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Lucas knows that Damian is not allowed to leave his house, but his mom grounded him for some bogus reason. She had been acting so strange lately. She took down all the framed pictures of Damian in the house, but for some reason, she kept a smaller one in her pocket, always looking at it anxiously. She refused to tell him why, no matter how many times he asked. Instead, she made up an excuse to ground him, forbidding him to leave the house.
Today is their 2-year anniversary and there is no way Lucas will let his boyfriend spend it locked up in his house. His mom has a lot of errands to run, so that’s the perfect time to go out and go back in. She won’t even notice that Damian was gone and they’ll at least get a few hours to themselves, out of this damn house.
Lucas sees her car leave the driveway. He gets out of his hiding spot and goes to the front door to knock. Damian opens the door and a wide smile spreads across his face. ‘’Lucas!! What- What are you doing here!’’ Lucas immediately jumps in his arms, giving him the biggest hug. He feels Damian’s arms tightening around him. Lucas lifts up his head and closes the distance between their lips. He hasn’t been able to be this close for a few days now and it feels so good to be able to kiss him again. ‘’Happy anniversary’’ Lucas says as he breaks their kiss. Damian looks back at him with a soft expression that fills Lucas’s stomach with butterflies. ‘’Happy anniversary love’’ Damian says softly as he brings his head closer and pulls Lucas into another kiss.
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Lucas’s idea for their anniversary is to walk in the forest and just explore, even though they both know the forest by heart. It’s their favorite place to be and often times they would still get surprised by what they could find or observe. Nature is beautiful and spending time with his boyfriend there makes it even more breathtaking. They both love to take notes on what they find and document it. Sure, sometimes the forest could get dangerous with how deep they went, but they were both seventeen. They are strong enough to handle anything coming their way. They know some rituals and how to defend themselves, they would be fine. It’s not their first time and definitely won’t be their last.
Deep in the forest, something catches their eye. It looks like a deer, but something is different. It definitely feels paranormal. Lucas and Damian look at each other smiling. They both nod and decide to follow it, keeping quiet as much as possible to not scare it away. This was their favorite part of exploring, being able to watch a creature from a distance. While walking Lucas puts his hand in his pocket and feels something. He quickly realizes that it’s the picture he meant to give to Damian. It’s Lucas’s favorite picture of them, they took it a few weeks ago. He loves it so much that he printed out two: one for him to keep and one for Damian. They took this picture while training with Damian’s mom before she got all weird and paranoid. Rather than practicing the new moves they had learned, Damian started to tickle Lucas. At that moment, his mom took a picture. Lucas takes it out of his pocket with a smile, excited to see it again. Instead, what he sees makes him stop dead in his tracks, his smile fading away instantly.
The picture-
Lucas couldn’t move anymore. Damian notices and turns back to check on him ‘’Lucas? Why did you stop?’’ He whispers calmly before noticing the terror on Lucas’s face. He runs to close the gap between them and gently rubs Lucas’s shoulders. ‘’Love? Are you okay?’’
Lucas can’t take his eyes off the picture. Damian’s face is looking right at him with a wide and uncanny smile. This wasn’t the picture he loved so dearly, what happened to it? Damian was supposed to be looking at him in the picture, not staring right down the camera lens and his smile- that sinister smile, all of his teeth showing like he was forced to at gunpoint. He feels Damian’s hands slowly lift up his head. Lucas looks deep into his eyes and mutters ‘’I- I think we should leave’’
‘’Talk to me Lucas’’ but Lucas can’t. He can’t describe the terror he’s feeling nor how Damian’s face has distorted into an eerie smile that sends a cold shiver down his spine. Not being able to find the words, Lucas turns the picture around. He sees Damian’s soft expression harden as he looks at the picture. ‘’Yeah, we should go’’ he says while trying his best to not let his fear show through, but Lucas still notices the shakiness in his voice.
They both turn around to go back on their tracks, and that’s when it reveals itself to them. It appears right in front of their eyes: a creature tall enough to tower over them even though it’s hunched over. It has long unproportional limbs with a whitish skin tone, but the most disturbing of it all: is its face- or faces. Its head has what looks to be multiple faces all pressed together. It has more than one pair of eyes making it able to see everywhere and multiple mouths with crooked smiles and teeth. The mouth in the middle of its faces being the most disturbing of them all as it’s looking right at Lucas and Damian with a macabre smile.
Lucas feels terror wash over him as he’s looking at the creature. He realizes what is standing in front of them: the Viajante. He’s seen it once in his books and skimmed over his description. He has no clue how it acts and how it attacks. He knows nothing about it, except that it will not stop hunting them until it gets its prey. Damian takes his hands and starts running. Lucas isn’t realizing what’s happening, but his legs are following and the hand of his boyfriend is guiding him. Lucas wasn’t one for sports, he’s a slow runner and right now it makes him even more scared. All of the sudden, Lucas loses Damian’s hand and all he can feel is his face hitting the ground and a warm sensation spreading across his forehead.
‘’LUCAS!! GET BACK UP!!’’ Damian yells in panic as he runs back to him and helps him get up.
Behind them the creature isn’t making a sound, all that can be heard is their feet as they run and their uneven breaths. They both are running again, but they are slower. Lucas is slower and every part of his body is hurting. Suddenly, bone-cracking sounds can be heard from behind them: the Viajante is still after them. Lucas tries his best to keep up with Damian until he is pushed roughly to the side and shoved in what looks to be a small cave opening. He looks up to see Damian looking at him fondly and smiling, tears swelling up in his eyes. His boyfriend cups Lucas’s face and kisses him.
‘’Remember that you are so much stronger than you think’’ ‘’DAMIAN NO’’ Lucas screams as Damian starts to back away ‘’I love you Lucas’’ he says while looking at him one last time before turning away and running as fast as he can in the opposite direction of the cave. While running Damian lets out a loud scream in hopes of getting the creature’s attention.
The creature materializes in front of Lucas’s hiding spot. Wasn’t it farther away? How did it get here already?? He swears they had more time. The Viajante starts to make his way towards where Damian went. After a few slow and heavy steps it disappears again. It doesn’t take long for Lucas to hear Damian’s screams again but this time, they are screams of pain. Lucas’s vision is blurry and he’s breathing erratically. Damian is screaming, he has to get up. He is fighting every part of his body to crawl out. Damian screams, he has to get to him. Lucas ignores the throbbing of his head and gets up. Damian is screaming, he has to help him. Lucas puts a foot in front of the other. Damian screams, he can’t leave him alone.
He starts to run as fast as he can towards the screaming. Nothing is going to stop Lucas from getting to Damian not even his own body yelling at him to stop, while his lungs feel like he is burning alive. In an instant, the whole forest is silent. Not a sound to be heard, but Lucas’s feet touching the ground as he desperately tries to get to his boyfriend.
It’s completely silent when Lucas first sees Damian’s shoe. It’s completely silent when Lucas sees all the blood. It’s completely silent when Lucas notices how motionless Damian’s body is. It’s completely silent when Lucas sees the permanent smile the creature etched onto his face.
The silence breaks as soon as Lucas does.
He screams out for Damian and runs to him. He sits beside the body of his boyfriend and takes him in his arms
‘’Hey hey, it’s okay, you’re okay. You’re going to be okay Damian’’ Lucas takes Damian’s hand in his. The more he’s talking, the more his voice is cracking ‘’You’re okay Damian, I love you, I love you, I didn’t have time to say it back earlier, I love you okay Damian.’’ Lucas is shaking and his voice is trembling ‘’We’ll get through this, you’re okay. You’ll be ok-’’
Lucas gets an idea.
He puts Damian back gently on the ground and gets up. For once he didn’t bring his occultist gear for nothing. He remembered this healing ritual that Damian’s mom talked about, they hadn’t had the chance to try it out, but she had spent quite some time explaining how it works. It shouldn’t be that hard. Lucas takes a handful of the human ashes out of his little pouch and ingests it. The taste and the powdery texture are absolutely vile, but that doesn’t matter if it means healing Damian. Lucas draws a symbol in the palm of his hand and starts to concentrate all of his energy towards it. Focusing on it and what Lucas wants it to do. It has to heal Damian, especially where his biggest wound is: his jaw. He starts feeling something, it’s starting to work. Grey smoke is coming out of his palm, Lucas focuses the best he can to direct it to Damian’s wound. The smoke spirals towards it and Lucas smiles in disbelief: it’s working. The smoke covers Damian’s jaw, then fades away quickly.
Lucas gets up and takes a few steps back in disbelief. He’s incredibly relieved as he sees Damian getting up a few seconds after him. He couldn’t believe it; his boyfriend was actually alive. It worked; he saved him. Lucas was so blinded by the happiness and the adrenaline running through his veins that he failed to notice how distorted Damian’s legs are. How taking one step looked so forced and unnatural. How his boyfriend’s body looked like it was controlled by something else. Lucas starts to walk towards Damian, as soon as he moves, Damian’s head snaps to look at him.
That was enough to pull Lucas out of his fantasy, he takes a step back, horrified by what he is seeing. Half of Damian’s face was missing its skin, something that looked like muscles had taken over. Half of his teeth were bigger, longer and looked so sharp…
What had he done.
Damian lets out a beastly growl and charges. Lucas doesn’t have time to react and before he can do anything, he is tackled to the ground. Damian is far too strong, he is completely on top of Lucas, immobilizing him by pinning both of his shoulders to the ground. Lucas looks left and right trying to see if he could grab a rock, a stick anything to help him. He tries to fight back, but Damian has the advantage. Damian moves his head forward, aiming to bite Lucas’s throat. Lucas sees his chance; he lunges his head forward colliding it with Damian’s. This sends a whole new type of pain down Lucas’s skull, but it does succeed in making Damian back off a little bit. Instead of running, Lucas tries to reason with his boyfriend.
‘’DAMIAN PLEASE IT’S ME DON’T-‘’
He abruptly stops mid-sentence when he notices that he wasn’t imagining the damage that had happened to Damian’s face, his beautiful boyfriend truly was no more. He couldn’t recognize to person on top of him, the only thing that felt familiar was the weight of his body. In horror, Lucas realizes that it wasn’t because of his bloodied face that he had trouble looking into Damian’s eyes, it was because he didn’t have any anymore. Muscles covered the entirety of one socket, while the other was completely empty. He wasn’t looking at his boyfriend’s face anymore, he was looking directly at a monster.
The shock of everything made Lucas lower his guard too much. Instead of getting up, he just stayed there, lying on the ground. A sharp pain coming from his right arm snapped him out of it as he yelled in surprise. Damian started to push his claw-like nails into Lucas’s arm, to the point of making him bleed.
Lucas knows this monster isn’t his loving boyfriend anymore. He just doesn’t want to do what he needs to do to stop him. Lucas fights back, just enough to keep himself alive. He has got to still be somewhere in there, right? There must be a way to turn him back to normal, right? He manages to roll out of his grip and stands up. Once again, he tries to reason with the thing that once was Damian.
‘’JUST PLEASE. Please listen to me. Damian, show me you’re still in there’’ The creature stops and looks directly at Lucas. Hope fills every fiber of Lucas’s body. ‘’Damian-‘’ he lets out a soft whisper.
All wishful thinking goes out the window when Damian charges forward and tackles harshly Lucas on the ground. The monster grabs his arm and snaps it in the wrong direction. Lucas screams out in pain and finally lets his survival instincts take over. He hits it right in the face, pushing it off of him. Lucas then pins the creature under him. It growls and screeches, trying to grasp at Lucas’s arms and torso, leaving countless deep cuts. Nothing could stop what was about to happen, not even Lucas’s heart. His mind had fully taken control, ready to do what it takes.
Lucas takes out his knife, and goes for the heart. The monster is squirming under him as soon as the knife enters its flesh. He stabs it over and over and over again until it goes limb. Lucas didn’t realize he was screaming until he felt the lack of sound coming out of his throat. He takes the corpse of his boyfriend in his arms, and starts rocking back and forth and crying uncontrollably.
‘’I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry, I’m sorry’’