Scraps of my words, stories and flash fiction.

Happy birthday to me, and happy birthday to The God Key! 🥳

Thank you all so much more for your support, encouragement and feedback on my writing over the last seven years (bloody hell) I've been writing on here <3 It has meant a lot. I really hope you enjoy this one too.

Please let me/the interwebs know what you think. Rate. Review. Share. All that jazz!

I also promised I would share a masterlist of links on the day so...here we go :)

Print options

Ebook options:

Read the first chapter here FREE.

Click here for The God Key on Goodreads

"It feels good, doesn't it?" the villain asked. Their voice was soft. Too soft, really.

The hero's shoulders tensed.

The villain smiled at them. It looked like such a lovely guileless smile; the hero couldn't believe it for a second. Not when the villain was gazing up at them from the floor of a prison cell.

"Winning?"

The villain's smile grew. Their eyes crinkled at the corners. "Betrayal."

The hero swallowed hard. Their heart gave a lurching little stutter. They should have turned away right there and then, abandoned the villain to their fate, but the even more terrible truth of it rooted their feet to the spot.

The villain craned up on their knees, unable to go much further with their hands chained to the ground behind their back. It still put them at nearly the hero's diminutive height, a head below, neck craned up and offered like a sacrifice to meet the hero's eyes.

The villain wet their lips. "Powerful. In control. Cunning, even."

"Maybe that's what it feels like for you."

"Oh?" The villain's head tilted. "Are you bleeding out on the inside for me, then?"

The hero had done what was necessary. They had won. They didn't know if it made them a good hero and a bad person that it did feel good, that they weren't bleeding out and aching for the person who they had pretended to love. All they felt was triumph.

The villain's smile finally turned into the vicious gorgeous thing that the hero knew. "You'll go out there and you'll act sad, stalwart in the face of your duty perhaps. You'll pretend to still be the sweet little thing you were, but you've had a taste now, haven't you? It is better to hurt then to be hurt."

"Oh?" The hero folded their arms and swaggered a step closer, towering, because there was no one else around to see them except the one person who already knew their worst. Their monster. They leaned down, so that their lips nearly brushed. "Are you bleeding out on the inside for me?"

"Yes."

The hero's heart gave another lurching little stutter. Less shocked now, less frozen, more of a guilty squirming thrill. Awful. Enticing. Sick to the soul. They wanted to hear how the villain, after everything, was in agony. How they were second guessing everything, every second, every kiss. How they would be haunted by the wounds the hero had left upon them, never able to forget exactly which of them had come out on top in the end.

They hadn't used to be like that. They hadn't used to feel like that.

"It hurts exquisitely," the villain breathed, holding their gaze. "My, my, how far you've come. I always said you'd make a beautiful monster. I did teach you well, didn't I?"

The hero pulled back. "I did what I did because I had to. You do it for fun."

"Everyone starts out betraying people because they have to, love." The villain settled back down again on the floor in turn. "That's the gateway drug."

They stared at each for a long moment.

"Rot in hell," the hero said, and their voice was a little too soft too really. As if the softness they had for each other was anything but a honey-coated poison. "You had it coming."

The villain blew a kiss at their retreating back. "See you there, with all the other traitors."

It depends what you want the ending to be/what the story is about. AKA, what IS the plot? What is the larger point of your story? What does your protagonist want?/what is their driving motivation?

Plot = goal + conflict

Plot = goal; conflict; climax; resolution

Your protagonist should have a good reason driving their corruption arc. People don't change just because.

The protagonist could join the antagonist at the end as a final mark of their absolute corruption. If the story was about how a person can become corrupted, then that would be the end because you have told the story you set out to tell.

However, the arc can also be part of a larger story, in which case that is not the end. A character arc is not the same as a plot. They often line up because that's a satisying story structure, with the character arc completing right before the climax of the story, but they don't have to.

if you wanted the story to continue, then the opposition would simply switch. E.g, it might be the protagonist's previous allies who now provide the obstacle to the protagonist’s goals. It might be that being on the antagonist's side resolves one conflict but leads to others. For example, the protagonist might ultimately decide that they don't want to share power with anyone, so they try a dark side coup. Whatever. This will be specific to the story.

What if joining the dark side doesn't give them what they want, though they thought it would? How would a darker protagonist strive to achieve their goal then? They've already sacrificed their morals and so much, they can't turn back now, right?

What if the protagonist got everything they wanted through succumbing to their flaws/corruption, but it is those same flaws that now threaten what they most want?

In many cases, a corruption arc/negative arc directly leads to the character's death/downfall. That's the tragedy. Or they get what they want...at massive cost/sacrifice of something else and must contend with that.

Either way, the key point here is that character arc and plot arc are not the same thing. Figure out what your protagonist wants. Everything else, including the arc, stems from that.

How to write a morally grey, revenge-driven protagonist...

Some of you will have seen this advice already when I originally posted it on tumblr...but here, in case you want a pretty version!

(For anyone it's glitching for, I've added the individual pages beneath the cut)

"Hey. You need anything?"

The weapon's head snapped up, sharp gaze fixing on them. They otherwise sat perfectly still where the rebel leader had left them. Lou had watched them, on and off, for the past hour.

"I brought you some tea. If you'd like it. I always find tea soothing when I'm in new, strange places." Lou offered a small smile as he held up the drink, stepping further into the room. "What's your name?"

"Name?"

"Yeah. What do you like to be called?"

"I'm the weapon."

"You like being called that?"

The weapon's head tilted the smallest fraction. "It is what I am called. It's what I've always been called."

Lou didn't let their smile slip, despite the sorrow-horror that notched through their heart at that. Now was hardly the time to push. "Okay," they said. "Well. Tea? I wanted to check in if you need anything?"

The weapon stared at them. It was the sort of stare that stripped a person to their component parts.

Lou cleared their throat. They crossed the room to set the tea mug down on a side table. "You hungry? Thirsty? Tired? You want - I don't know. A book or something? You don't have to just sit there."

"I was told you to stay here."

"Well, yes, but..." They didn't know how to explain that the difference been stay there, okay? and an actual command that had to be 100% followed. Lou took another step closer to the weapon. "You can stay there if you want to, but you're not our prisoner. You can wander around the base, you know? Go to the bathroom or...whatever. Get some sleep."

"You should stay back."

Lou stopped. "Sorry," they said. They held their hand up. "Not trying to scare you or anything. If-"

"-You do not scare me."

"Oh. Well, that's good!"

"I am dangerous."

Lou's brow furrowed slightly, because of course they knew that. They just weren't entirely sure what the weapon meant by the words. They didn't say it like a threat.

"You are kind," the weapon said. "I do not want to hurt you."

"Oh." Heat flooded Lou's face. "Well, then you probably won't, right?"

The weapon blinked.

"I mean," Lou said, after a beat, "you can control your abilities, right?"

"...yes." The weapon still seemed a little confused. "Of course."

"So you won't hurt me."

This seemed to be a new concept, judging by the look on the weapon's face. "I...won't hurt you."

"Yeah," Lou said. "You can choose not to."

"I can choose."

"Uhuh. But, hey. Even if you do hurt me, it's not the end of the world? Accidents happen."

"I can choose," the weapon said to themselves again, quietly. "I don't have to hurt people."

"And no one here is going to make you."

"You need weapons. You are losing."

"Yeah, but that's not why we helped you."

The weapon swallowed, hard. It was the most obviously human reaction that Lou had seen from them so far. As if all of the normal reactions, all of the emotions and pleasures and weaknesses of being human were something they had been forcibly trained out of having. They probably had.

"I don't have to hurt people," the weapon said, as if that idea had never occurred to them before. As if nobody had ever told them that before. They looked down at their hands, curling them in their lap. "Thank you."

"Oh, sure. Any time!" It didn't seem like enough to offer, after everything that the weapon had been through. "And if you need - if you want - anything else, just ask. Okay?"

The weapon stared at them once more. After a long moment, they gave a small nod.

"Would you like me to stay and sit with you for a while?" Lou asked, as gently as they could. "Or would you like me to leave you alone? Either one is fine."

"Stay." It was barely audible. Hoarse.

"Cool. Do you want the tea?"

"I am...very thirsty."

Lou brought the tea over, then took a seat next to the weapon.

The weapon cradled the mug in their hands like they were afraid it would shatter. They swallowed again. Their hands shook the smallest, barely perceptible fraction.

"Careful," Lou said. "It's-" The weapon's gaze snapped to them once more. "It's hot," Lou finished. "I don't want you to get hurt. Scald your tongue."

The weapon took the most careful sip. Then they relaxed, the smallest fraction, at Lou's side. "It's nice." They hesitated, then smiled themselves. Tentative, fragile. "You're nice."

"Well, I certainly try to be," Lou said, with a weak laugh. They rubbed a hand over the back of their head. "We should all try to be."

The weapon drank their tea in silence, watching. Listening, as Lou filled the space with idle chatter about the base and the people there and their favourite kind of tea that their grandma always used to make.

The weapon quietly followed them everywhere around base after that.

Glad you're enjoying it! And Gabriel!

(The God Key is my novel)

I'm vaguely familiar with personality tests and types in general, but it isn't something I focused on while developing the characters. (I had to look up what 1W9 was because I knew there were types, but not the subdivisions!)

That said, I did put a lot of thought into the characters and their stances to the key conflicts in the book, so I'm glad it's appreciated! :D

I started with Gabriel because he was the clearest in my head from the start, with Isaac as a close second because I have a habit of character-creating in pairs. You'll possibly have noticed they directly mirror each other's attitudes a lot.

As a brief example:

Gabriel is a very certain person and believes in objective morality, which he believes means we absolutely must help people and do good whenever we can. Isaac is a very uncertain person and believes in subjective morality, so how the hell do we decide what's right enough to try and force our values on everyone else?

I was very interested in The God Key in exploring the way having super-powers might utterly break you as a person, especially side by side with a lot of our tropes of 'one person can save the world!' Like, what would it look like if you actually believed that about yourself? What would it look like if you knew you could, but fundamentally didn't think you had the right to?

Dahlia might be the most well-adjusted of the lot? Idk.

Anyway. I'm not sure I know enough about enneagram types to correctly evaluate them, so I would absolutely love to hear everyone's opinions!

The villain woke up on a sofa. It would have been fine, except for the fact that it wasn't their sofa.

They bolted upright, heart jack-knifing, gaze sweeping around the room. Plants and bits of scrap and bolts of metal everywhere. Tools. A mess of sharp things.

The hero stepped into the doorway, clutching two steaming mugs of tea. Their eyes widened.

The villain was already on them; tea flying, fingers curled tight around the hero's throat, knocking the air out of them as they tackled them down hard onto the floor, straddling the hero's hips.

"Easy!" The hero wheezed, holding their hands above their head. "I'm not-"

"-Where am I?"

"My home. I'm not going to hurt you."

"You kidnapped me."

The memories filtered through and the villain's brow furrowed. The hero was saying something, starting to look a bit frantic with the crushing grip around their windpipe, but the villain wasn't listening.

Distractedly, their hand rose to the back of their neck, where their neural network was. They remembered the splintering damage. Wiring visible. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

All they felt beneath their hand was smooth skin. Perfectly fine.

The villain's hand recoiled from the hero's neck, but they didn't get up, staring at them.

The hero gasped for air.

The villain's eyes narrowed.

"You saved me," they said. "You...fixed me."

The hero managed a nod.

"Why?"

"Can you...get off me?"

The villain put their hand on the hero's throat again, but didn't squeeze. They felt the hero swallow beneath their palm. Warm and soft and oh so fragile.

"Did you change anything?" the villain asked, low and lethal.

"N-no." The hero's eyes were still so very wide. "I didn't even know until I saw that you weren't - that you are -" The hero floundered.

The villain's jaw clenched.

Cyborg. Android. They weren't entirely certain which was the best descriptor for exactly what they were. Born, but not made. Born, then remade? Something. A human heart and human coverings, but not much else beneath the surface that could truly be called flesh and blood.

"I've never seen anything like you," the hero whispered. "But I did my best to help."

The villain's gaze swept the room again, catching once more on the scrap and the tools. Not a torture chamber. The cramped home of someone who liked to tinker. Who were, whether they were quite aware of it or not, exceptionally skilled at tinkering.

They should definitely kill the hero, for knowing as much as they did. It would be easy to do. They'd taken the hero by surprise, they already had them pinned. All it would take was a twist of their wrist and the hero's neck would snap.

The hero didn't claw at them. They didn't try and persuade the villain to let go. They wet their clearly dry lips, like they were considering trying to say something.

"Why?" the villain asked, again.

"Because that's what I do." The hero seemed nonplussed. "I try to fix things. I try to help."

The villain stroked their thumb along the line of the hero's neck. The hero's breath - already unsteady - gave a noticeable quiver. They swallowed again. Their fingers twitched on the floor.

"You seem fine, anyway," they mumbled. "So you can go, if you like. I should clean up the tea."

"You did not think to restrain me."

"I thought about it."

"But you did not."

"I didn't want you to wake up scared."

The hero sounded like they were being honest, but so did most skilled liars. Still.

The villain couldn't quite bring themselves to kill the hero, as convenient and swift as it could be. The hero was warm beneath them.

"I'm never scared," the villain said, proving precisely that point about liars and their convictions. They rose to their feet, watching the hero still splayed beneath their legs for a moment.

Stamp. End it. Fix nothing. The world did not, after all, deserve to be fixed.

"Thank you," the villain said.

The hero backed up, into the tea stain, standing when the wall was against their back to support them and they were as far away from the villain as they could be. Their eyes stayed glued to the villain, but they summoned a smile that also looked genuine.

A surprise.

Everything about the hero was surprising.

The villain wanted to smile back. They did not.

"I know I said you could go," the hero said, after a moment. "But I would like to run some tests. I'm pretty sure you're fine - the injury was mostly surface, minor. But..." They shrugged.

"You wish to examine me."

The hero cleared their throat, scrubbing a hand over the back of their own neck. "You can say no."

The villain did not say no. They backed up to the sofa they had woken up on and sat down.

The hero approached them, after a beat. They were gentle.

The villain fled out the window when the hero went to make more tea, heart jack-knifing for an entirely different reason whenever they saw the hero after that.

The vampire recognised the scent of them immediately. Part of them thought it might be wishful thinking. The other part burned with thirst and longing and too many raw things for any one person - supposedly soulless vampire or not - to cope with.

If they needed to breathe, they would have been breathless.

It wasn't them.

It couldn't be them.

"Jesus," they heard their lovely and inexplicable love murmur. "What have they done to you?!"

The sounds of the world grew a little louder as the human began to tear down the wall around them, inch by cold and concrete inch. The vampire felt like they had been trapped for a very long time.

(They suspected that they might have been trapped for a very long time).

The sound of that blood, that impossibly familiar blood, roared in their ears. A heartbeat. A lifeline. A hangman's noose.

"Don't." The words were inaudible with disuse. The whisper of cracked plaster and old bones long since desiccated.

Cool air caressed the hollow of the vampire's throat as that part of the wall was shattered through first. The vampire couldn't see them straight away, there was only the agony of hope. Glimpses.

Their love had a new haircut - something of the contemporary style, perhaps? Their eyes were so much older than their face. Their lips were pressed in a harsh, trembling, utterly livid line.

Was it truly them?

Their love looked like a strange memory, not quite accurate to the version that the vampire knew. Different. The same. Younger?

The vampire tumbled out of their broken cage less like a deadly immortal apex predator and more like a Jenga tower made out of soggy potato wedges.

The human caught them, cradled them close, pressing frantic kisses atop their no-doubt horribly greasy hair.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner," the human said. "I thought you were dead. If I'd known - it's going to be okay now. You're going to be okay."

Maybe it was a hallucination.

Maybe the vampire had finally died.

That blood was so close, so enticing, a siren call that they were too pathetically weak to even reach for. They didn't feel like a living thing at all.

The vampire groaned.

"Blood." The human - the hallucination, the everything because if they were dead or hallucinating than at least the vampire got to see them again - blurted the word. "You need blood. Of course you need blood! You must be starving. Shit. Okay."

The kisses stopped crowning their head.

It was possible that hallucinations were supposed to hurt less.

The scent of blood grew stronger. Something was pressed against the vampire's mouth and -

They drank.

When the vampire came to themselves again, they had only the vaguest memory of stumbling out of the tunnels and into the inky night. The human's arm was warm and secure around them. There was a bed. Soft sheets. Fresh air. A growing strength returning to their body.

The room around them was clear. The human sitting by the bed was undoubtedly there, but still impossible. Still some miracle.

"You look a lot less dead now," the human said, apparently making a remarkable effort to keep their voice light. "That's good. Dead doesn't suit you."

"You died." The vampire had processed the grief for years, as if such loss could be neatly packaged and boxed away like a vampire feral with mourning.

"I came back. I didn't realise you had too."

"You're..." The vampire's brow furrowed. They sat up, slow and careful lest they terrify their definitely not a vampire but not quite mortal love.

"And you're a vampire," the human said. "Wow. When did that happen?"

"Shortly after you died. You died."

"Sorry. I didn't do it on purpose."

They stared at each other, disbelieving and so crippled by relief that it left them both shy and faltering.

What did one say to the reincarnated version of someone they had loved more than anything? What did one say to a blood-thirsty monster who had spent the last decade or so entombed in a wall?

It felt somewhere between a second chance, beautiful and shining and everything that they had ever wanted...and an utterly sick joke.

The vampire wanted to kiss them.

"And you're back," the vampire said.

"And you're a vampire."

"I didn't do it on purpose." They would never have chosen an eternity without their love on purpose and yet...there they sat. The vampire was glad that they didn't have to blink, didn't have to tear their attention away for even a millisecond.

Their hand twitched on the bedsheet. They were abruptly aware that a long chain connected their wrist to the headboard.

Their love coloured. "I wasn't sure if you'd try and eat me again. You weren't...you weren't quite yourself."

"It's okay."

"It's not okay. What they did to you - if I hadn't come back - if I'd found you sooner -" It was so like them that it had to be real, and so the vampire had to smile.

"It's okay," they said. "You're back. You found me."

Everything would be okay because they were there.

The moment after that, the two of them were clinging to each other like they were clutching for the last life boat off the Titanic.

Everything was going to be okay.

"God," the human mumbled into their neck, "I missed you. I thought I was - I thought I was alone. I thought you were gone."

"Never." The vampire kissed them, then, claiming and tender. "I'll never be gone again. I'll wait for you forever."

Their mortal would never wake up with that shattering grief again.

The vampire grew used to the exquisite pleasure-pain of the reincarnation cycles after that.

It's different for stories that are prompted on here and stories like The Blue Key, The Gallery of Broken Things or the Art of Turning 30 which I have come up with entirely independently and unprompted.

It's also sometimes different for stories that are prompted on here, and other stories I've written based on a prompt from a friend, such as Escapology, Half Sick of Shadows and My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose - but these are more similar because they are still varying degrees of prompt based.

The first question, when I have an idea/prompt, is how big do I want the story to be. Some ideas require novels, some are perfect for short stories. Figuring out which is which comes with practice.

Writing from a prompt

Stories that are triggered by a prompt come (to a point, some prompts are more specific/detailed than others) with a certain amount of inbuilt scaffolding or clues as to what the story must be about.

I talk about different sources of ideas, including writing from a prompt, in this post. The prompt bit gives a sense of my general process when writing tumblr stories with more specific prompts.

For a non specific prompt...

The next tumblr inbox prompt I think I'm going to write when I have a sufficient moment is:

It's a tumblr drabble, I'm thinking 2000 words max, so fairly simple without an elaborate planned plot. It's just for fun. I don't go into the story assuming I am going to continue it. I also don't assume someone on tumblr is going to read loads of backstory and set-up, so I just skip to the most interesting scene that comes to mind with as little set-up as possible.

So, I know I have a vampire character and a reincarnating mortal character. The 'x' implies that the story is going to have, to some level or another, a romance thread.

However, the prompt otherwise immediately raises a lot of questions; the decisions/answers I make to these questions shape the story. Examples of questions that pop to mind.

After a certain amount of this, it's just pick whichever answer I am in the mood for on any given day and go.

Writing without a clear prompt

This is more difficult, but I also tend to love these stories more when I do get inspiration for them. There also isn't one process that works for all of these as it tends to change a bit with every story.

(Although I don't tend to outline short stories.)

More often than not, when these stories happen it is because a very clear idea or nugget pops into my head or a strong urge to write about something in particular, and I tend to write the whole thing in a matter of days or hours. They have a lot of iceberg time in my head where I'm sort of thinking about them, then there's a click.

As an example:

I wrote The Blue Key because I love fairytales, the mythos of Bluebeard and haunted houses. I knew I wanted to write something inspired by Bluebeard in this instance, so I knew that I needed a house, a couple, a key and a locked door that must not/should not be opened.

Because I love these stories, I had them on my mind so I wanted them to play into the story. What does it mean to have so many stories about curiosity and its consequence, about having a love that you are not allowed to look at? I re-read some of my favourites and I came across this quote about Bluebeard by Margaret Atwood. I read people talking about how they would be smarter than the wife, or how they just wouldn't look, as if it's always that easy.

What would happen if you didn't know which story you were in? What would happen if the Bluebeard character was also trapped in a story that he didn't want to play out, where there was love as well as horror? What happens if you are in a story where you have the fairytale rules where you must give your wife a key and you must not tell her what is behind the door.

What happens then?

The Blue Key was my answer to that general brain mulch.

I consider the story to be complete.

However, so long as you credit the part I wrote and link back to the original if you post the continuation on another site, etc. I don't have a problem with people continuing it if they want to.

Suffer, I guess.

To be completely honest, I know I'm asexual.

I say "biromantic" because:

What counts as romantic is going to be personal to you and your relationship, though I know many people use the desire to kiss someone or hold hands with them as an indicator of romantic desire versus platonic.

I also know desire can be complicated by social expectations and the desire to belong/fit.

I'm not sure romantic attraction is something I've ever felt, but I don't have that much experience, so I don't find it helpful to rule it out. I know I've had strong feelings towards people before. I know I feel very strongly about my friendships and put a lot into them, so I'm very against the idea that romance means more/is more intense.

This may not help you as its not a handy definitive guide, but I thought I'd share anyway.

Ultimately, a label is there to help you navigate your desires /needs and communicate with yourself and other people. A label can also mean a lot of different things to different people.

E.g. my identifying as ace indicates a lack of sexual attraction, but otherwise doesn't necessarily mean I want the same things out of my sexual/romantic/personal life as another ace person. Broad starting point to quickly convey something key, not the end all.

It's okay to identify with whatever label is currently most helpful even if you're not 100% sure.

It's also okay not to put a label on yourself. I think especially at the moment we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and other people to KNOW, but this stuff is hard. You don't have to have it figured out.

You just have to try and listen to yourself in whatever situation you are in and try and be authentic and kind.

This playlist

I almost always have music on. I can't remember what specifically I was listening to when I wrote that one.

It might have been my villainous playlist, which includes songs from the previous playlist. It's just less specific. It's all my villain vibes.

The last song I wrote with specifically was Red Right Hand, originally by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, but I like the Karliene cover.

The two songs I'm currently obsessed with, not that you asked but hey ho that's why it's obsession, are: Labour by Paris Paloma and Escapism by Raye.

"My god." The stranger studied the protagonist, idly pinning them up against the bathroom wall. "That is incredible. You are incredible."

"I -" They didn't know exactly how they had expected the meeting to go, but it wasn't like this. "I didn't mean to startle you. The bartender gave me your change."

They shifted in the stranger's grip, which was about as effective as a mouse squirming beneath a lion's paw.

"Mm. They would, wouldn't they?" The stranger's head tilted as they wet their lips. "Wow. My own little doppelganger."

"I'm not - I'm just Riley."

"Riley," the stranger echoed.

"...And you are?"

The stranger laughed.

The two of them looked identical. It was uncanny. Obscene, in the face of the simmering hunger in stranger's face, that the protagonist would never have recognised on their own.

The protagonist shifted again. They politely cleared their throat.

The stranger smiled, honey slow. "You can keep the change. I don't need it."

"R-right." When the protagonist caught a glimpse of the stranger across the hotel bar, they had followed them to the bathroom. Not to be creepy or anything. They'd just been...curious.

"New to the city, are you?" the stranger said.

"Just passing through! Can you - can you let go of me?" It sounded like a question. The protagonist tried again. "Let go of me."

It was obvious that the stranger didn't like to be followed and didn't expect anything good from anyone doing the following. Which, fair. Still, it must have been obvious after the initial instinct that the protagonist was hardly stalking them for some untoward reason.

They'd just wanted a glimpse. To double check that their mind wasn't playing tricks on them.

The delight of discovery faded beneath the stranger's bright and wondering gaze and they rather wished that their mind was playing tricks on them.

The stranger's grip eased, mercifully, after a moment. Their palm smoothed down the protagonist's front with an eerie and less merciful possessiveness. The smile they flashed, though, was exactly the same one that the protagonist had seen a hundred times before in the mirror.

"Get a drink with me," the stranger said, and they didn't correct it into a question. "I want to hear all about you. Incredible."

It was, admittedly, incredible.

By the time they'd established no family connection, no easily apparent trick or explanation, it was late. The stranger - one Carter Eden - was charming when they wanted to be, but the protagonist couldn't shake their unease and the memory of those strong, weirdly familiar fingers fixing them in place as if it were nothing.

It explained something, though, of the looks the protagonist had been getting since they arrived. The treatment. The assumption that they were a creature of wealth, power and influence. Carter Eden was certainly that.

"Well, this was - something," the protagonist said, managing a smile. "I should get going though."

They wished now, too, that it had been a pub. Somewhere with less obvious rooms that they were obviously staying in.

"Mm." Eden was leaned towards them across the table, face cupped in one hand, intent. It might have been dizzyingly flattering in other circumstances. "This really was quite something, wasn't it? Serendipitous fate, perhaps."

The protagonist smiled again and pushed to their feet.

"You're so like me," the stranger said. "And yet...so utterly not. I just want to see everything you do." They sounded mesmerised. Intoxicated on more than the small amount of wine they'd shared. They stood too.

They were, of course, exactly the same height. Same build. Same everything, except the posture and mannerisms.

"Pleasure meeting you," the protagonist said, with a stiff politeness.

"All mine."

They woke up the next morning, with the stranger sitting in their room, watching them sleep with that same consuming curiosity.

The protagonist's belongings - wallet, ID, everything - were gone. Spirited away somewhere in the night, beyond locked hotel room doors and ordinary life.

They froze. Fury and fear swelled in their throat in equal measure.

"Good morning, gorgeous." The stranger rose, tossing them clothes that were most certainly not the protagonist's old and comfortable ones, and far more indeed like the antagonist's garments. "I'm afraid you're coming with me."

The protagonist knew then that they never should have followed the devil into the bathroom.

"-Could you please just shut up?"

There was a moment of absolute, horrified silence. One man promptly fainted. Nobody seemed to breathe for a few seconds.

The villain turned, slowly, towards the protagonist.

They were on their knees on the floor, surrounded by armed guards ready to execute the various staff still in their building. Their expression was one of exhausted long-suffering, one hand pinching the bridge of their nose as if to stave off a headache.

"Excuse me?" the villain asked, oh so softly.

"Will you please stop talking?" The protagonist dropped their hand, levelling the villain with a look. "Like, if you're going to slaughter the lot of us, just do it, don't make us listen to the spiel first. It's been forty five minutes."

"Are you so eager to die?"

"No. But if I'm going to die, I think I'd like to get it over with. Otherwise, I'd like to just go about my day. I need to buy food before the shop closes and takeaway costs a fortune. I mean, bloody hell. Forty five minutes. Do you really think anyone here is listening?"

The villain stared.

"Like, not to be rude," the protagonist said. "But they're all scared out their minds. They are not processing the finer points of your monologue. It's just so unnecessary."

"I could cut out your tongue and feed it to you."

"You don't have anything better to do?"

"I could cut out their tongues," the villain swept a hand around the room, "and feed them to you. That sorts out dinner, doesn't it?"

"I mean, I'm vegan, and not a cannibal, but I appreciate you're more concerned with being menacing than actually addressing the issue."

The villain stared some more.

The protagonist stared back.

"The data I need is still downloading," the villain said, after a long moment. "If I let you leave, someone will do something stupid like try and call the police."

"Sure, sure. But the monologue."

"You don't enjoy the sound of my voice?"

"I wouldn't take it too personally. It's been a week. Bit overstimulated, to be honest. Anyone's voice right now feels a bit like a cheese grater on my nerve endings."

"A bit like a cheese grater."

"No offense."

The villain blinked at them, slow and somewhat incredulous. "A cheese grater."

The protagonist shrugged.

"I'm assuming you didn't miss who I am in the last forty five minutes," the villain said.

"No."

"And yet."

"It's not that you're not terrifying," the protagonist said. "I just - forty five minutes. Humans aren't set up to be this stressed for forty minutes. My head is killing me. Processing all this - if you don't kill us - is going to be hard enough without having to fit in all the life admin I'm not currently getting done."

"Come here."

"...what?"

The villain crooked a finger to beckon the protagonist forward.

The protagonist swallowed, eyeing the villain warily, but didn't make them ask again. With a glance at the armed henchmen, they shuffled forwards to the spot the villain had gestured at their feet.

"You know," the villain said, "it's been a very long time since anyone has talked back to me."

"Sorry. I'm really not trying to be rude."

"No," the villain mused, head tilting with something alarmingly like curiosity as the protagonist came to a stop. "You're really not, are you? Turn."

"...turn?"

The villain gestured again, to indicate that the protagonist should face away from them.

"...You can't just give me all the orders at once? I get this is more dramatic, but I probably wouldn't be trying your patience as much if-"

The villain seized the nape of the protagonist's neck, like scruffing a kitten, making their breath catch.

Everyone watched for the inevitable torment. The punishment. The kill.

The villain's fingers dug into the knots of tension in the protagonist's neck, power sparking up the touch.

The protagonist sagged. "Holy shit," they breathed.

"Better?"

"Um. I mean - yes - but -"

"Good." The villain glanced up to the henchmen. "Shoot everyone else."

"What? Wait - no -"

The sound was deafening.

Then the silence was, once again, absolute.

"You didn't have to do that," the protagonist whispered. "I didn't mean - if I offended you -"

"Oh, you didn't, don't worry. That's why you're still alive. Tell me about yourself."

The villain's grip stayed unrelenting on the back of the protagonist's neck, holding them securely in place.

"T-tell-?"

"We still have ten minutes," the villain said, in a tone of great patience, "before the download completes. Tell me about yourself. I shouldn't be the one doing all the talking, after all. It's very rude of me, isn't it?"

Hesitantly, the protagonist talked, watching the blood pool on the floor. What else was there to do?

The computer finally gave a quiet beep to indicate that the download was complete.

"Good. Very good." The villain gave the protagonist's neck another gentle enough squeeze. "Now. Let's go grocery shopping," the villain said cheerfully. "Up you get. Dinner's on me."

Love that for you.

Blessed to be haunted by the narrative!!