(Link to part 2 in comments)
I’m… I’m worn out; worn down. I can barely focus on speaking, eating, thinking… And… you know what? I don’t even have the energy to feel afraid anymore.
My body is covered in pinpricks of pain from the pieces that Peekaboo would remove. They sapped my strength like a couple dozen tiny vampire bat bites. My bed is riddled with small spatters and spots of blood from the holes in my flesh.
I resigned myself to my fate around the time I last contacted the masses, and my fucks have grown fewer over the last while; I haven’t left my home in two weeks. Grocery delivery and short-term disability have been my life support; I’m at the point where I’m considering pulling the plug. There’s no point in living as a toy. I don’t know why Peekaboo hasn’t killed me. It seemed content to… “sample” me… whenever it felt like it.
When I woke today, Peekaboo was nowhere to be seen. I drudged myself towards the computer, intending on typing… well, a final farewell, I guess. There was an open document on the screen; it appeared that Peekaboo taught itself to use the computer. I most definitely did not type this. Here’s what it was:
*Tap tap tap tap*
The sound of these little plastic pieces…
*Tap tap tap*
Creating lovely words…
*Tap tap taptaptaptap*
It’s…so…delightful: like bone against bone; like slow steady dripping of blood from a wound; like…
Like my fingers against glass as I adored my new companion.
He called me something… Peekaboo…
I liked it; Peekaboo. I peek, then I “boo.” It was sweet for him to give me such a name. He’s so lovely. He’s so delicious! He’s my favorite out of all the ones I’ve found, and I’ve found so many delectable morsels, begging for my attention. But this new one… he’s…. so very, very tasty…
I shuddered despite my apathy. I could barely continue reading but felt compelled nonetheless:
He was… so kind to me… accepting me into his home. Most of those I visit end up leaving me. My last tasty morsel did…something; there was a lot of blood, and they stopped moving after a while. I think it’s called “died.” Dying? What’s dying like? My new friend lays in his oh-so-sweet bed, and…sleeps? Yes, sleeps. Is that like dying? I don’t like it when he sleeps; I can’t watch the trembling fear cross his face whenever I scuttle close to taste his flesh. His flesh is so-ooo swe-eeet, so scrumptious, like honey and bile and blood sugar. His terror is even more delicious; it fills me with a… a… joyous exuberance! It explodes out of me in a tittering song of rapture!
He sleeps now, twisting, and turning, and groaning and moaning and whimpering and crying and….
Hmmm…
Maybe this sleeping-thing is more enjoyable than I thought. Maybe I’ll play a lovely little game with him. I’ve spent so much time enjoying him, caressing him, pulling out hairs, pulling out fingernails, consuming them…
I feel it’s time to surprise him…
I know! Hide and seek!! I’ll hide, and when he wakes to seek, I’ll stay hidden until he thinks I’m gone! I did this, once, right after he so-lovingly invited me in. I hid inside his food-room, and when he reached up to get something he placed his hand right on top of my hungry, waiting tongue. The fear it instilled in him tasted just as good as his skin. His scream was so…. SO-OOO scrumptious. I shuddered with pleasure.
I think about when I first heard his need; his need for fear; his need to feel that ringle-tingle running down his spine and the pit of his belly.
I visit people who have a terrible disregard for the terror. Their terror lives tied and twisted and buried deep in their hearts, waiting to be coaxed, and coerced into manifesting. It compels me. I know nothing but the urge, the impulse, to rectify that lack. I know no other need; I want no other need.
I don’t know where I go between desires: it’s a place of nothing; a place of emptiness; a place of silence like the space between the inhale of breath and the exhale of screaming; a place no sweetness ever existed! It infuriates me when I cannot have my delicious morsels!
But then… his desire awakened me; I existed! Once again, I existed! He drew me to him, with his rage and frustration, his desire to fear AND WHEN I SAW HIM?!
I wanted to help him; I needed to help him. I wanted to dig into him and wrench out his horror to sate the vicious desire as it resonated in the pits of my bones and my teeth ached in longing.
But… I couldn’t. I couldn’t! I couldn’t get to him! I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t TOUCH HIMMMM!!! I needed to! Wanted to! I watched his every move, growing hungrier inside but delighting in the way his fear kept trickling out like an oozing sore more and more when he would see me. Flavorful! That was me! I DID that! I made the fear come out! I was so happy!
And now… now, he finally realised that I was meant for him! He invited me! A terrible tandem to take the terror to new tippy-tops! Fun!
Well… it HAS been fun… and yet…
Something has started changing. No, no, no no nonono… but yes! It’s changed, small, different, but, no, it didn’t…
BUT IT DID, DAMN YOUR EYES! LOOK!!
NO! Not him! Not my precious sweet meat-skin…
The sugar started salting and is no longer as sweet when I tasted him. His twitching was barely a reflex; the fear didn’t bore into the core of his heart in the most satisfying of ways anymore. The fear…fluttered. It fluttered like the baby birds!
I’m… I’m afraid of losing my sweet, sweet companion… losing his delicious fear… maybe…
Maybe it’s time to initiate… the transfer? Maybe it’s time… to become other…
Hide and seek will have to wait. I need to consider.
I shivered; this made me cringe and squirm in the deepest parts of my belly. I was… well, I was appalled, and a little bit mystified; aside from the terrifying content, I didn’t know the creature could be so… eloquent. And the… affection it seemed to have for me. It gave me goosebumps, but… it was, admittedly, in a perverted sort of way, kind of sweet.
The message also left a sour taste in my mouth; I had done this to myself. I literally summoned this demon with my own petulant and ungracious behaviour.
“Become other,” though… I did not enjoy the sound of that… it gave me the impression that Peekaboo had more up its sleeve than torture.
I heard a scuffling from the corner of the room, and I trepidatiously turned towards it. Peekaboo was perched on top of my wardrobe, head nestled between its hands like a recalcitrant hounddog. It seemed…subdued.
Its demeanour had changed lately. It… God, I feel stupid, but it didn’t seem happy anymore. Am I mad for feeling just the tiniest bit of pity for it? It terrorised me, tortured me, taunted and tormented me, but… it always seemed so… enraptured… when doing so. Lately, it looked almost as jaded as I felt.
I met its eyes; it stared back, unblinking, looking… pensive. Considering. I started when it spoke to me.
“You lost your sweet, sweet flavour,” it croaked reproachfully, still considering me with its rheumy, too-big eyes. “You lost your sweetness and it frustrates me.”
I was taken aback. There was a hint of accusation in its voice! As if I had done something intential to slight it! I gaped, wordless, and fumbled to find my voice. Incredulity and anger filled my chest.
“I… I’m sorry? I frustrate you?! You act as if I stole something from you! What about me! What about EVERYTHING you did to me? The stalking and hounding and torture and EVERY FUCKING THING YOU TOOK FROM ME! GO FUCK YOURSELF!”
It quivered, but it didn’t seem like anger, or indignation. It almost seemed to be… regret.
“Peekaboo didn’t want to take your fear. Peekaboo wanted to help you. To be with you. To give you the fear you oh-so craved in the deepest caverns of your heart. Peekaboo didn’t want thissss!” It wailed and hissed in a parody of anguish.
It was an uncomfortable sensation feeling both appalled and sympathy for such a creature. “S-… so, that… ‘becoming other’ thing, you mentioned…”
Peekaboo flashed to life, scuttling down the wardrobe and scurrying across the floor faster than thought; before I could even react it was upon me, clutching my shirt, nose pressed to mine. It stared deeply, deeply into my eyes, a twisted lover’s stare. I had thought fear was beyond me but I felt the all-too-familiar tingle in the pit of my stomach. What was this? What was going to happen?
“Other… yes… other! Tell me! Do you want this to end? Do you want me to stop mongering for your delicious fear? I don’t want this to end! End the sweetness?! I don’t want to lose your sweet sweet flavour.”
Its foul breath washed over me, and it took a second to process the words. End it? End this seemingly ceaseless onslaught of torture? “At…” I cleared my throat. “At what cost? What will it cost to end this nightmare?”
It dropped away, scurrying backwards, eyes still locked on mine, to the corner of the room by the computer desk. It sat for a long, long time, never blinking, never moving. I started to sweat from the anticipation and anxiety.
“Acc-cccept me” it hissed.
I blinked. Accept it? Didn’t I already do that?
“What do you mean, accept? Didn’t I accept you already? You’re… you’re here, aren’t you?”
“Accept me! Embrace me! Take me into your bosom and let me be of you!”
I was confused, and filled with a disjointed feeling I couldn’t identify. I couldn’t understand what it meant; I didn’t know if I wanted to. I wanted this ordeal to end, but what did it mean to accept Peekaboo?
“What happens to me if I… accept you?”
“US! What happens to US! Nasty human. Nasty! It happens to us!”
I was taken aback. It hadn’t occurred to me that Peekaboo would be affected by this “becoming.” Its written message gained more gravity in my mind.
“Us… It’s something that affects us both?”
“Grrrrrrrr-…” The growl seeping from its throat reminded me of a beast. It was angry. It didn’t like what we were talking about as much as I did.
“Us-ssss… Nasty! Both of us! We lose what we find sweet and we find what we want, both! Us! Let us be, or let us continue!” Peekaboo was as agitated as it had been before I invited it into my life by leaving that God-forsaken window open.
“Why can’t you just go?! Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone and leave?!”
“Nnnnnooooo! No! No! No! No!
I am here! Peekaboo is here! Here to make the fear come forth in all its delicacy! I cannot… ‘go’…” It growled again.
I slumped in dismay. It appeared this was an “all or nothing” scenario. What did I do? What did I have to lose? A lifetime of minute torture? An eternity of… of… of sweet treatment? All I felt was despair. All I felt was… a sense of inevitability. Resignation… Acceptance
“Fine. Fine, you win. Peekaboo, I accept you.”
Immediately it sprung to life, scrambling towards me, its eyes wider than I’ve ever seen, bulging, filled with pure insanity. The grin it sported split its face as neatly as an axe. It was a smile of rapture. It was a smile of relief. It was a smile of a thing delighting in the sweetest treat ever existed. It climbed me, fingernails digging through my clothes into my skin, climbing closer, grasping my head with its two skeletal hands, snake-like skin rasping across my cheeks.
“You are… so beautiful.”
And then it kissed me.
The world went dark.
****
Darkness. Everything was dark. Nothing. No pain. No hunger. No… anything.
*Yesss…*
I heard the whisper.
*Yesss… welcome to the dark. Welcome to nothing. Welcome, to my home.*
Dark. Darkness. Dark like the absence of life. Dark like…-
There! A pull! A flash! There! Life! Hunger! I hungered!
*Yes-sssssssss….* I heard Peekaboo whisper in my head.
Suddenly, I was. I existed. I could see! Grass. Dew-covered grass coloured teal in the early-evening darkness. I could move! I could FEEL!
*There… look!* the all-too familiar voice hissed.
I raised my head. A window. A window lit from within. And a sense of… anger. Frustration. Arrogance! An arrogance that burned in the pit of my stomach. An arrogance that must be quashed!
*Yes-sss….* Peekaboo’s voice hissed yet again.
I moved. I engaged my limbs and crawled, closer, closer to the light. I could see! See into the window. See a girl, sitting on her bed. She was peering into her phone, a look of pure dissatisfaction on her face. She wasn’t happy. Maybe…
Maybe I could make her happy?
*Time to get to work* Peekaboo voiced in a nihilistic parody of joy.