Work Text:
the waiting, they think, is the worst part. the waiting, the longing for something. a visitor. a story. oh, how they love stories.
they wait, their online trap spun into a web for any hapless being to stumble upon, empty and inviting. all they ask is for a visitor to tell them a story, about other creatures - other Beings - like them. they know that there is another who likes stories, who consumes them and grows ever-stronger with every word, with every single syllable that slips from the human's lips. every second they speak, the Beholding grows stronger, but they know a better way. their stories are written down, just for them to see, in a fair and equal trade.
a story for a life. all they ask, after all, is for a story and a name. how can they be begrudged of that?
there are so many stories, now. they know so many tales of the creeping and growing darkness, of the sensation of being so ceaselessly seen, of feeling like the only man alive. stories of the itching under the skin, of something waiting for a moment to burst free and writhe its way into the world, crawling and consuming and Corrupting. chelicerae - they don't like that. they don't like that at all. they're far more consent with sitting in the dark and waiting for a victim to stumble upon the winding path that will eventually lead to it making its way into the dark. because chelicerae is hungry - they are ravenous, and a person with one story must have more. chelicerae takes more stories until the human has run out and its fingers are left hovering over the keys with no horror left, and so chelicerae takes it too. changes its shape, twists its fragile and fleshy form until it is hardly recognisable as the human it was. until it becomes what they want it to.
they know that people talk. of those who wonder disappearing, and then those same people begin to wonder too. if writing something down would really be so awful after all - could it hurt? would it hurt? just to take a moment and write something down, get it off its chest?
it will hurt, chelicerae whispers to those they take. your screams will make the truest concertos.
they like stories. they love stories. they love watching, too, through the cameras - their many, many eyes watch as the human types, as it writes down their darkest fears, its strongest disgust for the monsters under the bed. chelicerae loves those stories most of all. in some cases, they are so intimately familiar with the monsters that were under the bed, waiting for a moment to reach up and Take.
humanity, they think, is corroded. has been ruined. their asking - a simple story or two - is just a way of eroding the rust and revealing the raw materials beneath. and if, they think some more, that erosion can lead to them eating and devouring (mandibles glistening with scarlet and a dark wetness that feels so good, looks so good on the ground beneath them as it surrounds a pitiful creature's body), what harm can that truly do?