Post by Admin on Aug 26, 2015 23:02:01 GMT
As part of a PREHALLOWEEN SERIES OF CELEBRATORY POSTS, I'm going to post every week on Wednesday with some sort of scary, or wacky (for lack of a dumber term that starts with w), story or continuation of a story (Mute, Outcast, and maybe even Layers since you like that one so much). Anyways, lets see how far this can last.
First Wacky Wednesday is a part two to Outcast.
Simon, laying awake in his old bed late one night, suddenly found himself itching with hundreds of tiny, crawling feet. Turning on the nightstand lamp and throwing back the covers, he spotted dozens of busy, dot sized ants crawling all over his skin. How did they get there?
Simon hastily swung out of bed and did a little dance of disgust, beating and swatting at the tiny tormentors who were now biting him everywhere. At the same time, Simon also briefly noticed that not a single ant remained on his mattress or sheets. Every one of them had been drawn onto him.
Giving up in the impossible endeavor of swatting them all away, Simon ran through the darkened hall and into the bathroom. He flicked the light on, but instead of washing off the tiny, biting sinners, Simon simply stared at the mirror.
For crouching next to him in a familiar, shadowy silence, a gray skinned, womanlike figure was watching him watch her in the mirror. She was sitting right beside him, mere inches away from the sink and Simon himself. Unable to bring his eyes away from the thick screen of hair covering her face, standing in complete and utter dread of the hag beside him, growing nauscious and sick from the paralyzing but hidden gaze, Simon stood before the mirror.
She was back. Years after the first encounters with her, Simon knew he was still the scared child he had been before. And she was very much real.
Get away from me. Why are you here again?
He thought to her. But she didn't reply, and Simon could feel her moisten her unseen eyes in delight over his forgotten fear and sickness.
And as paralyzed minutes passed in that bathroom, Simon could feel the ants proceed to tear peices of flesh off his body and carry them away in trailing, marching lines. Each triumphant, little creature knawing a part of skin and tissue away from the powerless giant. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of pricking mandibles ripping chunks of Simon away, from his legs to his belly to his arms and neck and head. He was helpless, too weak.
And then, whether this was her speaking thoughts to him or his own mind, he could hear the Crouching Hag say,
Meadow Creek is a hill of cowardly, greedy ants,
With a foundation of roaches who have many lies to plant.
McLone is a hive of seething, stinging bees,
And as long as you see me, you will never be free.
The sound that jarred him awake was a new voice shouting in his ears, "WAKE UP! WAKE UP, YOU INSOLENT IDGIOT!"
He quickly realized as he awakened from the all too recognizable nightmare that his hands were tied up, and he sat in a dimly lit room with nothing but a voice coming out of a nearby box to keep him company. A very loud, childish, girlish voice.
"HELLO?! ANYONE HOME? YOU BETTER NOT BE KEEPING SILENT IN THERE!"
As Simon looked at the curious box that was nondescript, save a speaker facing him and a pipe running from it into the corner of the room, he knew it had to be Jade. Then he heard the voice quiet down and sound as if it was speaking to someone else.
"Alright then, I'll try in another half hour. I suppose the stupid bloke better be redy then-"
Simon cut this line off, hoping to keep whoever it was on the line, "Hello? I'm up. Are you Queen Jade?"
There was a brief moment of silence which Simon took as surprise on her end, but the voice quickly came back on with an even more bossy nature than it had before. Her new whispering tone was a stark and creepy contrast to the shouts thrown at sleeping Simon seconds before.
"Old bloke, I'm afraid I haven't quite introduced myself to you yet. All you need to know is that I am higher than you will ever dream to be. And you will address me as such. QUEEN!"
Simon, who had stupidly leaned forward to hear each quiet word from the box, jumped back at the suddenly screamed word. She continued.
"And I will be the one questioning anyone around here. So, to make up for interrupting me, you may state your name."
Simon spoke carefully, "Simon, my Queen." Silly. Gonna have to get used to this.
The voice paused again, as if to consider the name's five letters, then said, "All right, Simon, my chap, what are yu most afraid of?"
When Simon hesitated in answering (mainly out of surprise), the queen snapped again, "Answer quickly now! Only a liar hesitates, and if I find you guilty of any fishy buisness, I'll have you thrown out of my sight and earshot and smell radius just like all fishy characters! I will!"
So Simon answered honestly, Choose 1-3 for each of the questions.
*1 "Guilt and grief" 2 "Monsters" 3 "The Unknown"
Yet the Queen continued without pause, "What do you believe happens to dead people?"
1 "Most of them go somewhere better." 2 "They stay dead." 3 "I'm not sure."
Once more, the Queen inquired, "Right or left?"
1 "Right." 2 "Left." 3 "For what?"
One last time, Queen spoke to Simon, "What is your favorite insect?"
1 "Ants, even though they hurt, their bites are only skin deep." 2 "Roaches, let them do whatever they please." 3 "Bees, if we didn't have their stings, we wouldn't have their honey."
*Dear reader, count up your choice answers' points and keep the word/words that the sum corresponds to in mind for later...
4-6 Haggard 7-9 With birds 10-12 Beep beep*
"Hmmm, and one last thing," she mused aloud to Simon. "What is your purpose?"
Simon replied carefully now, "I'm here because of what I've heard in the city. About you, your majesty. There are rumors...that you know how to, um..."
"Control the Revelation," the Queen's clearly smirking voice spoke.
Simon nodded before he remembered that he couldn't be seen and then said, "Yes...queen."
There was a dramatic sigh on her end and said, "Well, while I can manipulaet some aspekts of it, the part about complete control over the Revelation is pure baloney, Simon my dear. I'm afraid I cannot change it back. Many have asked me that before. Though I haven't the foggiest why anyone likes it better before all this. Anywaaays, what is your request?"
"...Have you ever heard of the Crouching Hag?"
"Beware the Crouching Hag
Who watches its victims choke and gag
On the bones of dreams of drowning children
That cannot sink till they are stooped old men."
She recited this in a hushed, delighted tone. "Having nightmares, are we?"
"More than nightmares, your highness."
"Eh," she said dismissively, alarming Simon even further. "Everyone has demons. You're no different than the rest of them, aren't you? Greedy, stuck up old people. Coming to my doorstep and asking to partake in my hospitality and stabilitie. I ouht to throw you out imediately," she spoke like the cat talking to the mouse. She had Simon on a string. Simon had no choice now but to plead like the mouse that he was.
"No your highness! You're my last hope, please!"
"Escaping the Crouching Hag is nothing short of impossible if you're an old person. I should know, you know. So why don't I just fetch Billy to escort you right back out of here with your curse-"
"I can work for you. Slave away for you. I will do anything!!"
Silence. Then a mischevious, "Anything?"
"Anything you need me to do, I'll do it, just to get rid of her."
"...Her, eh? The Croucher is a 'her' to you? A Misses Crouching Hag? Funny how most boys who have it see a woman," she spoke, probably with a hand tapping her chin.
"Excuse...me?"
"Never mind it, Simon, my amenabl and broken child. In sixteen minutes, I will have your answer," she curtly closed discussion.
With that, her voice cracked off and Simon was sitting alone and overwhelmed in the dim room. He had many bickering thoughts floating around in his mind, but one in particular wavered just in front of Simon like a leaf debating whether or not to fall from the tree in September. The hag...she watches other people too? She changes form?
First Wacky Wednesday is a part two to Outcast.
Simon, laying awake in his old bed late one night, suddenly found himself itching with hundreds of tiny, crawling feet. Turning on the nightstand lamp and throwing back the covers, he spotted dozens of busy, dot sized ants crawling all over his skin. How did they get there?
Simon hastily swung out of bed and did a little dance of disgust, beating and swatting at the tiny tormentors who were now biting him everywhere. At the same time, Simon also briefly noticed that not a single ant remained on his mattress or sheets. Every one of them had been drawn onto him.
Giving up in the impossible endeavor of swatting them all away, Simon ran through the darkened hall and into the bathroom. He flicked the light on, but instead of washing off the tiny, biting sinners, Simon simply stared at the mirror.
For crouching next to him in a familiar, shadowy silence, a gray skinned, womanlike figure was watching him watch her in the mirror. She was sitting right beside him, mere inches away from the sink and Simon himself. Unable to bring his eyes away from the thick screen of hair covering her face, standing in complete and utter dread of the hag beside him, growing nauscious and sick from the paralyzing but hidden gaze, Simon stood before the mirror.
She was back. Years after the first encounters with her, Simon knew he was still the scared child he had been before. And she was very much real.
Get away from me. Why are you here again?
He thought to her. But she didn't reply, and Simon could feel her moisten her unseen eyes in delight over his forgotten fear and sickness.
And as paralyzed minutes passed in that bathroom, Simon could feel the ants proceed to tear peices of flesh off his body and carry them away in trailing, marching lines. Each triumphant, little creature knawing a part of skin and tissue away from the powerless giant. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of pricking mandibles ripping chunks of Simon away, from his legs to his belly to his arms and neck and head. He was helpless, too weak.
And then, whether this was her speaking thoughts to him or his own mind, he could hear the Crouching Hag say,
Meadow Creek is a hill of cowardly, greedy ants,
With a foundation of roaches who have many lies to plant.
McLone is a hive of seething, stinging bees,
And as long as you see me, you will never be free.
The sound that jarred him awake was a new voice shouting in his ears, "WAKE UP! WAKE UP, YOU INSOLENT IDGIOT!"
He quickly realized as he awakened from the all too recognizable nightmare that his hands were tied up, and he sat in a dimly lit room with nothing but a voice coming out of a nearby box to keep him company. A very loud, childish, girlish voice.
"HELLO?! ANYONE HOME? YOU BETTER NOT BE KEEPING SILENT IN THERE!"
As Simon looked at the curious box that was nondescript, save a speaker facing him and a pipe running from it into the corner of the room, he knew it had to be Jade. Then he heard the voice quiet down and sound as if it was speaking to someone else.
"Alright then, I'll try in another half hour. I suppose the stupid bloke better be redy then-"
Simon cut this line off, hoping to keep whoever it was on the line, "Hello? I'm up. Are you Queen Jade?"
There was a brief moment of silence which Simon took as surprise on her end, but the voice quickly came back on with an even more bossy nature than it had before. Her new whispering tone was a stark and creepy contrast to the shouts thrown at sleeping Simon seconds before.
"Old bloke, I'm afraid I haven't quite introduced myself to you yet. All you need to know is that I am higher than you will ever dream to be. And you will address me as such. QUEEN!"
Simon, who had stupidly leaned forward to hear each quiet word from the box, jumped back at the suddenly screamed word. She continued.
"And I will be the one questioning anyone around here. So, to make up for interrupting me, you may state your name."
Simon spoke carefully, "Simon, my Queen." Silly. Gonna have to get used to this.
The voice paused again, as if to consider the name's five letters, then said, "All right, Simon, my chap, what are yu most afraid of?"
When Simon hesitated in answering (mainly out of surprise), the queen snapped again, "Answer quickly now! Only a liar hesitates, and if I find you guilty of any fishy buisness, I'll have you thrown out of my sight and earshot and smell radius just like all fishy characters! I will!"
So Simon answered honestly, Choose 1-3 for each of the questions.
*1 "Guilt and grief" 2 "Monsters" 3 "The Unknown"
Yet the Queen continued without pause, "What do you believe happens to dead people?"
1 "Most of them go somewhere better." 2 "They stay dead." 3 "I'm not sure."
Once more, the Queen inquired, "Right or left?"
1 "Right." 2 "Left." 3 "For what?"
One last time, Queen spoke to Simon, "What is your favorite insect?"
1 "Ants, even though they hurt, their bites are only skin deep." 2 "Roaches, let them do whatever they please." 3 "Bees, if we didn't have their stings, we wouldn't have their honey."
*Dear reader, count up your choice answers' points and keep the word/words that the sum corresponds to in mind for later...
4-6 Haggard 7-9 With birds 10-12 Beep beep*
"Hmmm, and one last thing," she mused aloud to Simon. "What is your purpose?"
Simon replied carefully now, "I'm here because of what I've heard in the city. About you, your majesty. There are rumors...that you know how to, um..."
"Control the Revelation," the Queen's clearly smirking voice spoke.
Simon nodded before he remembered that he couldn't be seen and then said, "Yes...queen."
There was a dramatic sigh on her end and said, "Well, while I can manipulaet some aspekts of it, the part about complete control over the Revelation is pure baloney, Simon my dear. I'm afraid I cannot change it back. Many have asked me that before. Though I haven't the foggiest why anyone likes it better before all this. Anywaaays, what is your request?"
"...Have you ever heard of the Crouching Hag?"
"Beware the Crouching Hag
Who watches its victims choke and gag
On the bones of dreams of drowning children
That cannot sink till they are stooped old men."
She recited this in a hushed, delighted tone. "Having nightmares, are we?"
"More than nightmares, your highness."
"Eh," she said dismissively, alarming Simon even further. "Everyone has demons. You're no different than the rest of them, aren't you? Greedy, stuck up old people. Coming to my doorstep and asking to partake in my hospitality and stabilitie. I ouht to throw you out imediately," she spoke like the cat talking to the mouse. She had Simon on a string. Simon had no choice now but to plead like the mouse that he was.
"No your highness! You're my last hope, please!"
"Escaping the Crouching Hag is nothing short of impossible if you're an old person. I should know, you know. So why don't I just fetch Billy to escort you right back out of here with your curse-"
"I can work for you. Slave away for you. I will do anything!!"
Silence. Then a mischevious, "Anything?"
"Anything you need me to do, I'll do it, just to get rid of her."
"...Her, eh? The Croucher is a 'her' to you? A Misses Crouching Hag? Funny how most boys who have it see a woman," she spoke, probably with a hand tapping her chin.
"Excuse...me?"
"Never mind it, Simon, my amenabl and broken child. In sixteen minutes, I will have your answer," she curtly closed discussion.
With that, her voice cracked off and Simon was sitting alone and overwhelmed in the dim room. He had many bickering thoughts floating around in his mind, but one in particular wavered just in front of Simon like a leaf debating whether or not to fall from the tree in September. The hag...she watches other people too? She changes form?