotted fingernail tapping on the gurney.
John Doe's fingernails, bulging from pus and serum pooling underneath their keratin sheaths, bitten and worn by maggots and worms and other things that crawl and eat and die in the dirt, rattling against the metal gurney.
He could see through the skin, through vermin-eaten parts of the arm to the muscle itself, individual fibres tensing and relaxing spastically, making the corpse's nails tap.
But it wasn't a corpse.
The shaking, the tensing, the movement, spread through the thing's entire body, shaking in a seizure, rattling the cart and filling the room with noise, loud, banging, crashing, noise.
David backed away, his legs shaking. He remembered the extinguisher he was holding, but on the one hand this thing is having a seizure, but on the other he might get in trouble for messing with a corpse. It's probably illegal to do that, an idle thought surfaced in the turbulence of his frantic brain.
His grip firmed on the metal club as the body stiffened and sat upright, as if struck by a bolt of lightning. The bag squealed with displeasure as it was forcefully unzipped, and the head slowly came into view as the bag slowly worked its way off of the corpse, its cloudy, glassy eyes gleaming in the harsh light.
The man looked dessicated, as if he hadn't had a drink of water in weeks. His eyes were sunken, almost hidden in their deep pits. His teeth were black-rimmed and yellow, dehydrated skin pulling tight against his skull, making him look gaunt and hollow. Patches of flesh had fallen away, leaving oozing shiny sores in their place. David gagged as he saw wriggling underneath the skin on its scabby chest, maggots having already made their filthy home inside of the creature.
David forced himself to swallow, his mouth suddenly dry. “Uh, sir? Are you alright?”
The thing looked at him with its glassy eyes, and worked its jaw, as if trying to figure out how to talk again. Through gritted teeth, and with a ragged whisper. “Wa-ter.”
“Sir? You want some water?”
“Wa-ter.” It was like his jaw was wired shut, as he forced the word painfully through his teeth.
Okay. Okay. David tried to calm himself as he walked shakily over to the sink, grabbing a stainless steel bowl and filling it with water. People had been declared dead and taken to the morgue before. They weren't vampires or what have you. This was probably completely normal, and the man just needed medical attention, that's all. David peeked back over his shoulder, and he saw the man, slowly swinging his legs over the gurney, and resting them the tiled floor. With effort, the man toddled to his feet, trying to get his bearings after being zipped in a body bag for hours. David noticed, with some revulsion, that his feet left greasy, red prints on the blue-tiled floor.
David turned the faucet off and approached the man—who looked much taller than David now that he was upright—and offered the bowl to him. The man grabbed the bowl and lifted it above his head, pouring it into his mouth, splashing water everywhere. He gulped it down greedily, though he didn't open his mouth, the excess of pure water trickling down his cheeks and neck, making his open sores glisten in the incandescent light.
David glimpsed a phone on the wall. “Sir, we are going to have to call the hospital, you look like you need a doctor, like, really bad. Do you know your name, relatives that we can call, anything specific that is—“ But he was stopped suddenly as he was enfolded in a hug from the man.
Its limp, sparse hair fell acrossed his face, and its long arms completely encircled him in a strong, tender bear hug. David lifted a hand and patted the man's shoulder in reciprocation, and nearly gagged as he felt slimy, necrotic skin squelch against his hands.
“Yeah, I'm glad you're alive too, but let's get you to a hospital.” He tried to dip out of the hug, but the man tightened his grip, his thin, emaciated arms belying their strength. He pulled tighter against David, to the point that he could almost count each of the man's ribs by touch alone. The man's breath quickened, pops and crackles could be heard inside of his chest, as if his lungs were half-filled with fluid. David eyed the fire extinguisher, where he put it down next to the sink.
“Hun-gry.” The man forced out the word in his monosyllabic way.
David blinked, his pulse quickening. “Excuse me?”
The man lifted his head from David's shoulder, and locked eyes with him, his cataract-filled eyes were so close, he could see that they were dried and scratched, like glass rubbed with sand. He realized the man hadn't blinked once since his revival.
“Hun-gry.”
Now, for the first time, the man opened his mouth. And David screamed.
The inside of his mouth was worn ragged, all of the skin bitten and fretted until it was nothing but ragged flesh. His breath was hot and rancid, a mixture of disease and crushed ants, a smell that bit at the nose and made him almost retch. But the worst part was his tongue, or lack thereof. Sitting perched in the center of the man's mouth, surrounded by teeth like a king on his throne, was a large insect, rooted to the place where his tongue should be. Its top was a dark red, the color of spoiled blood, and its underbelly was a pale white. Its exterior was smooth, layered chitin, with many different segments and scuttling legs, disappearing into the back of the mouth, and its long antennae brushed against the two front teeth. At the sudden stimulus of light flooding into the mouth, the centipede, it was a centipede, reared up, its many-legged segments writhing and twitching, masticating a bit of torn gum between its two mandibles.
Pinned in place, David struggled against John Doe's grasp as the insect, hesitantly, cautiously, extended out of the man's mouth, its many legs rattling a wooden staccato against its teeth. David clapped his jaw shut as its antennae brushed against his lips. Its large, bulbous eyes gazed up into David's own, and unfolded two strangely shaped front legs from its underside. The legs were long and flat, held more like praying mantis claws, the inside edges coated with a strange, shiny substance. The centipede rubbed them together, and without the filter of teeth and lips in the way, David could suddenly detect a strange vibration as it spoke, like the buzzing of angry bees.
“Hun-gry.”
He had had enough, and with a frantic clenched-teeth screech, David shoved the creature off of him, its fingernails scraping at his side, and ran for the fire extinguisher, leaning down to pick it up before slamming and rolling against the opposite wall. The creature was flailing backwards, the centipede quickly withdrawing into the corpse's mouth as it regained its balance. The corpse straightened and stared at David with its dead-white eyes, twin-shines glimmering with hostility inside its slack-jawed mouth.
“Hun—“
With a strike that jarred his arm, the extinguisher that connected with the temple of the man carried the force of David's charge and his frantic downward swing, and both he and the creature tumbled. He winced in pain and grabbed his shoulder, which twinged painfully from the sudden motion of the attack and the jarring strike. He could see the creature laying on the ground in his peripheral vision, the blue tile spattered with red blood, the soles of its feet worm-eaten and rotten, skin peeled and hanging in strands. As he caught his breath, the adrenaline making his legs quiver, out of the corner of his eye he saw the feet stir again. He righted himself and readied the dented extinguisher. When the creature stood back up, though, he had to stifle a scream.
The creature's head, which was worse for wear before he struck it, looked horrifying now. From the point of impact, a jagged crack ringed around the crown of its skull like a fragile hollow eggshell. The top of its head had collapsed inwards, and its eyes now appeared like they were perched on the rim of a bowl, held only by a set of atrophied, distended muscles, staring lid-less at David, its gangrenous lips pulled back in a twitching snarl.
As it readied to charge, David could see that its skull was completely empty, save for a small, pulsating mass pooling at the bottom of its head, encircled and contained by the rest of the parasite's body, its many-legged segments pulsating and writhing, massaging what remained of the corpse's brain. David realized with a mixture of disgust and horror that not only was the centipede controlling the body, it was eating the brain, pulping and consuming the fatty, protein-rich mass, and using the last bits of the corpse's energy to find its next victim. And now it was almost finished with its appetizer, it wanted to move onto his.
Regardless of what he saw, the blow he dealt to the corpse gave him a sort of frantic energy, an adrenaline rush that filled him with confidence and made him feel twenty feet tall. His eyes darted to the side, and he saw the edge of the gurney behind him. He quickly calculated a plan, and at the last second tried to dodge out of the charging monster's path, in an attempt to make it trip over the gurney, so he could strike at it again while it was prone. However, his adrenaline-addled brain glazed over the tiles, which were slick with dark red concoction of blood and bile, and with his quick movement his sneakers slipped out from under him, the fire extinguisher clattered to the ground as he lost his grip, and in a reversal of fates he found himself tackled by the zombie.
The zombie was over him, its wiry and tattered limbs wrestled with his own. He grabbed the zombie by the shoulders, surprisingly heavy given its state of decomposition, and pushed it up, away from his vulnerable flesh. It was a wild animal, clawing at his arms and sides with cracked nails, its eyes teetering precariously from their fleshy perch, the centipede stretching from its mouth, legs twitching, antenna brushing against his lips. Thick gobs of saliva and phlegm cascaded down the centipede's segments, dripping all over his face. His eyes burned on contact from the spit, and with a hoarse yell and a burst of flagging energy he threw the zombie to the side.
He staggered to his feet, but the zombie was on him again. He dove for the fire extinguisher, and turned around just in time to block a swipe from It with his forearms. He riposted with a second blow to the head, and the zombie went down a second time, its jaw at an odd angle and teeth scattered like loose marbles on the floor. He jumped on top of it, raising the extinguisher to club its head to pieces, but screamed as a white hot pain lanced up his body. He looked down to see a gnarled, bony finger pierced through his thigh, twisting and drilling to the bone, a bloody rose blooming on his filth-encrusted jeans. Through shattered teeth and broken jaw, the corpse almost looked it was grinning, the centipede playing a happy rattle on its remaining incisors.
With a frighteningly strong and swift motion, the corpse got back on top of David, pinning him to the floor with wiry scabby limbs. It heaved with exertion, and produced a hacking cough, spraying a plague of maggots and mucus and filth out of its mouth onto David's face. But with a bent, crooked hand, It brushed a sweaty hair off of David's brow gently, almost lovingly. David screamed through clenched teeth as the creature slowly lowered his head to meet David's own, the parasite waving its mandibles and legs friendly-like as It reached into his mouth, using its large front claws to pry open his stubbornly clenched jaw, and muscled its way inside. He felt a sharp bite on the base of his tongue, and he stopped screaming, as a paralytic agent flooded his system, his limbs limply dropping to the floor, and his head rolling back, held in place by the gentle embrace of the corpse. His body went numb, and refused to respond, as the centipede crawled further into his mouth. He didn't feel the pain of It drilling through bone, but he knew. He didn't feel it when the parasite bit off his tongue, but he knew. He felt the pressure inside of his head as It crawled inside, pouring more and more of its mass into his mouth, but never filling it completely, the corpse going limp as It relinquished control. He knew It was inside of him, inside of his brain, rooting around his memories and motor responses, playing with axons and dendrites like a child with a Christmas toy. He knew when It found what it wanted, when his hand, uncertain and shaking, lifted into the air of its own volition. Of Its volition.

The doorbell rang, the single clear note echoing throughout the empty house on the crowded lane. Anna was on her laptop, editing her resume for the nth time. She looked up, a pearly white grin amid a sea of freckles. It must be David! She half-walked, half-skipped to the door, idly checking her phone on the way. She paused before the door, scrolling through a bunch of missed calls from her parents within the past few minutes. She looked through the window and saw David on the front porch. Anna threw open the door.
“Hey, David!”
But it wasn't David.


It's Halloween, and here I am, lying costume-less on my bed.
I have a costume, of course; many, in fact. They're all just still in the boxes, because I couldn't find the time or energy to pick one.
Outside, I'm sure the neighbors & their kids are enjoying a night of parties & scares, marveling at the sights & sounds & tastes everyone has on offer.
I'm sure none have given my undecorated apartment door much more than a passing glance.
I didn't even bother to put a candy bowl outside.
As I silently listen to the bustle & chatter, I feel the emptiness within me grow once more, eating away at my soul - or what's left of it, at least.
I think back to my childhood days; all the hours I've spent languishing like this, forced to eavesdrop on parental arguments, stewing in the atmosphere that permeated the house like a thick fog.
The feeling starts to burn, and tears start to well around my clenched eyelids as the memories reach a fever pitch.
…
And then, I sense a figure in the room with me.
I open my eyes.
It's standing in the corner, its head almost reaching the ceiling. The black cloth it wears billows gently in the current of the overhead fan.
Most noticeable of all, though, is the large, circular mirror it has instead of a face, through which I have a wide-angle view of my sprawled, pathetic form.
We stare at each other, for a minute or so. You'd think I would've clambered out of bed or shouted in shock, but something about this entity's aura tells me it means no harm.
Eventually, it starts moving, slowly and soundlessly gliding across the carpeted floor of my bedroom until it reaches the foot of my bed.
It reaches out with a black-gloved hand, and rests it on my shoulder.
It stays motionless for a couple of seconds, and in the awkward stillness, I say the first thing that comes to mind:
"Spooky."
A squeeze, light and reassuring, and a slight movement of its head in a fashion I recognize from when people smile at my jokes.
And then, as quickly as it appears, the figure is gone.
…
I lay there for a while, processing what I had witnessed.
Eventually, I decide I need to wash my face. I lift myself off the bed, and head to the bathroom.
I open the door, flick on the lights..
..and notice a message on the mirror, written in the steam of a fresh bath that I wasn't planning on taking until tomorrow.

I still think about you. About all that time we spent together, on the playground. Although we don't keep in touch anymore, I still know that you care. I hope you know it's the same for me.
Happy Halloween.

Immediately, the burning starts to slightly fade, ebbing & waning as a new emotion takes its place.
The tears flow once more, but for once in my life, they aren't of malaise.
I look down, and see a small red chocolate bar next to my toothbrush cup.
Tony's.
My favorite.
I break off a piece, wash my face, and walk over to the costume boxes.
I find a skeleton morphsuit, and decide to pair it with a tattered hoodie, some sweatpants, and a pair of sunglasses.
A small orange bucket swings in my hand as I make my way to the front.
There was a ghost decal inside one of the miscellaneous boxes; I hang it up on the door. Some plastic pumpkins beside the frame, as well.
Stepping back, I admire my handiwork. It's not much, but it's charming, at least.
"…"
I sigh, smile softly, and walk out into the night.
"..Happy Halloween, man."


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Ralliston's entry in Halloweencon 2022.

all_hands_on_dekk 07/10/2022 (Fri) 18:23:12 #91827401

I've always fantasized about the world being mine.
The first influence that I can remember was my grandfather who, God rest his soul, had fought in the Second World War. He survived the Battle of Britain, remaining mostly unharmed despite the numerous aerial encounters he faced. Though he was not a man who, by any means, saw war as anything other than the tragedy it was, he'd often tuck me into bed with his stories of the great sky. The one he had so often seen during his time as a master pilot.
The vast, open ocean of nothing but blue and white. That's how he described it. He often remarked just how quiet it was up there. As if the entire world died, and you hadn't noticed you were the only survivor. There was a certain beauty to it, he said, to be above the entire world. To be so lonely on top of everything and everyone, and feel no worry, no fear, no dread; to be so disconnected from actual reality as to envision yourself as just another part of something else, that was what he craved above anything else. Of course, that beauty was only there if you weren't getting tailed by a Nazi.

I suppose it won't come as a surprise to say that when he died and left us his beloved Betty, I was the first to sit behind its steers.
My father had never held the same passion my grandfather and I shared. He saw what the war did to his dad, so I couldn't blame him for resenting the sky with such a burning hatred. He never had any problem with grandpa telling me his stories or my own growing love for the vastness above, but he avoided the topic like fire. Unsurprisingly, he felt no ill will towards my grandfather once he saw that Betty would be inherited by me.
In just a few years, I moved from dreaming about the sky to actively living in it. Nearly every waking moment I had was spent up there, exploring higher and higher altitudes until I was so above as to be in a different world. From the very first time that old rusty red thing fired up, I knew that this was all I wanted to do. So I did everything I could to make that dream a reality.
I graduated at the top of my class and earned my license shortly after. Ever since mom passed away, dad has always told me to become a commercial pilot. That is where the real money was, he said. But I knew that wasn't what I wanted. With all these people aboard, you could never truly feel the loneliness I craved so much. You could never live it.
I guess he's better off for not making it long enough to see me make my decision.
It was tough, living off nothing but your skills to fly. You have to understand, I'm not an idiot or some sportless slob, but a job accounting just wouldn't cut it for me. Neither would any other job down there, for that matter. In every moment I spent down here I thought about the great sky above, and what it would take to get up there this week. So putting my head in papers and documents was never an option.
So when I was offered a job as a tester of experimental aircraft, I jumped at the occasion without a single thought.
I know what most people who frequent these sites see when they head "experimental aircraft," but this was by no means any secretive government thing or anything. It was your standard, public tester job, just in the air. Every now and then, the company I worked for — SiFlights — would give me a new vehicle they wanted me to hop into and tell me how it felt to operate it. To fly it.

Whether it was how comfortable the seat was up there or whether the layout was alright, it was an easy job. All I needed to do was get into one of their new products once a week or so, and I could walk out of there with eight grand a month easily. Sometimes they even let me fly one of their older models just for the fun of it. It was practically a dream come true.
Until one day, it wasn't.
I have to reiterate: there was nothing off about SiFlights. I've been here long enough to know what conclusions you people immediately jump to, but you have to understand it was a real, honest company. One that genuinely cared for its employees. That cared for me. They would never do this intentionally. Not any of it.
It was the 31st of October when it all happened. I remember the date specifically because I remember thinking how lucky I was I had a work excuse to not go to the stupid SiFlights party organized every year. I hated it. They always used it to scare the living shit out of me. Even that year, they couldn't stop saying some nonsense about how I had to remember the barrier between the world of the living and the dead was the thinnest that time of the year, in early November.
I guess in some sense, they were right.
That day, the sky was the cleanest I can ever remember. A cool breeze orbiting around 19 Celsius and not a single cloud in the sky as far as I could see. No crosswind at all, just a nice headwind all around me. Maybe a little strange for Autumn but nothing out of the ordinary. From the standpoint of work conditions, it was perfect. I couldn't ask for anything better. So I fired up the newest model they wanted me to try, and in just a few seconds, I was up there.
The first thing that hit me was the silence.
There is a certain quality to what you cannot hear up in the sky. Once you give into that white noise, it's nothing but the rushing wind, its calm movements encapsulating you like a caring mother. It's calm. It's gentle. It's beautiful. But that silence wasn't any of that. It was wrong. I could hear no rush of wind or even the sound of my own engines. As far as my ears could reach, it was just dead quiet. In every conceivable direction.
What broke me out of that trance was a gentle tap on the top of my cockpit. Within just a moment, that void of any meaningful sound was broken by a quick and almost kind knock above me. Then, by another. And another. And another. Before I could look up, the only thing separating me from that cold and silent abyss was being bombarded by something.
So I tried to see what it was.
I don't know what surprised me more — the fact that it was birds, or the fact that they were all dead. From the first to the last, all they were was bones, splattering on my previously pristine glass like some macabre parody of a flock. For a few seconds, all I could hear was their tiny little bodies breaking upon my machine, what was previously living beings getting crushed by the glass and steel of my plane.
And then, it was dead silent again.
I don't remember what I felt back then. Confusion? Fear? A mix of both? It's hard to tell. All I can recall was reaching for that mic button as I felt the silence weigh on me once more. The radio buzzed to life immediately, asking what was up. But I didn't respond. I couldn't respond. I just stared up at those minuscule skeletons — the only thing that broke up the blue monotony all around me — and listened, anticipating a sound that never came. A sound that couldn't have come.
So I ignored it, shaking my head and deciding I should finish my job. After I'd done all the tests I was expected to perform, I came back down. They didn't say a thing. I just told them something about the layout being wrong and causing me to click the wrong button or whatever. They asked no further questions.
That night, I couldn't sleep. Not because I was disturbed by what I saw — I wasn't — but because in that infinitely long moment it took me to answer the tower down, I was afraid of the sky. As that dead silence came down upon me and mixed with an infinite ocean of blue with no skyline I could see, for just a single second, I was afraid. And I hated that more than anything I could have seen up there.
But bills don't pay themselves. So I went to work the next week regardless.

Using a modified version of the machine from last week, I pulled back up into the sky. This time, the layout was fixed, and so were a few other technical tidbits I mentioned to them after my first flight. I hoped that, perhaps, the silence was just some quirk of the previous model, a silencing mechanism gone wrong, and that the birds were just a coincidence. That maybe some other plane got them before me, or that they had flown into a cloud of toxic chemicals or whatever. But deep down, I knew I was wrong.
The silence hit me again immediately after I stopped ascending.
As my hand reached for the intercom again, trying to tell them they didn't fix the issue I outlined, something deep down my stomach made me stop. The city SiFlights' experimental facility operates the closest to — which I am unable to reference by name due to confidentiality clauses — is quite big, you have to realize. Even from up there, you could see it buzzing with life as the myriad people living in it walked and parked and talked and laughed. Even in the cold, uncaring embrace of the sky, the welcoming heat of the city below was sometimes enough to break that isolation.
But today, it was quiet.
There were no cars, nor were there any people on the streets of the city. At first, I thought I was just in the wrong district, or that the citizens haven't woken up yet. But I checked my GPS, and my clock, and I realized I was looking at the city center at rush hour. I felt a cold mass build up in my stomach as I decided I was better off heading back and telling my higher-ups what I saw, in case something terrible has happened and nobody noticed. So I did just that, turning back and setting my propellors to max speed.
And then I noticed the water.
The city, you see, had been constructed near a river. It's by no means a large body of water or one that could support any infrastructure just by existing, but it had always been a nice break-up of the gray monotony of the concrete jungle next to it. Its small, sandy beaches contrasted with the monochrome of the buildings; so it was impossible to not notice it, really.
But today, they were littered with corpses.
From the very shores of the river to the edge of the dunes, skeletons were the only thing I could see. They were human, all thousands of them, and not a single one touched the water. They just lay there, as if someone had thrown out a cementary on the beach and left without making any notes. They weren't even located in any strange poses. It was like they just woke up, already there. Already dead.
My heart stopped for just a second before I reached the communication device in front of me. It buzzed to life, asking me if everything was alright, so I asked if they know if anything has happened to the city we were next to, nothing but terror in my voice. Confused, the voice on the other side said that everything was fine, and asked me whether I could come back down. As I have already finished all my tests, I just swallowed, and decided to listen to the request.
When I landed again, flight control was more than concerned. I told them what happened, but all they did was look at me with the most suspicion I've ever seen in a human being's eyes. After filling in some papers, they asked me if I was feeling alright or if I needed a break. Whether my personal life was bad recently. They knew that ever since dad died, I'd been holding up pretty badly, so they just wrote it off as a stress symptom as they put me on two weeks of paid leave and gave me a counselor.
For a while, I genuinely believed them. Looking back, I realize that was just because it was easier. So I took a break from everything I was doing and cleaned my mind. Used the time to finally clear up things dad left me. I was more than ready to come back to work after my inadvertent vacation ended. I believed that up until the third flight.

This time, the model was perfect. It was a thing of beauty, I have to give them that. They really took those three weeks I gave them with my leave to polish the hell out of this previously rusty machine. I was almost happy that I got to fly such a wonderful thing as I got into it and fired it up. But the joy only lasted as long as the silence hadn't settled in once more.
From the very first moment back up in the sky, I knew they were wrong. Something inside me just broke as I realized I had been lying to myself, looking up into that mockery of the sky I had beloved so much. It was cold, once more, and it was so awfully silent. As if everything but the sky has just disappeared.
But the worst part only came when I flew past the city again.
This time, there weren't any corpses near the beaches, because there weren't any beaches to speak of. Where there had previously been a river was now an empty, dried-out scar in the earth, oozing with thick, black dirt. The buildings that had littered the skyline were now nearly gone, their metal bars and scaffolding put out against the uncaring coldness of the still sky. Their concrete was now melting, falling off onto the cracked streets below. But even there, nothing but silence filled the air around me.
The skeletons were now everywhere, littering every part of the city with their broken bones and opened skulls. I gulped and turned back when I noticed them, too terrified to spend even a moment too long looking at those that were buried in the cement and dirty soil of the cities they had once inhabited. So I ran away. This time, I didn't tell anyone down there about what I had seen.
I hated the thought of going up for SiFlights again. But I really needed that month's pay. And all I needed to do to get it was perform one more test, and I could be out. I popped open a bottle of Whiskey, held my head up in my hands, and drank all of the worries away. I needed to do a job. So I was going to do it right.
In the end, I did what was required of me. I didn't have any misconceptions about what I was going to see when I inevitably flew up again. I was fully expecting the dread the silence would present me with, but I needed to get through it. Just one more test, I told myself as I parked near SiFlight. Just one more, and I was out.
But what I had seen was so much worse than I had anticipated.
The model remained almost unchanged. But the city didn't. There no longer was anything I could ever call a city, even — just an infinite expanse of that dirty, awful, dark soil, stretching up into the horizon beyond. The skyscrapers were gone, and so were what had previously been rivers. All I could see, in every direction, was flat terrain. And this time too was it filled with the dead. I tried to swallow, remembering the words of my coworkers, but found my throat too dry to have even that little luxury.
Every single square meter of that horrible dirt was swiped away by the nonexistent wind to reveal nothing but corpses, the skeletons not always human. Their hands reached out, as if in some desperate attempt to get out from their shared graves, but the world remained indifferent. The only thing that could answer them was the sky, but it was too occupied with being filled with long stretches of vibrant, cold colors to do that. And even then, it was silent.
I think I was weeping as I came back down.
I don't remember much of what happened later that day. All I can recall is quitting my job, citing some bullshit family reason for doing that, and then sitting silently in my room, alone, unable to get that technicolor sky out of my head. I didn't go for even a single flight more, that November. I was too afraid that what they had told me was true.

Many things have changed since then. I moved out, got married, and earned myself the license my father had always so dreamed about me getting. I still live in the sky, but I don't do it alone anymore. The flight attendants and passengers make sure of it.
But even those ten years later, I still haven't forgotten what I've seen. Every time I speak to my crew and assure them everything is fine, all I can think about is that awful silence pressed up against a sky that isn't like it should be.
I don't know what I fear more these days: that those I now carry alongside me will one day experience that horrible, wrong sky and all of its horrors with me, or that they never will.


Arnekko 10/19/2014 (Friday) 12:03:22 #22456997

hey guys, happy spookmonth. just joined this site after hearing about it on 4chan. didn't really know where else to put this, but something weird's been happening over here for the last few weeks.

something is leaving hair all over the outside of my house.
for context, i live alone, right in the middle of nowhere. decided to move here a few years ago after my dad died and left me the place. when he was still alive, he fed me some shit about keeping the house he grew up in, getting close to nature, stuff like that. i didn't mind, though. he fixed it up real good with the money he got from day trading, and it wasn't the worst property in the world. there's good air, the view is immaculate, and it's… quiet, i guess. the nearest town is an hour's drive away, there's not much people here either. the nearest populated property is a few miles from where i live.
which is why i was kinda puzzled at what the hell was going on when i first saw that piece of hair on my porch. when i took a look at it, it was all kinds of wet and smelly, like it'd been shat out or something, maybe by an animal. first time it happened, i just shrugged it off and picked it up, then put it in the garbage bag for later. i thought maybe a big cat or a coyote or something ate its own fur, coughed it up. didn't really make much sense, but who was i know to know, right? it was just that one time.
the next day, it happened again.
a bunch of them, clumps of hair, left all over my front yard, wet and smelling way fucking worse than what i saw the day earlier. they were way larger too, just kind of spread out all over. a few of the larger clumps were smaller clumps clinging together, like something had torn them apart after it was left there. There were pieces of… what i think was shit clinging to it too, just these small coats of brown all over it. it was fucking gross. i packed it up with rubber gloves as soon as i could and threw it out into the forest. no way was that shit staying near me.
does anyone know if there are any animals that do this? i live in Oregon, so maybe there were mountain lions or cougars that coughed the hair up as hairballs? i'm stumped for answers here.

anarneler 10/19/2014 (Friday) 12:23:12 #1582243

Spooky
Though I'm not an expert on animals, but I have a cat at home and those don't look like hairballs to me???
Maybe the animals know in their bones that it's October or something and wanna spook you

kalelisnthisrealname 10/19/2014 (Friday) 13:33:22 #7643021

man you cant possibly believe that shit lmao, animals dont know whether its october or not

anarneler 10/19/2014 (Friday) 13:37:52 #1582243

I don't know what you believe but if you can gather some things on this site, October being an extra-scary time is one of them

kalelisnthisrealname 10/19/2014 (Friday) 13:39:52 #7643021

lol next youre gonna say halloween is magic xD miss me with that shit

anarneler 10/19/2014 (Friday) 13:45:52 #1582243

It's true. Things can come in at midnight, for example. If you stay on this site for long enough you'd know that
But yeah OP back to topic, that's no hairball. Check for any source of hair nearby

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/19/2014 (Friday) 12:26:54 #9245648

yea i came here to say this too, i agree with the poster above
that doesnt look like hairballs to me

kalelisnthisrealname 10/19/2014 (Friday) 12:35:22 #7643021

Inb4 someone's actually shitting out the hair and placing it on his lawn xD then on halloween theyll just come out of the forests and start shitting all over

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/19/2014 (Friday) 12:37:46 #9245648

dude thats fucking gross. and unhelpful, becuz i dont think op's joking

mit6789 10/22/2014 (Monday) 01:07:43 #91238501

so I know it's been a few days since this was posted… but maybe it was a raccoon getting into your septic tank… they always get their grubby hands on everything they see… especially since hair forms a thick film on the water if it's porous enough… do you flush hair down the toilet?

Arnekko 10/22/2014 (Monday) 5:24:32 #22456997

i do flush my hair down the toilet whenever i shave or i cut my hair (dad said the pipes wouldn't clog, they never did), but i went to double check the manhole to my septic tank and it's closed tight. no way a raccoon's gotten inside there.

mit6789 10/22/2014 (Monday) 5:25:32 #91238501

check the gaps between the manhole and the concrete… something could have gotten inside the gaps…

Arnekko 10/22/2014 (Monday) 5:26:45 #22456997

i don't really think i want to. yeah i've checked the gaps too and they seem fine. pretty big, i could kinda smell the shit in there as i bent down to look at it, but the gaps weren't big enough to fit anything bigger than a roach.
i haven't cleaned this thing out in years, so i'm not really a fan of going down there and finding out.

mit6789 10/22/2014 (Monday) 5:28:21 #91238501

ok… stay safe…

GANworld 10/23/2014 (Tuesday) 19:38:47 #51395481

LMAO you talk like my dad on facebook

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/23/2014 (Wednesday) 12:37:46 #9245648

hey op so ive been thinking on the thread for a while but youre rich right???? maybe you can get a sample of the hair and dna test it???? might help determine what kind of animal it is or something, test the septic tank theory and see if it's yours

Arnekko 10/23/2014 (Wednesday) 13:23:14 #22456997

lmao i don't think i'm as rich as you think i am but i'll consider it. i have a friend over at the lab in one of the nearby towns so maybe he'll give me a discount

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/23/2014 (Wednesday) 20:56:23 #9245648

EYYYY thats good OP, update us if you do it
also advanced happy halloween

Arnekko 10/24/2014 (Thursday) 16:47:12 #22456997

i'm at the end of my fucking tether.
went to my mom's last night to celebrate her birthday, came back to this.

i don't know what the fuck is doing this, but i've sprayed the entire yard with animal repellents of all kinds just to ward whatever it is the fuck off. i'm biting the bullet and doing that dna test too, get to the bottom of whatever the fuck this is. my friend says he can do it for one and a half grand.
i'm sick and fucking tired of cleaning this up every few days. i'm hooking up my brother's old baby monitor cam right next to my porch. see what fucking thing is doing this.
if it's a person, then i really really hope they're doing this as a joke

kalelisnthisrealname 10/24/2014 (Thursday) 18:33:22 #7643021

its coming for you op rofl xD
bets up that its gonna turn up on your house on halloween

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/24/2014 (Thursday) 19:33:56 #9245648

man, stop trolling

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/24/2014 (Thursday) 19:32:33 #9245648

holy fucking shit OP, that's a mess
hope you warded off whatever it is with all the sprays

Arnekko 10/24/2014 (Thursday) 20:22:10 #22456997

i hope so too.
i'm hunkering down for the next few nights. i'm going to sleep next to the baby monitor.
whatever this thing is, i want to know what it's doing.

Arnekko 10/25/2014 (Friday) 20:35:43 #22456997

first night, nothing. baby monitor only grabs the sound of wind. no how hard i try, i can't sleep.
got up a few times to check the outside. there was nothing there.

Arnekko 10/26/2014 (Saturday) 21:23:11 #22456997

second night, nothing. wind again. the sound of grass going with the breeze. found no hair anywhere.

Arnekko 10/27/2014 (Sunday) 00:32:19 #22456997

i can't sleep. every door in my house is locked tight.
i can't stop thinking about it. the hair. when i do sleep, what i get are nightmares. all i see is hair.

Arnekko 10/28/2014 (Monday) 01:57:01 #22456997

third night. nothing again.

couldn't sleep, just like the last few nights. scrolling through this thread has probably taken a toll on me.
i dreamt that i'd crawled out of a septic tank, that my entire body was made of hair. i could only taste shit, all the shit around me, floating around me. the shit that seeped into my body, that provided the glue that made it stick together.
i wanted to scream. but i couldn't.
the human larynx isn't meant to be made of hair.

Arnekko 10/29/2014 (Monday) 01:59:31 #22456997

been a few minutes. nothing still.
did i scare it off with the sprays?

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/29/2014 (Monday) 08:34:03 #9245648

i think you did, OP
must have been an animal or something

Arnekko 10/29/2014 (Monday) 09:03:22 #22456997

you think so?
false alarm then. thank fucking god.
my heart's racing, i can't stop thinking

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/29/2014 (Monday) 9:25:44 #9245648

welcome to parawatch, OP lmao
halloween's in a few days so someone/something just probably wanted to mess with you
did you get the results of the dna test

Arnekko 10/29/2014 (Monday) 9:43:35 #22456997

the dna test? fucking hell, can't believe i wasted more than a thousand dollars on that thing.
what a waste.
it'll come today, i think. my friend messaged me last night

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/29/2014 (Monday) 9:57:26 #9245648

at least the dangers gone xD
now you can at least find out what the hell it was

Arnekko 10/29/2014 (Monday) 13:22:35 #22456997

yeah, i did. i got the results just now.

the hair's mine.

whoparawatchestheparawatchersthemselves 10/29/2014 (Monday) 13:37:07 #9245648

holy fuck.
what are you gonna do now?

Arnekko 10/29/2014 (Monday) 13:23:58 #22456997

i'm opening the septic tank.

Arnekko 10/29/2014 (Monday) 13:23:58 #22456997

i don't understand. i don't understand. i don't understand. i don't understand.
i've lived here for years. i haven't emptied it in years. it should be full. it should be full.

i think it came from the tank.

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 04:34:23 #22456997

help me, please. help me. help me.
the hair's come back.
every single time the hair appeared, it was outside my house. on my backyard. my front yard. my porch.

this morning it was right outside my bedroom door.

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 04:36:23 #22456997

HE'S PLAYING WITH ME
i hear the footsteps outside
i've locked my door
i won't let him come in
he can't come in
help me please
IF SOMEONE'S THERE PLEASE HELP ME

kalelisnthisrealname 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 04:36:23 #7643021

dafuq?

🗿 ALASIMALARRI 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 08:36:23 #98678432

User Arnekko, you are warned to stop making nonsensical posts. Write coherently. This will be your first warning.
This is an official staff post. Do not reply.

kalelisnthisrealname 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 12:22:23 #22456997

yeah lmao i think the guy's having a mental breakdown xD
advance happy halloween op

earth_is_an_egg 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 16:36:23 #77813321

Yeah, I call bullshit. You were getting us pretty good there, but you've taken the joke wayyyyy too far now
If this is real then yeah I think you're going a bit cuckoo, OP. What if it's just you planting the hair?

sworddegloss 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 19:36:23 #66466523

Cant wait to have my very own hair monster leaving me gifts every day, maybe halloween is their christmas

ame-namen 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 21:22:23 #44356671

Yeah preach
we'll buy you your meds OP

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 22:21:56 #22456997

i can hear him outside
i can feel him
he knows what i know
he sees through my eyes
he's trying to control me
please help me

we are one and the same.

ame-namen 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 22:25:45 #44356671

Yeah I don't think there's much substance here anymore
good arg though

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 22:23:31 #22456997

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
STOP DOING THIS
WE AREN'T THE SAME
STOP SAYING THAT
WE AREN'T THE SAME
WE AREN'T THE SAME

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 22:23:56 #22456997

we are.

sworddegloss 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 22:25:17 #66466523

Is he talking to himself???

earth_is_an_egg 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 22:26:15 #77813321

I think they are
What the fuck?

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 22:27:47 #22456997

STOP MOVING ME
STOP SAYING THAT
WE AREN'T THE SAME
WE AREN'T THE SAME
WE AREN'T THE SAME
WE AREN'T THE SAME
WE AREN'T THE SAME
WE AREN'T THE SAME

🗿 Canadaaintreal 10/30/2014 (Tuesday) 22:30:22 #78445211

I agree with ame-namen. There's not much sense here anymore. If this is some kind of ARG for Halloween, it doesn't belong here.
Going to have to declare this thread closed.
This is an official staff post. Do not reply.

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Thursday) 22:31:24 #22456997

fine. i'll prove it to you.

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Thursday) 22:31:58 #22456997

hair.
we shed it. we leave it. we throw it away.
honestly, i just found it so weird how, in stories, hair seems to contain some essence of us. witches use hair to cast their spells; shamans use it in their rituals when they need to curse its owner; hell, even lovers give each other their locks of hair as mementos.
it's almost as if hair carries a force. a life force. a part of us, though, i concede, just a small spark of what makes us who we are.
the thing is… hair's a part of us just as much as our face is. as our identity is. as our flesh is.
yet… we dispose of it again and again. we flush it down the toilet. we let it clog up our pipes. we let it accumulate, over years and years, a piece of us just thrown away as trash.
that… doing that… why would you ever do that?
after all, what happens when those sparks of you, over years and years of clumping together, coming together, merging together…
what happens when time finally gives it that last touch of life?
what happens when it starts to become you?
what happens when it wants to replace you?
what happens when it realizes how unworthy you are of being alive?
because… let me remind you… there is hair everywhere on your body.
who knows how far its influence can extend?

after all… it's almost halloween.
creepy things can happen on halloween.
isn't that right, Arnold?

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Thursday) 22:36:37 #22456997

THAT WASN'T ME
THAT WASN'T ME
THAT WASN'T ME

🗿 ALASIMALARRI 10/30/2014 (Thursday) 22:56:11 #98678432

User Arnekko, this thread has been declared closed. Please do not make any further posts.
This is your second warning. Action will be taken on your third offense.
This is an official staff post. Do not reply.

Arnekko 10/30/2014 (Thursday) 22:59:54 #22456997

NO PLEASE YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME
HE'S PLAYING WITH ME
HE'S BEEN PLAYING WITH ME SINCE THE START
HE'S JUST BEEN WAITING FOR ME TO REALIZE
HE WANTS TO TAKE CONTROL OF ME
HE WANTS TO BECOME ME
I ONLY HAVE ANOTHER HOUR
HE CAN'T COME IN FOR ANOTHER HOUR
PLEASE HELP ME
HE'S ALREADY GOTTEN INSIDE MY HEAD
he's trying to make me open the door.

Arnekko 10/31/2014 (Wednesday) 00:00:35 #22456997

it's midnight. he opened the door himself.

+ Show

- Hide

now we're back together again.


Dr Kira Moto

Want more?

Site-250 wasn't known for much. They were a small site of just under two dozen people and only a few anomalies. Soon, however, everyone would know of this tiny site in the Japanese wilderness.
It all began on October the twenty-ninth, twenty-thirty.
Shiko Hyuse, the resident eight-year-old, was exploring the building. It was something she had done nearly every day since she came to the site. So it was rather obvious when Shiko came upon one of the rooms decorated in orange and black.
"What's this?" She asked, far too curious for her own good.
Anders, the Site's MTF commander, answered, "We're decorating for Halloween."
Yet Shiko was confused. "What's Hall-o-ween?" Anders gave the child an incredulous stare, uncertain how any child would be unaware of the holiday.
"Halloween is a holiday," Anders began, "It's where everybody gets dressed up in costumes and tries to spook everyone else. And all the little kids get candy." Shiko still didn't fully understand, but her eyes twinkled with excitement. So, she ran back to her father, one SCP-6932, to tell him all about the wondrous holiday she had only just learned about.
She rushed into his pocket dimension and back into the dojo that served as their home. Shiko located her father near the pond behind the building.
"What has gotten into you so suddenly?" The old martial arts master inquired. And so, Shiko reveled in telling her father all about everything she had learned. Shiko's excitement got the old master thinking. He was going to make sure Shiko's first holiday was memorable.

October the thirty-first arrived. And with it, the old master's planning was complete.
Researcher Erickson gathered everybody in the cafeteria, where he had a modest party set up for the staff. The room was covered in decorations, and everybody was wearing a costume. Well, everyone except little Shiko.
However, Researcher Erickson had come prepared for this. When he saw Shiko enter the cafeteria without a costume, he rushed to her.
"Shiko!" He exclaimed, "It's not Halloween without a costume!"
"But I don't have one…" Shiko sighed dejectedly.
"Don't worry, kiddo," Erickson explained. "Anders and I prepared a few for you! If you come with me, you can pick one out!" Shiko was just as excited as when she first learned of Halloween. Erickson led the child into one of the connecting rooms where Anders was waiting for them.
On the nearby table sat six costumes: a wizard, a witch, a broom, a zombie, a martial artist, and a Foundation researcher. Shiko rushed over to the costumes, eyes gleaming as she examined each and every one. She wanted to go as all of them, but eventually, she chose her costume.
Anders and Erickson returned to the group to let Shiko change in peace. The old martial artist had arrived upon returning to the small party, stealing everyone's attention.
"I have prepared a little something to celebrate this holiday of yours." The elderly man stated. "Once everyone is present; we will head into my home."
As his words faded into the chatter filling the room, Shiko returned in her new costume. She was wearing a miniature version of the Foundation research uniforms, but she had taken the wizard hat and staff from the other pile. A beaming grin was plastered across her face as she proudly showed off her costume.
"You're a magick researcher?" Anders asked.
Shiko nodded firmly, "You guys are magick! You should wear a hat like mine too!" The two men beside her chuckled as the old martial artist came to greet his child. His glare at the two men hinted at jealousy.
"Shiko. I see you are having fun." The old man stated.
"Yeah! Mr. Anders and Mr. Erickson gave me a bunch of costumes to choose from!"
The old sensei kneeled, placing his hand on his daughter's shoulder. "Would you like to do something else fun?" Shiko perked up even further, nodding aggressively enough that her wizard hat fell off her head. Anders scoped the hat up, placing it back on her head.
"Everyone follow me!" The sensei bellowed, "The surprise awaits!"

Everyone entered the space and was met with a much different view than expected. Usually, the dojo was well-lit, warm, and, well, a dojo.
Now? Now the space was twilight, a few clouds overhead as a cool autumn breeze ripped through the area. Crisp fall leaves littered the ground from the oak trees that now dotted the area, and a dimly lit path lined with pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns led up to what used to be the dojo. Now it was a dimly lit castle that most children would recognize as the spooky black castle they would see every year with bats flying around it.
"Huh, spooky," Erickson stated, promptly earning a slap to the back of his head from Anders.
Shiko was grinning from ear to ear, "This is so cool!" From somewhere in the background, the old sensei chuckled. "Let's go, Mr. Erickson!" Shiko pulled on Erickson's sleeve, nearly dragging him down the dimly lit path.
As they approached the castle, screams were heard. Anders jumped, nearly crashing into the site's medic, McCullum.
"Ooh! The big bad MTF Commander's afraid of the spooky castle?" McCullum earned an identical slap to the one Erickson received. Anders would have said something, but Shiko had already pulled Erickson into the castle.

"What's this?" Shiko asked as she looked at a column with a hole.
"I'm not sure," Erickson began. "It looks like it's big enough to stick your arm in. Why don't you see what it does?" Shiko nodded and stuck her arm into the hole. She felt around a bit, locating a scrap of paper.
Shiko pulled her arm out, only to be grabbed by something. She yelped in surprise but grabbed onto whatever it was and pulled it out. It was the arm of a skeleton.
"Weird. I wonder where Dad got a human skeleton." Erickson winced, checking out the skeletal arm. It was, in fact, a real human arm.
Besides the pair, a grinding sounded as a hidden compartment opened. Inside was a bag.
"A bag? Wonder what it's for?" Shiko stated.
Erickson grabbed the bag, "Why don't you read the paper you got? It might tell us something."
Shiko uncrumpled the paper, reading out loud. "If you want to leave this castle, you and your group must find all parts of the skeleton. Bring Katsuyori back to me in one piece."
"Katsuyori?"
Shiko answered, completely unfazed. "Dad says that's the name of the corpse he keeps on the far side of the pond. I think it was one of his other kids."
"What the fuck, Sensei…" Erickson thought before turning back to the child in front of him. "I guess we need to find the other parts of the skeleton then…"
"Let's go! I wanna get them before the others can!" Shiko exclaimed, handing the hand to Erickson so he could keep it in their bag. "I wonder how Mr. Anders is doing?"

Another scream was heard, followed by the pitter-patter of tiny feet. Anders jumped, now gripping onto McCullum's arm as if his life depended on it. Despite McCullum's outward boredom, he was growing nervous. Something about this place set his nerves alight, and he wasn't having it.
Before long, the pair came to a dead end. The wall was marked with a deep red word: 'BOO.' Both men looked at the stereotypical writing with mild annoyance.
"Help us…" A whisper came from behind. "Heeeelp ussss…." The pair stiffened, slowly turning around. Before them appeared to be two ghostly children. Anders screamed, knocking over McCullum with a yelp. It took the pair several moments before they came to their senses, rushing past the ghostly children and into the rest of the castle. The ghost children followed them.
Anders led the way up a flight of stairs, the clacks of the stones echoing into the near silence. The pair finally stopped when they got to an old wooden doorway. Out of breath, they wordlessly agreed to open the door.
The old door creaked open, revealing a lightless room beyond. Nothing could be seen from beyond the doorway. A particularly foreboding feeling washed over the two men. Two sets of footsteps were coming up the stairs now, nearly reaching the top.
The pair nodded to each other, stepping into the room. The room slammed shut, earning a yelp from the pair. Then a scream as the floor gave out from below them.

Shiko stopped in her tracks when a pair of screams were heard from deeper in the castle. "They sound like they're having fun!"
Erickson chuckled, noticing a door nearby with a note attached to it. "Shiko! Over there!" Shiko ran up to the note and grabbed it.
"The next piece is in this room. You must find your way through the maze to locate it. Beware, for specters are waiting inside." Shiko pondered for but a moment before her grin returned. "Let's go!"
They entered the room.
Then they were in a cornfield, a maze lined with pumpkins and lit by floating lights standing before them. Shiko led, heading into the maze without a second thought.
"Do you know where you're going?" Erickson inquired, mostly amused.
"Nope! But I'm sure we'll find the next piece if we wander around enough!" At that moment, a hand landed on Erickson's shoulder. He yelped, slapping the hand away and turning around. The hand was gone.
Shiko laughed. "What's wrong, Mr. Erickson? Scared?"
Erickson looked around a little more before answering, "No. I was simply startled. Let's get going."
"You are scared!" Shiko teased, once more leading the way through the maze.
From somewhere in the corn came the sound of a chainsaw being revved. It grew louder and louder until it sounded like it was only feet from them. Then, it vanished. From another side came the sounds of cackling as a woman's scream pierced through the newly quiet field.
Erickson was visibly nervous as he spoke again. "I guess the note did say this place was haunted."
"Ghosts aren't a problem for you, though! You lock away all the scary monsters!" Erickson chuckled, amused by the bravery Shiko was showing.
"You're right! Let's get this bone and move on!"

In a dark room sat the old martial artist. Several screens were in front of him as he sipped a cup of tea.
"Excellent." He said in a slow drawl.

Anders found himself in a pile of spiders, yelping and jumping back when he recognized what was around him. The spiders were crawling up his legs, trying to investigate the new creature that had smashed hundreds of their brothers.
He tried swiping them off, but there were far too many for him to do anything about it. He looked around, the tickling taps of the spider legs growing more uncomfortable with every second. He noted a door on the far end of the room, on the other side of what seemed to be a lake of spiders.
Anders grumbled to himself, attempting to work up the nerve to cross the black pit of spiders. "If I get out of this…" Anders began trekking through the black abyss, a sickening crunch accompanying every step. The spiders had made their way up into his hair, not that it was difficult now that the spiders had him waist-deep. Anders only hoped he could get them all off him once he left this room.

McCullum found himself in a pitch-black room. McCullum wasn't the biggest fan of dark spaces like this, but usually, he was able to ignore it. Here, now? He couldn't help the panic crawling into his chest, not after…
McCullum tried to brace himself long enough to find a way out of there and took two steps forward. His face slammed into a wall.
"Goddamnit!" McCullum retraced his two steps, reaching out as he went to what he thought was his right. Another wall. His panic began to rise. Nothing changed when he checked the third wall, and, nearly in a panic, he went to locate the fourth wall. The wall was closer this time, hurting McCullum's wrist when he slammed into it quicker than expected.
McCullum took a few steps back, falling to his knees. "Damn you, Sensei…" it didn't quite come out as bitter as he had hoped, seeing as the medic was trying and failing not to panic.

"Look, Mr. Erickson! There's a hand over there!" Erickson looked to where Shiko was pointing, and, indeed, there was the second Skeletal arm.
"Good job, Shiko! Go get it, and we can add it to the backpack." Shiko rushed off the grab it, having the time of her life. Erickson, meanwhile, was startling to grow jumpy. In the hours they had been wandering the corn maze, something kept reaching out to touch him. He didn't want to bring it up, seeing as Shiko was enjoying herself.
Without warning, a skeletal hand was waving in front of his face. It was more than enough for the researcher to jump. Giggles rang out before him, soothing his nerves just a bit.
"Shiko! Don't do that!"
"Did I scare you!"
"Yes!" Erickson took a moment to compose himself. "Anyway, give it here, I'll put it with the other one, and we can move on." Mercifully, she handed it over without a fight.
"Look, Mr. Erickson! There's a door over there!" Shiko grabbed onto the researcher's sleeve, trying to hurry the man along. "Mr. Erickson, hurry! I wanna explore more!" Erickson sighed but followed the child after a few moments.
The door was no different than any other one in the castle. Yet it sent a chill down Erickson's spine. He didn't want to go through that door, but the fact that Shiko was already in the next area meant he didn't have much choice.
Erickson found himself blinking at the much harsher light after coming out of the twilight of the corn maze. He heard the sounds of children laughing, yet none were in sight. He wasn't even sure where Shiko had gone.
"Shiko?!" His voice echoed off the blank white walls. "Shiko!" Still, nothing. Erickson began making his way through the stark white space, concerned about where Shiko could have gone. The laughter grew louder, though he still couldn't find the source.
Trying to ignore it, he moved on. "Shiko!?" He tried again to no avail. Erickson tripped over something he couldn't see, suddenly feeling the weight of the bag vanish as he hit the ground.
"Well, that's just great…'

Anders grumbled as he finally got out of the spiders. He still had one on him, but he figured it was better not to mess with the one the size of his face. As it was currently content to chill on his shoulder, he was fine leaving it there.
He swung open the door he had finally reached, only to find himself back outside the castle. "What the hell?" The spider on his shoulder rocked in a way that made the man think he was being mocked.
"I don't need this from you." Anders chided. Anders went over his options and decided that instead of dealing with the spiders again, he would just remain outside.

Shiko found herself in a room with twenty other children, though she couldn't recognize any of them. Some of them were playing with what looked to be a pair of legs. A group of teenagers had a ribcage and spine. Shiko's grin only grew as she ran over to the children playing with the legs, intending to ask if she could have them.
"Who're you?" One of the kids asked. "You're not from the orphanage like the rest of us."
"Shiko!" Said child exclaimed, "Can I have those legs?" The children looked between themselves for a few moments before handing them over.
"Have fun with them! Sensei says they're magick!"
Shiko giggled. "I will! Thanks!" She started to walk away, realizing she had no way of transporting them since she had lost Erickson. Just as she pondered this, a bag fell from the ceiling, landing in front of her with a click. It was the same bag Erickson had. Not overthinking it, Shiko shoved the legs in with the arms and put the bag on.
She approached the teenagers, noticing that they had stopped talking as she approached. The group kept their gaze on her, making Shiko just a little nervous.
"Can I have those bones?" She tried.
The oldest of the boys looked her over with a more critical eye. "What do we have here? You want these ribs?" Shiko nodded eagerly, though the boy didn't respond.
"Tell you what, kid. If you can beat me, I'll let you have them." The boy stepped away from the group. "I'm Sensei's best student, so you won't be able to beat me." Shiko grinned mischievously, knowing the boy was doomed despite being twice her size.
So Shiko began a match with the older boy, confident she would be able to win. The pair started, Shiko guarding against every strike from the older boy until she saw an opening. She struck back, managing to knock the boy on his back.
Wordlessly, one of the other teenagers handed over the ribs. "Thanks!" Shiko cheered, stuffing them into her bag with the rest.
"That kid's weird." Someone said as she walked away. Shiko wondered where she should head next.

Sometime later, Shiko found herself standing in front of a door labeled with her name. After a moment of wonder, she pushed it open, being met with the sightless gaze of a skull sitting atop a pedestal.
"Hurray! I found them all!" Shiko cheered, grabbing the bone. A grinding was heard once she lifted it off the pedestal. A few feet away, a stone door was lifting, revealing a large room packed full of various candies. Shiko shoved the skull into the bag before rushing into the room.
"Cool! Dad never lets me have this much candy!" Which was, of course, an understatement as Shiko wasn't allowed candy to begin with. She explored the room with vigor, soon locating a large backpack with a note that read, 'You can have whatever you can carry.' Shiko swiftly grabbed the bag, shoving it full of as wide varieties of sweets as she could, not noticing that the bone bag had long since vanished.
Once her bag was full of as much candy as she could stuff into the space, Shiko returned to the door she had entered, finding it closed. She pouted, hoping it would open on its own. When it didn't, she opened it herself.
It opened back up to the front of the castle. Shiko stepped out into the crisp, cool night air and wondered if her adventure would continue.
"Shiko?" Came Anders' confused response. "Where have you been?"
Shiko was more concerned with the spider on the man's shoulder than she was with the man himself. "Where'd you find Andre? Dad said I had to get rid of him since he was too big."
"I… Andre?! This thing's your pet?" Andre seemed to be laughing at Anders now. Shiko laughed, hardly noticing as several more people appeared behind Anders, all a little worse for wear. Erickson was trying to console McCullum, McCullum was trying his hardest not to have another panic attack, and Anders was still trying to figure out what Shiko had been up to.
Before anyone could get another word in, the old martial artist appeared a few feet down the dimly lit path, more than a little pleased with himself if the shit-eating grin was anything to go by.
"I hope all of you enjoyed yourselves. Now, if you would not mind, I have some things to clean up." The group made their way out of the space, though Erickson stopped to speak with the old man before they left.

The old martial artist sighed to himself, warping the space before him back to its usual form. Where the castle stood, his dojo replaced in an instant. The trees turned back into the Sakura trees that were supposed to be there, and the eternal twilight finally turned to night.
Finally, once everything was back to looking the way it needed to, the old master looked to his next problems. There were the twenty or so children eating mouthfuls of candy that he needed to return to the orphanage and the skeleton he had dug up from the nearby cemetery.
The old master waved to the group of children, chaperoned by a few of his older students, opening his dimension back out onto the street overlooking their orphanage. Many of the children thanked him as they left. He smiled at the group as he left.
Once he was certain there were no longer any witnesses, he appeared outside Site-250 with the skeleton. The old master walked over to the woods, tossing the bones to be transported elsewhere. He smiled to himself, heading back to find his child.

"Did you enjoy yourself tonight, Shiko?" The old martial artist inquired as Shiko shuffled through her bag of candy.
"Yeah! It was lots of fun! Can we do it again!"
The old man laughed. "Perhaps, though it appears it was too much for the Hunters to handle." Shiko yawned, signaling an end to the night's shenanigans. The father picked up his daughter as she began falling asleep, taking her to bed.
Outside those walls, the staff of Site-250 was discussing the night's events. They knew they had a good chance at having the best Halloween party, but the contest was still ongoing. They all got off with only minor trauma, so their entry was still viable.
"We better win this with everything that went on," Anders stated. "Giving McCullum multiple panic attacks because you and I happened to step on Sensei's toes is a bit too far."
"Yeah, no kidding," Erickson stated, glancing over to their now-sleeping medic. "We'll just have to wait and see. Though I do wonder where he got all those children…"
"I don't want to know." Anders glanced up at the clock, noting that it was nearly three a.m. "Come on, it's late, and we have to work tomorrow." Erickson sighed but agreed.


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⚠ Content warning: This article contains ableism, implied pederasty, gore, and abuse.

⚠ content warning

Once upon a time, a hierarchy was enforced.

In the time when the Fae cities were planted, all things were given rank. Even the House of Centipedes below and the Seelie Courts above found their places in this hierarchy, and all the Gods presided over their neatly-organized courts. Beneath their heels, his name oft forgotten, there was Khahrahk.
Khahrahk was not dignified in his station: in truth, he was pathetic. He had been sold to the Horned King of Alagadda with four other boys by the Queen Mab — but unlike his slave-mates, he was stunted and ugly. So, as the Horned King laid affection upon Bauta, Arlecchino, Pantalone, and Brighella, Khahrahk felt only his scorn and derision. Existence must have been suffering, but the Horned King would have his credit's worth. It would be better to not exist.
Under his yoke, Khahrahk absorbed the Horned King's abuses, and developed an acerbic wit. That wit, his first weapon, relieved the worst of his rage as he suffered through repeat humiliation. He grew crueler by his pain. So biting were his words and so cruel his affect that the Horned King appointed him the jester of the Alagaddan Court.
Red with rage, crimson with cut and bruise, wet with wine dumped upon him by the King's beloveds, Khahrahk was known — seemingly forevermore — as the Scarlet Fool.
***
Even before the hole had been opened in her guts — in truth, the difference was largely a matter of restraint — the Queen Mab was no stranger to decadence. The plundered wealth of our Earth flowed freely through the Fae Courts, and if her imperial urge could not be restrained, how could Mab have reined in her more basal urges? The scholars of today now calculate the excess of the Winter Queen's festivities, and marry it to the destitution of the peasantry; but what would Mab have known of boulevards never walked? To the Conquerer, the lands outside her palace were a flat and continuous expanse of personal achievement, its riches to be celebrated however she wished.
So it was to Mab: the Harvest Masquerade just another feast day, a party forty days out from the Fall Equinox. This year's Harvest Masquerade was to be a grand affair, as all Harvest Masquerades were.
From the Urals came the Xanthous Tsar, the Great Boar King. An eight-legged oracle had revealed his guts to be god-like, and so the Xanthous Tsar declared himself the Gourmand of Gourmands, and became wise in the culinary arts. To the Harvest Masquerade, he brought his disobedient son — it would be a banquet worthy of a prince.
From the Twin Rivers came Nahash, the Serpent of Knowledge. Nahash was regarded an icon of vice, a corrupter bar none; their serpent face did not allow them to scowl at those who fell for their tricks, and none were aware they reported to The Highest Power. To the Harvest Masquerade, they brought a beautiful boy for the Horned King, trained in the arts of Ambassadorship.
From the across the Sea came kind Sanna, Isarrataitsoq's delegate to the Fae Courts. Her beauty was matched only by her wisdom, and she would employ both in defense of her people. To the Harvest Masquerade, she brought baskets of furs and fine goods for the Queen Mab… and promises of more, if she was so inclined to an alliance.
Finally, from Alagadda came the Horned King, and to the Harvest Masquerade he brought the Scarlet Fool.
***
Allow me a moment of speculation.
Of that Masquerade's attendants, I'm unsure of the night's true architect. The Horned King, certainly, had a habit of humiliating the Scarlet Fool; however, it's doubtful he'd have kept himself from his beloved Ambassador for long enough to enact such a scheme. I have no trouble believing the Ambassador would do such a thing, but then, to bring him to the Masquerade was an unusually foolish mistake on Nahash's part. This is assuming, of course, that Nahash had not conspired with them — and while conspiracy might explain why their gift was not for their host, Nahash had never betrayed a confidant so openly as they would have the Fool. However, if the Queen Mab was involved, the laws of Fae Courtesy suggest she had the Horned King's explicit consent, or otherwise believed she did. Finally: though the Xanthous Tsar strikes me as too stupid, and Sanna too kind, the finer details of that night continue to pull at my memory.
Was it all planned, or was the Scarlet Fool's misery a matter of serendipity? Could he have done anything to mitigate his fate? Were the Scarlet Fool's words so ugly as to warrant such revenge? Or was his torment simply an expression of the unspoken hierarchy?
***
Entranced by his new Ambassador, the Horned King of Alagadda had, at first, been unusually kind to the Scarlet Fool. He allowed the Fool to eat of the small plates, and allotted him a sizable portion of the wine. There were, of course, his usual abuses, but now they seemed restrained, light — almost playful.
Indeed, the Masquerade attendants acted far kinder to the Scarlet Fool than had anyone in Alagadda. The Queen Mab's court treated the Fool with a yet-unknown hospitality; the Tsar's men ensured his fill of Masquerade treats; even the Ambassador, now equally infamous in his cruelty, treated him as a fellow guest. But what must have stood out most to the Scarlet Fool was the manner in which he was received by kind Sanna.
Station does not breed benevolence — look to the nations, and say you disagree — but kind Sanna's soul seemed to have weathered her power. In all things she was patient, cordial, and as genuine as her position allowed. Even the Scarlet Fool, that wretched and ugly thing, was worthy of her inner kindness.
The Scarlet Fool did not know of love, but he was nevertheless certain that he loved Sanna.
A social blasphemy.
Some time into the evening, the Horned King called the Scarlet Fool before the attendants. In the spirit of their celebration, the Scarlet Fool would be allowed a cutting jape against all who volunteered, without fear of reprisal. I believe this was a trap, and one so complex that I struggle to think of who might have set it.
Think of it thus:
The Scarlet Fool's insults would not necessarily have offended his targets; he was, after all, invited to do so, and by his master—

'—oh, he's taken such good care of your gifts, my Queen. Has them carried all over Alagadda! Sometimes he's the reason they can't just walk, to be sure, but—'

—no less. If the Queen Mab—

'—oh no, I shan't besmirch the second-prettiest of the Seelie Sisters! That would be—'

—the Xanthous Tsar—

'—and your dishes were splendidly cooked, Your Majesty. Well, that's the impression I got from the palace hounds—'

—or Nahash—

'—and such lovely fangs, too! Tell me, how much piss did you have to wash them in for—'

were to be offended by the Scarlet Fool's insults, they had only themselves to blame… if the Fool had also insulted Sanna.
For when it came time to disparage kind Sanna, the Scarlet Fool could not find the words to be cruel, and his true feelings were at once revealed to the Masquerade's attendants.
If violating that unspoken hierarchy did not inspire what happened next, then it was now all the easier for its participants to accept.
***
The main courses of that night came courtesy of the disobedient Xanthous Prince. Before the Masquerade laid a delightful array of various fine meats. A honey-glazed ham glistening in the lamplight, garnished with fresh greens and apple slices; thick slices of bacon, spiced with paprika and brown sugar, wrapped around perfectly-cooked scallops; racks of spare ribs, smoked to perfection; pork loin stuffed with a savory breadcrumb and vegetable mixture; beautifully seasoned pork shoulder steaks; and for the Queen Mab herself, a deceptively delicious black truffle pork snout. The bones had been set aside.
No one noticed the Queen Mab's crown jewel disappear from her crown.
***
The Scarlet Fool was wise in the ways of cruelty and courtiership; in matters of love and mercy, he was a fool. But, this I swear on my true name: the Scarlet Fool was no thief. So wretched was his station that his sense of "ownership" had utterly degraded, and he could not conceive of anything as truly his.
When the last of the meat had been stripped from the bones, the Scarlet Fool approached kind Sanna at the nobles' table. Protean feelings of love and affection had driven him to her side, but his tongue, conditioned by years of odious abuse, would not cooperate. In lieu of words, then, he presented kind Sanna with a deep and beautiful sapphire — for she was more worthy of this gift than a wretched fool such as he.
Unfortunately for the Fool, kind Sanna had been seated next to the Queen Mab, and the sight of her crown jewel in the hands of a slave ignited a terrible fire within.
With a single shout, the banquet fell into a frantic chaos. The Queen's Guard encircled the nobles' entourages with spear and sword, and verdant chains erupted from the walls to ensnare all who remained. The Scarlet Fool was hoist into the air by the Queen Mab's magic; only a plea from kind Sanna kept the Fool from being rent asunder, and it was a long and painful hour before the Scarlet Fool was dropped back onto the ground.
As the Fool gasped for breath, the muscles of his neck raised into the Dread Captain Mykyta's spearpoint. Beside him, the Queen Mab, her expression marked by a hateful faux-neutrality.
"We who have hosted you," her voice as black as simmering pitch, "Who have treated this wretch as we would a distinguished guest. You would defile our crown? Despicable thing!" The Queen Mab struck the Fool with the back of her hand, and the chamber filled with a terrible cry, for her blow had dragged his neck over the Dread Captain's spear.
Blood gushed from the Scarlet Fool, for the masculine protrusion in his neck had been gouged out.
The Scarlet Fool jammed his thumb into the wound, and gurgled his excuses through blood and tears. He had meant to say that he was no thief, that he had been gifted the jewel for his performance; that it was with the Horned King's permission that the jewel had found its way into his possession; that he was unfamiliar with this crown jewel, for it had been an emerald during his bondage to the Queen Mab, and if he had known it to be the Queen Mab's he would have returned it posthaste; and even a wretch such as him deserved one bit of dignity, one tiny act of genuine kindness, the smallest modicum of decision in his miserable existence, and what right did the nobles have to take advantage of him like this, by what right could they exploit that vain hope for personhood, by what right?!
No one considered that the Scarlet Fool was too short to have reached the Queen Mab's crown, and the notion that a better might frame the Fool was dismissed. Who would defend the honor a deformed slave?
But even if the nobles might have considered his words, the Scarlet Fool was choked by tears and bone.
The Queen Mab wanted him quartered and flayed for desecrating her crown; it was the Ambassador who convinced her of a crueler mercy.
A chain was drawn from the chandelier, and the Scarlet Fool was fastened by the neck beneath. So taut was the chain that he could neither sit nor lie down, only stand and bend in agony. As dessert was served to the attendants, the bones left over from the main courses were brought before the Fool. If he could eat them all before the end of the Harvest Masquerade, he would be allowed to live.
(It was, admittedly, an easier task than it sounded. The Queen Mab was too enamored with his misery to call off festivities.)
The Scarlet Fool began with the finger bones, thin and breakable, oddly meaty and all too dry. Broken shards cut at his mouth, a pain rivaled (we thought then) only by the struggle of swallowing. It was to be the most bearable part of his punishment.
To break one's tooth is a special sort of agony: the nerves in one's jaw scream and scream and scream as blood gushes down into the mouth. The Scarlet Fool broke his first on a tibia. Three more would shatter before he was forced to break apart his meal by hand, and an ugly cadence was given to his cries.
What kept him going, I wonder? The Scarlet Fool pushed through his weakness with neither dignity nor resolve; if his wounds had not rendered him mute, he would have begged. He could not bear to look his torturer in the eye, nor his master. Only once did I see him cast his gaze towards another — and though Sanna looked back with clear horror, her people could not risk the Queen Mab's wrath, and so she did not intervene.
Every bone looked more painful for the Fool than the last. The teeth looked to bite back on their way down; the residual juices upon the rib bones stung every wound they fell upon; the very process of breaking down the scapula appeared a near-fatal endeavor. He vomited twice, his guts the color of ground coffee, and I shouldn't have to say what the Queen Mab made him do with it. By the time he finished the last sliver of skull, the Fool was scarlet with his own blood, and utterly out of tears.
The Queen Mab kept her word, at the very least, and the Scarlet Fool was escorted back to Alagadda.
***
The Horned King still visits the Queen Mab, and on occasion he'll bring the Scarlet Fool. That cruelty of his seems tempered; he does not speak so freely as he once did.
For now, there is little more to be said.

But one day, the Scarlet Fool will have his dues.