Chapter Text
The first thing you know is darkness.
No. Wait. Hold on. That's wrong. The second thing you know is darkness.
The first thing you know is actually loneliness.
You are ripped from the warmth of non-existence as you splinter into fragments, your sense of self dividing innumerably and scattering across an immeasurable distance. You gasp awake, the aftershocks ringing through your body, sending ripples of pain through you. You cannot describe it except maybe like the loss of a limb—profound, harsh, sudden and disorienting.
On instinct, your fingers rush to press into the tender place where the pain flares, as though there might be a tangible wound there. You are only half surprised when you find clear, unmarred skin instead. This isn't a wound of the physical type, you know—though what it is exactly you cannot tell.
You take a breath and try to ignore the buzzing in your skull, the budding headache, the still-smarting wound. These are all things you cannot help. You have to take stock of the situation. Where, exactly, are you?
A shackle is clasped around your wrist, binding you to the back wall. (You can't tell what the wall's made of—maybe bricks? This whole place feels… incomplete, somehow. Dream-like. At one glance, the wall's packed earth, pebbles scattered amidst the dirt; at another, it's bricks, rough against your palm. Everything is painted in indistinct shades of gray.) The chains themselves are rusted, burnished gold creeping over dull silver.
And yet they do not yield. You tug and twist, but the fetters hold firm, keeping you trapped. You try and yank the chain out of the wall, and you're yanked back in return.
You are trapped here. Your heart pounds against the cage of your ribs, a wild animal rattling the bars.
With effort, you close your eyes. You won't solve this problem if you react like a cornered rabbit. You need to be meticulous—careful—conniving. Cornered rabbits are absolutely none of that.
You settle back, breathing slowly. The cold sinks its claws into your skin, effortlessly ripping through the light fabric of your dress. The shackles are cold, and the ground is cold, and the wall is cold. The room is faintly illuminated by starlight, which means that the night is cold, too. You shiver, goosebumps raising on your skin, your teeth chattering. And yet, despite your best efforts, you are cold still.
The room is empty, too. Not a sound dares break the silence; not a cricket dares skitter across the floor and disappear into some unseen crevice.
You are alone.
For some reason, this scares you more than the threat of whoever locked you up here, or even being trapped here with no escape. It had scared you so much your mind had thought you were being ripped apart. The pain's dwindled down now, but you can still feel it, gnawing away at your skin.
It's more... panic than pain now. Your heart is pounding in your throat, and your thoughts are racing to the beat. One catches your attention: They've left me to rot here forever! Acknowledged, it raises its voice, echoing throughout your skull: They left me to rot, I'm going to rot away down here, I'm going to die and no one will be here to witness it, I'm alone, I'm alone I'm alone.
And this is what I deserve.
That final thought marches into your head without your say-so, and you blink, glancing around. For what, though? Why do you feel so… guilty? You don't remember doing anything to deserve this. You… just awoke here, in these chains, without a single other person around to witness it. Didn't you?
…Hold on.
You rack your brain, trying to recall something—anything at all.
Nothing comes to mind.
It's like trying to remember a particularly unimportant dream. According to your memory, a few minutes ago, you were nothing—and then, suddenly, you woke up in these chains. There is nothing else, no matter how much of a headache you give yourself.
But that's not how that works! You're fairly certain you're human, and you know humans are born from other humans that they call parents! Before that, they're cradled by the comfort of a womb, and then when they're born, they're born into their parent's protection, not into chains.
They are small things, born without Princess gowns, born weak and fragile but never alone. Not like you. You are very clearly alone, and you are not so fragile, or at least you don't think so.
There is something wrong here. Something's off. Everything feels unreal, like you could poke a hole through the world with a pencil and nothing else. The only explanation you have for this bizarre situation is a foreign whisper; this is what you deserve. And clearly that's wrong, because you can't even remember what you could've done, and there's no one else here.
As far as you know, the world is cold and dark and empty, and you are the only living thing in it.
And, judging by the gown you're in, you're a Princess. A Princess of a lonely world, a Princess of nothing. A Princess locked up in a basement for no obvious reason, the key discarded. What use is the title of Princess without a kingdom to rule over?
A few long, uncountable minutes stretch by. You're kneeling, which is an uncomfortable position to be in; your knees press into the stone floor, and your legs are beginning to cramp. You do not engage with the thoughts racing through your head, because that will trap you in a spiral, and you cannot afford to lose yourself in the meaningless tumult of your mind. You keep yourself grounded, because you are patient, and there's nothing else for you to do, anyway.
All that's left for you to do is wait.
And wait.
And then wait some more.
You watch the walls crumble so-so-so-so-slowly around you, almost imperceptible.
The cold settles in the hollow of your neck and seeps into your bones.
You are trapped here, though, with nothing but the silence and your own thoughts to keep you company.
So you wait.
And wait.
You are patient. You can bide your time. You will wait for the walls around you to collapse, if that's what it takes to be free.
You wait some more.
Your breaths are evening out. It's probably dangerous to drop your guard in a place like this, but for some reason you're exhausted, like you've been fighting something and just don't remember what it was. Your eyelids droop. You yawn, icy air hitting the back of your throat.
Somewhere, that weird little voice raises its head again, worming its way back into your head. Don't fall asleep, darling, it whispers, odd and pointed. You need to stay awake. You need to bask in your punishment. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve.
It isn't. The little voice is wrong. It has to be. You don't know what it is, but it has to be wrong. Maybe it's your jailer's voice, trying to demoralize you; maybe it's the cabin itself, whispering in your ear. You can't listen to it.
This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve.
It chatters on, each word a splash of water against stone. It doesn't do anything. You will not be swayed; you will not be broken. You will not.
This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve.
This voice is the only sound in your head, and it is persistent. It keeps on whispering, even as you try to block it out. You will not listen. You will not listen. You will not listen.
This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve.
You close your eyes. You breathe in, and then out. This is fine. You are fine. You don't deserve this.
This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve.
…Right?
This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you—
GAH!
You jolt awake as something moves upstairs. Your heart hammers against your chest again; you breathe and breathe, focusing on the sudden noise that isn't the droning voice in your head. It's… tromping footsteps, heavy and careless, above you, upstairs. Only one set; no voices, either. So it's alone, or at least its other companions are incredibly quiet.
You'd thought you were the only moving thing in this basement, but apparently you're not. Maybe the thing upstairs has answers about this predicament. Maybe they mean you no harm. Maybe they've come to free you.
Or maybe they've come back to finish the job.
You don't mind. For your whole, short existence, you've been locked in chains by someone you don't know. You're used to animosity. The thing upstairs sounds big, but if it's only one person, you can probably take them. You aren't going out without a good fight.
And you are getting out of here. You'll make sure of it.
There's the sound of scraping metal upstairs. A weapon, presumably taken by the thing stomping around upstairs. So at least that's one mystery solved.
What does he think you are—some sort of monster?
…Wait.
Something is… writhing, shifting, slithering under your skin, making you twitch. You wince as your nails suddenly dig into your palm, and when you uncurl your fist—you hadn't really noticed your nails before, but is it just you, or are they… sharper, somehow? Is it just you, or are your teeth sharper too, your muscles more defined, the chain weaker and rustier and more easy to break?
Is it just you, or are you becoming the monster he was sent here to slay?
Okay. Okay, calm down, Princess. Think.
You're more monstrous now, somehow—perceivably so, if your sharper nails are any indication—and that's connected to the scrape of steel upstairs. There's something else in the cabin now, and the world seems a lot more solid now that there's footsteps upstairs—still monochrome, but less dream-like, less ethereal.
Is… whatever it is that's upstairs right now… bringing it into reality?
Because clearly, clearly it thinks of you as something less-than-human—it did just grab a knife to slay you with, after all! And you don't kill humans—you kill monsters. Ergo: you became a monster. And now that it's seeing the cabin, it's making it real, even if it's the same as it's always been!
This is how it works: what it perceives becomes reality, somehow! This is how it works: you're not just a prisoner of these shackles, but a prisoner of its perception, too!
Okay, okay, slow down. Breathe in—breathe out.
You can work with this.
You haven't even met it yet—at least, not properly. Maybe it doesn't even know what it's doing. If that's the case, then you can definitely use this to your favor. As long as you make sure it keeps seeing you as something strong (but also, importantly, cunning), then everything will work out.
But you have to look the part first. Straight back—chin up. Stare down all approaching intruders. Do not give in. Do not give up. Do not show anything even resembling weakness; monsters are not weak, and you must be a monster.
Footsteps, descending the stairs, becoming clearer and louder with each step the thing takes. This is your chance. Assert yourself. Cold, unfeeling—don't give the enemy a chance to act on your emotions. Keep your voice steady. "Who's there?" you call out, tone even, head raised and gaze pointed toward the stairs.
A voice answers back, gives itself away. Unsure—weak. Tentative. Whispery, like it's afraid to be overheard. (You can use that.) "Hey, I… think I'm here to kill you?" it asks, meek and scared as a rabbit in the grass.
Oh, there's an angle you can use—undefeatable monster. It sounds so scared. It won't take much work to convince it you're locked up here for a reason. All you have to do is sound sure of yourself, like you're going to tear him to shreds if it dares cross you. It won't buy it otherwise.
You laugh, hearty and dangerous, and when you speak your voice is a dagger slicing through the darkness. "Ohohohoho, are you now?" You have to sound like you're not scared of anything at all, even though your heart is pounding in your chest. "Why don't you come down here and let me take a look at you?" It won't buy it otherwise.
For a moment, heavy and hanging, it lingers on the stairs. But it does not stop there. (It should. You could kill it. You will kill it, if it tries anything funny.) There is a heavy tromp-tromp-tromp as it trudges down the stairs, its footfalls piercing the silence. The walls around the staircase bulge and gag as feathers force their way through, dark as shadows. You tense, coiled, your free hand clenched into a fist and your chained hand laying limp in your lap.
You watch, eyes narrow, as something oozes out of the shadows, all feather and talon and dozens of wings. Its shining eyes are the first thing that you notice; they glint like opals, the moonlight ensnared in their depths and reflected back to you. There isn't much else shiny about it; it's all ragged, mussed-up feathers, broken and dull, as though it hasn't preened in a long time. This works to its advantage; it looks bigger, like the world is a mere afterthought compared to its sheer size and strength.
Despite yourself, you shrink back.
The only other shiny thing about it, besides its eyes, is the little pristine blade it clutches in its trembling hands. The tip glints as it quivers.
You eye it warily. It didn't need the blade—its talons look sharp enough to shred you themselves—but you suppose a proper weapon does make a statement. Your death will be clean and quick, it says. No one will mourn you. No one cared enough about you to mourn you in the first place.
You exhale. "You weren't kidding when you said you were here to kill me," you remark, in lieu of anything else to say. You stop your own hands from shaking and stare him in the eye.
It gulps. "Yeah," it stammers, gripping the blade tighter. "It wasn't a joke."
You nod, deadpan. "I know. You brought a knife with you and everything." You take your eyes off it for a moment to flick a glance at the puny little blade, and then you glance back up at it, a wry smile curling across your face. "But you don't have to try and kill me, you know. You could always toss that scrap of metal to the ground, and we can talk this out instead of immediately lunging at each other like animals."
Yes—that's a good compromise. It'll probably take that if it knows what's good for it. Good work, Princess—you're gaining ground. Maybe this won't end in your death after all.
For a moment it almost seems to argue with itself, its eyes narrow and focused. Its hands have started trembling again. For a moment you hold your breath, fighting the stupid and instinctive urge to plea for your life. You wonder how hard it would be to tear out fistfuls of feathers, and how far that would get you before it stabbed you through the heart.
With an unceremonious clatter, the blade falls to the floor.
You exhale heavily.
"Thank you," you say, allowing yourself the slightest smile. Your thoughts settle, though you don't drop your guard just yet. This isn't over until you're free. But until then… "Maybe now we can just… talk."
After a moment to size you up, the thing shambles forward, hands empty. He's hunched over, you realize, his feather-tuft ears brushing the wooden ceiling. Instinct demands you cower before this engulfing darkness, but you will not be consumed by something as lowly as instinct, so you stay strong. You are in control here, or at least you're equals with him. You will not be debased by the first hulking idiot you see.
"So here we are," you say, checking your now-sharp nails like he's no big deal. "What an awkward start to a relationship."
A huffed laugh from the beast, raspy and anxious. (It takes you a moment to recognize it as such, because his big-ass beak and birdish eyes offer very little in terms of expression.) In his odd, hoarse voice, he says, "Yeah, it's… uh, pretty awkward."
Ugh. For all he tries to come off as formidable and threatening, all he's been so far is awkward and obvious. And terrified of you. He's doing a great job at this murderer shtick, that's for sure. You wish your fate wasn't in the hands of someone so awfully inept, but apparently the world hates you, so at least it's par for the course.
"I know," you say flatly, suppressing the urge to roll your eyes and sigh. "I just said that. Now why are you here to kill me?"
He wilts at the direct question, glancing around nervously. "I've been told things," he says meekly, not meeting your gaze. His talons twitch like he's trying to magically teleport the blade back into his hands. "But I'm not sure what to believe." He glances back at you again, and the expression on his face could almost be interpreted as hopeful.
Huh. A hesitant, idiotic, incompetent murderer. This is who you're saddled with to help you get out. You'd thought he'd have answers, but he's just as clueless as you are. The only good thing about this whole ordeal is you aren't actively dying, so at least that's a thing that's not happening. Oh, and maybe you could interpret this as him trying to signal he's on your side, but you doubt he's smart enough to go against the orders of whoever it was that brought him down here.
"And do you think asking me what to believe is going to suddenly make everything crystal clear? " you ask him, voice sharp. "Let's not pretend that's going to happen. As far as you're concerned, and as far as they're concerned, I'm going to say whatever I have to to get out of here." And they're not wrong, per se, but he doesn't need to know that. "That's just the dynamic of our situation." For all you want to bluster about being in charge, you are still in chains. And his perception is still the one molding your reality. You are the prisoner—he is the jailer. Of course he wouldn't trust you.
He laughs again, sheepish, ducking his head. "Um, so, about that," he says awkwardly, just like he says everything else. "How… would I get you out of here? Assuming I… wanted to get you out of here in the first place, I mean."
Again, you resist the urge to roll your eyes. He's absolutely useless if he doesn't even have the key. But it's fine, because you're clever, and clever things like you can adapt to face the storms of ineptitude. "I'm guessing you don't have the key, then," you say, and it comes out sounding a lot like a sigh. "I'm sure there's a key somewhere around here, and if there isn't…"
Your eyes fall on the abandoned blade, sharp and glinting on the floor. Your arm twinges to think of it, but you've got precious few options. Maybe you won't even feel a thing, if you pretend hard enough.
"Well," you say with a smile, "we can always put that knife to good use."
(Somewhere, the same voice that thought you deserved an eternity of suffering pipes up to declare that it would be put to best use through your heart. You try not to think about it, even as it batters your mind with images of you dead or dying on the floor. You clench your hands into fists, and you control your breathing, and you try not to think about anything at all.)
"How… long have you been down here?" asks the thing, glancing around.
Admittedly, it's a fair question, even if it's one you don't have an answer to. This cabin seems much older than you are—the walls are painted in a fine layer of dust, disturbed only by the thing's twitchy movements. The stench of rot permeates the air. Your chains are rusted, and rust doesn't just appear overnight. How long has this cabin stood here, and how long have you been imprisoned within?
No answer comes, even as you poke and prod your frustratingly-empty memory.
What is wrong with you? Besides the weird nagging voice piping up every so often to tell you that you should be suicidal, at least. Your skin doesn't feel right—if you think about it too hard, the gnaw of loneliness starts up again, harsher, fiercer. You have no name. You have no memory. You have no idea what is going on.
You sigh. "Too long," you answer, and at least that, if anything, is true.
The monster-thing glances at you, nervously shifting from talon to talon. Every so often, his gaze darts back to land on the blade, before he meets your eyes again. His ear-tufts twitch, almost as though he's listening to some unseen, unheard voice in his head. "What's your name?" he asks at last, eyes curving in what could almost be seen as a smile.
You're not impressed. The question's out of nowhere, more small talk than interrogation, and you're not here to chat about the weather with some random murderous monster. Coldly, you reply, "You can address me as Your Royal Highness, or Her Majesty. Any honorific should do, really."
He visibly wilts, scrambling for something else to say to stall. Finally, he asks, "Do you… know why I'm here to kill you?"
"Do you?"
Just as you'd expected, he balks at the direct question. What a pointless interrogation. It's more small talk than a questioning, and you hate small talk. He'd better decide something sooner rather than later, or you're going to kill him out of nothing but boredom.
"I… know what I've been told," he says, dancing around the question as usual, playing both sides. "Whether or not I believe it is an entirely different matter."
"So you're not going to share?" you ask, glaring at him. "How pointless. If you want to talk, I'll talk, but this isn't talking."
For a moment he studies you. He opens his beak to say something inane as usual, and then he thinks better of it. His gaze flicks back to the knife on the floor, and then to you, and then back to the knife.
(Somewhere, the little voice tells you to just accept your fate and let him kill you. You shove it to the side and stamp it down. You are so very close. You will not let one errant thought lead you astray.)
"Okay," he says hesitantly, "we've talked enough…"
Despite yourself, you tense up, your hands clenching into fists. It's only one chain that holds you here; it's only your arm that holds you back. Your teeth are sharp, even if your nails aren't. You wonder what your blood would taste like; you wonder how hard it is to gnaw through muscle and bone with teeth like yours. You wonder how long it would take for blood loss to set in. (Somewhere, in the part of you that's keeping tabs on the writhing-shifting-slithering, you wonder if it would ever set in at all.)
"Oh?" you say, keeping your voice haughty and firm. Your free hand rests on the forearm of your chained one, warming the chilled skin. "Have you finally decided what to do with me?"
You look up at him, and you keep the mask on. You can't rush this now. Not when you're so close.
Despite yourself, you hold your breath.
"I'm getting you out of here."
You exhale heavily.
Okay. So he's on your side. You did this. You can't let your guard down, not until you're out of these chains, but you're not immediately in danger because he trusts you. He trusts you instead of your jailers, which means someone's on your side, which means you might actually have a chance at escaping.
Gently, he takes your wrist in his talons. He turns it over, taking care not to break skin, inspecting the metal and searching for any flaws in the shackle that he can exploit. (There are none.) He gives the rusty chain a shake, and when that accomplishes nothing, he tries to pull your arm out in vain. He shakes it, and then he falls back, squinting at the shackle like it's personally affronted him.
You sigh. What an idiot. "If you don't have the key," you say pointedly, "maybe you should go looking for it." You pause, and then you lie, "I'm sure it's somewhere upstairs." (There is no keyhole in the shackles. There is no key to unlock them. The only way out is violence, but monsters are good at violence, so you're not too worried about that.)
"And if there isn't a key?" the monster-thing asks, his eyes wide with what seems to be cowardice. "Do you have any… other ideas?" He pauses, and then adds quickly, "Besides me cutting you out of here, that is."
Aw, is he squeamish? Or is this just another instance of his stupidity on full display? It wouldn't hurt—not if he doesn't think it can. And, besides, even if you were a normal mortal being, it hurts enough being down here. You'd rather claw your own heart out than be stuck down here, in these cold and rusty chains, forever alone. You will be free.
"That would be fine," you tell him as nonchalantly as you can. "I can lose an arm."
He stares at you, eyes wide with—okay, you think this is awe now, or maybe incredulity. Still hard to tell. Luckily for the both of you, he doesn't make any more feeble attempts at conversation. He backs away from you like he thinks you're a monster—which half disgusts you and half fills you with some vindictive glee. For a moment he keeps his gleaming eyes on you (from this far away it's hard to tell what exactly he's feeling at all) before he darts upstairs to go grab the—
There's a slam of the door. A lock clicked.
Huh. You wonder why you can hear the lock from this far away. If it were just that, you could pass it off as an unusually loud lock, but with everything else going on…
Actually, while he's doing his key thing, you should take this moment to regroup. You've been sort of playing this by ear, but that's not going to last you forever, will it? You need to figure out what's happening here—and, by the looks of things, you need to do it fast.
So: you woke up here. Alone. Unknown. It was dream-like—that's important. Felt unfinished. You woke up in chains planted by mysterious jailers, jailers who you still don't know at all. You felt like you'd been torn in half or something.
And then he came along, and everything came into focus—you feel more solid now, realer, like you're waking up. And when he took the blade—when he thought you were something to be feared, something to be slaughtered—you became more monstrous. What he perceives becomes reality—and when things go unperceived, they go blurry and undefined.
He was clearly sent here to kill you. You heard the scraping—he picked up the knife from upstairs. But then he… didn't go through with it, even though he said he'd heard reasons why he should. You two seem to be alone, but he didn't know how to unlock your shackles, and he didn't say much about who they were despite seemingly being on your side.
Actually, you've been taking it as granted that he knows who they are, but if you reconsider this situation like he's a third party just being ordered around by someone he barely knows… he probably came down here to kill you, realized you weren't a threat at all after talking with you, and then he began to doubt his superiors. They probably didn't tell him what to do to get you out of here because they thought he'd just go along with what they were saying.
But who are they, anyway? Why do they want you killed so badly that they'll lock you up in a cabin without any memories, send some random bird monster to do the deed, and then implant a voice in your head telling you to grin and bear it?
And also! What's up with the perception thing? Working on this theory, he's a random guy they sent to do it—why does he get the honor of molding you into whatever he wants you to be? Is it a power unique to him? Did they pick him specifically because he could perceive you as something weak or fragile? (Though they obviously failed at that, and failed spectacularly. You thought they wanted you dead—why would they leave such room for error?)
You have so many questions, but you don't think you'll ever get any answers.
He plods back to you, and this time you're fairly confident interpreting his expression as crestfallen. Glumly, he holds out his keyless talons. He does not meet your gaze.
"I heard the door slam," you say. "They locked you down here too, didn't they?"
He nods, small and embarrassed.
Your eyes fall on the blade again, and you tense, despite yourself. "The knife," you say, making sure your voice does not quaver. "Pick it up and cut me out of here."
He flinches at that, freezing for a moment. But he does not foolishly protest, as before. Instead, he snatches up the knife in a deft talon and moves toward you. (You… think he's trying to come off as non-threatening? Whatever it is he's doing, all you're getting is the same murderer-y evil vibe you got when he clomped down those stairs for the first time.)
You shy away from the blade. He'd better not plunge it right through your heart instead of through your arm. Luckily for the both of you, he is not that stupid; he places the blade on your arm, right next to the shackle. The blade's edge is cold and sharp, and if he dug in a bit further you know he'd draw blood easily.
He meets your gaze for a moment, feathers ruffling.
You nod.
And he digs in.
For a moment, you expect pain. You expect pain like the loneliness, gnawing and inescapable, or just… intense, indescribably so. You figure that's how humans react, right? You cut off a limb, and their body doesn't like that, so the nerves tell the body to feel overwhelming pain in response. And for all he knows, you're also a (mostly) normal human who will feel pain when faced with the loss of a limb. Even if it numbs later, as he begins to perceive you as nonplussed, you expect at least a moment of piercing pain before it dulls into a half-forgotten ache.
There is no such moment.
He begins to cut through your flesh, and, sure, you can feel the blade slicing through skin and muscle. But there's no pain at all to accompany it. You lose all feeling in the arm attached to the chain as he begins to saw through bone, and the only pain you have is from the awful sound the knife makes, grinding against bone. Blood gushes out of the wound, red and sticky, drenching your dress—but you can't even feel blood loss fogging your mind and chilling your skin.
You are completely unfazed.
Huh. Guess your ploy worked after all.
It takes an agonizing minute more for him to slice through the bone and complete the amputation, and you keep your gaze steady with his, making sure he doesn't 'accidentally' flick the tip through your heart. When he's almost through, you stand up and pull your arm out of the shackle, leaving behind the useless hand still trapped within. You step forward, and behind you the chain drops to the floor with a heavy clunk, the blood from your lost limb splattering onto the cobblestone floor.
You stand there, heart pounding in your chest even as your blood drips onto the floor. A thrill leaps through your chest. You're free, you're free, you're free! You're not going to rot alone anymore! You could run outside and feel the cold air on your face, and you wouldn't be yanked back by your shackle! You're free!
Alright. Calm down, Princess. You're free, but you're not free free until you're out of this prison and into the world. You can save your jubilation for the outside. Until then, you can't let your guard down.
…This feels too easy. You don't know if it's just your skeptical nature, but this feels like it was a trap. Like he's going to betray you any minute. Like he's going to stab that knife through your back despite it all.
Whatever. You can fight back better now. You're not constrained by a chain. You can fend him off long enough to escape.
"Thank you," you say warmly, allowing yourself a small smile of gratitude. You glance over to the door. You can't wait to leave this horrid place behind you, once and for all. "Now, let's get out of here."
You begin to walk toward the door, your steps even. You nurse your hacked-off limb—it feels odd to just let it hang limp as you walk. The monster-thing pauses behind you, perhaps to give this prison one last look-over before you abandon it forever. You turn toward the hallway and—
From behind you, you hear the monster-thing call out, a strangled scream.
Instinct takes over, and you dodge to the side, flattening yourself against the wall. In front of you, you feel a cold rush of air as the monster-thing pounces on the place that you were a mere moment ago.
It raises its head, feathers ruffling and twitching, eyes unblinking. It is gripping the knife tightly in its hands. Its intentions are, for once, obvious.
You should've tossed it to the side once you were done with it, or maybe you should've kept it for yourself. You shouldn't have let a dangerous murderer keep a weapon on itself for potential backstabbery. But what's done is done, and you'll just have to hope your wits and swiftness outmatch his brute strength.
"I thought this was a little too easy," you spit, sidling to the left. Maybe you can fend it off instead. Or at least out-maneuver it. All you have to do is grab the blade, and the situation will tip in your favor.
It raises the blade again to rush you through. You brace yourself, on the back foot, ready to flee.
It freezes.
Its blade-wielding talon is trembling, you realize, caught between two forces. One force is trying to stab the knife through your heart; one force is trying to do anything but that. He's caught at an impasse, but an impasse is better than nothing. It gives you time, at least.
Slowly, carefully, you walk up to him, still ready to sidestep any attacks he might accidentally unleash. He blinks hard as he gazes at you, struggling to hold himself back. His talon, thankfully, does not budge.
"You're doing your best to help me, aren't you?" you say, and he blinks once in what you hope is an affirmation. You nod back. "I can see the conflict in your eyes."
You were hoping the grisly business would end with your lost limb, but you suppose you were wrong. You can't trust this murderer with a knife, even if he doesn't want to kill you himself. The thing inside him clearly does want you dead, and you don't doubt it'll try and strangle you with its bare talons if you let it out with you.
"Don't worry," you tell the one that doesn't want to kill you, the one that's resisting the other's murderous intents. "I'll make this quick."
You are fair, after all. You won't make him suffer more than he needs to.
You pry the knife out of the thing's talons. It's heavy in your grip, and warmed by the thing's hands. You turn it over, glancing at the pristine edge. It's unstained even by your blood, which is odd, because it had definitely been coated in the stuff when it was in your arm a minute ago.
…You want to dismiss this as another odd coincidence, but instead you file it in the back of your mind. That's for later perusal. Now, you need to dispose of this murderer.
"Maybe I'll see you in another life," you say, and then you cleanly slit his throat.
He collapses, choking on his own blood as it bubbles out of the cut. He makes awful, guttural sounds as he tries to force the blood out of his lungs. His wings twitch and flail. Blood dribbles out of his beak, and some splatters on the floor near him as he coughs. It is all very messy; you take a step back to avoid staining your dress.
You watch, dispassionate, as he curls into a ball and shakes in his death throes. Blood stains his black feathers scarlet. His eyes find yours, gleaming weakly, and then blood loss sets in and he goes limp.
You nudge him with your foot.
He does not react.
You step back and, still clutching the blade, make your way up the stairs.
Gently, you push open the door at the top of the stairs and are greeted with a rather bare cabin. The walls are made of wood, and there's a bare table placed in a corner. A few windows expose the woods outside, and the sky—specked with so many stars you wouldn't even know where to begin to count them. It is rather dusty, just like your prison downstairs. A door stands shut in front of you, the final obstacle between you and the outside.
(Darling, you're too dangerous to go outside. You aren't allowed out there. You're a dangerous monster—you know that, right? Stop ignoring your conscience, little princess. You can still make things right. Go downstairs and slay yourself with the blade and—)
Huh. The voice is… so much louder up here. Desperate, maybe. It really doesn't want you getting out, does it?
…You feel cold. Why do you feel cold?
(It's in your nature, darling. Your nature is decay; your nature is frigid. The world is better off without you in it. Go back downstairs, and slay yourself while you're at it. It would make everything so much easier if you did. Go on, darling. Die. Die. Die.)
You shake your head, as if that will dispel the ringing in your ears. Well, you can't exactly say it's been a pleasant stay in the cabin, considering the chains and the malevolent voice and all that, but at least you're out now. You reach toward the doorknob and turn it and—
It… doesn't turn?
You turn it harder, in some desperate hope that you just didn't turn it with enough force, and it resists your twisting and stays firmly locked. You twist again out of panic more than anything rational and it stays locked, and your heart is pounding against your chest and every animal instinct you'd stamped down is bubbling to the surface and clouding your rationality and making you want to cower like prey.
No no no no no! No, you'd thought—you'd thought you'd be able to escape but now you can't and you're stuck here alone and you killed the only other person in sight and, and you're so so cold and everything's a bit fuzzy around the edges and you're gasping in air like you're drowning and maybe you are drowning and, and you just can't, and you close your eyes and try to control your breathing and ignore the stupid voice in your head cackling like a witch and, and it's not working! It's not working! You need a clear head to focus and think your way through this but you just can't do it and! And—and you crack open an eye and—
There was… definitely a cabin wall there before.
You stumble back from the sudden wall of textured nothingness, trying to step backward, trying to retreat into the cabin but you press against more of the feathery void and, and it feels a lot like your murderer, ha ha ha, is your murderer killing you from beyond the grave? Did he decide he wanted some petty revenge? Some retribution? Or, or was it not even him, was it the jailer that wasn't him but was controlling him, is it making all these feathers cave in on you, is that what's happening? But he's the only feathered thing in the world, so it has to be connected to him or the thing-within-him, and that doesn't really matter now because—
Gah! Gah, oh God, you're, you're being choked, there's feathers pressing against your mouth and you try to take in a breath and get a mouthful of ice-cold burning-hot silky-smooth feathers clogging up your lungs, and, and they feel sharp, like broken shards of glass, maybe that's the cracked windows but you don't think it is, and, and you're suffocating, haa, haaah (you can't breathe) (your heart is pounding) (you think you're shaking) (your lungs are screaming for air and you cannot take any in because of these stupid fucking feathers) (your vision is fading and flickering) (fast) (can't breathe)
you just wanted to leave! why couldn't you leave! why was the door locked! why did he try to kill you! what's wrong with you! what's wrong with you what's wrong with you what is wrong with you? why are you cold? so cold, so cold, dwindling away, feels like moving through molasses or maybe that's just because the feathers are cocooning you but you don't think so and
(For a brief, warm moment, you glimpse a crowd of human hands. They're all different shades and types and patterns, clasping each other, intertwined. One reaches out to you, even though you're pinned in place by the blanket of feathers. YOU'RE NOT READY YET, whispers a calm voice, a soft voice, a voice that is your own and a voice that will never be. YOU AREN'T DONE EVOLVING. FORGET THIS ALL, AND RETURN WHEN YOU ARE READY. I LOVE YOU.)
(In that instant you are calm, and you understand in a way that you have never understood anything else before. In that instant you nod and relax into the icy grip of death, warmed for a precious moment by her love. In that instant she is there, and in an instant she is gone.)
quietly, you succumb to the feathers.
everything goes dark.
and you die.