Demon Core - Chapter 1: The howl that never stops

‘Today, there is rain.

Tomorrow, there will be sun.

Can you come back to me again?

I miss you.

You were fun.

Is the sun too bright? That is okay.

We can play at night, instead of at day.’

 

“Where did she go?” asks the young boy, Swain, standing atop a patch of verdant grass as he finishes quietly proof-reading the poem he had written for her, his mother. The grass stands out in vivid contrast to the grayness all around the two of them – The grayness of the weather, the grayness of the stones, the grayness of his father’s face, which offers him no clear response in either words or in expression to his question.

A cool, strong breeze presses itself in between and through the heavy headstones of the graveyard, rustling the boughs of the many tall trees all around Swain and his father. The forest moves, singing and swaying, embedded inside the somber herald of the strong storm that is soon to come. The wind presses past them, growing stronger still, as if embodying the conjoined presence of a thousand howling spirits, flying across the world, bound into a screaming, rampaging mass of souls, lost on a wild-hunt.

Swain grabs his father’s shirt, just above the belt, and tugs on it, looking away from the stone that has his mother’s name carved into its front. “Papa. Where did sh -”

The sharp, whipping crack of the strike pierces through the droning storm. Swain flies down to the ground, his head spinning, his hand held against his stinging face and eye. His back rests against the stone with his mother’s name on it as he watches his father simply walk away, without a word, without an expression.

The man is just blank.

— Empty.

(???) has struck (Swain) for {02} damage!

The boy sits there, frozen in place, until eventually, the storm finally begins to crash down over the world, the heavy rains erasing any colors and vivid imagery from his sight. Just like the vision of his mother’s bright face, it becomes duller and duller with every passing minute.

The handwritten poem that he had been holding, the one he had written for his missing mother, flies and rolls away, landing before another gravestone to the side in a crumpled up ball. He had written the poem, themed on a wish for the return of his mother, who had been gone for days now. He was hoping to give it to her today.

Instead, Swain sits there for a while longer, his face and eyes both swelling. The grave that his back is leaning against offers him no answers to his questions. But maybe if he waits here for a while, she’ll come back? Maybe if he waits long enough, the storm will pass and the colors of the forest, of her face, and of his father’s face will all come back?

Swain passes the time by reading the poems engraved onto the many stones around himself, including the one with his mother’s name on it. Barring one shoddy, unceremonious stone that is void of text entirely, just off to the side. It is the one that his own crumpled up poem had landed in front of. Wild flowers grow atop the untended grave with no name on it. The poem soaks up the rainwater, resulting in the paper becoming soggy and soft.

This strange gravestone, too, just like the face of his father and the world all around him, is blank.

Years later.

“I just want it to be beautiful,” sighs Swain, staring down at the sheet of paper in his hands as he speaks to himself. His words echo around the dark bedroom that he finds himself alone in.

The screams that had been coming from outside, from the other rooms that he does not enter this late at night for his own safety, are now finally quiet. His father and the new woman have fought themselves empty for another night.

Creeping moonlight eeks in through the sparse gaps that are open between the sides of the ever-closed, heavy curtains and the cold, loveless brick walls that make up his own space in this world.

It’s all so…

— Swain narrows his eyes, crumpling up the poem that he has been writing. It’s bad.

He throws it across the room before grabbing another one from his stack to start over. He’s going to find it eventually. One day. Beauty. He grabs his pen and hunches over forward. But then he stops, his eyes wandering around the empty space, drowned in the blanket of nightfall.

— It really is all so soulless, isn’t it?

The room, cold, serves only to fulfill the functionality of allowing habitation. The pen in his hand, plain and cheap, acts only as a tool to use in order to create what he hopes to make. The paper is the same. It is an industrial product, made by processes of loveless repetition.

Functionality is the bane of his existence.

Beauty. Where is the beauty in this world? How can people want to live in a world that chooses functionality over form every time? Industriousness over grace?

He can’t stand it.

Swain looks back down at the sheet of paper and tries his best to write the poem again. Somebody has to make something of beauty here, somewhere. He hasn’t achieved that role yet, but he will. He’s going to find it. Beauty.

The screaming starts again in the other rooms, as the fights continue.

Swain focuses on the scratching of his pen to drown out the noise.

He hates it here.

It’s so ugly.

‘Tender blossoms float upon the crystal waters, azure and calm;

Carrying upon their supple bodies the shimmering dew of the fateful day that is now soon to be;

Frogs croak to greet the sun, owls hoot to part from the moon, a goose honks for the sake of it — the time between night and morning is soon to arrive;

And I sit here, alone, and watch as sun comes to rise;

Today will be a good d-

 

Someone rips the paper out of his hands.

“- Hey!” shouts Swain, jumping up to his feet. A hand pushes him back a step. “- Give that back!” he cries, snatching for the poem that another boy has taken and now dangles above his head. His pen drops to the ground, rolling towards the edge of the pond.

It’s him again. This boy has been bullying him for a while now.

Swain had come here to this park that is far out of the way to be alone on purpose, before lectures start today at the city’s central academy. The others always make fun of him because of the way he is. So he tries to spend as much time away from everyone else his own age as possible. As for older people, well, older people don’t really see him. He’s just kind of ignored by them, or maybe it’s more apt to say that he’s simply invisible to their eyes. But the other kids his age…

“What the hell is this?” asks the bully, carelessly crumpling the sheet of paper as he holds it above Swain’s head. “- You some kind of girl?” he asks, looking at the poem.

“Give that back! It’s mine!” shouts Swain, lunging at him. Someone else grabs him from behind — another boy — yanking on his arm and pulling him back. Swain fights back, but the other boy is also larger and stronger than he is. He holds him there, with Swain’s arm bent at a painful angle.

The bully scoffs, leaning down and looking at him. “This is girl stuff, freak,” he says. “Good thing we followed you out here to teach you a lesson. Or you’ll never learn to be normal.”

“That’s not true!” says Swain. “Guys write poems too! All knights and even a few heroes wrote poems! It’s in the books an-” The air and spit in his mouth fly out of it as the fist hits his stomach, causing him to keel over. A sharp pain shoots through his shoulder-blade as his twisted arm tries to keep up with his sinking and shaking legs.

(???) has punched (Swain) for {01} damage!

“Did you hear that?” asks the bully. The boy behind Swain is laughing. “This weirdo thinks he’s like a hero.” Swain hears the sound of crumpling paper and looks up as the boy throws the poem out into the pond.

“Yeah. What a loser,” says the other boy behind him. He throws Swain down to the ground. Several frogs hop away from the side of the pond, croaking in annoyance at the disturbance. “You grab his arms,” he says. “I got his legs. Ready?” Swain tries to struggle free from their grasp, as they hoist him up and swing him back, getting ready to throw him into the water too.

— Something terrifying screams loudly off to the side, breaking the serenity of the otherwise peaceful morning.

Swain thinks that some animal has gotten angry because of the ruckus. But the voice is much hoarser, shrill, and scratchier than that of any animal that he knows of.

He lurches to the side, falling back down to the ground that he had just left a moment ago, as something violently rams into his attackers, knocking one of them over.

A blood-curdling howl fills the air.

Swain turns around, looking up at the terrifying eyes of the wild thing that has latched onto the second boy from behind, having jumped onto his back to indiscriminately bite into the side of his face like a hungry ghoul.

(???) has tackled and bit (???) for {02} damage! Applied Status: [Minor Bleeding], [Light Grapple]

The other boy throws the new attacker off, striking back with his fist, which connects with the monster’s head. In a panic, he crawls away through the mud to run away to his accomplice.

(???) has punched (???) for {01} damage!

Swain doesn’t really know what to think at that moment. The world is still spinning before his eyes. The other boy runs past him, his hand held against his own wounded face to stop the slight trickle of blood coming from beneath his lower jaw. Tears are in his eyes.

Swain, fully lost, stares at the lanky, gangly creature that has torn out of the tree-line of the park like a feral animal. It straightens itself back upright, a deep, red mark around the side of its pale face. Hair, short and unkempt, frays out in many directions to catch the glow of the morning sunshine, which is seemingly trapped inside of its ashy lockes. Twigs and sticks are caught in its mane, as if it had crawled out from the deep-forest.

It’s just some girl.

Red trickles down her mouth as she lifts her eyes with a demon’s gaze towards the two boys, who are not only larger than her but have also regrouped and look ready to take on the challenger.

— She screams, contorting her face and leaning in towards them. Spit, mixed with fresh blood, flies out of her mouth and lands on Swain’s face.

It’s not a scream of words or of any coherent things. It’s just the wild, feral cry of a creature that had grown up in the oldest, darkest places of the world, trapped in a constant, desperate bid for animal survival. It is the voice of a hungry predator, scaring away a competitor from a fresh kill.

“Come on! Let’s get out of here!” The bully grabs his friend, and the two of them run off, having lost their will to fight after all.

Swain, now alone, his legs not working like he wants them to, crawls back towards a tree, staring at the terrifying being, the rabid stranger. She is standing there in a stiff, ready posture for more of a fight. But nobody comes to challenge her.

He’s heard stories about things like this. People who get bitten by the undead often transform into violent, shrieking monsters like this. Inside of civilization, it’s not supposed to ever happen. But with the dungeon around in the heart of the city and adventurers walking in and out of it all day, every day, sometimes things just go wrong. The dungeon is full of all sorts of terrible monsters that can do all sorts of terrible things to people.

Her eyes lower themselves down his way, staring with a cold intensity.

Swain gulps, trying to crawl back further, but his back is already pressed against the tree. The two bullies are bad enough. But this person looks… worse. They’re huge assholes, but this creature here, this girl, is —

Her vision focuses on him intently, staring into his eyes with a cold, deathly, empty look that he has never seen before. The hairs on his neck stand on end, as his heart strikes violently in his chest as their eyes meet.

— A demon.

Breaking the spell over his mind, she immediately jumps into the dirty pond without saying a word. Murky water splashes everywhere.

Swain blinks in confusion, watching as she swims out and then swims back again, rising out of the mud and muck as unbothered as could be. The ducks quack and swim away. She shakes herself out like a wet dog and then tosses the soggy ball of paper back towards him. It lands at his feet.

Swain looks down at it, confused, as he takes it. The wet ink has smeared everywhere. It’s beyond saving. But the effort is nice, he supposes. “T… thank you…” says Swain, still not sure that he isn’t going to be eaten. “I uh- I-”

“— Wanting to be like a hero is dumb,” says the girl, leaning down his way. “Are you stupid?”

Swain blinks, fumbling with the wet paper, not having had the strength to get up or to avert his gaze. “W- What?”

“Think of something more impressive next time,” she says. “Who wants to be like a hero? That’s so lame. I bet you study for tests too.” She tsks, turning her head to the side. “Not that I’d know. Never took one.”

“I… I don’t…” Swain shakes his head. “- I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Is she referring to his explanation for why he likes to write poems? She was probably watching and listening to what had just happened.

She stands back upright, planting a thumb against herself. “Don’t worry,” says the stranger, puffing out her chest and smiling a wide, sharkish smile as blood, indeterminately hers, trickles down her face, hauntingly gaunt. The expression makes him very uneasy. “You’re going to work for me as I rise to power. You’ll learn to be way more impressive if you just watch me!”

Swain tilts his head. “I… huh? Thank you for helping me… But… Who are you again?”

She smiles a smug smile, closing her eyes, her thumb remaining where it is on her heart. “You poor fool,” says the girl. “You have a poet’s heart, but the eyes of a frog,” she says. She places her hands on her hips and leans down towards him with a face that signals to him that he really is about to be devoured now. “You are in the presence of the next great DEMON-KING!”

“…Huh…” says Swain, processing her statement for a moment. His eyes go wide, and he jumps up to his feet. “— Quiet!” hisses the boy, covering her mouth as he looks around the area in new terror. Thankfully, the park is still empty. Nobody heard her. “You can’t say th- OW!” He winces, pulling his hand back.

(???) has bit (Swain) for {01} damage!

She presses a finger against his forehead, strands of swamp-grass and muck stick to her arm. They don’t seem to bother her at all. “You heard me. I’m going to become the Demon-King!” screams the girl at the top of her cracking voice. “— And you’re my first follower.”

“What?!” Swain tilts his head. “What’s uh — who are you?”

“That’s not important for a mortal like you to know,” she replies, holding a hand in front of her face to dramatically obscure her eyes. “— But you can call me…”

Swain stares at her, his mind still not sure what to make of the situation. But his heart continues to beat rapidly in his chest, so much so that it seems impossible not to think that his entire life depends on this very moment. His hand throbs with a fresh ache.

“— Goose.”

Swain stares at her blankly for a moment. “…What…?”

“HONK!” screams Goose into his face, lowering her hand and pressing her eyes towards his; her voice cracks. Swain yelps, falling back down to the ground. She laughs.

It turns out that she’s not a demon, a monster, or any other kind of terrible creature. She’s just a weirdo.

— A tired owl hoots in the tree above them, bothered by all of the noise that they’re making.

It is one day later.

It is nighttime. Swain sits in his room, thinking about his encounter from yesterday with the creature, the girl, Goose. His pen taps against the blank sheet of paper on his lap.

There was something about that moment that had stuck in his head.

His father and the new woman are in the other room, screaming again.

The old man has been drinking, just like he has done so every day for years now. He’s going to beat her, just like he does every day, and she’s going to stay here after it happens, just like she does every day. As for him, he himself is going to sit in his room and write and pretend that nothing is happening just past his door.

— Just like he does every day.

He was saved from those bullies by Goose. But he doesn’t think it was because of altruism on her part, or maybe it was? It’s hard to say. But the act of him being saved is… in his personal opinion…

– Ugly.

Swain stares at the sheet of paper as he realizes what his problem with the situation was then. He felt — No, he feels ugly. How is he supposed to write something that feels beautiful if he himself is the opposite? Not because of an exterior feature of his body or anything of that nature, but because he was weak. He had to be saved, not because of his bad luck or poor circumstances. This was because, simply put, he was too helpless to save himself or to even at least put up a real fight.

— If you have the power to do so, then how ugly is not fighting back? If he had been stronger, he could have fought them off himself like she did. There’s no reason that he can’t have that animal drive that she had. That was beautiful. If he had been stronger, he wouldn’t be sitting here, pretending that nothing is happening outside of his room. If he had been stronger, maybe his mother wouldn’t have died all those years ago.

It’s revolting — Self-inflicted weakness. Nobody wants to write or read a poem about that.

The struggle of raging life, of fighting against the overpowering current of hopelessness. The chick, breaking free from a shell to greet its first days. The cicada, burrowing out of the deep, dark dirt to find the sunlight. The seed, germinating and pressing free through mountains of damp soil towards existence — These things are beautiful. Things that fight and claw and bite and resist against all of the vagaries of despair and turmoil — the things that rebel against the darkness of true sleep. There is nothing more… perfect.

Swain, understanding now, sets down his pen and paper and gets up, walking to the door of his room to put up a fight.

It is the next morning, shortly before sunrise.

Swain sits out in the park, watching the ducks swim by.

“What the hell happened to you?” asks Goose, looking at him. She looks around the park. Apparently, she had come here again and saw him sitting against a tree by the water. “Did those two goons get you when I left?”

She’s just as scraggly as she was the day before. But now that she isn’t covered in mud, blood, and pond-goo, Swain can see that she’s oddly pale for someone who clearly spends her life outdoors, judging by the looks of her rough appearance.

Swain sits with his back against an unusually colorful tree in the park. It’s his favorite tree. He can’t move his arm. It might be broken. His face is battered and swollen.

“I was writing a poem,” explains Swain. It sounds like a lie. But it isn’t.

Goose lifts an eyebrow. “Must have been one hell of a poem.”

Swain smiles, wincing. The taste of blood is in his mouth. “Yeah.” He looks at her. “I’m Swain, by the way.”

It is later that night.

Swain sits in his room, scribbling furiously away onto a sheet of paper, trying to jot down the latest idea that has possessed him.

It’s a little darker than his usual poems. But somehow, the air, the mood, the odd sensations that he feels after his repeated encounters with the stranger, the girl, Goose — it just all feels right. Through this poem, he’s processing some odd ideas that he doesn’t quite understand yet. There are some things about monsters and about him being a stronger person than he is right now.

But the night goes by like a blur, and he forgets about the poem.

It is the next morning.

His two bullies have gone missing.

Their parents are out on the streets, handing out papers and desperately asking around for any information.

But nobody knows anything.

They are never seen again.

Years later.

It is nighttime. Swain sits outside, having snuck out of the house to meet up with Goose. The two of them sit in the park and watch people walk by in the distance. Most of the other people awake at this late hour are adventurers, on their way to the dungeon or to hunt monsters in the wilderness. All of the ‘normal’ people of the city are asleep at this hour.

Swain doesn’t really have any money. His father spends all of his own money on alcohol, and Swain doesn’t have anything like an allowance or chores to get paid for, and neither does Goose. He makes a few Obols here and there by doing whatever odd jobs he can, like sweeping, cleaning, or shoveling snow in the winter. He doesn’t like this kind of work at all. He really wants to make money with his poetry. But that doesn’t seem like it’s a viable life-strategy right now.

But he can look past that.

— The small bag in his hand rustles as he holds it out to her. Goose digs around in it, pulling out one of the sweets that he had bought for them to share together with his hard-earned pay.

This lets him get away from his house and his father; it lets him think about and look at things he likes.

Goose, her cheeks stuffed full like a hungry squirrel’s, looks his way, catching him staring at her. “What?” she asks, talking with a full mouth.

Swain shakes his head. “Just thinking about poems,” he replies, looking back out over the city.

“Lemme see,” she says, nudging him.

Swain shakes his head, eating a piece of candy to get away from the moment. It’s too embarrassing to show anyone his poems. Even her.

{Red}(Normal)[Soft Honey Candy]

A soft, chewy piece of red candy made from fruit sugars, honey and beeswax. It is deeply sweet and, because of the wild-honey used in its recipe, smells of the fragrant wildflowers.

Red: +01% HEALTH

Restores: 02% STAMINA

Weight: 0.03kg Value: 001 Obols

— No… especially her.

“Do you think I could become an adventurer?” asks Swain, changing the topic, as he watches a man walk by in the distance with a sword on his back the size of his own body.

“You?” asks Goose, swallowing the candy she was chewing on. “You should stick with your poems.”

Swain blinks, looking back toward her. “Huh? You think?” he asks, somewhat surprised. “I think I could become a good adventurer. I don’t mind getting hurt. Besides, it would let me earn some real money. Fighting monsters doesn’t scare me.”

Goose shakes her head. “Do you want to make money, or do you want to write poems?”

Swain thinks for a moment, looking at the bag of candy in his hand. Money lets him buy moments like this, which make him happy. But writing poems also makes him happy. He isn’t sure which one makes him happier, honestly. “Can I do both?”

Goose looks at him and shakes her head. “Look. The Demon-King doesn’t need adventurers,” says Goose. “The Demon-King eats adventurers.”

— Swain pulls out a piece of candy from the bag, handing it to her so that she doesn’t eat him.

“Thanks,” says Goose, taking it and popping it into her mouth. She chews for a while and then looks back his way. “Promise me you’ll keep writing poems, okay?”

Swain tilts his head. That’s an odd thing for her to ask of him. Sure, she asks about his poetry every now and then, but she’s never directly encouraged him like this about it.

He nods, feeling happy about it though. “Okay. I promise.”

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘— You and I’ Unlocked By: Making a best-friend. Reward: Friendship is its own reward.

Goose slows her chewing, curiously looking at the window that had appeared, and then moves her gaze towards him. Swain quickly looks away, pretending that he never saw anything.

Years later.

Swain, having grown in body and spirit, presses his father back against the wall, one hand on his shirt’s collar and another holding his clenched wrist. The smell of burning alcohol from the old man’s throat envelops his face. “- I told you, it’s over!” barks Swain, looking to the side at the woman his father has been attacking for years now. “Leave her alone.” She’s laying on the ground, and her face is as bruised as it always is. “Why are you like this?!” he yells, looking back towards his father, who has entirely fallen apart over the years. The drink and the mismanagement of his health and spirit have made him become feeble, weak, and ugly far, far before his time should have come.

These fights in their house have been going on for years now. At first, his father would beat him senseless every time he got involved, ever since that night in his childhood — that night after he had met Goose. But Swain still got involved every time, and, as the years passed, he began to grow stronger. Now he has the edge over the old man, the gray man, the blank man, who had never regained the color of his essence since that day, back in the graveyard.

“- LET GO OF HIM!” yells a voice from behind himself.

Swain only has a second to turn around before seeing the battered woman smashing a vase down over his own head.

It is the next day, shortly before sunrise.

Goose stands there with crossed arms, glaring down at him.

Over the years, she too has grown at pace with himself into maturity. Her hair and eyes are as wild and unkempt as ever, and her posture and demeanor are as fiery as they have always been. Her appearance is as pale and ghostly as it has always been. The two of them had become very good friends.

Swain had never asked about the missing boys from back then, the bullies. But he has some assumptions. She’s violent. But he doesn’t think that she would go that far. Maybe. But he also doesn’t want to risk their friendship by asking, and, honestly, he isn’t sure that he would care if she really did do something.

“— Really?” she asks, somewhat exhausted, looking him over. It isn’t unusual for her to find him like this, when he’s sitting by himself in the park in the early mornings or in the dark of night.

Swain nods, giving her a thumbs-up. “I was on fire,” he says. “The poem I was writing was great. It had everything. Passion, betrayal, violence.”

Goose sighs, shaking her head, and kneels down. She grabs his head, forcefully turning it to the side, and begins plucking shards of glass out of his hair and scalp.

“- Ow!” hisses Swain, wincing.

She presses his body back against the tree with her knee, continuing to roughly remove the broken glass from his head. “Don’t be a baby,” scolds Goose. “Anyways, do you even actually write poems anymore?” she asks. “I’ve never seen a single one of them since we met.” She pulls out a long shard of the broken vase, which was tangled in his hair. It’s crusted in blood. She throws it away, over her shoulder. It splashes into the pond.

Swain turns his head to the side, looking away. “…It’s just very personal, okay? My poetry. I don’t want to just show it to anyone.”

“…Huh?” asks Goose incredulously. She leans over sideways, staring into his eyes from up-close. Swain clears his throat, finding her close presence troubling in a variety of new ways that had never bothered him in their younger years. “You want to be a poet, don’t you?” Swain nods, which is a mistake. She grabs his head and forcefully straightens it back into position. “So that means you’re going to have to show people what you write.”

“But it’s embarrassing,” admits Swain.

“’But it’s embarrassing,’” mimics Goose in a high tone. “You’re a lost cause, you know?” she asks. “Be glad that you’re my servant,” she says. “A less benevolent Demon-King would have eaten you by now.”

“About that whole ‘Demon-King’ thing,” starts Swain, wincing as she pulls out another shard of glass. “It’s been a while now too. I’m starting to doubt you’re actually the Demon-King,” he says, sarcastically. “I think you may just be weird.”

“Says you.” Goose flicks a shard of glass to the side. “You better watch your mouth,” she replies. “Or maybe I’ll eat you after all.”

Swain rolls his eyes, which, surprisingly, hurts to do. “Forgive me, your majesty.”

Goose stands back upright, standing there with crossed arms as she stares at him with that judging expression of hers. She’s scheming something. He can feel it. He knows that look.

“Fine,” says Goose. “I’ll forgive you -”

“Great.”

“- If you write me a poem,” she finishes.

Swain blinks. “Huh?”

Goose leans down toward him. “You heard me. I want a poem,” she says. “All these years, you always talk about ‘poems this and poems that’.” She taps her finger against an open palm. “Well, I want to see some results.”

Swain rubs the back of his head. This isn’t the first time that she’s asked about this. Actually, ever since they met, she had been nagging him about writing her something. But he never did. “I mean… I…” Writing a poem is already a very personal thing for him. But writing a poem for someone else? For them to read? With their actual eyes and feelings and sensations that he can’t hide from?

Wind rustles the leaves of the tree above their heads, bringing an odd, very random memory to the forefront of his mind of that night in the graveyard, as the sight of the verdant grass all around them fills his vision. Swain’s eyes move back up towards Goose, who is standing there, and the two of them stare at each other for a time.

“…What?” snaps Goose, looking away after a moment. “What are you staring at?”

Swain shakes his head, getting back up to his feet as he walks away, having found his poetic muse. “- Something beautiful,” he replies, waving over his shoulder as he gets ready to leave for his day.

“…Huh…?” asks Goose, having been caught off guard. She stands there, somewhat lost.

Swain looks over his shoulder at her, the wind drying his crusting blood on her fingers. The two of them stare, a stride’s width apart from one another.

“- Honk,” is all that Swain says, as he turns to leave.

Goose runs after him, yelling something about eating him or whatever. Although, they part ways before the day begins. He manages to not get eaten for another day.

It is later that night.

Swain sits in his room on the floor with his legs crossed and a stack of fraying, old, yellow paper on his lap.

His pen scratches across the page as he writes down his idea.

— But it isn’t good enough.

It’s not good enough for her. There’s something that he feels deep inside of himself, and these words, these scribbles and scratches and notes and rhymes, they’re just… they’re just not good enough.

The young man crumples the paper together, throwing it over his shoulder as he starts again fresh. Paper is expensive, and it’s not good to waste it like this. But he needs a clean sheet for every poem. Writing a poem on the old, inky paper means it can’t truly be free of the failed ideas that had been present there before.

The pen meets the page, and he starts again, trying to translate the complex, warm, sticky, disgusting knot that he feels in his core into something as simple as a movement of his hand.

— The screaming comes from outside once again, as it does every night without fail. The woman’s shrill shrieks fill his throbbing head as his father barks and roars in a drunken stupor.

He’s so sick of it here. It’s so ugly. It really will never change, will it?

He can’t wait to get away, to move away. Just a little longer, and he’ll be able to leave. He’s going to take Goose with him, and they’re going to leave. He doesn’t know to where, exactly and he doesn’t know what he’ll work as, since he won’t be making money with his poetry any time soon. But that’s what his heart wants. He hasn’t talked to her about this yet, obviously. He hasn’t told her about his feelings because that would be embarrassing. It’s just like sharing the poem with her.

It’s just… a lot.

— Maybe he can still become an adventurer, even if she isn’t on board with the idea? He’s certainly learned to fight and to take a beating. Killing some monsters in the dungeons sounds like something he could do to earn a living for the both of them.

It’s just a lot, and he doesn’t know if he’s ready for it yet, even if it is what he wants. Hell. Who knows what she would say about it? He’s never told her anything like this. They’re just friends, right? What if he makes this weird? What if she just wants a funny poem about ducks and silly frogs and not something heavy like this thing he’s trying to jot down?

Swain sighs. He really is a sad romantic, isn’t he?

The pen slides over the page, its scratching following the candor of the animal screams from the other side of the door. Lost in his thoughts about a future that he yearns for and about a person who he wants, Swain doesn’t really notice the words flowing onto the paper that do not stem from the wholeness of his youthful lust and hope-filled thoughts, but rather from the noises of terror and violence.

Snapping out of his vision-filled daze a minute later, Swain looks down at the piece of paper that is covered in words, scrawled wide and wildly, as if made by a hand that had been writing a desperate message for help in the last minute of time it had left.

‘A Thing That Hungers stands in the night outside;

Reaching beneath the cracks of doors, thought closed;

With many arms, long, and with many odd joints, sharp, it stands beyond and pushes through just below;

Its slender limbs wind down the corridors and through the breaches of many locks;

Feeling the hearts of those who remain, of those who stand and there to another talk;

Of things not meant for the comfort of night;

A Thing that Hungers feels, senses, reaches and eats those that it might;

– Touch.

 

Swain sits there in silent confusion, staring at his poem.

It’s not too unusual for him to zone out like this while he works. It’s happened before. But usually, his poems aren’t so… dark. He doesn’t usually write about monsters or about odd things like that. He’s only ever done so once before, the second night after he met Goose. The night before his bullies vanished. Although he doesn’t quite recall what that particular poem had said.

The young man tilts his head, not sure what it is that’s bothering him. The breeze pushes in through his open window, billowing the rough, cheap curtains. The hairs on his neck stand on end as he lifts his gaze to the door.

Swain realizes that it is quiet.

The voices of his father and the woman are missing from the world. Confused, he starts to get up, to walk to the door of his bedroom. It’s about time for him to intervene in their fight anyway.

— A hand suddenly grabs his shoulder.

Swain starts to yelp in surprise. Another hand grabs his mouth, holding him silent. He turns around to look at Goose. She’s standing there behind him and lifting a finger to her mouth, gesturing for him not to make a peep.

(Goose) has [Silenced] (Swain)

His heart thuds loudly in his chest. Why is she here?

She’s never been in his room before. Did she climb in through the open window? What is this? She can’t be here while his father is home. He doesn’t want her to get caught up in this mess. He knows she’ll try to fight the old man for him if it comes down to it. He doesn’t want that. He knows she could destroy him, but this is his own fight.

Goose pulls him back, quietly nodding her head to the side. A status-window hovers there, one that he had missed in his confusion.

It’s an odd thing to notice at a strange time like this, but Swain notices that, as she holds a hand over his mouth, pulling him back against her cold body, he can smell her.

— She smells nice, like wildflowers.

(Swain) has used [Poetic Summoning] to summon: [A Thing That Hungers] Cost: 15% SOUL-POINTS

~ A Thing That Hungers ~

– Summoned Entity –

 

Drawn from the darkest shadows of the deepest, most forgotten regions of the world, this is a creature that has no name. It is only known by the vague title of ‘A Thing That Hungers’. Bound to the darkness of lightless nights, it may never step inside of a home or any place with light.

It counteracts this by using its impossibly long and flexible, sharply nailed fingers to enter closed spaces, to angle out its prey into the dark night, where it can be devoured in secrecy.

 

Class: MONSTERElement: DARK Type: NightmareCategory: TERROR* Rank: S Level: 15 *’Terror’ is a classification term used for all monster-types that do not fall into traditional monster categories, such as UNDEAD, GOLEM, GHOST, etc. Terrors tend to have unique make-ups and behavior patterns and lean towards hyper-violent tendencies.

 

Goose quietly steps to the side, grabbing his shirt and pulling him and herself back against the wall as she looks out past him. She continues to hold his mouth closed, while Swain watches as something creeps through the night, just outside of his home.

A long, slender, witchy appendage runs along the outside of his open window. Its sharp, black, bumpy fingernails click and clack, tapping against the wood of the frame as they feel around the span of the construction, and then, a moment later, the thing slithers inside of his bedroom. Each section of its digits is as long as his own full hand is. The crusted, pointed nails drag along the floor, swiping around the room. They claw their way up the foot of the empty bed, tip-tap-tapping around the top of the sheets to feel for any small feet to tear out into the darkness outside of the open window.

Finding nothing, the hand crawls down the side of the bed, feeling around beneath it in a familiar hiding place that many have tried to use before, before slowly making its way across the room. All the while, it leaves a long, thick, black trail in its wake. It’s like a heavy rope that a man would lay down behind himself to find his way back out of a labyrinth.

— It’s an arm.

It’s a long, featureless, black, leathery arm with no bones, attached to something that he can’t see – Something that is standing outside, out in the darkness.

The creeping appendage makes its way towards the wall, towards the two of them. Taking the hint from the hand still pressed against his mouth that they can’t be heard or felt, Swain slowly lifts his leg up into the air. He grabs Goose’s and pulls it up against his side, his left hand holding himself stable against the wall next to her. His chest presses against hers, and he feels his heartbeat moving into her body.

The witchy hand pokes around at the wall beneath them, feeling for anything to snatch. Its long fingernails methodically scratch against the brickwork, slowly creeping their way upwards towards them with a single, poking, gangrene claw that appears to suspect the presence of something.

— Glass shatters outside of the room as his father starts screaming again. The woman begins as well, as they continue their nightly ritual.

The grotesque hand immediately shoots away, clicking and clacking as its sharp, protruding nails run along the floor, like a spider on the hunt. It slithers out through the small gap, beneath the door to his bedroom.

Swain sets his leg back down and stares back towards the door, not sure what to do. A monster? Here in the city? This has never happened before. Sure, sometimes an odd slime or even a goblin could sneak in through a pipe from outside the walls. There was even a story about a zombie once, that had come from the graveyard. But this… whatever this thing is, it is something different. It is something terrifying. He doesn’t know how to fight something like this.

So much for his idea of becoming an adventurer.

Goose nudges him. He looks back towards her glaring expression, nodding her head down to the side. He follows her gaze and then blinks, letting go of her leg that he had been firmly holding on to, to uncompromise the position that they were in.

She leans in, whispering into his ear. “It’s busy. We’re going. Come on.”

“- My father!” hisses Swain, looking down at the arm that has crawled into the other room. He knows that it’s odd to care about the old man after everything. But the unique terror of this situation is certainly an odd factor to consider during such a moral dilemma. He hates his father. The man is a frothing beast. They’ve beaten each other senseless hundreds of times.

But he would still go to rescue him, if it came down to it and now, it has. If anyone is going to kill the old man, it’s him.

Goose, leaning in next to him, bites his ear, which is certainly very confusing in a broad spectrum of ways at a time like this. “I told you before, remember?” she hisses. “Being a hero is dumb.” She pushes him to the side, stepping past him and over the long, rope-like arm that lays on his floor, as she heads towards the open window. The raggedy girl carefully climbs over and through it, trying not to touch the arm as she looks back towards him without saying another word.

But after all of these years, Swain knows what she’s telling him with that expression of hers. She’s leaving now. He can stay here with his father, or he can go vanish into the night with her, like they have done so often before on days more normal than today.

Perhaps he is fueled by feelings that are more confusing than clearly understandable, such as is common in the passions of youth, or perhaps he is driven in his decision-making by fear, disguised as reasonable sensibility, or perhaps, even, it is simply because of the conflicting deep sense of relief that he confusingly feels at the prospect of his father being gone, that he could never tell anyone about — But for whatever reason he might have, Swain chooses her.

He creeps towards the window, stepping over the ropey arm amidst the violent screaming and shattering on the other side of his door, and takes her hand. Goose pulls him out into the night.

— Just as he leaves, as if he were diving beneath a body of water, the screaming inside of the house becomes silent to his ears.

Swain doesn’t look back toward the window. He doesn’t look back towards the door of the house, where a lingering, grotesque monstrosity sits, angling out its catch into the darkness. He doesn’t look back towards the home that his mother had raised him in and the house that his father had beaten him in. For whatever reasons he might have, Swain looks only at the girl who holds his hand and drags him along into the night.

His heart strikes violently inside his chest, but for a different reason than terror now.

Tonight, on this dark, fateful night, he hasn’t made a hero’s choice.

— But as far as he’s concerned, he made the right one.

Swain runs after her as the two of them run down the winding city streets. Rain begins to fall from above, darkening the already bleak night, causing the lights shining from behind many windows to glow with a much stronger, contrasting warmth than before.

Goose pulls him into an alley. Swain stops, panting, as his body and mind race to catch up to the pace of this night.

He lifts his gaze toward her. She’s standing there as unbothered and unwinded as ever. She never gets tired. He’s always envied her limitless energy, the fire of her spirit.

“What just happened?” asks Swain, standing back upright. “Goose.”

She leans back against the wall behind herself, her arms crossed, as she seems to be thinking for a moment. The young man stares down at the stones of the alley. After a moment, she looks at him. “It was you.”

“Huh?” asks Swain, not following. His mind is lost in a place where he can’t quite focus. It’s torn between the vision of the monster that had been outside of his home, the thing that he had left his father behind with, and between the vision of Goose.

“It’s the poems,” explains Goose. “Your poems. You made that thing,” she says, shaking her head.

“My… my poems?” asks Swain, stopping to process for a moment. That sounds stupid. But he can’t deny that there is a similarity between what he had written and what had appeared a moment later in his house.

But, even indulging in such a wild fantasy, why now? Why him?

“It’s always been the poems,” says Goose, seeing his confused face. “Since we were kids.” She stands back upright, pulling herself off of the wall. The rain cascades down around them both. “- Since the first time I saw you.” She plants her hands on her hips, turning her head to the side to look out into the dark street. “I guess it’s because you’re getting older now. The magic is becoming more potent.” Goose looks back his way. “This isn’t the first time, though.”

“Goose, why were you at my place?” asks Swain.

“— Because, dummy,” she says, tapping her head. “Like I said. This isn’t the first time.” Goose steps towards him. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, ever since we met, and especially after you made those two kids disappear.”

Swain stops, looking at her. The rain pours around them. “…What?”

She nods. “The night after we met. Those bullies,” she explains. “I don’t know what you wrote. But whatever it was, it came from the ink, and it took them with it.”

“I…” Swain stops, not really sure if he was actually starting with a sentence or not. He had never thought too much about that night because he hadn’t wanted to think too much about it. He was happy that those two boys were gone, vanished from the face of the world. He had always quietly and uncaringly assumed that it was Goose’s doing, given her tendency towards aggression. “It was me?”

“Well it sure wasn’t me,” remarks Goose.

Swain looks around the alley, not really sure what he’s hoping to see there. He feels like he needs to…

— Well, actually, he doesn’t really know what it is that he needs to do.

But just… something. He’s lost. What’s supposed to happen now? He doesn’t know.

The rain pours on around them. Swain is roused from his dazed confusion, as Goose steps forward and suddenly grabs his hands. The young man turns towards her, not having noticed her approaching. The two of them stand just before one another now, the heavy downpour cascading down over the dull city that seems far too lifeless and quiet for the burning emerald eyes that he sees just before himself.

Swain opens his mouth to say something. But he doesn’t know what. He has a problem.

“— I need your help,” says Goose. “I wasn’t sure if you were ready,” she explains. “So I’ve been waiting for a long time.” Swain feels his heart thudding in his chest, feeling the cool fingers wrapping themselves around his hands. He knows that he’s trapped. He has the bug. It’s bitten him bad. She could ask him to tear down the world and to set himself on fire, and he would do it in an instant. “Swain.”

“W- what?” asks Swain, standing upright and straight, as tall as he can make himself.

Nobody has ever asked for his help before, for him before. He stares into her eyes, lost, unsure but hopeful of what she will ask of him. Does she also want to leave this place with him like he has been dreaming of? Does she want to move this… thing that they have between themselves to a further stage? Does she want him to prove himself and this theory by summoning more terrible creatures?

“— I want you to write me that poem.”

He stares at her, not quite having received the request that he was hoping for.

But he’ll take it.

For the Demon-King, anything.

Swain nods.

It took a little walking in silence through the rain, but Swain didn’t mind. Neither of them spoke as they went out through the city, towards the graveyard that is just next to the park, where the two of them had met each other at. Those days feel like they were so very, very long ago now.

But that’s okay.

The two of them have been holding hands the entire time. Swain doesn’t even think that much about his home, about his father, about his drenched hair and clothes, or about the terrifying power that is supposedly his to wield. All Swain can feel and think about are the soft fingers wrapped between his own. As a studied poet, he understands the danger of the spell that he’s under, but he accepts it for what it is.

They arrive at the graveyard, the one his mother had been buried in during his childhood.

Goose squeezes his hand, and the two of them walk inside.

Nothing has changed here since back then. The headstones, the grass, even the rain seems to be the very same that had been there on that cold day.

Swain stops, seeing something familiar. He lets go of her in a painful moment, as he reaches the gravestone of his mother. The young man kneels down before it, taking a moment to look at it.

— The stone has been meticulously taken care of. The grasses have been cleared and the flowers freshly replaced. The grave has been well maintained over the years, despite the fact that he himself had never come back here once before now. Swain can only assume that his father, despite everything that he was, had been here. He had always been here, coming back to the graveyard to maintain the resting place of his wife, Swain’s mother.

A somewhat uncomfortable pang moves through his chest and strikes against his prior established, firm resolution. But it’s too late now, no matter what.

He turns his head, looking up at Goose, who is standing by his side. She holds out a hand to help him back up, and he takes it, feeling that familiar feeling come back over him. At least he has her. He’s always had her, ever since the hard days of his childhood. He doesn’t know where his mother had gone after her death. He can only assume it is the same place his father and the other woman, whose name he never bothered to learn, are now. But it doesn’t matter where they are. What he wants is here.

Goose turns her head to the side, looking at another gravestone, just to the side. It is the same unmarked grave that Swain had lost his poem around, back on that night after it had flown out of his hands. It is messy and unattended, crumbling beneath the pressures of time and neglect. Wildflowers of a familiar scent grow all around it, obscuring the featureless, loveless memorial.

Swain looks at it and then at all of the others in the graveyard. All of the stones, except this single one, have a name on them; they have an inscription, a poem, a saying, a span of life and death — anything at all, really. Except for this one. This one is blank. It is a grave that belonged to nobody who anyone knew.

“I want you to write a poem for this gravestone,” explains Goose. “Please.”

“What?” asks Swain. “The gravestone?” he asks, looking at it. This is a somewhat random request right now, isn’t it? Considering everything that had just happened. He looks at her and then down towards the old grave.

He’s never met Goose’s parents or family. They never really talked about it much. However, given her always wild appearance and nature, he had always assumed that she was sort of just alone in the world. In a way, it had always made him feel connected to her. Sure, his situation and hers aren’t the same. But they’re close enough for it to count, as far as he sees it.

— Is this the grave of someone important to her too?

He looks down at the old, forgotten mound.

It’s fateful, isn’t it? That this important grave is right next to a grave that is important to him. It sounds very odd, but Swain sort of likes the imagery of the fact. It’s another thing that connects the two of them. The two of them have always been together, since his earliest memories. Even on that terrible day of his childhood, somehow, Goose had been with him too.

The young man nods, simply having no other choice. “Okay.”

Swain wonders as he mulls over his ideas.

This power — is it real? Is it really, really, really real? Can he just… write stuff and have it appear in the world?

His finger taps against his leg. He doesn’t have any writing implements, but Goose said he can just scratch whatever he wants into the tombstone with a rock. It’s fine. It feels sort of unceremonious, honestly. He suggested going back to the city and finding some tools, but it’s oddly important to her that he does it now, like this. He supposes that she’s a bit shaken too, after what had just happened. It isn’t unusual for people to say and do really weird things at times like this. If it helps her find some odd comfort, he supposes that he doesn’t mind.

Anyway, can he just write a poem about them escaping to live a life together? Somewhere far, far away from here? Or are there rules? Has everything he has ever written come to pass in some form, or only certain things? Dark things? Like the two poems about monsters he has written so far?

Swain stares toward the ground.

…Monsters…

The word rings through his head, traveling through his thoughts. The greatest monster there is, the most terrible threat to the world in any era of man or elf, is the so-called ‘Demon-King’. It is a terrible creature, spawned in the deepest pits of screaming darkness. It is the master of all things terrible, the lord of every beast with claws and fangs and dripping venom, the king of every crawling, creeping, terrible gestalt that lurches beyond midnight.

His poems.

Goose.

Swain lifts his eyes. Is this why she had chosen him as a child?

She had always claimed to have ambitions to become the Demon-King, although he never really understood why. It’s not something that people usually aspire to. In fact, it’s something that you could never even talk about in polite society, or even in impolite society. In places where the church holds power, even uttering the name of the creature is a death-wish.

And here is a girl who hides from the world, from everyone apart from himself, a person who just so happens to have the potential to summon monsters for her, a person who just so happens to have the potential to grant her the power that she wants. This is, of course, beyond convenient for her.

— But she has never asked him for this.

Goose has never asked him to write her a poem that declares her to be the strongest person in the world. She’s never bothered him to do anything of any nature that would elevate her to this seat of horrific power. She has never done a single thing that, even if she knew about his gift from the start, would implicate her in trying to abuse it.

She’s only ever encouraged him to do what he wants and has only ever asked him for one thing — To write a poem for an unmarked grave.

In fact, since their childhood, she’s sort of stopped mentioning the whole ‘Demon-King’ thing. Swain sometimes wonders if it wasn’t just an awkward phase she was going through for a while? Every child dreams of being a great hero, champion or powerful entity at some stage in life. For him, it was to be a bigger man than his father was. For her, it was to be the Demon-King.

That’s life.

Swain trusts Goose.

He looks at the young woman, who is staring up towards the night sky, towards the many thousands of resplendent stars, as if lost in their enchanting spell, the same way he feels when looking at her.

He knows what he wants to write.

“Hey, Goose,” starts Swain, scratching with the rock against the tombstone. “Can I ask you something?”

Goose, standing behind him, bends down. “What?” she asks. Swain freezes, stiffening up as two cold, wet arms reach around him from behind and hold him in an embrace of sorts.

This has never happened before.

He sits there, the carving stone held in his hand, as he processes. His free hand rises up, holding on to the two, thin arms wrapped around his chest.

“When we were kids, what was that whole ‘Demon-King’ thing about?” he asks, deciding not to mention this new development of their relationship, for fear that she might let go after all, as if she hadn’t realized she was doing it.

Goose tsks, and he can feel her turning her head to the side. “It’s not what you think,” she says. “I didn’t become your friend for that,” she says, clearly a step behind him in his thoughts.

“I know,” replies Swain.

“It’s just… I knew about what you could do. But I wanted you to be impressed with me. So I made up a whole personality to make you like me.”

Swain nods. That’s an unusually clear admission for Goose. He understands now why she’s behind him like this. It’s so that he can’t turn around to look at her while she says something embarrassing.

He continues carving into the stone.

“I guess it worked,” he replies. “But…” He taps the stone with the rock a few times, thinking. “I guess I don’t understand why? And how did you know about me?” he asks, shrugging. “I didn’t even know about me. Hell. I’m not sure this isn’t all a fever-dream.” He looks around the rainy graveyard, his soaked hair sticking to his face. In an odd way, he feels like he could blink and wake up in his own childhood body, still finding himself leaned against his mother’s grave.

“You probably don’t remember,” says Goose. “You gave me a poem, way back then. Way before the whole ‘bullies’ thing happened,” she says, and he feels her head rubbing itself against his back. “You were still really small then. That’s how I knew.”

“Did I?” asks Swain. It’s possible. As a child, before his mother’s death, he was even more obsessed with poetry than he is now. He would scribble odd rhymes, mostly childish gibberish, all day on everything he could grab and then just give them to total strangers. It doesn’t sound impossible that he gave something to some girl that he doesn’t recognize. He used to be a real extrovert, before he grew up and became aware of the fact that he existed.

Goose clears her throat, and Swain continues scratching into the tombstone, coming to the end of his work.

She recites something. “Today, there is rain. Tomorrow, there will be sun. Can you come back to me again? I miss you. You were fun. Is the sun too bright? That is okay. We can play at night, instead of at day.”

— Swain stops, the rock in his hand having reached its final mark. The graveyard is silent apart from the rain and the wind, shaking the many trees that rustle and rattle like an animal, presenting its bristling coat to warn of danger.

“Goose…” says the young man, his face growing pale. He recognizes the poem that she had just recited back to him. It’s the very same poem he himself had written for his own mother on the day he thought that she would come back to them. Nobody else had ever read it. He had brought it with him to this graveyard to give it to her in person.

It had fallen from his hands after his father hit him the first time. He recalls the image of it in his mind’s eye, rolling over to this very wet grave that he is standing atop right now — The unmarked grave, surrounded by wildflowers.

The scent hits him as the connections in his mind come into place — the smell of the bitter blossoms. It is the same smell that she, Goose, has always had. He recalls taking note of it many times over the years.

“- Whose… whose grave is this, Goose?” he asks, his shaking hand holding the rock against the dot that marks the end of the prose. He can’t let go. If he finishes the poem, the spell will be released. If his suspicion is true, then…

“Children get unmarked graves, Swain,” says Goose. “There are so many of us, and some of us just don’t make it, you know?” He feels the icy, damp arms touching his skin. “I never got a real name. My family didn’t name any of us until we turned five.” She holds him. “You gave me my name, Swain. It was in the poem that I pulled out of the water after I saved you.”

His mind races as he tries to come up with answers to so many questions at once. Goose lets go of his chest with her right arm and reaches for his hand, holding it from above.

“I’m really, really, really grateful that we got to be friends, Swain. I really enjoyed getting to grow up and being alive. It was so much fun.” Her voice cracks for the first time in a long time, destroying the hard-earned image of her furious personality all at once. He feels something pressing itself against his back as she hides her face in his shirt. “I just… I want to go back to my mom though.” Her fingers dig into him as she holds on. “Sh- She’s on the other side and I miss her.” Goose’s voice falters and then shatters, and it then slowly transforms into a howl that is hidden by the fabrics of his shirt and by the cascade of the heavy rain. “I… I just…”

“I don’t understand,” says Swain, turning his head around.

Goose tries to catch her breath. “- I had to be sure that when I died again, that I – That I’d go to the right place,” she explains. “Dying is scary, Swain. I had to be sure that you were strong enough to do it right. So I had to wait.”

“What did you make me do?” he asks, horrified, something inside of him churning and twisting. It hurts. It hurts a lot. It hurts in a way that his body has never hurt before. It has never hurt like this, not during any of his fights with his father, not during the death of his mother, not during any of his childhood. This hurts and aches and stings in a way he had never known to be possible.

It’s deep.

If the magic is real and this isn’t some elaborate prank, then the poem is going to put her to rest. She’s going to be gone. Goose is going to be gone.

He turns his face around, moving his body as far as he can without releasing the stone. There’s still time. He can just add a line to the poem to nullify it. He just needs to add a little sentence saying that the poem was a joke, and the magic should cancel itself out, right?

He can feel his own throat swelling. He isn’t sure what he feels right now. Is it betrayal? Disappointment?

— Maybe he can go with her?

Maybe that’s the way. She doesn’t want to stay here, in this world. She wants to go to wherever her mother’s spirit is. Maybe he can die too? He’d rather be there with her than here without her.

Swain opens his mouth, looking at her face and seeing something that he has never seen before in a person. It’s like she’s staring straight through him, right down deep into his core. She knows what she’s done.

His heart beats violently in his chest, a single strike moving through the both of them, as it has done so often before. Despite their closeness now and then, he has never felt her heartbeat. It has always only been his own.

“Goose. I lo -”

Goose kisses him. Swain’s world spins in a chaotic flurry of emotions that he simply can’t keep track of. It feels so warm.

— She yanks his hand away from the gravestone.

Swain screams, immediately falling down onto the wet grass. The body, which was supporting his own from behind, has simply vanished in an instant.

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘Blood in the Water’ Unlocked By: You have killed a total of 06 people before reaching adulthood. Reward: Your natural affinity towards MUSE will be converted to DARK

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘First Kiss’ Unlocked By: Having your first kiss. Reward: You already got it.

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘Desperation’ Unlocked By: Being the last surviving member of your social circle. Reward: None.

Goose is gone.

She tricked him. She used him.

He spins around, clawing at the gravestone and at the poem that is engraved on its surface. Swain takes the rock, scratching and mutilating and tearing the text to make it go away. But it simply doesn’t seem to work. The young man falls down from his knees, laying sideways atop the soaked soil, motionless.

— She’s gone.

His eyes wander up towards the gravestone, towards the scratched poem, crudely and freshly engraved into its front.

‘Do not remember me,

For that time, which we had shared is not now yet gone, passed,

It remains in present, in future,

My body has died,

But my spirit will last,

– Strong enough for us both together,’

 

His mother is gone, having left him in his earliest days. His father is gone, having been left by himself in order to escape with Goose. And Goose? She’s gone now, too. She’s gone and left him here with nothing.

Nothing. There’s nothing left.

Swain bites his teeth together, the rain pouring down violently all around him, as if to hide his shame from the many spirits of the other world who might perhaps be watching him in a place such as this. His fist clenches down around the jagged rock in his grasp, pressing its sharp edges into skin.

There’s nothing here. There’s nothing anywhere. In this whole, entire world, there is simply nothing of beauty. It’s not real. There’s no such thing. It’s all ugly. Every smile and depiction of grace, every laugh and warm summer’s day — it’s all a veneer, a coat of paint over a rotting, mold-riddled wall. It’s hideous.

He hates it here.

He hates everything here. He hates his family, he hates this city, he hates Goose, and most of all, he hates himself for being such a dope. Even after he thought he had changed, even after he thought he had become strong enough to be the one who pushes back when pushed around, even after all of that, it turns out that he was just a token thing for someone to use. He’s just as ugly, as wretched, as selfish, and as dumb as all the rest of them.

It’s vile.

He can feel his vision blurring from the directionless rage pulsating through him. It’s disgusting. There’s nothing of value anywhere. It all just…

Swain stares at his mother’s grave, next to himself.

— It all just needs to go.

If there’s no beauty here, in the veneer, in the facade, then maybe it’s deeper? Maybe it’s in the place beneath below. Maybe the thing that he has been looking for all of his life is simply not to be found here, where he is now.

Swain sits upright and looks back towards Goose’s grave.

He’ll never forgive her for this.

As a child, he had asked where his mother had gone after her death. That set all of this into motion. This mysterious place – this is where Goose is now too. It’s where his father is now too. Then, following, this same place must be this place of deeper existence that true beauty resides in, if it is not here.

The spirit-world, the afterlife, the emptiness, whatever it is after death.

How unfair is that?

How unfair is it that the dead get to experience this, the horrible, wretched creatures that they are, while everyone else has to stay here, in this place, in this festering heap of lies called the world?

Swain grabs the rock and smashes it into the gravestone as he starts writing anew.

— He’s going to find it.

His soul, as a natural part of life, twists and turns, pulling itself back together again in attempted regeneration, as his wild, dangerous thoughts and raging, blackened heart twist and tear and damage it over and over again, as he writes. The part of Swain that had defined him as a creature that is beyond the animal state, frays and becomes loose, scarring, as it turns into a knotted, jumbled mess inside of his essence as he, with haunted, possessed eyes, writes his last work as a man.

Goose’s childhood dreams run through his mind, together with the fading shadows of her always smiling face.

The Demon-King? He’ll give her a Demon-King.

He’s going to tear this world apart and then he’s going to burrow down to that dark, secret place that the gods had made. He’s going to find her. He’s going to find them all, Goose, his mother, his father, and everyone else who wronged him, and he’s going to make them feel what they deserve to feel for making this world such an ugly place, for daring to reside in a place of beauty, instead of the ugly world that they helped make.

He etches the last word into the stone, it being one and the same as his thought.

‘— Despair.’

Immediately, a cold, blue light engulfs both himself, as well as the entire graveyard, all at once, flowing out from the gravestone like poisoned water. Swain screams for so many different reasons, as his skin blisters, as his bones crumble apart and shatter from sudden fragility, as the toxic light eats through his eyes.

His body dies.

But his spirit remains.

~ {DARK}[Dungeon-Core] ~

The dungeon-core is the heart of any dungeon in the world and is its most integral feature. The dungeon-core is responsible for absorbing the ambient magics of the world, as well as dispersing them into condensed bursts of outwardly focused magic.

Dungeon-cores can be attuned to any type of magic but are, more often than not, neutral in their tendencies. However, some dungeon-cores might specialize in specific elements which are befitting to the region that they find themselves inside of, such as NATURE, ICE, or FIRE.

DARK and HOLY are the only elements that have never been represented by a dungeon-core.

DARK: You are attuned to the main darkness attribute, DARK.

Known for its connection to the unholy and the unwanted, DARK has a tendency towards corruption, status-altering and summoning abilities, along with extremely dangerous magical attacks.

DARK is strong against all HOLY attributes.

DARK is weak against all ARCANE attributes.

DARK is neutral against all OTHER attributes.

! WARNING !

Dungeon Cores passively emit ambient magics out into the world, according to their level of power. These magical flows will attract threats such as monsters, plunderers and animals.

💀 ! CRITICAL SYSTEM WARNING ! 💀

The Demon-Core is extremely unstable. Demonic-magic is deeply reviled by the common races of the world. They will be extremely unforgiving of any sightings of this power. It is likely that they, as well as any deities, will directly and decisively intervene in your growth.

 

~ [Dungeon] ~

Your dungeon has been established!

Current number of floors: 01

01: Ground floor (🕱)(DEMON-CORE)

Estimated difficulty: EXTREMELY DEADLY Estimated intruder level: 00 Estimated defender level: 01 Monster count: 00 Bosses: 01 Traps: 00 Chests: 00 Dungeon territory: 0.5km Rank: SSS

 

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘The Whisper in the Hearts of Men’ Unlocked By: Becoming the next [DEMON-KING]. Reward: All DARK and UNDEAD monsters will obey your commands above all others’. Your body and values will violently change to adapt to the physical requirements of the title.

~ [Achievement Unlocked] ~ ‘The Screaming Harrow’ Unlocked By: Becoming this century’s one-hundred year crisis. Reward: All monsters within your dungeon’s territorial radius will have a massively increased spawning and leveling rate.

NEW – (DUNGEON) ABILITY

[Demon-Core](Passive)

You are a beacon of powerful magical energies.

All living beings within your dungeon’s territorial radius are constantly affected by your all-corrupting presence, which befouls the natural ambient magics of the world. Anyone touched by this current will undergo constant degradation of both body and spirit.

Effect:Continually applies stacking status: [DEMON SICKNESS {1}] onto any intruders with a lower DARK-resistance than your current LEVEL.

You will now gain EXPERIENCE-POINTS for killing members of the common races.

Upon killing any living entity, you will claim its soul, removing said entity from the ever continual cycle of death and rebirth.

Upon reaching a critical mass of souls, the demon-core will violently explode with an extreme burst of ambient magical energies, which is strong enough to reach through between both the physical and the spirit-worlds, resulting in the chaotic destruction of both.

Currently Claimed Souls: 0 / 1,000,000

 

NEW – (DUNGEON) ABILITY

[Summon Worker {1}](Active)

Cost: {04} SOUL

Dungeons are vast, complicated complexes that require considerable effort to construct and maintain. The dungeon-core, while fulfilling the role of the master of the dungeon, delegates construction processes to worker minions.

Effect: Summons a small worker entity. Worker entities will harvest resources and construct things for you. But they are very poor fighters. Worker entities vary in their make-up and abilities, depending on your core-attribute.

NEW – (MUSE conversion to DUNGEON) ABILITY

[Free Spirited](Passive)

Traditionally, a dungeon-core is either a spirit that inhabits the walls of the dungeon itself, or it continues to inhabit another, separate, free body of some other sort. However, either way, it may never leave its dungeon’s territory without dying, as the magics there sustain its life.

Effect: You are not bound to your dungeon’s territory and are free to leave it at any time. However, you will not have access to any DUNGEON abilities while beyond your borders.

NEW – (MUSE conversion to DARK) ABILITY

[Poetic Summoning](Active)

Cost: {X}% SOUL

‘Things scratch in the darkness of midnight;

Sometimes, they are creatures with many feet and claws;

Sometimes, it’s just a pen;’

Effect: Summons a TERROR-category monster, based off of the text of your poem. Summoned monster LEVEL is always directly equivalent to the percentage of SOUL-POINTS used. Monster RANK depends on the specifics of the depicted monster.

TERROR-category monster are wild, uncontrollable beasts that defy common understandings of the monster kingdom.

{01}% SOUL = LEVEL {01}

{100}% SOUL = MAX-LEVEL {100}