Work Text:
In air it's red,
In veins, it's blue,
Your blood, true beauty,
I want to kill you.
The notes were really starting to bother me.
They were everywhere. On my doors, inside my cabinets, on each plate I would pull out of the pantry. The mirrors, inside my shower, even one on my pillow. Each one contained a stupid rhyme or a scarily realistic drawing of me. Sometimes, they were jet black, all scribbled out.
They were vaguely unsettling, but more frustrating than anything. And I'd really like to know who was getting into my house, and how. At first, I hadn't paid much attention to them, figuring they were an elaborate prank by my brother. He must have let himself in with his key and placed the notes while I was at work.
I crumpled each one up without a second thought and threw them in the trash can. I planned to confront him the next week when we would be driving down together to our stepsister's house for Thanksgiving. He would say "surprise!" with that big, cheesy smile on his face, and I would barely scold him for taking it so far. In fact, I would probably be impressed as he explained everything to me.
I never got the chance. He died, killed in a tragic car accident along the side of the highway. I got chills when the police showed up at my door, asking me to identify what was left of his body. They showed me pictures of the scene. He was in the passenger's seat, his car totally wrecked, except for the driver's seat and door, left mysteriously untouched while the rest of the car was crushed like a tin can around it.
The door was open when the police found his car, as if the driver had simply. . . walked away, and vanished into the night. The police couldn't find any trace of the person. Others could only confirm foggy memories of my brother leaving and getting into his car with a stranger, and that was all.
My brother's heart stopped, but the notes certainly didn't, which was when they started to concern me. I went down to my stepsister's by myself, both to break the news gently, and for some company, and, when I woke up one day to one of the sticky notes on her bathroom mirror, I became worried. It seemed as if they were following me.
I told her goodbye and drove back home the same day, borderline paranoid of the traffic around me.
I went back to work the next day, and I didn't speak to any of my coworkers. My best friend Hannah tried to talk to me right before lunch, and I almost snapped on her.
"Hey. . . Y/n, are you okay?" She asked me nervously, shifting from foot to foot. "You've looked a little. . ." she trailed off. "Yeah. . . just. . . all day, and Jessica and I were worried about you. Do you want to go eat lunch together? It's Wednesday, so that cafe you like so much is open." Her eyes held a small spark of hope.
Jessica was my supervisor, and she was always worried about how people in her department were doing. But my nerves had been shot all day and Hannah's quiet, nervous, offer served to do nothing but annoy me. "I'm fine." I snapped at her. "Look. I don't need your sympathy. Just because my brother's gone doesn't mean that I'm helpless!"
Her face fell so fast that I almost felt bad. But I didn't sleep that night either, too worried about my stepsister and those damn notes . She nodded silently, tears filling her eyes, and backed up a few feet before turning on her heel and fleeing.
Some people were staring at me. Just staring. "What are you all staring at?" I snapped at them. "This isn't free time, get back to work!" Several of them ducked their heads, embarrassed, while a few pretended they had really been staring at their computer screens.
I sighed. God, did I hate leaving the house anymore.
It had been about a week, and I was slowly losing my mind. People had stopped texting, calling, talking. My world was silent. I dropped my purse and keys on the coffee table and sank into the couch, burying my head in my hands. "God, fuck, I never meant for it to be this way."
"I did."
"What?" I looked up to where the soft voice had come from. A man was standing in the doorframe of my hallway. His violet eyes bored into mine, devouring them whole.
"Surely you didn't truly think they were letters from nowhere?"
His voice was light and soft, carrying a hint of amusement. One of his shoulders supported his weight, leaning against the doorframe. He carefully picked himself up, righting his balance and walked into my living room. He tugged off his purple vest and bowler hat, hanging both on my coat rack, and rolled up his crisp, white, sleeves.
He sat next to me, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt. He was much taller than me, easily six foot two. I fixed my face in a blank stare and focused it on one of his black suspenders.
He tsked gently. "Now, now darling, that won't do at all. Don't you want to know how I did everything? When you thought I was your brother, you were interested then." He let out a low chuckle, using the two forefingers on his right hand to lift up my chin and make my gaze meet his. "Will it give you any closure if I tell you I'm the one who killed him?"
He must have seen the flicker of anger in my eyes. "Ah yes. I am the one and all. I am the artist, the poet, the killer." He smiled down at me. "I am the judge and the jury, I am the executioner."
"You son of a bitch." I fumed, taking a swing at him. He grabbed my hand in his own. It seemed tiny compared to his. He squeezed hard, and I could feel the diamond ring and the two gold bands he had on his fingers begin to cut into my skin. I cried out in pain, and a sinister smile crossed his face.
"Ah, does that hurt you, little lamb?" He asked me. I glared at him, biting my tongue. He continued to grin, looking into my eyes as he tightened his grip in one quick movement, crushing the bones in my hand.
I let out a strangled, involuntary cry. "Fuck!" I sobbed, drawing breath raggedly. He let go of my mangled hand and I drew it into my chest, cradling it gently.
He tilted my head up to look at him again, leaving his fingers hooked underneath my chin and not letting me look away. A sadistic gleam lit up his eyes as he spoke to me, just as softly as he had when he had first greeted me. "Oh little lamb, we're going to have so much fun together."
"W-what do you want from me?" I asked him with a slight tremor to my voice.
He laughed, a cold sound that didn't match the satin in his voice. "I'm going to have my fun, and then I'm going to kill you."
The thought of fleeing crossed my mind for a second, but his hand was around my neck with a bruising grip as soon as I thought of it. "Who would you even run to?" He hissed. "I've worked too long and too hard, made sure that you were isolated far away from anyone who might help you, anyone who might believe you. Your brother is dead. You've burned bridges with your friends and coworkers. Your stepsister lives three hours away. You really think you can run that far before I catch you? No. You don't comprehend, little lamb, but you will soon enough. I am a GOD, and you, you are just a sheep. . . ready to be sacrificed."
I struggled in his grip before going limp as he cut off my airflow. He released the pressure as I held still. "Good girl. Hate to end you so quickly."
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and knotted it around his fingers, yanking me up harshly by it. He pressed me hard against his chest and kissed me roughly, swallowing my cries of pain as he leaned against my broken hand. He forced his tongue into my mouth using brute force, and claimed it as his own.
Dazed, and oxygen-starved, I did nothing for a minute. Then, I bit down on his tongue. He pulled away from my face, holding my head back with the hand knotted in my hair, and, with a tick in his jaw, punched me squarely in the eye three times. He punched me in the nose until it bled, and clapped his hand down hard on my ear once, twice, three times, until I could hear ringing.
"Bad girl."
He brought me up to his face again, admiring his handiwork before placing his mouth over mine. It was a much more tender kiss, less brutal than the last one, though I could feel the blood from my nose trickling over where our top lips met.
When he finally pulled away, I was dizzy from lack of oxygen, and the ringing in my ear had gotten more intense. He unknotted his left hand from my hair at the same time as he wrapped his right hand back around my throat and slammed me onto the floor, jolting my broken bones and causing me to cry out in pain.
"You don't even know pain yet." He sat on top of my stomach, his hand around my throat and his other hand pressing down hard on my shoulder.
"Please, don't. . ." I rasped out, sensing his intent. He didn't pay me any mind, continuing to apply more pressure until I could feel my shoulder fracture. I opened my mouth to scream, but found I didn't have the oxygen for it. Instead, I let out a quiet whimper.
He smiled down at me as he moved down to my left arm, meticulously breaking the bones one by one as he squeezed my windpipe. He seemed to grow bored of this soon enough, and switched to my right arm.
There was the strong smell of raspberries in the air, for reasons my foggy mind couldn't comprehend, and suddenly the stranger on my chest was holding a knife. "Please. . . no. . ." I whimpered.
"Say 'please Tad, no, don't stab me' and I'll consider it." He smiled wickedly at me.
"Is that your name?" I asked with a hoarse voice.
"Too late, little lamb." He stabbed the blade into my upper arm, only stopping when it dug into the floor solidly. I screamed in pain as it cut through my flesh like butter.
"Hold still." He crooned, driving another one through my palm, and pinning my entire arm to the floor. Blood leaked out at an alarmingly slow rate. I could exist like this, blinded by pain for days.
Tad moved to sit on my knees so that I couldn't move my legs before he revealed yet another knife in his hand.
"Ah, the grand finale, my little lamb." He sighed. He tore apart my shirt with no effort at all, the fabric another useless barrier. The blade touched the skin of my ribs and my stomach, the chill of the steel giving me goosebumps.
"Are you ready?"
He started to cut into my stomach with the blade, blood welling up like crimson rivers. It didn't hurt at first, no more than a scratch, but it was when he began carving out chunks of skin and muscle that I began to scream again. And he began to laugh.
It was an insane sound, and he cut me open like one would unzip a coat. Each piece of flesh he removed, he would set aside, bloodstained and oozing. I almost passed out from the pain, drifting in and out of consciousness several times, but Tad kept me grounded in this terrifying mockery of reality.
He finally reached his prize. He reached into my body with steady hands marred with blood, and pulled out a string of intestines. I felt a slight pull, but it barely hurt anymore. I quietly whimpered.
He wrapped them around my broken arms, my neck, my broken body. Then, he cut into my flesh right below my neck, and pulled out my heart. I saw the nerve endings straining to keep hold of it as he pulled it out of my chest, but I was fading. Already almost gone from blood loss.
He looked me in the eyes as he bit into it as if it was a great delicacy. Blood rushed from it to the floor.
The last thing I saw was him click his fingers together, and a small flame appear, as if his fingers were a lighter.
"Consummatum agnus. Tenebris."
I opened my eyes. It was dark. Everything was dark.
"Welcome back."
God, no.
"I'm dead."
"Correct. Welcome to the void, little lamb."
I backed up, not sure how I still had a physical form, but I felt his hands run down my arms.
"It's okay. It'll just be us. Forever."
I could hear his smirk.
"Consummatum agnus. Tenebris."