10/03: Rot

A/N:

Burreno - The Xaranian equivalent of the mixture used for tapioca pearls in boba tea.

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I’m ... I don’t know anymore. I think this notebook is the only “real” thing in this place, I just ... give me a second to think, everything’s foggy and I’m currently soaked in the blood of my ... no, those weren’t Mercedes and Melchior. I didn’t kill my poochies; I didn’t kill my poochies.

I don’t know what anything is anymore. I don’t even know if the person I hugged in my arms was even Ery to begin with or another false person. God, it’s just so messed up; I don’t know if I’ve totally lost him and everyone I know and I’m all alone again or if maybe Ery was taken somewhere--right, okay, I need to keep it together.

So I was right about earlier, I was right that everything I was seeing wasn’t real, or it’s not ... it’s not what I know. It just started out with me coming back from the weird Rowdy Raven place to the Magic Shop with Ery. I’d set down the keg on the kitchen counter, and I think the first thing I should have noticed was how “chill” Ery seemed.

I’m not saying is Ery is super uptight, but he’s not exactly relaxed on certain things. If I were to bring a keg of beer and be reaching into the Burreno mix; he’d put two and two together and just start fussing over me a bit and helping me make everything while warning me not to get carried away with the alcohol. It’s just what he does, he frets about me getting too drunk and having a hangover the next day, so that’s what he does.

But he didn’t do that, and I know this is going to sound like it’s not a big deal but it is--it’s honestly a big deal. He just smiled at me, welcomed me back home, hugged me, and then began helping me unload the keg and asked if I’d like some help with the Burreno. Now listen, I just -- after everything that’s happened, I suddenly had this to deal with all in the same day.

After noticing that shifty as hell reaction from him, I’m just standing there, just trying not to flip out and shake Ery because, again, maybe it’s just me and maybe I’m not in some weird dimension forced on me from some being as I try to go about the day.

“Ah, yeah!” I answered him, managing the best, natural smile I can muster. “Sure, I can’t wait to totally drink all these down -- it’s gonna be a party tonight, that’s for sure.”

That was half said as me being myself, but half said as a test--Ery’s always been reserved about me being this way. Even if he’d let me do it, his face would always show that slight look of apprehension before agreeing to or before telling me he wasn’t okay with me doing something. I know Ery, we’ve been together for barely a year, but I know how to read him because we’ve been through so much together.

Please, I half beg to him and myself silently. C’mon, Ery, please...

“Ah, yes!” he clapped his hands together, making my heart stop beating faster than a drum, “That would be wonderful! I’ll make sure I put a Xaranian-style taste to the beer then, if you will let me?”

“Aha, yeah!” I agreed with him while screaming on the inside in panic, “Give me a second, okay Ery? I’m gonna go fix myself up.”

Maybe it wasn’t a good thing, but I’m awfully quick to notice when Mercedes and Melchior aren’t around. I mean, those poochies are my children--I’d defend them to here and back and they’d do the same for me. I didn’t hear the little clacking of their paws on the floor of the shop nor their sniffing and slight grunting so, naturally, I seek them out. After all, I’m already being creeped out by Ery’s relaxedness when I know he would not be relaxed at all, so the least I could ask for is a breather by cuddling my two fur babies.

“Mercedes?” I let out a whistle as I called for them, stepping outside the back door of the Magic Shop, “Melchior? Here fellas, daddy’s home! Come to daddy!”

Nothing; no bark, no attitude-filled “woof,” absolutely zilch.

Okay, I frowned a bit, really feeling alone and just weirded out by all of this. So, they’re not around the shop? But Ery would never let them roam so casually like that? At least, I really don’t remember him being the type to do such a thing -- he’d always be worried about those two getting attacked when we’re not around to defend ’em.

I hopped over the fence and strolled around the small neighborhood and miniature shops, trying to search for them, repeatedly calling for their names and whistling. At one point, I managed to dig out one of their treats from my pockets and start waving it around in my vain attempt to get them to come to me, “Mercedes? Melchior? C’mere boys, it’s me, Lucio!”

If it wasn’t clear that whatever’s been happening to me was twisting what I knew into something else, then it certainly was now. I hadn’t smelled it before, but something in the air stank, it was far more strong and pungent than what I’d smell down by the docks. I pinched my nose, still calling for my poochies despite how stuffed and nasal-y I sounded, “Come on, boys, don’t you wanna come back home? Where you’ve got treats, good food, and a place that doesn’t stink so much?”

About a few feet away from me, I think I hear something, A growl?

“Grr...” the creature’s call comes again before going quiet for a few seconds. Instinctively, I tighten my golden arm around the hilt of my sword; something isn’t right. I’ve heard the boys growl before, it never went that low and guttural; even if the two were growing while eating their chops. I don’t know how to properly put into words how unnatural the noise I heard was, or how it sounded more like something trying to mimic a dog but failing at it hard, but I knew something was off.

Cautiously, slowly making my way around the corner, I saw the source of the noise. It was Mercedes and Melchior but they were feasting ravenously upon a corpse. The pungent smell that had been lingering in the air was overwhelming, and I was already on the verge of puking until I saw what the two dogs were feeding on--a decaying corpse. The face had long been chewed away from the insects and beetles that had gathered in on the feast, but the white strands of hair told me everything I needed to know.

“Az...” I shakily gasp, unable to keep quiet. I regretted that decision immediately as not only did what I thought was Mercedes and Melchior stopped their movements but every creature present just seemed to stop. There was an uneasy tension between me, what looked like my dogs, and the heebie-jeebie-inducing insects having a banquet on Az’s corpse; it felt like I wasn’t supposed to have seen something, and maybe that was the case.

I’m still gripping the sword’s hilt tightly as the two dogs slowly turned their heads towards me and began heading my way. The insects didn’t even fly or move away, only remaining still on Az’s body as Mercedes and Melchior approached me.

“H-hey boys,” I greeted them, my voice shaky at their ... stilted movements, I think that’s what best describes it. They just didn’t walk like dogs would; they walked like they’d never been dogs to begin with, even though they appeared to be normal. “You enjoying your...”

What I thought was Melchior barked at me, and it sounded normal. As reckless and stupid as it was, I thought this mean everything was fine and maybe them eating Az’s dead body was just my imagination. I leaned forward, at least having the brains to think to use my metal arm instead of my flesh-y arm to pet Melchior when I finally see it. It’s only a brief flash but the sloughing flesh, the blacked areas of what were once skin peeled back to reveal more of the daggered, plaque-riddened teeth, the masses of buzzing beetles, flies, worms, and insects feasting on what I can only think is a walking corpse version of my poochie ... I pulled my hand back and took off running.

As I headed back to the Magic Shop, everything around me changed again. The smell was now everywhere, and it had grown so much in strength that I could feel my stomach churning from how putrid it was to my senses. At some point in my fleeing, I could hear the barking of one of them just before they lunged at me, and out of self-preservatino and fear I drew my sword and cut through the jugular of one of my poochies with ease.

What I’ll always hate the most out of all this, is the fact that the decaying corpse of a dog that I know those two truly looked like and weren’t my dogs never showed when I killed them. Whatever was causing all this wanted me to suffer as I heard Melchior let out a whimper as his blood sprayed onto my suit a bit before his body fell lifelessly to the burgundy stone street and bled out.

The not-Mercedes had long lost his domestic side as he had no issue coming after me and trying to land some lethal bites on me. In our scuffle I managed to lose our sword and was forced, by metal hand, to cut through his jugular as well before taking off, hopping over the fence, and slipping back inside the shop with my back slumped to the backyard door.

The notebook I’d kept was now laying on the floor next to me along with its pen, and since then, I’ve just been writing everything that’s happened to me. Maybe it can’t be seen now but I’m shaking, I’m wondering if maybe I just killed my two dogs and that I was hallucinating the walking corpse I saw. But that can’t be a hallucination, the smell is so awful; how could that not be real? I saw what I saw, Az was dead, Ery wasn’t being Ery, and my poochies were living-dead poochies -- that has to be true.

I’m going to stop writing now. I need to rest, I need sleep; I don’t know where I am and I’m all alone.

I hope Ery is okay, I really hope nothing happened to Ery.