Chapter Text
“-Forcast show chances of rain early tomorrow morning-“ Clicking the tv off, you snuggled deeper into your couch, a yawn stretching over your mouth as you threw your arm over your eyes. You should get up and turn off the lights and go to bed. But you were sooo comfy. Moving your arm, you beadily glanced up, waving an arm around where you were sure you had tossed a blanket before. Fingers brushing against the blanket, you grabbed the faded green and blue yarn blanket, your favorite one, before throwing it over yourself and rolling onto your side with a sleepy mummer.
“I’ll just close my eyes for a minute.” You mumbled to yourself, knowing you weren’t going to get up and turn the lights off. Your body relaxed slowly, sending you into a deep and easy sleep.
Crash
Jolting awake at the sudden noise, you looked around wildly, eyes wide and heart thumping a mile a minute inside your chest.
Crack
Jolting, your eyes flickered towards the window as a flash of light caught your eyes. Slipping off the couch, you clutched your yarn blanket around yourself. A shiver ran through you as your feet touched the hardwood floor, before you slowly started walking towards the window.
Crack
You flinched again before pushing your curtains back. Your shoulders sagged in relief, seeing the storm going on outside. The fan from the light in the living room had drone out the sound of the rain. You stood there for a moment, watching the rain start to come down faster and harsher. Humming slightly to yourself, you turned back around, nearly tripping over your cat.
“Slushy, watch where you’re going.” You scolded the cat. The orange tabby just gave you a look of pure disdain before turning around and showing you his butthole. You snorted at the cat’s antics before walking pass the cat and into your bedroom. You lived in a small apartment so the walk wasn’t very far. Flicking on the lights, you passed by your desk on the left side of the room which was filled with sketch papers and pencils. You glanced down, eyes focused on the sketch you had attempted to do of Slushy. You just couldn’t get his face right. Grabbing the paper, you crumbled it up with a grumble, remembering now why you had to take a break from drawing and watch the news. It looked just all wrong! Throwing it in your trash can beside the desk, you walked over to your bed, that had a giant window with curtains overlooking it. Flipping open the curtains, you checked the latch. You always kept the window there latched as there was a fire escape just outside it. Flopping down onto your bed, you turned over, drawing the comforter over you with a yawn.
You started drifting back to sleep, the thundering turning into soft background noise, just before a high keening caught your attention. You tried to ignore it, as the noise was almost completely drowned out by the rain, but the longer you waited the louder it started to become. Your eyes flickered open as you realized it was someone screaming. It sounded like it was coming from downstairs. Sitting up, you flinched as you heard frantic knocking at the door. Stumbling out of bed, your heart raced as you heard even more screaming. You paused at the door, hesitating to open it, before you glanced inside the peephole. A familiar flair of red hair greeted your sights before you swung the door open.
“Jake, what-“ The ginger shoved you out of the way, walking inside, before slamming the door behind him. You took a step back, fear fluttering in your chest. Yeah, Jake was always a little flirty but this was starting to get a little scary.
“Have you seen them?!” Jake said, grabbing ahold of your arms as his green eyes flashed with panic. “Oh stars, they’re inside the building! They’re in the building (Y/n!) We’re all gonna die! We’re gonna die!” Jake was practically hyperventilating at this point, flinching hard as the next onslaught of screams began.
“Jake you’re scaring me, what’s going on?” Your voice wavered between fear and frustration at Jake’s babbling.
“The news, the news, turn on the news.” He mumbled, eyes flickering around the room as if he were a trapped animal. You tried to move away, but Jake was still clinging to you, trembling all the while. He kept mumbling about something coming. Forcing his grip on you to loosen, you wiggled out of it before racing over to the remote and flicking on the tv.
“Warning: All residents of Ebott City are to remain indoors at all times. An attack of unknown creatures of origin are killing citizens. If seeing something that look inhuman, do not engage. Again, do not engage and remain indoors. We are asking for help from the National Guard.” You stare blankly at the television as the message repeated again.
“Jake, what’s down there?” You demand, turning to face the hysterical redhead. Jake lived on the bottom floor, whatever was coming closer must have come from his floor. Jake looked at you wide eyed and horrified, tears seeming out of his emerald green eyes. You were shocked he was crying.
“Monsters.” Jake whispered, a shudder running through him. “I sa-saw a skeleton kill my mom. It-it’s how I got away. Th-they were eat-eating my mom.” He choked out, more fresh tears cascading down his face. You looked at him mystified, wondering if you heard him wrong.
“A… skeleton?” You ask, suddenly your head snapped towards the door that Jake had just come in from. The noises had stopped. Taking a deep breath, you started towards the door. Your trembling hands reached out before sliding both the bottom and top lock close. You waited for a heartbeat, ears still straining for anymore screaming. Just then you heard a rasp of knuckles across your door.
“knock knock.” A deep barren male voice sounded from the other side of the door. Before you could answer, Jake had jerked you back away from the door.
“Don’t answer it, it’s the monster.” He practically sobbed.
“that’s not how it goes. you’re supposed to say who’s there?” The voice started again, this time with a slight tinge of annoyance in it. Shrugging off of Jake’s hold you hesitantly approached the door. Ignoring Jake’s voice begging you to stand back you leaned in to look through the peephole again. Curiosity had won you over, you just had to know. Looking through it, your breath couldn’t help but halt in your chest. It really was a skeleton. A huge, large, grossly deformed skeleton. He was wearing a blue hoodie with a white fur trim that was covered in blood, shorts, and a pair of fuzzy pink slippers. You could see that it was holding a heavy looking rusty axe loosely across it’s shoulder. Looking up at him, you could just make out a shattered hole on the right side of his head that looked unnatural and painful. His teeth were sharp, stained red with what you assumed was blood, and stretched into a huge grin. Just then a red glowing light flashed to life into his right eye socket, seemingly looking right at you. You gasped, jerking away and trying, and failing, to get the image of it’s blood soaked teeth out of your head. Now you were shaking just as bad as Jake.
“ignoring me? now i really got an axe to grind with ya.” The skeleton chuffed at its own joke before you heard the doorknob rattling fiercely. You had no doubt that creature could rip the door right off the hinges if it so wanted to. Not even realizing when you had grabbed onto Jake as you two shook in each other’s hold.
“Stay Out.” You suddenly found yourself screeching. A string of curses could be heard on the other end of your door much to your fearful confusion. Were they like vampires, unable to enter without permission? The hallway outside your door went silent for several long long seconds. You were half tempted to sneak back over to the door and peek back through the peephole before a sudden deep, dark laughter filled the halls outside. A shudder ran through you as you wondered what had amused the creature so much.
“won’t you please let me in, little miss mage?” The voice chuckled, confusion coloring your face as you and Jake silently backed away into your bedroom. Slowly and quietly you closed the door to your bedroom before sliding against the door with your back pressed to it. You were still shuddering all over. If you survived this, you would be having nightmares for the rest of your life.
“What the-what the hell was that?” You whispered, gazing up wide eyed at Jake. He had sat at your desk, before putting his face in his hands. His shoulders were shaking a little and you had to look away. He had said that that… thing had ate his mom? A rush of grief ran over you. You had met Mrs. Gray a few times and she had always been nothing but pleasant to you.
“I’m sorry, I’m really truly sorry.” You whispered, your fingertips brushing against your cheek, feeling wetness where you touched. Standing, you walked over to Jake and wrapped your arms around him. His shoulders stiffened for half a second at your touch before slowly relaxing into another sob. You held onto him, sympathy rising up inside you. At least you both were alive, for the moment.
“knock knock.” Knuckles rapped against the glass panel above your bed and you felt Jake stiffen all over again as you froze. Your wide eyes looked up at the window. Your eyes went even wider, feeling like they were about to pop out of your skull at any given moment. The skeleton grinned a wide manic smile, lifting a hand to wave his fingers at you. A crack of lightening suddenly flashed behind the skeleton, just adding to the horror of this creature in front of you. He seemed unphased by the rain or thunder and lightning as it happened around him. Suddenly the red flash of light in his eye socket jumped to Jake and his grin disappeared as did the red orb lighting in his eye socket.
“you better let go of him little birdie or you’re gonna have a bad time.” His voice seemed to echo through the whole apartment and you threw yourself back, back hitting the wall as your heart thumped hard against your chest. You heard rather than saw Jake dart out of your room, but not once did you take your eyes off the monstrosity in front of you. He was just on the other side of the glass, with one swing of his axe he could easily get in. Hell, he could probably use his fists instead if he really needed to. You should run too, get as far away from this skeleton as possible, but your legs just couldn’t seem to obey. You waited with baited breath for the skeleton to smash the window in and tear you apart with his teeth. Instead he just smiled and pointed at the window.
“do you mind opening this for me?” The creature asked, the smile growing as you just gawked at it. You silently shook your head from side to side, clearly signaling no. Maybe it really was like a vampire.
“that’s okay.” The monster said, leaning against his axe as he looked you up and down. “i’ll just wait until your juice runs out.” Your eyes widened at that comment. Juice? What juice? Your electricity? A shudder of fear runs through you at the thought. That was your worst nightmare right there.
“Wh-what?” You finally sputtered out. His grin grew even sharper at the sound of your voice. He chuckled to himself, bringing a hand up to his face and closing(?) his eye sockets as he laughed into his hand. Then he dropped his hand and was back to looking at you. You wished he wouldn’t. You felt like you had to use a full bar of soap and scrub at your skin to get the feeling of his eyelight off of you.
“do you even know you’re a mage? how rare and precious that is?” The monster asked. A mage? Like wizards and such. You quietly shook your head no again, not trusting yourself to speak again. The creature seemed disappointed when you didn’t voice your answer, grin dipping back down into a frown, but quickly raising back up into a grin once more.
“your so cute, i might just keep you all to myself. well, me and my brother.” He chuckled, looking away bashfully. Your face paled at that sentence. He and his brother were going to eat you? After your ‘juice ran out?’ You inched closer to the door Jake had slammed shut on his rush to get away from the monster.
“don’t.” The skeleton spoke, his voice holding that same deep barren voice as before as his eye socket went completely pitch black. You froze, your hand retreating away from the doorknob. You watched him carefully, seeing how he relaxed as you stayed put as both his smile and eyelight returned.
“Why- why can’t you get inside?” You whispered, so softly you were sure the monster hadn’t even heard you over the rain. The monster just hummed, seemingly pleased at your question.
“you’re a mage little birdie. you created a barrier when your soul sensed danger. monsters can’t get into barriers.” He said, chuckling as you let out a breath you weren’t aware you were holding and sagged against the wall on your back. You could physically feel your heart slow down as you tilted your head back and closed your eyes.
“don’t look too relaxed little birdie. it’ll only be up for, at most, two weeks.” Your eyes snapped back open as you glanced back at the skeleton who just started laughing at the renewed fear in your eyes.
“and when it’s gone. i’ll be here, waiting.”
