2020-04-01 22:30:18 ¶ ●

## Chapter 8

I’ve Seen Too Much

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20857010/chapters/52693567

“And what is this supposed to be?”

The rat monster groveling at the foot of a shoddily built but towering “throne” (it was far from royal, constructed from rotted wood, crumbled stone, fraying rope, and a faded, plaid armchair) flinched, shuffling on its knees. Before it, beside a rather intimidating pile of everything from whole carcasses to severed limbs to steaming offal, was a single, still twitching hand, one finger missing and previously furred skin shredded in spots. It looked filthy, as though it had been found in a gutter.

“It… master, it was all I could find…”

The being astride the pauper’s throne, legs thrown casually over one of the arms and pieced together armor shining dully in the light of a distant, roaring bonfire, only curled his lip further at the monster prostrated on the ground before him, sharpened teeth bared and unblinking, yellowed, bloodshot eyes glaring viciously, without pity.

“Somehow I doubt that. Your brothers and sisters did far better… and this is the third time this month you “haven’t been able to find any better”. Are you trying to starve us all? Do you want our haven to collapse? Do you want to have to fight off the lizard’s pets by yourself?” he queried bitingly, one iron and spike toed boot bouncing in the air, and the rat monster spluttered, bowing closer to the ground and shaking on his hands and knees.

“No majesty, no! I-I… I will try harder, I’ll do whatever it takes-” he squealed furtively, the vestiges of what was once a tail whipping back and forth behind him, gathering dust, blood, and scraps of trash in its wake, but the king, upon his throne, turned his face away and waved an errant, uncaring hand through the air, afterwards inspecting its claws with an air of near boredom.

At his motion, the darkness at the edges of the firelight boiled, eager howls, screeches, and growls filling the ransacked courtyard. Gaunt, ravenous monsters shambled into the firelight with voracious hunger in their step and murder in their shining eyes and foaming mouths, every beast present focused entirely on the now sobbing rat.

“Oh I know you will. You’ll never let me down again,” the lounging monarch drawled, picking at a bit of flesh stuck beneath one of his claws (the comically small crown balanced between two flea bitten, ragged ears wobbled dangerously, reflecting light from the fire in a way that suggested it was made from laminated paper), and at his word the horde of ravening neophytes leaped upon the defenseless monster, his screams immediately drowned out beneath the snarling of the starving fiends and the tearing of limbs ripping from sockets and meat from bones.

Shadows danced across the boarded-up windows, cracked plaster, and tall barricades surrounding the court of the king, witnessing the nightmare of demonic rite taking place before the unmoving throne and the seemingly uncaring cat monster on it, his tail twitching back and forth excitedly the only evidence he was aware of what was happening at all.

A wide, shining pool of blood, bluish and tinged with swirls of black, spread slowly across the filthy flagstones as the disappointment of a monster was disemboweled and stripped of every scrap of flesh possible, growing wider with each ragged, pain-filled gasp that remained on the nearly dead monster’s fleshless lips, and a slime monster, one of the rat’s eyeballs floating amidst its mass, scooped some up in an obviously plastic chalice, squelching its way through the mass of gorging beasts to present its prize to the idle lord lounging in his chair.

He took it without even looking, swirling the thick, clotting liquid in a grotesque emulation of grandeur with a twist of his wrist, and sipped from it slowly, as though lost in thought, and blind to the massacre at the foot of his throne. He didn’t need to see it, after all. He’d seen far worse, done far worse, since the outbreak. He wasn’t the jelly-spined lowlife he once had been.

He was Burgerpants no more, a mockery and a peon no longer. He had ended his tormentors himself, with the outbreak of the Hunger, established his kingdom in the warzone that was New Home, and gathered his willing subjects to him with both care and cunning.

He was the Eye, master and majesty, never going hungry and never suffering a whit.

It was good to be king.

2020-04-04 3:27:29 ¶ ● ⬈

mercy-monster:

> “I’m so hungry, daddy…”

> It’s easy to mistake Aliza for human because of her mundane appearance, but don’t forget she is a sorcerer-child. Think of a monster with a human soul; her body is entirely magic, thus (I believe) more prone to the mutations of the Hunger.

> I imagine her skin would slough off as her body cannibalizes its own magic until she’s nothing but a skeleton like her father. From there, her mutations will exacerbate whatever strengths and traits she may have to make her a successful predator.

> If she lives long enough to become a successful predator…

2020-04-15 20:30:44 ¶ ●

##

ACT > Pet > Greater Dog

Your screams ring through the snow laden forest for several hours while the beast devours you, coloring the snow in his clearing red with your blood. He keeps the hand, though, and rubs his head against the stiffening palm as he rolls about in the saturated snow with it, tongue hanging from his gore stained maw happily.

2020-04-28 2:34:06 ¶ ●

## Chapter 10

Eldritch Corruption: Animal

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20857010/chapters/52987039

They say that love, above all else, will conquer.

They say that if one cleaves to their partner, they shall not want.

They say that true love never dies.

They.

What do they know.

The branches of the forest, in their eternal storm of disquiet and frozen torture, creaked and moaned in the darkness, the shadow of what the monsters called night. The rushing of a river in the distance tore into whatever restfulness the eve may have held with razor-sharp fangs, pitiless and cruel as the creature astride it, and the shattering of a tree, dead and frozen to its core, rattled the remaining peace any mind present could dream to have.

The padded feet of a shadow darting through the trees, so light it barely made dents in the drifts of snow, made no such noise. The cloak the shadow clutched to it, pitch and blacker yet than the fallen night, rustled no more loudly than a single leaf caught in a light breeze. Its breath was muffled, cowled and hidden, and left no mark on the frigid air.

It left no mark of its passing but for the gleam of steel, and the glow of madness in a single, intelligent eye.

No, it left no trace, made not a single sound, and for good reason; the shadow was not the only beast that prowled the night, that clawed for position as an apex predator, and there were others, bigger, stronger, smarter others, that would gladly end it.

That was not allowed. The shadow would not fall, not now, not ever.

*Not now, my love. Not ever.*

The shadow let out the quietest of huffs, falling still and silent in the shade of a great, ancient pine. Another beast moved in the darkness of the midnight forest, stalking the edge of the path only a few yards away… it sniffed both hopefully and hungrily along the flags, in search of a trail.

The bandage around its missing eyes was clear, even in the dim light… the rags it wore over its heaving, pustule studded back and the spiked collar around its neck clearer.

They had been friends, once, long ago. Long before the angel and the end times. They had grown up together, they and he. Gone to the same school, had the same aspirations.

No longer. Not since the growling in their belly, not since the breaking of their heart.

*Not broken anymore, my soul. Never again.*

The shadow watched the remains of their old compatriot drag himself away down the path, a trail of bloody paw prints in his wake, and suppressed the hunger that badgered its mind. It was foolish to pick a fight with him, just over food.

They would have their battle one day, but not this one.

The shadow turned on their heel the moment the hideous dog monster shuffled out of sight and earshot, dodging across the path and into safer territory. There was good meat here, while the deer slept. Little monsters, fast but stupid. They fell for the trap every day, after all… only idiots would.

*Only idiots, my pet. And we’re not idiots, no.*

Most of them would be asleep now, in their little blood-soaked warrens, in their nests made of bones. Easy to find, just by the smell of them, and always close to the ground. Taking to the trees was no safer, after all… above belonged to Gyftrot.

All it took was the lightest of feet-

*Easy and careful, watch the twigs…*

The deftest of hands-

*Too fast, my love, too fast, they will hear…*

The surest of sight-

*You have them now, just a little more…*

Before one of their skinny necks was in their clutches, squealing and scaring away the rest but it was too late, too late for their puny claws, little knives but theirs were mighty and sharp, sharp as the blades on their backs and just as vengeful, all there was was the need to feed, feed them both and keep the madness at bay, the madness that ate at the magic in their veins and twisted their spine and narrowed their vision, but it was sharp, so sharp, as sharp as the blades on their backs-

The tear of the flesh and the rip of the tendons, rich meat on the tongue; the shatter of bones and the misery on the air, music to their ears and torture, torture, it was too near and close and the blood ran down their maw and stained their paws, white become red, red, red redredred-

Dogamy-

What had she done-

*Hush, my darling. It had to be done, to save us both. Now, we are together.*

The shadow, shaking and whimpering, tail tucked between their legs, nodded slowly, the whining, cringing meal in their claws ignored. The snow at their feet was stained red, crimson with gore and consequence and memory, their scarred, disfigured face, revealed in their gorging, just as marked.

A single tear, black as pitch and the night and the cloak he had once worn, ran down from the reddened, staring eye in the center of their face, lidded and stricken.

(“Together…”), the shadow murmured, serrated fangs parting to break the frigid air with a voice unused to speaking, and smiled brightly into the thin air, tail gaining the air and wagging back and forth in earnest.

*Always.*

2020-04-28 3:02:19 ¶ ●

## Day 2: Mindless by Mercy-Monster on DeviantArt

There is a good reason Papyrus has his schedule.

2020-04-29 2:57:16 ¶ ●

## Day 3: Bait by Mercy-Monster on DeviantArt

“Idiots… just can’t resist fresh meat.”

2020-04-29 3:45:14 ¶ ●

## Day 4: Freeze by Mercy-Monster on DeviantArt

The best thing about the cold was it’s capability to keep food so fresh.