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"Oh, dear..." a soft, unfamiliar voice spoke out.
Lucas jumped harshly, his head whipping around to find the source. His eyes were wide, wild and unfocused, his breath came in frantic and erratic gasps. The coppery tang of blood hung heavy in the air; he could taste it on his tongue, and he swore he could hear the blood as it rushed through his veins. The incessant whoosh roared in his ears and did little to soothe him, rather it urged him forward, jerking his knees backwards and forcing him to an upright position. He stared down at the college aged girl impassively. Blood leaked from a prominent gash along her hairline, and Lucas struggled not to admire the wet, black look of her dark brown hair as it became saturated with blood. He'd never dare say it aloud but there really was something awfully tantalizing about the listless gaze of her eyes as they stared up at him, the way her button mouth barely moved now, begging his forgiveness.
"Help me.." she pleaded weakly, and Lucas suddenly paled, worry drawing his eyebrows together into a hard line. Oh no… No no no. What had he done?! Lucas knew he should be relieved, but dread filled him.
She's not dead! He thought, sweat forming along his hairline.
"She's not dead yet..." a second voice corrected Lucas coyly.
Lucas's lip pulled up into a troubled sneer and he searched again for the speakers.
"Why'd you bring her back here?" The calmer of the voices prompted, pulling a strained cry from Lucas's mouth as the realization of what he'd done hit him head on and pulled him fully from his trance. His eyes skirted around his dingy apartment. It was sparsely furnished. There wasn't anywhere to hide and considering the large bloodstain pooling beneath the fading victim's head, he would need a damn good place to hide, and soon.
The girl moaned softly and reached for his leg; bloody fingers clung to his ankle. He cried out again and kicked at her with the opposing foot in fright, his own hands coming into view as he flailed backward. He glared at his fingers in shock, the white knuckled grip he had on the trophy in his bloodstained hand startling him further into the dwelling.
"You've really gone and done it now Lukey boy." The darker voice taunted. Lucas dropped the wrestling trophy that he was holding, the head of the bested opponent snapping off with an ominous crack as it landed against the linoleum tile of his bathroom floor.
He smeared blood on the wall as he fumbled for the light switch, tripped his way to the vanity, and stared into the mirror.
His eyes fell immediately to his shoulder, where two beings seemed to be waiting.
"Who are you?" Lucas whispered, his voice hoarse with anguish.
"You're saving grace." A dark, ashen skeleton whispered in reply. The black holes that stood for eyeballs sunk endlessly into his miniature skull, and for a long while, Lucas would avoid staring at him directly. From his peripheral vision Lucas could see the skeleton was shrouded in some sort of darkness, a shadow of sorts, that hung on him loosely but seemed to morph and form into an elegant suit before dispersing into the wind again. He lounged lazily against a cane and possessed and overall air of nonchalance that Lucas found himself unnaturally jealous of. He had never wished to be someone else so badly but before his envy could consume him any further, the other voice spoke again.
"We are, who we are... and also, everything that we are not… for how might we know ourselves as who we are, if we have not also been who we are not." The second being answered mysteriously, and unlike his counterpart, what would be darkness, was instead grayish in color. He wasn't skeletal in form either, but rather- existed more or less as a wisp of the dark shroud emanating from the darker one and reminded Lucas somewhat of a jelly fish. Still, it was obvious to him that the two were entirely separate entities. Lucas felt this being was an old friend of his, someone he could trust inherently, and he desperately wanted to, but the unexpected comfort troubled him deeply. Somehow Lucas also had the knowingness to perceive this second being as ethereal and, despite its lack of color, he found the being bright and almost felt hopeful in its presence. Many wispy tendrils hung down from what would be the beings' arms as it gestured into the mirror, pulling Lucas in closer without words.
"Who are you?" Lucas whispered again, staring intently into the reflective glass. He noticed then it wasn't that the light beckoning him was gray, but rather just muted in color as if severely battle worn. Lucas felt unfathomably saddened for the poor soul and wished to offer it comfort, unconsciously his fingers twitched in an attempt to reach out.
The skeleton's darkness spread across the mirror then and a grotesque face with largely disproportioned, decomposed features and a gaping hole of a mouth seemed to leap out at Lucas and swallowed him whole.
"Monsters! BOO!!" the darkness bellowed, howling with laughter as Lucas scrambled backward, arching his spine away from the metal edge of the towel rack he'd backed into with a pained yelp. Lucas blinked twice, and just as quickly as it had appeared, the illusion was gone, and he was once more staring at his reflection with the odd creatures, or monsters as the darkness claimed themselves to be, on his shoulder. Lucas was flabbergasted, he started to pull up his shirt to confirm the pain he'd felt across his mid back was real and not imagined when the darkness spoke again. "Let's focus on the task at hand, shall we?" The skeleton said hurriedly, flashing Lucas an inviting smile and jabbing an elbow in the direction of the living room. A paralyzing panic washed over Lucas as his attention reverted once more to the near unconscious woman bleeding out in the next room.
"The better question is- who are you?" The cloud whispered finally in response to Lucas' question. Lucas frowned, and the little soul offered a light knowing chuckle. "I can sense your frustration, and I offer you this, you will understand just as soon as you choose to understand."
"Focus, now! And cease this foolishness!" The darker one snapped, his cold voice captivating Lucas's attention immediately. "You know full and well what we must do now.." The skeleton added, a bit less menacingly as he leaned forward, long dark bony fingers steeping together.
Lucas looked back toward the living room he'd just left, again recalling the near dead woman he'd left behind with quickening breaths.
"Oh god!!" He said, suddenly appalled by the skeleton's devious grin as if he hadn't just been admiring the young woman's half dead expression a moment before. "You mean, kil- No! I can't!" Lucas refused adamantly, shaking his head vehemently and holding a blood-red hand out in front of him as if physically pushing the suggestion away, though his arm trembled with feeble resolve.
"You must!" The skeleton interjected, his arms flying overhead and sweeping his cane toward the living room energetically.
The second being sighed, hardly paying mind to the skeleton man as he became more animated. "You must do only what calls to you… you decide who you are…" He said softly, almost too softly. Still, Lucas responded, sucking his teeth with annoyance. "What does that even mean?"
"You know exactly what it means..." The voice returned quieter still.
"Don't listen to that hogwash. We've got to act now, quickly! Before it's too late... because that bitch! Yeah, that bitch in there was lookin' at us crazy! Called us stanky..and- and no good! She deserves exactly what she got! …What she's gunna get!!" The darkness' empty eyes peered into Lucas's and he struggled to pull his gaze away as the second monster spoke to him again.
"I'm not sure I heard anything ill of us.." The cloud agreed and then hesitated, his muted gray tones harshening for just a moment as he reluctantly added, "She may have been giving an eye, but perhaps that was because you were muttering to yours-"
"You see!!" The dark one urged, but the other quickly tried to add, "That doesn't mean you shou-"
"Sure, it does! She's nothing!!! Worthless trash! We must remind her...as is our right!" The dark being was nearly vibrating with excitement now, his voice a hoarse shrill as he ran a dark finger along Lucas's cheek.
Lucas shivered at the contact, uncertain how what he had thought were surely just figments of his imagination, little monsters he'd conjured up to get himself thru this moment, were able to initiate contact and appear so.. so life like. The feelings they could stir within him in an instant were equally perplexing.
"I dunno.." He started confusedly. His head ached something serious and he was suddenly overrun with exhaustion. His eyelids and muscles felt like they'd been filled with sand.
"Don't be a such a little bitch!" The skeleton reprimanded. "When are you going to stand up for yourself? Do it! Show everyone!! Show them who you really are!" He goaded, urging Lucas forward.
The second being sighed again, heavier this time, and as he exhaled, he seemed to disperse some into the atmosphere, but Lucas, entranced once more by the darkness, would hardly notice.
"You know who you are. Be true to yourself.." He tried one last time, and while his voice had started strong and resolute, by the end of his phrase no sound left his mouth. The riddles this being spoke in infuriated Lucas even more than the dark figure's spontaneous indifference and equally sporadic rage. Additionally, as the ethereal being spoke, a light of some sort attempted to take root and pierced Lucas's mental with a shocking clarity. Alarmed by the reality that confronted him, he forcibly resisted the guilt that inevitably followed, and clung fiercely to the darkness that enveloped the skeleton. Lucas decided then, whole heartedly, that he was done dealing with the cryptic reasonings, stifling morals and sensible logics that trapped his sad, lonely soul and released them.
The light dispersed with an indifferent sigh, while simultaneously the skeleton began to cackle, a hollow, eerie laugh that made Lucas's skin crawl. Lucas held tighter to him still, finding that the pain of reality lessened with each passing moment. Somewhere in a far corner of his mind, Lucas had the sinking feeling that he'd made the wrong choice, but he continued to press onward. He willingly followed the skeleton into darkness. With a blink, Lucas's apartment fell deathly silent, save for the occasional groan from the woman in the other room, and something in him felt off, but he couldn't discern what.
When he looked back into the mirror the black skeletal figure was gone, but the maniacal smirk that stared back at him, while on his face, was entirely foreign. He screamed, punching the mirror in his panic.
"FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK!" He brought his bloodied, and now bleeding knuckles to his lips and sucked on the fresh wounds. As the metallic taste spread across his palette, his eyes dared to skirt back up to the shards that had remained in the mirror and withstood his assault. Still, despite the uncanny resemblance, the image that stared back at him was not his own.
This man, he had the same bleached blonde bed head as Lucas, the same dull blue eyes and pale ashen skin. He could be no more than twenty-five, same as Lucas himself, but there was something in the cruel way his lips turned up, and in the devilish glint of his eye, that unnerved Lucas.
"Who are you?" Lucas tried to speak but found the words only formed into thought.
"Luke." His mouth moved, answering the silent question aloud almost instantaneously. The deep, even timbre of own his voice surprised him.
"No, wait.. what?" But this, too, would only register as a thought. Lucas tried to steel his thoughts, to pull his reality back into the one he was currently in. There was a body in his living room. No, not a body, a woman! She wasn't dead yet. He needed to do something about that. Recalling this to the forefront of his mind, he tried to move his feet, but nothing happened. His eyes returned to the glass.
Familiar lips were pulled into a foreign, mirthless, grin. "Yes, we do. We do need to do something about that.. Glad we're finally in agreement.." His hands reached down absently for an angled shard of glass that had fallen into the sink.
Within the recesses of his mind Lucas balked, trying hopelessly to force himself to release the glass, but he could not. His feet turned and pushed into the living room, back toward the still moaning body on the floor. He willed himself to stop, but he would not. Instead, he heard himself chuckle as the woman started to cry softly and tried feebly to crawl away; mentally the sound paralyzed Lucas, yet Luke's feet would only stop once he came to lumber over her. "I'm sorry.." Lucas told her, but only harsher guffaws left Luke's mouth.
He watched helplessly as what he could only describe as his second self, Luke, ruthlessly and repeatedly plunged the shard of glass into the woman's face and body. Lucas sat there, rocking back and forth, sobbing inconsolably. Luke ignored him, and pounded his glass laden fist into the woman until his breaths came in labored heaves, and even then, he'd pause for a moment and then return a minute later to deliver another blow or two.
Eventually, covered in blood spatter, Luke laid down beside the mutilated form and passed out. When he came to a few hours later, the shard of glass was still in his hand, but the moaning woman's eyes were lifeless and still. To his dismay, he still resented the way she was looking at him.
Lucas sat up, his head throbbing still, threw up, and sobbed some more. He was sorry, he was so so sorry. He told this to the lifeless corpse, pleading into her dead eyes . He didn't know this monster, this wretched Luke, who had somehow invaded his person and taken over him. He had simply- lost all control, he said, fretfully trying to explain away the phenomena that had engulfed him in hopes the soul he'd snuffed out would forgive him. Even though it was impossible, as she was dead, the disgusted glare he'd perceived on the woman's face the night before persisted still, even as he profusely apologized. She deserved it… Luke's voice soothed him internally, yet Lucas pulled at his hair and groaned in despair.
He never once imagined his intrusive thoughts would actually lead to his upending, nor would Lucas recognize his very first psychotic break for what it was. Instead he stared at the wreckage before him, the woman whose face had been sliced and shredded past recognition, and felt his anxiety mount to a crippling proportion. He had no idea what he was going to do or how he was going to fix this. His breathing started to pick up, nearing hysterical in record time. The feeling would persist for only a moment before Lucas would slip away, and then a calmness washed over him. He suddenly knew exactly what he needed to do.
Luke smirked, admiring his work as he tutted to himself. "You've got some toughening up to do Lucas, but don't worry, we'll keep you safe.."
"W-we?! There are.. m-more monsters inside of me?!" Lucas thought, grimacing as he shrunk even further into his mind; he wasn't sure he could withstand meeting another. Luke's smirk widened, amused to be regarded so negatively despite all the help he'd provided thus far. "Oh yes, there are still several introductions to be made.. you've many monsters to meet, my friend.."
Lucas jumped harshly, his head whipping around to find the source. His eyes were wide, wild and unfocused, his breath came in frantic and erratic gasps. The coppery tang of blood hung heavy in the air; he could taste it on his tongue, and he swore he could hear the blood as it rushed through his veins. The incessant whoosh roared in his ears and did little to soothe him, rather it urged him forward, jerking his knees backwards and forcing him to an upright position. He stared down at the college aged girl impassively. Blood leaked from a prominent gash along her hairline, and Lucas struggled not to admire the wet, black look of her dark brown hair as it became saturated with blood. He'd never dare say it aloud but there really was something awfully tantalizing about the listless gaze of her eyes as they stared up at him, the way her button mouth barely moved now, begging his forgiveness.
"Help me.." she pleaded weakly, and Lucas suddenly paled, worry drawing his eyebrows together into a hard line. Oh no… No no no. What had he done?! Lucas knew he should be relieved, but dread filled him.
She's not dead! He thought, sweat forming along his hairline.
"She's not dead yet..." a second voice corrected Lucas coyly.
Lucas's lip pulled up into a troubled sneer and he searched again for the speakers.
"Why'd you bring her back here?" The calmer of the voices prompted, pulling a strained cry from Lucas's mouth as the realization of what he'd done hit him head on and pulled him fully from his trance. His eyes skirted around his dingy apartment. It was sparsely furnished. There wasn't anywhere to hide and considering the large bloodstain pooling beneath the fading victim's head, he would need a damn good place to hide, and soon.
The girl moaned softly and reached for his leg; bloody fingers clung to his ankle. He cried out again and kicked at her with the opposing foot in fright, his own hands coming into view as he flailed backward. He glared at his fingers in shock, the white knuckled grip he had on the trophy in his bloodstained hand startling him further into the dwelling.
"You've really gone and done it now Lukey boy." The darker voice taunted. Lucas dropped the wrestling trophy that he was holding, the head of the bested opponent snapping off with an ominous crack as it landed against the linoleum tile of his bathroom floor.
He smeared blood on the wall as he fumbled for the light switch, tripped his way to the vanity, and stared into the mirror.
His eyes fell immediately to his shoulder, where two beings seemed to be waiting.
"Who are you?" Lucas whispered, his voice hoarse with anguish.
"You're saving grace." A dark, ashen skeleton whispered in reply. The black holes that stood for eyeballs sunk endlessly into his miniature skull, and for a long while, Lucas would avoid staring at him directly. From his peripheral vision Lucas could see the skeleton was shrouded in some sort of darkness, a shadow of sorts, that hung on him loosely but seemed to morph and form into an elegant suit before dispersing into the wind again. He lounged lazily against a cane and possessed and overall air of nonchalance that Lucas found himself unnaturally jealous of. He had never wished to be someone else so badly but before his envy could consume him any further, the other voice spoke again.
"We are, who we are... and also, everything that we are not… for how might we know ourselves as who we are, if we have not also been who we are not." The second being answered mysteriously, and unlike his counterpart, what would be darkness, was instead grayish in color. He wasn't skeletal in form either, but rather- existed more or less as a wisp of the dark shroud emanating from the darker one and reminded Lucas somewhat of a jelly fish. Still, it was obvious to him that the two were entirely separate entities. Lucas felt this being was an old friend of his, someone he could trust inherently, and he desperately wanted to, but the unexpected comfort troubled him deeply. Somehow Lucas also had the knowingness to perceive this second being as ethereal and, despite its lack of color, he found the being bright and almost felt hopeful in its presence. Many wispy tendrils hung down from what would be the beings' arms as it gestured into the mirror, pulling Lucas in closer without words.
"Who are you?" Lucas whispered again, staring intently into the reflective glass. He noticed then it wasn't that the light beckoning him was gray, but rather just muted in color as if severely battle worn. Lucas felt unfathomably saddened for the poor soul and wished to offer it comfort, unconsciously his fingers twitched in an attempt to reach out.
The skeleton's darkness spread across the mirror then and a grotesque face with largely disproportioned, decomposed features and a gaping hole of a mouth seemed to leap out at Lucas and swallowed him whole.
"Monsters! BOO!!" the darkness bellowed, howling with laughter as Lucas scrambled backward, arching his spine away from the metal edge of the towel rack he'd backed into with a pained yelp. Lucas blinked twice, and just as quickly as it had appeared, the illusion was gone, and he was once more staring at his reflection with the odd creatures, or monsters as the darkness claimed themselves to be, on his shoulder. Lucas was flabbergasted, he started to pull up his shirt to confirm the pain he'd felt across his mid back was real and not imagined when the darkness spoke again. "Let's focus on the task at hand, shall we?" The skeleton said hurriedly, flashing Lucas an inviting smile and jabbing an elbow in the direction of the living room. A paralyzing panic washed over Lucas as his attention reverted once more to the near unconscious woman bleeding out in the next room.
"The better question is- who are you?" The cloud whispered finally in response to Lucas' question. Lucas frowned, and the little soul offered a light knowing chuckle. "I can sense your frustration, and I offer you this, you will understand just as soon as you choose to understand."
"Focus, now! And cease this foolishness!" The darker one snapped, his cold voice captivating Lucas's attention immediately. "You know full and well what we must do now.." The skeleton added, a bit less menacingly as he leaned forward, long dark bony fingers steeping together.
Lucas looked back toward the living room he'd just left, again recalling the near dead woman he'd left behind with quickening breaths.
"Oh god!!" He said, suddenly appalled by the skeleton's devious grin as if he hadn't just been admiring the young woman's half dead expression a moment before. "You mean, kil- No! I can't!" Lucas refused adamantly, shaking his head vehemently and holding a blood-red hand out in front of him as if physically pushing the suggestion away, though his arm trembled with feeble resolve.
"You must!" The skeleton interjected, his arms flying overhead and sweeping his cane toward the living room energetically.
The second being sighed, hardly paying mind to the skeleton man as he became more animated. "You must do only what calls to you… you decide who you are…" He said softly, almost too softly. Still, Lucas responded, sucking his teeth with annoyance. "What does that even mean?"
"You know exactly what it means..." The voice returned quieter still.
"Don't listen to that hogwash. We've got to act now, quickly! Before it's too late... because that bitch! Yeah, that bitch in there was lookin' at us crazy! Called us stanky..and- and no good! She deserves exactly what she got! …What she's gunna get!!" The darkness' empty eyes peered into Lucas's and he struggled to pull his gaze away as the second monster spoke to him again.
"I'm not sure I heard anything ill of us.." The cloud agreed and then hesitated, his muted gray tones harshening for just a moment as he reluctantly added, "She may have been giving an eye, but perhaps that was because you were muttering to yours-"
"You see!!" The dark one urged, but the other quickly tried to add, "That doesn't mean you shou-"
"Sure, it does! She's nothing!!! Worthless trash! We must remind her...as is our right!" The dark being was nearly vibrating with excitement now, his voice a hoarse shrill as he ran a dark finger along Lucas's cheek.
Lucas shivered at the contact, uncertain how what he had thought were surely just figments of his imagination, little monsters he'd conjured up to get himself thru this moment, were able to initiate contact and appear so.. so life like. The feelings they could stir within him in an instant were equally perplexing.
"I dunno.." He started confusedly. His head ached something serious and he was suddenly overrun with exhaustion. His eyelids and muscles felt like they'd been filled with sand.
"Don't be a such a little bitch!" The skeleton reprimanded. "When are you going to stand up for yourself? Do it! Show everyone!! Show them who you really are!" He goaded, urging Lucas forward.
The second being sighed again, heavier this time, and as he exhaled, he seemed to disperse some into the atmosphere, but Lucas, entranced once more by the darkness, would hardly notice.
"You know who you are. Be true to yourself.." He tried one last time, and while his voice had started strong and resolute, by the end of his phrase no sound left his mouth. The riddles this being spoke in infuriated Lucas even more than the dark figure's spontaneous indifference and equally sporadic rage. Additionally, as the ethereal being spoke, a light of some sort attempted to take root and pierced Lucas's mental with a shocking clarity. Alarmed by the reality that confronted him, he forcibly resisted the guilt that inevitably followed, and clung fiercely to the darkness that enveloped the skeleton. Lucas decided then, whole heartedly, that he was done dealing with the cryptic reasonings, stifling morals and sensible logics that trapped his sad, lonely soul and released them.
The light dispersed with an indifferent sigh, while simultaneously the skeleton began to cackle, a hollow, eerie laugh that made Lucas's skin crawl. Lucas held tighter to him still, finding that the pain of reality lessened with each passing moment. Somewhere in a far corner of his mind, Lucas had the sinking feeling that he'd made the wrong choice, but he continued to press onward. He willingly followed the skeleton into darkness. With a blink, Lucas's apartment fell deathly silent, save for the occasional groan from the woman in the other room, and something in him felt off, but he couldn't discern what.
When he looked back into the mirror the black skeletal figure was gone, but the maniacal smirk that stared back at him, while on his face, was entirely foreign. He screamed, punching the mirror in his panic.
"FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK!" He brought his bloodied, and now bleeding knuckles to his lips and sucked on the fresh wounds. As the metallic taste spread across his palette, his eyes dared to skirt back up to the shards that had remained in the mirror and withstood his assault. Still, despite the uncanny resemblance, the image that stared back at him was not his own.
This man, he had the same bleached blonde bed head as Lucas, the same dull blue eyes and pale ashen skin. He could be no more than twenty-five, same as Lucas himself, but there was something in the cruel way his lips turned up, and in the devilish glint of his eye, that unnerved Lucas.
"Who are you?" Lucas tried to speak but found the words only formed into thought.
"Luke." His mouth moved, answering the silent question aloud almost instantaneously. The deep, even timbre of own his voice surprised him.
"No, wait.. what?" But this, too, would only register as a thought. Lucas tried to steel his thoughts, to pull his reality back into the one he was currently in. There was a body in his living room. No, not a body, a woman! She wasn't dead yet. He needed to do something about that. Recalling this to the forefront of his mind, he tried to move his feet, but nothing happened. His eyes returned to the glass.
Familiar lips were pulled into a foreign, mirthless, grin. "Yes, we do. We do need to do something about that.. Glad we're finally in agreement.." His hands reached down absently for an angled shard of glass that had fallen into the sink.
Within the recesses of his mind Lucas balked, trying hopelessly to force himself to release the glass, but he could not. His feet turned and pushed into the living room, back toward the still moaning body on the floor. He willed himself to stop, but he would not. Instead, he heard himself chuckle as the woman started to cry softly and tried feebly to crawl away; mentally the sound paralyzed Lucas, yet Luke's feet would only stop once he came to lumber over her. "I'm sorry.." Lucas told her, but only harsher guffaws left Luke's mouth.
He watched helplessly as what he could only describe as his second self, Luke, ruthlessly and repeatedly plunged the shard of glass into the woman's face and body. Lucas sat there, rocking back and forth, sobbing inconsolably. Luke ignored him, and pounded his glass laden fist into the woman until his breaths came in labored heaves, and even then, he'd pause for a moment and then return a minute later to deliver another blow or two.
Eventually, covered in blood spatter, Luke laid down beside the mutilated form and passed out. When he came to a few hours later, the shard of glass was still in his hand, but the moaning woman's eyes were lifeless and still. To his dismay, he still resented the way she was looking at him.
Lucas sat up, his head throbbing still, threw up, and sobbed some more. He was sorry, he was so so sorry. He told this to the lifeless corpse, pleading into her dead eyes . He didn't know this monster, this wretched Luke, who had somehow invaded his person and taken over him. He had simply- lost all control, he said, fretfully trying to explain away the phenomena that had engulfed him in hopes the soul he'd snuffed out would forgive him. Even though it was impossible, as she was dead, the disgusted glare he'd perceived on the woman's face the night before persisted still, even as he profusely apologized. She deserved it… Luke's voice soothed him internally, yet Lucas pulled at his hair and groaned in despair.
He never once imagined his intrusive thoughts would actually lead to his upending, nor would Lucas recognize his very first psychotic break for what it was. Instead he stared at the wreckage before him, the woman whose face had been sliced and shredded past recognition, and felt his anxiety mount to a crippling proportion. He had no idea what he was going to do or how he was going to fix this. His breathing started to pick up, nearing hysterical in record time. The feeling would persist for only a moment before Lucas would slip away, and then a calmness washed over him. He suddenly knew exactly what he needed to do.
Luke smirked, admiring his work as he tutted to himself. "You've got some toughening up to do Lucas, but don't worry, we'll keep you safe.."
"W-we?! There are.. m-more monsters inside of me?!" Lucas thought, grimacing as he shrunk even further into his mind; he wasn't sure he could withstand meeting another. Luke's smirk widened, amused to be regarded so negatively despite all the help he'd provided thus far. "Oh yes, there are still several introductions to be made.. you've many monsters to meet, my friend.."