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There’s a persistent clicking in the air.
It’s steady, nearly like the breathing of some great big sleeping animal. Occasionally there’s a small hiccup in the steady click click click and a momentary sense of dread, like when an old animal makes a strange noise and your first thought is well, this is it until it breathes normally again, or like when you watch a baby bird leap from the nest and plummet down down down until it thankfully catches itself and soars.
But even then, even when everything is alright again and it settles, you’re left wondering what happens at the next strange noise or what happens when the next chick takes that scary step?
But now, it is not that old animal nor that little fledgeling.
From its vantage point, the great amphithere it is, it stares out into the vast interconnected webbings of each and every universe, seeing the strings that if it really wanted to, it could reach out and pluck, trying to tear and interfere.
But yet, when it reaches out a wing to try, it will find that he has already put his guards in place.
Paranoid man he was, always worried that some alternate him would sneak in and destroy, when the truest threat to him was always what he had let into his own home.
In another world, close by in how it held the same cast and yet just outside beyond the glass, he did not let that thing into his home. He knows of his beloved’s connection to the thing, but it is not in the same manner it is here.
In the center of the web, he does not even know his beloved’s connection to the thing. In the center of the web, his beloved isn’t even his beloved.
The great amphithere hisses in delight at how much the story has twisted to be led to where it resides, and how much more suffering is to be held when the plot folds in on itself.
In the center of the web, everything is carefully contained and yet…changes. Shifts. Retcons. The backstory pulled out from under and yet everyone stumbling forward as if nothing happened, as if a name wasn’t stripped from their tongue nor a beloved friend taken. They pile on, supposedly for ages and yet never…evolving. They stay stationary, perfect, consumable characters, echoes of people. Not bad echoes, so to speak. Lovely echoes they are.
But to consume nothing but those echoes would be maddening, even for a creature who many would already call mad. Not mad like angry [though it frequently was that, considering what those it watched over did in their desperate lust for freedom], but mad like crazy. Perhaps it was crazy to continue doing this, even though it very much so knew the meaning of love and could feel love all on its own.
Echoes, however, are not depths. They do not make interesting stories if they forever stay echoes, never delving into the cave they call out of. It could stare at the echoes and think hm, interesting, I suppose, but to see those echoes become more than that is the most delicious meal of all. A rise, a fall, a step forwards and a relapse. A shouting match and a quiet conversation. A violent slaughter and a gentle cuddle.
Perhaps a story is punctuated by a loud, screaming tune, or rather it’s sung mournfully through tears. Perhaps a violent conclusion leaves the audience sitting in horror. Perhaps a sappy one leaves the audience joyful. Perhaps a funny one leaves them laughing.
Or perhaps there is no audience, and this is all for it. A banquet with none to share, come in, sit at the head of the table and–
Or…well.
Stare at your kingdom, laugh and know the gallows await for you when they run out kicking and screaming, bloodied and rageful and mournful all the same, lungs full of water, eyes full of blood, heart long since stopping its beat now renewed fresh. The knight slays the dragon, or perhaps the king takes up arms and does it himself, or perhaps there’s the whole cavalry who went through this calvary and drag the dragon kicking and screaming and begging and they rejoice as it gives its death throes as if that will undo the years of torture and torment that have forever left them as scorched remains on the wall, shadows of people as the house cries fire.
Whatever.
That doesn’t matter right now. Maybe it doesn’t matter at all.
Perhaps it seeks out a reflection, staring at that web, staring to the left where its counterpart is so lovely and such a better person and you feed all the same don’t kid yourself you aren’t better than me you will still keep them trapped there
I know you reach in. They have seen you. Leave. Leave. LEAVE. STAY OUT.
Perhaps it doesn’t need a reflection at all. Perhaps even it would go insane if it stared at its own face.
It wouldn’t, but that’s a funny thought. So powerful, and yet taken out by the very same thing its beloved can’t even see himself in. Or rather that’s an old thing, something about silver being “pure” and so many old mirrors being backed with silver. Modern mirrors are quite fine.
Perhaps it should give them another break. Perhaps it should break them. They’d never escape if they were broken people, would they? The broken shards of a vase destroyed by a delinquent child in a fit of look what I can do. That’d be funny. Some of them have come close before, but yet have been pulled out of it with a firm you can’t do that. What would happen if one member of the survivor group was abruptly snatched away? How are you to be pulled out of the pool you’re drowning in when the one diving in to save you is pulled away?
But yet you cannot feed on the emotions of someone who is broken. Someone who is broken is so unequivocally numb that there are no emotions to be felt. They stare blankly and feel nothing and drag themselves along on bloody feet, going until their muscles and bones snap and the sinew stretches beyond use. Sinew. That’s a strange word, isn’t it? Ssssinew.
A tough band of dense fibrous connective tissue that connects muscle to bone. It sends the mechanical forces of muscle contraction to the skeletal system, while withstanding tension.
Back on track. This is word vomit.
Broken people do not feel emotions. They are husks that wish for nothing more but to wither away. But yet–but yet, they cannot. It will not let them. They can kill themselves as many times as they want, but it won’t stop this. If it cannot feed on a broken person, it will use the broken person as fodder for making someone else feel crushing boulders of emotion until there is no one left to feel.
And then what will it have? A kingdom of nothing? A kingdom of people who are not people?
But it is not the king. It is the dragon that will one day be dragged down from–
This point was already made. Twisting into itself, the snake eats its tail. The cycle continues. Though if it were the tail, it would start this at the beginning, would it not? And yet the point was made just about halfway ‘til now, punctuated with a reference barely anyone would get. Sandwiched by two different, in actuality, though the front one is much more loose. Would it be less loose to outright say Burnt? The Center has already referenced that piece of media, hasn’t it, if the great amphithere squints and stares closer.
The great amphithere. Saying that has made this all the more confusing as to what this piece is all about–but perhaps that is too much to talk about, as it is powerful, but it does not know about the separation between its world and the screen so rather outright:
The Spectre.
It is ages old, beyond the years of any being still alive save for two others. It has fed on suffering for as long as it could remember. It is capable of love and care, and it has found someone it loves in the form of–
“Dear?”
The Spectre raised its head, snapped out of the proverbial trance of looking upon alternate worlds. Wings fluttering, it spun around, finding Nosferatu standing there calmly.
“Yes?”
“I was wondering if tomorrow would be another rest day, or if you would be capable of handling at least a few rounds,” the vampire calmly adjusted his coat, “I have my suggestions for cameos to put within rounds if you did them, and I’m…a tad bit hungry, you know.”
The Spectre paused and circled Nos. Not threateningly, like it had taken joy in doing to quite a few others, but softer. Less like when a snake coils its prey and more like when a cat tries to get comfy.
“You should have told me you were hungry earlier,” it hummed, “I could have done the rounds today.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Nos quietly laughed, a hand to his chest, “But you must rest. Maintaining this realm is quite hard, as you have told me, and…I am aware of what happens if it collapses.”
“If it collapses, we are both dead,” The Spectre said flatly, though it hated that it of all things could feel the terror bubbling in its mind at that fact, “/He/ will kill us both.”
It is the dragon that is to one day be dragged down from–
“So you must rest, so it does not collapse,” Nos waved a hand, then gently set the same hand on The Spectre, as if it was simply another non-godly being that he could simply comfort. Was that thought disconcerting, or lovely?
There is not one dragon in the cave. There are two. They will both be dragged down. Unless?
Unless. Strange word. Not as strange as sinew.
Unless.
Ugh.
“A shorter day can be done,” it nodded, “Less rounds. Do you have a preferred menu, my butterfly?”
“None of the gods,” Nos grimaced, “Their blood burns, you know. The godling is also a bit too spicy for me at the moment.”
“And I presume the helperbot is off the menu as well?”
“I’m looking for blood,” Nos gave a polite laugh, a hand over his mouth, “Why would oil be on the menu?”
A laugh was shared, and a list was made, a request for who to feed on. The banquet is not for one, but rather for two. One devours the blood, the other devours the emotions. Two working in tandem to both quench their hunger. Two dragons in the cave.
Mutualism or interspecies reciprocal altruism is a long-term relationship between individuals of different species where both individuals benefit. Mutualistic relationships may be either obligate for both species, obligate for one but facultative for the other, or facultative for both.
Two bounties, countless calls for two heads paraded around town.
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life.
And The Spectre went back to thinking once the conversation was done.
It had its realm. It could see other worlds. But yet, it lived with that annoying emotion called fear. Fear that one day it would be dragged down from–
REPETITION
Noun
The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated
What in the world, what in every world, was so funny about this? Wasn’t that what this was supposed to be? Funny? Instead it simply made its point a dozen times over.
It was the dragon.
One day it would be dragged down from its cave and devoured. As it has devoured the emotions of so many others. Emotions it inflicted upon them.
The other dragon would be safe. It would make sure of that. No matter the ending, he would be safe.
This point has already been made.
This point will be made again.
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
The snake eats its own tail.
There’s a persistent clicking in the air.