Chapter Text
Hot air whistles thinly in your ears. The humidity envelopes you like an uncomfortable blanket, pressing your limbs tight against your body as you hurtle down, down, down. Heart in your mouth, you don’t know where gravity is dragging you and you can’t see for yourself even if you wanted to; it’s nothing but an endless void around you for miles.
‘I’m going to die,’ you think numbly.
For some reason, the statement feels absurd.
After what feels like hours of free-falling (but is probably more like a few minutes), the darkness suddenly gives way to a violent crimson. You have just enough time to register the cracked concrete ground rushing to meet your face before it takes the brunt with a sickening WHACK, followed by the rest of your body. The impact sends jolts of unpleasant shudders through your whole being like a mini earthquake, but strangely, your face doesn’t feel a single pang of pain despite having basically ate concrete at deathly velocity.
It takes a few moments for the shock to wear off, and another few before you dare attempt to move. Sliding your elbows under you, you cautiously test each limb to confirm they hadn’t been smashed to pieces before giving yourself a push upright.
But something’s wrong.
Even though you don’t feel the slightest pain when you stand on unsteady feet, you just feel… wrong. Like there’s something fundamentally different about you, something changed, something-
You look down at yourself.
Oh. That’s why you feel so weird. Your skin turned into the colour of cotton candy.
With a budding sense of dread, you give yourself a hasty once-over. It’s not just your skin that has changed, it’s your everything. Your skin is mottled with muted swirls of orange, pink and yellow like you just took a dip in paint and it’s stained you permanently. Your fingers are tipped off into sharpened claws, and as you experimentally poke your arm, the sting it leaves behind convinces you that it’s not just for show. There’s a new weight attached to your back in the form of bloody wings- ‘Moth wings,’ your mind numbly supplies as you stare at your new appendages. They hang down at rest, the tips nearly brushing against the cracked concrete ground.
A new tuft of yellow-pink fuzz rings around your neck and fills out your chest area, while your hair seems to be replaced with the same fuzz that hangs behind your back in a wild mane, ending with the same muted shade of pink at the tips (from what little you can see by pulling your hair around anyway).
The only thing to remain unchanged is your body, lithe in frame, and your clothes, something you’re grateful for. Just a simple black tee and boxers, a sight of familiarity that brings you comforting memories of… of…
… What happened to you?
Your newly gained claws dig into your hair, tugging painfully as the weight of the situation gradually starts to set in. Remember… What can you remember?
Name? Nothing.
Age? Maybe early twenties, but you can’t pinpoint an exact number.
Last thing you did? You squeeze your eyes shut tight and try to recall, fuzzy and indecipherable images dancing right in front of you but refusing to make any sense, and you see a grey blur rising to your head level and-
burning pain
darkness
Your eyes fly wide open. Choking out a strangled gasp, you sink to your knees clutching your head. Sharp, blinding pain lances right through your brain as if someone had skewered a hot poker through it, leaving you a shivering lump even as the pain fades into nothing, sucking in deep breaths in a vain effort to calm your racing heart. “Wh-what was that?” you mumble to yourself. “It hurt so much. It feels like I…”
‘Died.’
The thought terrifies you, and you quickly shake your head. That’s not possible. If you die, you die. There’s no waking up from that, you’re meant to be gone. Permanently.
‘But my new body says otherwise.’
Yeah, there’s the matter that you look like the goddamn Mothman now too. None of this makes sense! Frustration blooming between your brows in the form of a headache, you reach up in hopes of soothing it… Until your claws suddenly clack against a smooth surface instead of skin.
“What the f…”
Swallowing down the aborted curse, you splay your whole hand over your face. Except you’re not touching your face, because whatever’s under your claws is smooth and cold and you’re unable to feel your own touch, which means…
“A mask,” you sigh. “It’s just one thing after another… How did I not notice until now?”
However, the longer you poke and prod at this mask, the more… off it makes you feel. You’re able to see through it like it’s not there to begin with, in a way that “you’re seeing out of eye holes” can’t explain. Even the most well-crafted mask would have the rims of a carved eye hole in your peripheral vision, but there’s no such thing here. Other minute details are cropping up to your awareness too; like how your breathing doesn’t feel obstructed or that it weighs practically nothing on your head, and the feeling of dread spreads further and further into your psyche until it drives you to frantically search the dark alleyway for a reflective surface.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…”
Bingo! You find an undisturbed puddle and stick your head above it, eager to see what you look like.
“Wagh!”
‘Fucking hell!’
Your nerves are instantly raised and alert like a fire is lit under your feet. It’s an instinctive emotion that sets your heart skipping several beats, and you’re unable to articulate why until it slows back down somewhat.
The face of the mask staring back at you is creepy.
It’s a simple design: two simplified human eyes and a flat smile are carved into the surface. Yet it sets you on edge, unease crawling under your skin as you examine every bit of your reflection (a pair of comb-like antennae you didn’t notice until now twitches, as if in tune with your emotions). It’s something in the eyes, their pupils abnormally large and empty. It’s… It’s…
‘It’s just fucking uncanny,’ you finally settle on. Very fucking uncanny. So uncanny that you should probably stop staring at the bloody thing if you want to retain the little dregs of sanity you have left. Yeah, that sounds like a grand idea.
You pull yourself away from the puddle. This is getting too much. The new Mothman body you’re stuck in, the strangely sulfuric air that feels coarse on your bare skin, the creepy mask… It’s so surreal that it has to be a dream. It has to be!
‘That’s not possible,’ her mind whispers traitorously. ‘It feels too real to be a simple dream. You know it.’
Your new wings flutter as if in agreement. You quickly push them flat against your side, trying not to shudder as you feel the smooth scales under your palm. “Calm down,” you tell yourself sternly, trying to ignore the tremor in your words. “One thing at a time. Find out wh-where the hell you are.”
Yeah, that seems like a good first step. Forcing your legs to move, you take tiny, hesitant steps towards the end of the alleyway until you’re finally free from its dreary darkness.
What you see makes you want to scurry back into the alleyway.
The sky is a startlingly bright hue of red, casting the jagged buildings and structures beneath it in an ominous glow stretching for miles beyond your line of sight. The source of the light seems to be the big fuck-off pentagram, an honest-to-god (Satan?) pentagram symbol carved into the sky, accompanied by another two floating celestial bodies that you can’t quite make out.
The atmosphere feels just as muggy as it does in the alleyway, with the added blazing rays of the sun(?) above. It takes you some time to get adjusted to breathing in this new air (the fact that you’re somehow breathing through your mask doesn’t make you feel any better).
The cityscape surrounding you is far from the hellish desolation you’d been expecting, quite the opposite: it is absolutely crawling with people.
Although calling them “people” is a fucking stretch. Creatures of all shapes and sizes are strolling down the streets like… like regular pedestrians, all of them standing on two feet as far as you can see. Thank goodness, you don’t know what you would have done if a giant spider suddenly came barreling down the road. Everyone seems to have some kind of deformity like you, ranging from stereotypical devil horns to jagged teeth to pupil-less eyes, but that’s not the thing that’s keeping you rooted to the spot, wary of approaching anyone.
No, it’s the naked hostility shared across every face you can see. It just screams “Approach and you will die”.
‘I still need to ask them for help.’
But what if they-
‘No ‘What ifs’!’ you tell yourself sternly. You’re not going to help yourself by second-guessing every step of the way, you just need to do it.
You take your first step towards the closest creature.
“Excuse me-”
“Get the fuck outta my way!”
“Can I ask you something real quick?”
“What the hell? I don’t have time to talk, fuck off!”
“Can you tell me where am I?”
“Does it look like I talk to homeless bums, bitch?!”
“Please-“
“What the fuck is up with that creepy-ass mask? Some kinda kink? Fucking freak…”
… Well.
This might be harder than you had initially expected.
You hastily back off from yet another irate stranger with murmured apologies, letting him pass by and take his pissy countenance with him. It’s like the collective city populace had rolled out the wrong side of the bed this morning; nothing but bitterness and insults from all directions, and no amount of demure words can help you.
It probably doesn’t help that your new body is woefully shorter than most of the people you’ve come across. Even without your memories, you don’t feel like you’ve heard such a… wide variety of midget jokes before.
As much as you try to let it roll off your back, the constant negativity is starting to settle beneath your skin like hot coals. Burning away your patience bit by bit until your own face is twisted into what you assume to be an ugly scowl.
For the first time that day, you could not be more grateful for the mask.
Your wings tuck close behind your back, reacting in tune with your thumping heart, as you do your best to follow the flow of the crowd before you get yelled at (or worse) again.
“I don’t think I’m going to get anywhere with the people,” you mutter to yourself. A shark-headed man gives you a brief look that goes unnoticed. “If I can get a map or something…”
[“Breaking news!”]
You nearly jump out of your skin at the sudden screeching to your right. Ignoring the outraged hiss in your ear, you duck into a gathering crowd clamouring in front of what looks like an electronic shop. Its display window shows TVs of all kinds, most of them being the flat screen sort, and they’re all showing an ongoing news broadcast with…
You blink behind the mask. What kind of hell did that news anchor crawl out of?
[“Breaking news in Hell today!”] the abomination of sickly white skin and stick-thin limbs announces with a grin full of yellowed teeth. The sight is so horrifying that you nearly miss the gas mask-wearing fellow sitting next to her. [“Anyone dumb enough to be in the Doomsday District right now will find themselves being blasted to shitty little pieces in the turf war currently going on…”]
As the thing is talking, a second window takes over the whole screen and shows off a catastrophic sight: a bloody battlefield filled with debris and catastrophe as far as the camera can see, rocking beneath the chain of continuous explosions as two blurs duke it out. You can barely make out a pink bomb here and an egg yolk(?) there.
‘Turf war? Doomsday District? Hell?’
The words swirl aimlessly in your numbing mind. They make sense, but at the same time, they don’t. Or rather, you don’t want them to make sense. If they did, then that would mean being forced to acknowledge the fact that…
Almost as if by compulsion, your gaze is drawn upwards to the massive pentagram hanging in the sky.
“I’m in Hell,” you breathe out.
“Ya just fucking realised?” a voice snarled into your ear.
You let out a yelp and scramble back, narrowly dodging a reaching hand by pure dumb luck. The owner of the voice is the same shark-headed guy that had passed by you earlier, his crimson eyes glaring down at you over his shades and his teeth bared into a sneer. “O-oh! You startled me,” you laugh nervously, tucking your hands around yourself before they can start fidgeting. “Did you need something?”
“‘Do I need something’? Damn right I fucking need something!” the shark growls. “Ya crashed into me and didn’t apologise! What’s the big idea, huh? Ya wanna pick a fight, bitch?!”
You give a furtive glance over your shoulder. Not many people (‘Demons,’ your mind corrects you) seem to care about the shark demon’s ranting - most of them are still glued to the news broadcast, cheering on whoever is duking it out onscreen - save for one or two snickers about “the little bitch crying over a boo-boo”, which is about the most unhelpful thing for you right now.
Judging by the shark demon’s soured scowl, he hears it too.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” you quickly say, holding your hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to bump into you, I wasn’t looking-“
“No fucking shit ya weren’t looking, or ya wouldn’t’ve crashed into me like a bumbling moron!” he spits at you.
Irritation flickers in the back of your mind.
‘Ignore it. It’s not worth it.’
Swallowing back your true feelings, you try to keep a level voice as you say, “Like I said, I’m sorry. There.”
The shark demon sneers down at you. “‘Sorry’ ain’t gonna pay my hospital bills, so cough up some dough!”
Irritation is worming into your heart.
“Excuse me?” you say sharply. “I know I might’ve ran into you but you look perfectly healthy to me. Sorry, but I need to go n-“
You’d barely taken a step around him before a calloused hand grabs you by the arm. Your breath catches in your throat.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Whatever anger you were feeling before is doused by an icy dash of fear. You only just realise how much he towers over you, the tip of your antennas not even reaching his shoulder, and a good length of your slender arm is practically swallowed in the clenched fist keeping you hostage. A bead of sweat trickles down your forehead.
“… Please let me go.”
You wish your voice didn’t tremble as much as it did just now.
The shark demon guffaws, raucous and ugly. You stifle a yelp as he yanks your arm, pulling you to your tiptoes. Pain stabs your shoulder joint. “Yeah fucking right! Only a stupid bastard would let a new sinner go scot-free.”
Your face drops behind the mask. How does he know that?
“What’re ya so surprised ‘bout? It’s damn obvious to anyone with working eyeballs,” he snorts, giving you a once-over. Shit, your clothes! Your other arm wraps around yourself automatically, as if that could hide the dead giveaway. “Ha! Don’t bother. Even if ya were buck naked, it’s so fuckin’ obvious ya have no idea how shit works down here, so listen up.”
Your heart crawls up your throat.
Shit. Shit.
The way his eyes roam all over your body and his snarl gains a… lecherous edge to it makes you want to crawl out of your skin and run far, far away. Every neuron in your brain is firing off blaring red alarms. “Speaking of which,” the shark demon drawls, “there’s more than one way to pay me back, sweetheart.”
The fear spreads to the far ends of your limbs, putting a mild tremor in your wings.
“Your fashion sense is dogshit, but what I have in mind won’t have ya needing clothes at all.” Another ugly laugh. “It’s not like ya have anywhere to go, so why don’t I take good care of ya?”
You feel your expression pull taut into a grimace. Terrified tears sting your eyes and your teeth are bared, but the shark demon doesn’t notice. It’s not like he can see through the mask.
Your worst fears are confirmed when one of the demons still glued to the TV hollers without looking, “Go get a room, fuckers!”
He sneers down at you. “Ya heard ‘im. Follow me quietly and I might treat ya nicely.”
No. No. NO.
“Could do without tha’ creepy ass mask, though. C’mon, let’s take that off, I wanna see the pretty lil’ face under it.”
You can’t pull yourself away. You can’t even bring yourself to scream. What’s the point? It’s not like anyone’s going to help you in this godforsaken place.
The thought pulses strongly in your chest. Something boiling with an unknown strength completely different from the terror keeping you rooted to the spot, something screaming at you to break the hand reaching for your mask, to rip away that smug grin off his face, to break him-
Multiple things happen all at once.
Beneath the shark demon’s hand, your skin glows with an aura so faint that it almost escapes your notice. The demon immediately turns several shades paler and collapses onto his knees with a raspy gasp, clasping the left side of his chest with one hand.
You, on the other hand. While he looks like he’s on death’s doorstep, a surge of rejuvenating energy courses through your body. Like sipping on warm honey tea, it melts through the trepidation like butter. You don’t even know what fear feels like anymore! The fog in your head is dispelled, you can… you can do anything! You can bench press a car! You can beat this stupid shark into a pulp. You can, you can…!
Your wings twitch, then unfurl to their full length, glaring down at the wheezing shark demon with a sickening kaleidoscope of orange-and-yellow streaks that twist and curl around to form glaring eyes. Maneuvering them feels like second nature to you. One powerful stroke easily tears your arm free from his slackened hand, and several more strokes of your wings propels you clear into the air, bringing forth powerful gales of wind that knocks down the unprepared shark demon as well as several other folks unfortunate enough to be standing in the radius.
“Fucking hell!”
“My drink!”
“What the-?!”
The furious exclamations don’t stop you one bit. Your gaze is fixed on the new horizons stretching all around you, mindless of the looks of confusion and anger beneath your feet. You don’t have a destination in mind - how can you when you’ve been in this hellhole for less than an hour? - but it doesn’t matter; euphoria is buzzing in the scales of your wings and it’s begging to be burnt.
With a graceful swish of your new appendages, you take off into the crimson skies.
It takes less than ten minutes for the burst of energy to wear off into nothingness.
Hot, humid air whips across your mask as you soar over unfamiliar cityscape. The last dregs of your elation lost in the winds, you’re left with a trepidation that you’re becoming oh so acquainted with brewing in your guts. ‘What the hell even happened? The guy fainted and… did my arm glow?’ The aforementioned hand clenches tightly. ‘Ugh, where even am I? I don’t know where to go… Does Hell have homeless shelters?’
Somehow, you doubt you’re that lucky.
On a whim, your gaze dips down, and you nearly choke on your own spit when you realise just how high up you are. You’d been too occupied with escaping your predicament to pay attention, but… did you really manage to fly up this high on your own? The pedestrians are just moving dust specks, for god’s sake! Doesn’t matter if it’s a human or demon, anything would be smashed to smithereens falling at this height! Instantly crushed into a pulp on the pavement, bones breaking, organs rupturing… blood soaking into the concrete cracks as… demons walk around your corpse like you don’t matter…
You only realise you have stopped breathing when you start hurtling towards the ground.
‘SHIT!’ Awareness hits you with the force of a truck as you inhale sharply. At this rate, your morbid imagination is going to turn into reality!
Your wings! They had turned limp when you got distracted, and forcing them to obey your wishes is a Herculean task compared to earlier. Heart thumping harder the closer you draw to the buildings, it takes several tries before you find the right way to command your wings. Flexing your flight muscles, you sweep down and-
Your entire world turns topsy-turvy as you’re sent careening through the air.
Turns out it’s possible to fly too hard. Oops.
You barely manage to brace yourself before crashing into the unforgiving concrete. Thank your lucky stars that you managed to steer yourself towards a rooftop in the nick of time, even if it doesn’t stop you from bouncing along like a soccer ball before skidding to an unceremonious stop.
“… Ow…”
Gritting your teeth against the bolts of pain shooting through your everywhere, you heave yourself up. Your knees waver slightly, but ultimately manage to hold you upright as you survey your surroundings.
The rooftop you’re stuck on is soaked with remnants of a recent rainfall. Limping forward, you cautiously stick your head over a puddle, and sure enough, the mask somehow stayed on throughout that whole kerfuffle. Not even a scuff to show for after you had eaten concrete during your fall. You suppose you should be grateful it had saved your face from turning into paste, but it’s hard to feel any semblance of gratitude when the mask’s dead eyes are staring listlessly right into your soul.
“Stupid thing’s more trouble than it’s worth,” you huff at your reflection. The fact that you can’t see your expression and are forced to contend with the stagnant face of the mask ticks you off even more.
Your stomach chooses this moment to give an insistent growl and you press your palm against it. Right, food. Something you hadn’t had a bite of since arriving here. You also notice how dry your throat is.
“Welp, guess finding food’s second on the agenda now,” you sigh, reaching up to pull the mask off your face. “S’not like I have any money, so maybe I can put on some puppy eyes and get some pity rice balls…”
The mask doesn’t come off.
You pause, then try again.
The mask doesn’t come off.
You pull again, harder and with more desperation.
The mask doesn’t come off.
You drop into a crouch, clawing at the edges of the mask and putting all your strength into peeling the damn thing off your face, even if it has to take some skin off along the way.
The. Mask. Doesn’t. Fucking. Come off.
You don’t know how long you spend trying to get it off, even going so far as to headbutt the ground in the hopes of smashing it, but you only stop once your arms get too tired. Panting, you wrap your arms around yourself in a desperate act of self-comfort. The skin beneath the rim of the mask stings deeply from the constant abuse.
‘It’s stuck. It’s stuck, it’s fucking stuck. Shitshitshitshit.’
You quickly press your hands against the “mouth” of the mask and open your jaw, hoping against everything that maybe the mask is actually a second face. It wouldn’t surprise you in this hell full of demonic entities. But alas, the mask remains unchanged even as you make your best goldfish impression. ‘If I can’t get this off, I can’t eat! And if I can’t eat, I’ll di-‘
“Shut up!”
The scream of rage makes you jump out of your skin. It takes you a moment to realise it came from you when you feel your already dry throat ache from the sudden abuse. You quickly take a deep, calming breath to soothe yourself. “I-I can’t think like that. Nope! I need to be positive, because no one else will do it for me,” you tell yourself with a hearty pump of your arm.
Scampering to the edge of the rooftop, you gaze at the bustling city life below, illuminated by flashy neon signs and extravagant billboard advertisements. “There has to be a way to get this off,” you whisper to yourself, already eyeing for any hardware stores. “This stupid mask has to come off some time soon.”
The mask doesn’t come off for the next week.
You only really notice once the undying need for fresh water starts to creep in.
Days spent sleeping in abandoned buildings and alleyways prove fruitless. No amount of sleep can chase away the thirst or hunger and at this point, you’re afraid that going to sleep will be the last thing you ever do.
You can’t sleep.
You have to ignore the hunger gnawing at your stomach.
You have to ignore the way your vision wavers when you turn a bit too fast.
You have to ignore the growing tremors in your legs-
WHAM!
You don’t bother moving from where you had collapsed against a grimy brick wall. Even in the humid air that seems to always cling to the hellscape, your skin feels oddly clammy to the touch.
You don’t expend the energy to try and pry the mask off anymore. The most you can do is weakly paw at it anyways.
The next time you bump into someone, you’re too weak to pull yourself away in a socially acceptable amount of time, ie. five seconds.
The fog that plagues your mind makes it hard to decipher the other demon’s words, but you can still hear the furious undertones. Can’t bring yourself to care much, though. ‘S not like he can do anything worse to you.
You don’t react when he roughly grabs your arm (thinner than you remember).
You don’t react. But something else inside you does.
It plays out exactly like when you were dealing with the shark demon. A tugging sensation in your chest, then a choked gasp the other demon releases at the same time a boost of energy floods your veins like warm honey. Your vision clears up for the first time in days to show a dog-like demon collapsed on the pavement before you. None of the passing demon pedestrians pay attention to either of you beyond a grumble about blocking foot traffic.
You inhale deeply, soaking in the joy of an unburdened breath of city air. Doesn’t matter if it’s contaminated with cigarette smoke or car exhaust; as long as it doesn’t feel like your lungs are going to collapse from the lack of food.
Oh, but it’s already fading fast… You quickly shuffle away before you yourself can drop like a rock in front of these predatory demons, melting into the crowd. You need more of this. You have no idea what exactly happened, but if touching people means you get more of these euphoria bursts to keep you going, then by god you will cling onto these demons like nobody’s business.
Cracked lips pursing into a thin line behind the mask, you trudge on with renewed determination.
The next demon to grab you drops harder than the last. Or it might be just your imagination.
You don’t wait for someone to approach the fourth time. When a random schmuck wanders into a deserted alleyway…
you pounce
A satisfied sigh slips past your bleeding lips when you feel the familiar warmth settle beneath your skin like a fleece blanket. Does it feel hotter than before? Or is it just the person beneath you that feels colder than usual?
doesn’t matter
The next person doesn’t seem to be breathing after you’re done with him.
What a shame, because you’re feeling better than ever.
The next one disappears from under you.
You’re not entirely sure what happened to him and you don’t care. You’re more occupied with soaking in the buzz of warmth radiating in your glowing palms. When did they start…
Something moves in your peripheral and your head snaps up.
Another one. You need more.
This is fine. This is better than fine. Even with hunger gnawing away at your guts and your parched throat complaining whether you try to talk or not, it’s all suppressed beneath the soothing weight of… hm. You’re still not sure what it is. But if this strange energy you’re leeching off demons keeps your stick-thin body out of skeevy hands, it doesn’t matter.
Oh?
Your drooping antennas twitch towards the north. Ever since you started doing this more regularly, you can feel an odd buzz on your new head appendages that never fail to lead you to a new demon. And right now, you feel a conglomerate straight ahead, teeming with life-saving energy all for you.
You let your instincts guide you forward.
If you happen to ask Rosie what’s currently in the gossip mill of Cannibal Town, she’d be more than delighted to lay out every detail down to the number of hairs on the cheating husband’s head.
However, today is a different story.
“Rosie dahling, did you hear about the serial killer going around in Pentagram City recently?”
Rosie tilts her head in a delicate slant. “There’s many serial killers running around, Honey. It’s not exactly the freshest news in the market,” she hums. “Can you be a tad more specific?”
The cannibal sinner, a lady dressed in a gray tea dress with puffy sleeves and a floral-patterned hand fan daintily clutched in her hands, huffs and slaps her hand on the counter. An uncouth action that Rosie has to hold herself back from chiding, or she’ll be here all day. “You know, the one that’s going around and sucking sinners dry of their souls!” Her voice lowers to a dramatic hush that Rosie has no problem hearing where she stands. “Rumour has it that it only strikes a sinner if they happen to wander into a deserted place, but no one knows when or how the killer does it. Their last sight will be a mysterious mask carved with a creepy face approaching them from the darkness…”
One word in particular stands out. “Their souls?” Rosie echoes. She taps a sharpened nail against her chin in thought. “I suppose that could be cause for worry, Honey dear, but it’s not the first time a sinner has the power to steal souls! Why, I have a dear friend who does that very thing.”
A familiarly dashing smile graces her mind. The only visible clue of bother is the slightest downward curl in Rosie’s smile, but it’s soon chased away when Honey starts again.
“Oh, I’m aware, but this is different! Why, my husband came stumbling home from a nearby district like he spent all night downing giggle water, so I of course had to drag the story out of him, and wouldn’t you like to know the tale he told me?” Honey says conspiratorially. “He claimed this tiny thing, looks like a moth, suddenly latched onto him and started feeding on him! But not his blood or meat, oh no. He said he felt like his soul was being consumed by it! Apparently he couldn’t so much as move until it was done, and it just left him there.”
Honey sniffs, expression turning into something akin to offense. “Honestly, what a waste of good meat! The least that killer could’ve done is… finish the job.”
“And I suppose that’s why I haven’t seen him this morning?” Rosie says mildly.
A row of sharp teeth is her answer.
“Thank you kindly for informing me, Honey.” She gives a shallow bow and dismisses the sinner, smile falling ever so slightly as she watches her back leave. “Stealing souls, hm? How curious…”
Truth be told, this isn’t the first time she’s hearing this little rumor. However, that tidbit about soul-snatching? It’s a piece of fresh meat in a slowly rotting corpse.
It is true that Alastor (wherever that boy is) has proven capable of devouring souls, but for the most part, owning souls is the most influence a demon can have. Stealing souls with one’s bare hand? Why, what a fearsome ability to fall to a wretched sinner…
Unfortunately, Rosie has no time to ponder over this with the line of cannibals still in her emporium. She turns her signature smile to the next lady in line, ready to hear her troubles when-
“HEY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”
“PIN ‘ER DOWN!”
… Well. It seems like another problem calls for her attention.
Excusing herself from the murmuring crowd, Rosie makes haste to exit the emporium and towards the source of the screams. In the middle of Cannibal Town, near the town gazebo, two of her fellow townsfolk have armed themselves with pitchforks and are putting them to good use, judging from the squirming, glowing body they have skewered on the other end.
Putting distance between them and the soul snatcher with long-ranged weapons? Quite a quick wit from them both.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen!” Rosie calls out to the two townsfolk, drawing their attention to her. “My my, whatever do you have there?”
“Hi, ma’am,” one of them greets back with a grin. William, if she remembers correctly. The other (Arthur) leans against the tool’s shaft, driving its tines even deeper into the trespasser. “Found this dumb Dora trying ta attack one o’ us. I reckon she’s the flighty lil’ thing everyone’s been flapping their gums about?”
The sinner raises a shaky arm towards Rosie. Whether it’s a plea for help or simply to sap her soul, it’s aborted when Arthur gives the pitchfork a violent twist.
“Settle down there!” he says sternly.
Rosie just manages to catch a pained wheeze from it. The faint glow that clings to its skin putters out into nothingness, and the body goes slack save for the stuttery heaving of its chest.
A thin crowd of sinners draws near for a better look, but they still keep their distance away from Rosie, allowing her to step closer. With the mysterious sinner unable to reach for anyone, she finds herself in the perfect position to examine it.
What immediately stands out is the wings, eye-watering streaks of oranges, yellows and pinks swirling around each other in a sickening whirlwind, and the twitching antennas. A fellow Overlord with a similar demon form immediately crops up in her mind, the one from the Entertainment District…
‘A sorry excuse of a man,’ Rosie thinks sourly.
She quickly shakes free that thought. William and Arthur have the sinner pinned on its stomach, making it difficult to discern its gender (what with the men’s attire it’s wearing) or its age (quite a petite thing). William had called it a “dumb Dora” earlier, so maybe a girl? The wheezing and gurgling it makes sound feminine enough.
Speaking of which… For someone spoken of in so many hushed whispers, the sinner doesn’t look like the most intimidating demon out there. With one wing pierced against her back and one arm skewered, she can only move her head and legs, yet she’s not making much of an effort to break free. Her hair lies in a wild mane, askew and matted with dirt. Her whole frame can be described with only one word: “starved”. Her limbs are painfully thin and Rosie can see the outline of bones of her wrist. Why, she’d bet her prized possessions that she’d be able to see the sinner’s ribs if she’s turned around. Rosie doesn’t quite remember this aspect in the rumors, but she supposes it’s a minute enough detail to put aside for now.
There’s only one more thing to confirm now.
Kneeling beside the sinner’s head, Rosie gingerly tilts it back with a sharpened nail for a better look.
A mask bearing an uncanny face.
“So it is! You are the little rascal causing all this ruckus. Were you trying to snatch my citizens’ souls, little bug?” Rosie crooned with a razor-edged smile. “Not a smart thing to do on your part! It’s a shame that you’re only skin and bones, or we would have had bug on the menu tonight.”
An appreciative laugh ripples through the crowd.
The little bug doesn’t answer her. How rude.
Her hand creeps away from the mask, nails tracing a direct line to the veins in her vulnerable neck. “But you did harm at least one of the fine folks here. I can’t just overlook that, you know? Apologies dear, but we’ll have to-“
The sinner shoves her head against Rosie’s palm.
Rosie stills. While the two cannibal men exchange a puzzled glance, the little moth is snuggling into her hand when any halfway competent demon would either run or strike back. No demon would approach an Overlord like this… No demon who’s lived in Hell for more than a month, at least.
“Oh. You just fell, didn’t you?”
Rosie feels the rumble of a wheeze, “Help.”
Help.
It would be simple to end her right now. One flick of her wrist and the little moth will be bleeding to death, leaving them free to discard the body.
However…
Rosie has to admit that going without hearing the little moth’s story would bother her for the rest of the week. At the very least, it won’t hurt to hear her out, and if the sinner tries anything… Well, they can always revert back to the old tried-and-true method of dealing with trespassers.
(Plus, she’d be a liar if she said the little whimper didn’t pull on her heartstrings just a tiny bit.)
“I supposed it’d be rash to toss you out, hm?” Rosie moves her hand to the top of her head and gives her a gentle pat. The sinner sags under her touch, her breathing evening out for a moment.
“But.”
Her nails dig into the sinner’s scalp, and Rosie feels her stiffen. “One wrong move, little moth, and you won’t like what happens next. Do you understand?” she whispers into her ear.
The sinner whimpers.
“I shall take that as an agreement!” Satisfied, Rosie releases her and goes back to gently petting her head. “As long as you behave yourself, you’ll do just fine, dear.”
She hears a faint cough that vaguely resembles a “‘Kay…”.
(Another heartstring pulled.)
With a clap of her hands, the pitchforks are pulled out of the sinner with a wet schlick. “Carry her over to the emporium and lay her on some towels,” Rosie instructs the two men. “William, be a darling and call for a doctor, will you?”
“Shouldn’t we bring ‘er directly to the hospital, ma’am?”
Rosie waves him off. “Perish the thought; what if she goes berserk when I’m not around? No, if I keep her in the emporium, then I can keep a close eye on her and make sure she doesn’t try any funny business.”
The two men still hold uncertainty in their expressions, but they hold their silence as they kneel down in preparation to haul the little moth. Most of the cannibals have already dispersed by then, with the exception of a few lingering behind in hopes to catch something juicy. Among those is… Susan. Rosie holds back a sigh.
“Why the hell are we keeping that thing?! It’s gonna infect the good meat!” she screeches, swinging her cane with more force than her withered form would suggest is possible.
“Aw shaddup, ya old hag,” Arthur bites back.
Susan continues to gripe, and Rosie tunes her out (it’s practically a required skill if one wants to stay in Cannibal Town). She removes her hand to allow William to take over and- oh? The mask comes loose.
The material is rather lightweight in her hands, which makes the fact that it’s the only article to remain unscathed a surprise.
The face it’s been hiding is unremarkable compared to the mask itself: gaunt with pronounced cheekbones and a tiny furrow between her brows. Rosie tucks the mask under one arm. She hasn’t the faintest clue as to why she hides her identity if she’s a newly fallen soul, but she supposes it can be slipped into the folder of questions she has for the sinner.
“Let’s hope you’re worth my time, little moth,” Rosie says in a gentle voice, finally stepping aside to allow the men to carry her. “For your own sake.”