Chapter Text
blood.
blood.
freshly spilled. such an alluring scent.
a beating heart, too... slow. perfect, inches before death.
i can’t wait. i can’t stop, i can’t let anyone get there before me.
it’ll be d e l i c i o u s .
---
You couldn’t feel anything.
Numbness, a soft ringing surrounding you, penetrating your mind... an unpleasant and irritating sound that only seemed to heighten as the seconds went by. You felt like a doll with its strings cut, limp, unaware. Your eyes peeled open ever-so-slightly, but a bright and intense glare pierced painfully right through your vision and into the back of your head.
So white...
... You were on your back, on something soft and enveloping. You could feel the gravity in your cheeks, throat, belly, pulling you down... It was the only thing anchoring you. But you couldn’t feel your arms, or legs. Did you still have fingers? The world around you was empty, incorporeal, like when you wake up and you can’t tell what direction you’re facing or where your limbs are supposed to be.
Am I dead?
So white.
...
A snowflake landed on your eyelash.
...
... And then you breathed.
For a second, it was as if your body had been plunged into ice cold water. Your chest contracted in one last heave of life and an instinctive, wheezing breath of freezing air was forcefully sucked into your body through your mouth.
... Fuck.
It was like the breath had awoken every nerve at once. You let out a croaking cry and cringed as pain began to radiate from... well, everywhere. Your chest was tight even as it pulled in more air, head absolutely pounding... Jesus, it felt like you’d been hit by a bus. You squeezed your eyes shut against the glare, only peeking them open when the ache had subsided- gradually, the world started to fade in, the pain bringing shots of warmth into the nerves. You could see a spot of light above you, no bigger than your thumb, surrounded by a strange, bluish-grey cloudy surface that darkened and lightened in patches.
... Ice. It was ice above you. Clearer, and clearer... You were looking up at a hole in a thick sheet of ice, hundreds of feet overhead.
A sound below your boot, like a gunshot. The ice wasn’t as solid as you thought.... It wasn’t solid at all.
Everything was heavy, why did you feel so heavy... you squeezed your fingers, trying to locate them on your body; you felt your nails digging into your palms but nothing else. The sensation carried down your arms like lines of ink appearing on a map and you slowly, but surely, began to get an understanding of where your body was; how you were sprawled on a patch of snow.
You tried to move onto your side, groaning, fighting against the pain in every part of you... but you just couldn’t muster the energy to shift your weight enough to roll. You fell back onto your... well, your back, already dizzy and heaving. Instead, you just pulled your arms into your chest and tucked your hands under your chin, palms against your throat and icy fingers wrapping around to behind your ear. It was the only patch of bare skin aside from your face and it was the first warm place your body could think to put them. It hurt, but you found yourself immediately noting that that was a good thing- pain meant they still worked. You removed them for just a moment to look...
... Not blue, or purple. And not blistered. Just the normal colour... no frostbite. You immediately tucked them back against your neck, rearranging slightly so your pinkies were more flush against your throat, eager to stave off the frostbite you’d somehow managed to avoid.
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Part of you wanted to just... stay there, laid down in the snow. But it was a very, very small part... and it didn’t take long for your body’s automatic desire to survive to kick you into moving.
You sat up, slowly, chunks of snow falling from your back and head, letting out a groan as your back and stomach ached with pain, tight from resting in the snow for however long you’d been out of it. You must’ve taken one hell of a tumble... you were surprised you even survived a fall from that height.
Finally up, you summoned what little of your brain was still functioning and looked around you.
...
A forest.
What? You blinked, throat dry. That couldn’t be right. Were you hallucinating? This was clearly underground. You were in a small clearing, surrounded by conifers... tall ones, towering over you, with unusually long straight trunks that branched out pretty high up. The needle leaves on the lower branches were brown and sickly and dead, but the rest of the plants looked... perfectly healthy.
You looked up again, back at the ceiling- grey and blue ice, with a visible hole where you’d fallen. Your breath crystalised in the air, drifting upwards before dissipating... you could just about hear the wind from the storm you’d been trapped in, whistling over the hole... at least it was sheltered in here. But... there were trees, growing in an underground ice cavern? How did they get enough sun? Did they get any sun? ... How long had these trees been down here?
Why did it feel so... eerie?
... You decided to stop questioning the logistics of underground trees, swallowing, and instead focus on getting up and getting moving. You needed to find a way out of this place- at least you were dressed in appropriate winter clothing... thick pants, boots, a sweater, a coat. But either way you needed to try and find some way to get back to the surface before you froze. You lifted yourself even further forward, looking down at your legs...
... That was when you noticed the stain.
You narrowed your downward-cast eyes, already feeling exhausted from just sitting up but brain firing with confusion as it pulled itself even more out of its own sleepy mess state- some of the snow just around where your leg had been resting (there was a sort of leg-shaped imprint) was a strange... almost pink. Like you’d spilled fresh strawberries into the ice, and then let them rest for a few hours. Why would it be...
...
Blood.
That was the final snap your head needed to entirely wake up. Your eyes widened, and your gaze moved from the snow around to the limb itself...
Where you saw a large, ominous mauve stain on your right jean... a tear in the fabric, a-and...
... A tear in your skin, below the knee. Glistening, raw, ugly, the length of your index finger. The surrounded skin flaked with snow and both wet and drying blood.
...
The world began to spin as the pain all over you, that your body had been determinedly ignoring, started to overwhelm you. Your arms shook, weakly, your fingers and toes were prickling, your back and stomach ached like they’d been punched all over, and now that the numbness in your legs was dissipating and the wound began to sting. More than sting- it was like someone had poured hot acid all over the affected area.
You cried out in pain again, this time a more broken, disjointed sound; it hurt, it hurt so much, your hands came up and hovered over the cut, not knowing what to do. Sh-should you grab it? Squeeze it to stop the bleeding, right? But... it didn’t look like it was bleeding anymore, it just looked raw. You swallowed, the shaking in your hands so prominent it was starting to become a problem...
... I-ice! You perked up, just a little, now that you had something to do with yourself; ice was supposed to be good for wounds, right? You couldn’t remember why, or how, but it was better than nothing- you used your numb digits to scoop two handfuls of clean, unstained snow that you packed onto the cut. You felt a sharp burn and you cringed... but very quickly, the pain noticeably subsided. Even just attempting to shift the leg back and forth was bad enough, there was no way you could stand on it. Think, think... wasn’t there something about keeping bad cuts above your heart le-
... A noise.
Immediately, your heart thudded and you looked up, eyes darting around.
That sounded like a footstep.
It was still eerily quiet all around you- you could only see the tall, dark conifers, the bleach-white snow and that dash of pinkish blood... the only sound was the heavily muffled wind raging just above the ice, so far you could barely hear it at all.
...
The same noise again. A footstep, for certain; the unmistakable crunch of snow underfoot. It made the hairs on the back of your neck prickle.
... You took a breath, through the shivering, and mustered up the courage to speak. If it was an animal you could scare it off by sounding loud and confident, right? Or just by making any sound at all. You opened your mouth...
“... H-hello?”
Well. So much for loud and confident. You sounded like a scared child.
...
Another footstep. And then another. Your regret was immediate, and consuming- it was incredible how much information you could glean from something when you were consumed in an instinctive panic. It sounded heavy, and judging by the distance between the steps it was large too; what scared you the most was that whatever it was (it sounded human... definitely bipedal, at least), your voice made it approach faster. Getting closer, getting loud; if you had hackles, they would’ve absolutely been raised. It could’ve been help, sure, but the fact that it didn’t reply to your call...
A shape emerged from the thickest point of the trees and headed in your direction.
...
A monster.
To say you froze wasn’t the right word. It was more like... your entire body seized, everything ground to a petrified halt.
It looked like someone had taken a werewolf straight out of a children’s storybook and set it right in front of you. Open jaws on a wolf’s head, but a body that clearly had human-like arms and legs underneath the overgrown matted black fur that every now and then parted like grass in a field to reveal long-since healed scars as long as your torso. The thing was almost twice your size.
Its eyes, fixated on where you were sitting, were blank. Completely porcelain white, milky... and somehow seeming infected and dirty, despite lacking life of any kind.
You felt sweat trickle down your face as your own terrified, wide eyes couldn’t seem to tear themselves away from it, lips parting and mouth hanging open. It stopped walking, giant arms hanging loosely by its sides... giving you an excellent view of the larger-than-your-fingers claws that dragged through the snow like rakes, and the thick yellowed teeth that stank even from your distance.
The thing couldn’t have been more than ten feet away from you when it stopped, grey tongue lolling out of its mouth and spots of blackened drool escaping from its jaws to stain the snow.
A-a monster. You leant back, as if that would make any difference.
This couldn’t be real. This... It couldn’t be real. What was that thing? It couldn’t be an animal, it couldn’t be a human in a costume. At this point you couldn’t even feel your heartbeat anymore, it was so terrified, so fast. A-a dream, you were dreaming...
....
But... it couldn’t be a dream... You could feel everything- the sting of the cold in your nose and chest, the raw terror encasing you. Your pounding head, your burning leg, your aching chest... You could smell the sour breath of the thing, you could see every hair in its matted fur.
Every one of your hairs was on end, every nerve was firing, as you stared into the jaws of a beast.
... Its cracked black nose twitched, and its ears swivelled around. Its claws flexed impatiently...
... It wasn’t moving.
It just stood there, in front of you. As if it were... waiting for something...
...
... A flicker of warmth shot through your body- realisation.
It’s blind.
... But you didn’t have time to register that fact for long.
It was like an explosion, right in front of you- something came bowling out of the trees, and it was something big. Bigger than even the wolf. It slammed into it, throwing it off its feet into the ice, there was a veritable flurry of snow thrown up into the air like a wave and the air was immediately filled with ear-splitting snarls that cut through your whole body and turned your insides; the sound of two beasts fighting over a kill. You saw only flashes of brown and red on the attacker but you didn’t stay long; panic overtook you, and you could do nothing but scream, turn and run.
.... Except you didn’t run. You made to go stand, consumed by fear, but your bad leg immediately gave out underneath you in a shock of pain, landing you in the snow again. You didn’t even let yourself cry out again, you were so afraid, you needed to get away, oh fuck they were going to maul you or crush you in the midst of their fight, you didn’t have the time to stop and get yourself up again to start hopping- as the brawl went on behind you you started desperately pulling yourself forward on your arms, using your good leg to push yourself off the ground and just dragging your useless leg behind you; a terrified and chaotic excuse for a crawl. You were surprised how quickly you managed to move considering your method, God the snow was cold- you didn’t care where you were going, so long as it was away.
You heard something behind you that sounded like a crunch. It made your whole body flinch, and something in your stomach rolled over... You didn’t dare turn around; a gargling, yelp-like howl was distinctly cut off by a second, much more determined crunch. Whoever the attacker was...
... They’d won.
There was a very short pause... and then new, heavier footsteps started moving in your direction.
Fast.
You kept dragging yourself across the ground, pathetically, but the footsteps encroached closer and closer, getting more and more loud. Your terror began to more than just power you- it was overwhelming you. You wanted to escape, you wanted to move faster, it was getting closer it was going to kill you... when the footsteps were almost literally right on top of you you stopped dragging yourself, and instead spun around, looking up while propped up on your elbows... perhaps you thought that you could somehow defend yourself better when you could see your attacks coming.
Your eyes landed on ...
... Bones.
...
The wolf was the better one.
You inhaled.
You were looking up at... a skeleton. You felt your heart and your stomach drop as one as your brain gathered as much information it could in a single breath. A gigantic, monstrous skeleton, looming over you, twice your height and width... had you not been about to die you would’ve thought it somewhat humorous that it was wearing clothing- a dirtied red shirt and a dark, reddish-brown hoodie with a surprisingly furry hood. Even in that split second of pure horror, of unimaginable fear, you found yourself wishing you had that hoodie right now to fight off the cold.
Its bones were already stained and littered with crack and fractures, signs of years of wear and tear. But the worst crack... you couldn’t help but stare in abject fear at the giant, ugly hole in the right side of its skull, a gaping injury that didn’t belong on a living thing, bordered by sharp edges like someone had shattered an eggshell two inches thick and left it. The crack must’ve affected the creature’s eye sockets... one was so empty, lax, lifeless and dark... its eye sockets were already strangely deep and large, the abnormality of which was only exacerbated by the fact that the socket directly under the crack was inhabited by a thick, convulsing, glowing orb of crimson with a tiny hole of black pricked into the middle like a nightmarish mock of a functioning eyeball.
But that wasn’t even the worst part. It should’ve been, but it wasn’t. The worst part was the teeth.
The crack in its head created a thin fracture that struck right through the alive eye socket, down to the upper row of teeth... it ended in the top tooth row where a golden tooth sat, glinting, probably a replacement for a lost one. The teeth were shark-like, almost comically pointed, nearly as large as your pathetic little human palm.
... But the bottom row was metal. The entire bottom jaw, teeth included, was metal, hinging just below its temple.
The iron jaw was what terrified you the most, because as your gaze touched upon it, you could already imagine the feeling of that unstoppable iron jaw crushing through your bones like soft carrot sticks. Tearing through flesh like tissue paper. It terrified you more than the giant axe it had raised over its head, it terrified you more than that haunting burning eyeball, it terrified you more than the monster’s sadistic grin.
... You exhaled.
You made a sound with your exhale, you didn’t know what it was. It could’ve been a sob, a strangled scream, a plea for mercy that did come out right because of the combined cold and fear... any number of attempts at vocalisation.
...
It wasn’t moving.
The monster, the skeleton beast looming over you, axe raised and ready to kill... wasn’t moving.
For a moment, in your frozen deliriousness, you wondered if this was what people meant when they said the world moved in ‘slow motion’ when something terrible happened. Were you going to have to sit here, numb and alone and terrified, watching the axe come down like someone had put the whole world on 0.5 speed?
... But then you saw a breath escape from between his teeth, crystallised and thick, catching the light his body was silhouetting. ... It reminded you of a blast of steam escaping a mechanical engine.
... He’d frozen. He was staring at you, right at you, with that horrifying eye. You couldn’t read his expression...
...
The jaw opened. Just a crack- you almost expected it to creak, like a rusty door. But it was silent, unnervingly so.
... And he spoke. His voice was so deep it shook your chest like a clap of thunder; but somehow it sounded... soft. Afraid. Just as terrified as you. He said just one word, and it escaped those fearsome jaws in another whispering icy breath.
...
... It was your name.