Decided to go through with making T-4 my main new sona!

It might just be how much I like how gold looks, but honestly I view that as a complete win. >:)))

TW// Blood/Gore, horror themes, animal gore

“Eun!”

The lagomorph was pulled from the enjoyment of his lunch by his coworker, Hegra. She was a small thing, with peach-colored scaly skin. Gills lined her cheeks and framed her large, bright, fierce eyes, with rows of sharp, pointy teeth beaming at him like a line of steak knives.

“Ah.” He inhaled, “Yes?” The rabbit was always careful with his words, his voice gentle, yet pronounced. Never was a word misunderstood when he spoke it through that artificial voice box. 

Hegra bounced on her heels, fishing a slab of unknown meat - or a large cube of protein mix, more likely - from her own paper bag.

“You got another story today? I wanna know about your home planet!”

He inhaled again, but this was more a breath of mental preparation than a breath of consideration.

“Must I? You know I don’t remember much.”

“I told you ALL about the shit I did on my planet!” She puffed out her chest, polishing her cyan police badge with a sense of pride. “Don’t be a stick in the mud.”

“Fine, fine.

Where can I begin? Let’s see…”

“Goodness, Eun, hungry today, are we?”

The kind face of the boy’s mother was wearing a warm smile as he sat down, furiously scarfing an entirely-green breakfast before his trip to school. He was an excited boy of 16, ever a teacher’s pet. He forced himself to swallow before speaking.

“Sch-Sorry mom!” He giggled. “But today’s exciting! The poetry festival is at lunch, remember?”

“Yes, yes, I do.” She chuckled, rolling her eye, the other covered by an eyepatch of long leaves. “Just don’t hog the stage, alright? You have quite the stash!” The woman pointed a wooden spatula at the mess of papers jutting from his backpack as her son rushed out the door.

“I know! I’m gonna pick out the best ones at school!” He didn’t even give his mother time to answer, practically throwing himself out the door.

The hours of lessons leading up to Centersun at school were as exciting as they were quick to Eun, sifting through his countless poems, filing them away in separate piles of better and worse either didn’t come under the teacher’s radar, or he didn’t exactly mind, given the constant beam on his face.

But the walk to the event itself was the real magic. Hands firmly planted on the straps of his woven back-bag, Eun marched down the natural stone and dirt paths like they were the runway to receive the nobel prize.

On the way there, he noticed someone on the same path, brushing blades of grass and green stains from her skirt. One of the few that bothered to give poetry as a side-subject the time of day.

“Oh, hey Kami!” He hopped over to stand beside her. “Excited? I know I am!” 

Kami shrugged. “It’s reading practice.” 

“You gonna read some of yours?” He gasped, almost more excited to hear her work than his own. Almost.

“Absolutely not. There’s just gonna be free reading material there.” With that, she shook her head and took off, leaving a slightly hurt Eun standing in the wind.

He wasn’t one to be kept down though, and kept up his brisk pace all the way to the waiting area.

The Poetry festival was set up in many tents to keep the lagomorphs shaded from the harsh spring sun. Eun sat in the performance tent, anxiously tapping his feet against the ground and rereading his first piece about a hundred times.

That was when he saw something odd. In the gaps of the tent, he saw Kami talking to some other classmates, near a hole in the ground.

He’d never seen this hole before. But it led into a sizable hill, and even with the sun beaming down upon it, he couldn’t see more than a foot into the abyss.

Kami, he saw, rolled her eyes, and leant into the hole to take a look, before one of the others kicked her inside.

He almost screamed.

His voice caught in his throat, as before he could react, the announcer for the performance called his name, catching the sound before he made it.

Eun was mortified. Terrified at what happened to her. 

Glancing back from the announcer to the hole, however, he noticed none where he thought he’d seen one before. 

The sun was beating down on him hard today. And an excited mind can create visions where there were none.

At least, that’s all he could tell himself as he made his way to the podium.

“Eun, are you okay?”

It was as if his mother read his mind as he left the podium, stepping down almost immediately into a hug. 

He was as bad at hiding his emotions as he was at describing them. 

“Y-Yeah? What’s wrong?”

“You looked as if you’d seen a ghost up there, my dear… Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I…” He paused. “I swore I saw…”

Kami had just walked out from the underbrush, and made her way down the road.

Immediately an air of warmth came back to his face. He nodded to his mom, who seemed more puzzled at this point than concerned. 

“I’m fine! I’m gonna go speak to Kami!”

Quick on his feet, he pushed away from his mother’s embrace, jogging down the street.

“Hey, Kami! Did you hear my-”

She turned around.

Eun didn’t know what to expect when he would see her face. Probably the same unamused frown, purple hair covering her eyes, as usual.

But today marked the first time he ever saw her eyes.

He hated them.

It felt like he’d been struck with a bullet, he stopped in his tracks. Her pupil was hateful, cold, like a needle of ice. 

She was looking at him like an angry child looking at a woodlouse. 

That wasn’t the worst of it though.

For as long as he could remember, his mom had told him that his species was vegetarian. He still didn’t quite understand why, but he knew that other species ate meat, and his didn’t.

But he saw blood on Kami’s face.

Near her jaw, and lip, a clear, long smear. Brightened by the burning, hot sun. A deep red on lavender fur.

And when he got close enough, he clearly saw her drop a small lizard. 

A clear, uneven, tear of a bite mark in its side.

What he could only assume were tiny organs spewing from it.

Kami tossed it aside like a stray piece of tissue, and wiped the blood from her face.

She didn’t say anything, but her glare said enough.

Tell anyone, and he would regret it.

That night, at dinner, he was upset to hear his mother’s concern over his mental state - too quiet, too hush hush about the poetry he used to be so proud of.

That night, at bedtime, he received a kiss on the forehead from his mother.

That night, at midnight, he was still awake, shivering under the covers.

That morning, he had to return to school again.

He faked an illness that day.

Eun had been so into the story that he didn’t notice about half of the galactic precinct had crowded around to hear more. 

Many of them wore shocked expressions. A few wore expressions that just screamed “That explains a lot.”

Hegra tugged on the hem of his coat, offering a half-hearted warm smile.

“H-Hey, big guy… How about we get some fresh Ox, huh? You look stressed.”

He inhaled.

“...Yes, please. I’d Like that a lot.”

You're a wreck.

You barely look like your remaining family.

A family that hates. A family that once shared a kinship now reduced to spitting, biting, clawing to get away from each other.

A husband that wants nothing to do with anything. Children who despise who you've become.

You're a wreck. A mess. You have no legs to kneel and hug them. No fore and upper arms to cradle them like when they were born.

You have been reduced. You are your base assets.

You are all you need to be.

You were important.

You were the line to salvation, the centrepiece of an entire people. You were like the foundation to the community around you, supplying everything they needed.

Supplying hope.

Supplying company.

When times got to worst, you were their shelter. You were everyone's shelter.

It mattered not that the word spoken was mine, was used only to draw those people closer to my embrace.

You did not mean to cause this. You were good.

You were cluttered.

You worried so much about everybody and everything.

You made the people so happy you never had time for yourself.

Your hands grew rough and calloused. Your heart grew tired and old.

Your eyes grew heavy and weak.

You were not something I would want.

But now you are.

You are now my perfect vessel, a speaker for the voice of the universe. A representative I can be proud of.

Search for your spiteful children. Keep an eye for the shadowed gaze of your foolishly questioning husband.

Straighten your tie. Make sure the headdress is on tight.

Pick up the receiver. Speak what will now be your mantra. You are a mouthpiece, and your job is to answer one question.

Hotline 024: How may we help you?

PERSPECTIVE: KAMIKO

Space was as empty as ever. 

I looked out past the cockpit of The Auberon to check if there was anything in the way. As if there’d be anything in the way. When I signed up for this gig the posters made it look like space was actually full. Planets and stars and new life on every corner. 

Frankly I'd prefer this to that pretty image, reconsidering it. Never been much of a people person since I was a kid. 

…This can wait. 

I push up from my pilot’s seat, brush past the dusty other two flanking it, and make it to the living quarters to eat. I’m not exactly hungry, but eating keeps someone occupied. Passes time. 

Some leftover radish soup would do. If you think I have it fresh, you’re seriously overestimating the quality of this ship. It’s all dehydrated, basically little more than a powder you dissolve in water. If you’re lucky it’ll come with a rock-hard freeze-dried veggie or two. 

So there I am now. I'm staring into this slowly dissolving absinthe-green powder and zoning the hell out when I catch something. 

To an inexperienced pilot, or one less like me, the shunts and bangs of a working spaceship, at least one as beat up as mine, blend together in this miasma of background noise. 

But to me the click of a revolver stood out like a sore thumb. 

Instinctively I duck, just managing to avoid my head being blown off by the bullet, a quick roll later and I'm staring down my attacker. Another stowaway. 

This one was a wastelander for sure. Vermin in appearance, a long snout flanked by twisted and uneven whiskers sat atop a beige cloak that flung sand as he moved. The rat chewed on the tobacco-like substance in his maw and spat it out. Directly into my food. 

“Hope ya don’t take this personally now, doll.” He adjusted the pair of goggles sitting atop his small eyes as he dumped a beaten-up bullet from the chamber of his pistol. 

“My family’s been stuck on that sandy rock for generations… And good travel ain’t easy to come by.”

I didn’t say anything for now, my brain kicking into gear as fight-or-flight told me what to do. 

I felt my legs bend and arms raise, my ears swaying side to side with what could only be described as a kind of rhythm. Ever since I was little I'd been teaching myself to control my response to danger. I blinded my instincts with technique. 

The rodent-stowaway pulled his cloak aside and produced a knife, a long curved thing, injured and gashed by years of service in the harsh desert. 

The fight was over in a flash. Lacking any discipline like me, he swung like a madman, allowing me to shift the weight of his arm and blade to crash into a crate of frozen meals instead of my ribcage. From there I used his own weight against him, holding onto one of the numerous strands of cloth around his neck to yank him to the floor. 

That’s when the world paused. 

Usually I’d just… Cuff the guy and throw him in the guest room as a cell and wait until the next refuelling joint or whatever.

But sometimes I get the feeling. This urge to do more than just call it a day. 

I barely realized as I slowly grabbed the cloth in both hands and secured it around the rodent’s neck, tugging on both ends like tying a knot. Stopping the oxygen reaching his lungs. 

I don’t know why, but I felt no struggle. I saw a struggle happen, a horrible one. But I didn’t feel shit. It was like I was your average person, and this rat was a mosquito under my thumb, trying to limp away with the last of its fading strength. 

Until it has no strength left. 

As I washed his blood from my hands, I decided that a nutrient cube would have to do for dinner, and blocked that encounter out of my head as I looked at the stars and ate. 

The worst part had to be disposing of the body. Just letting it drift into space. frozen like a morose sculpture of what I just did.

I looked upon the swirling galaxy once more.

Space was still as lonely as ever. And now it was a little lonelier because of me. 

Not that anybody would know that, anyhow.

Here's my first fully original writing here, Starring Kamiko!

...On a destroyed planet, floating in the infinite void of space-time, buildings lay, rotting to nothing. Fountains and monoliths - Symbols of the near-extinct Polygurian's power, prestige... And worship... Sitting in the mud. Crumbling like molding concrete.

...Amidst the decomposing cathedrals and buildings that scraped the sky, a body. Preserved like a grotesque artifact. A full-bodied, class A relic, that would be of incredible import to the religion annihilated by the one they thought to worship. Weeping a permanent tattoo of inky black tear-stains, the only outward pain it's mind could show.

Nevertheless, in a place far from said planet, on another, questionably real plane of existence, the body's mind lived out the only consciousness it had left. 

The dreamscape was not unknown to Yokki by now. Infinite planes of black. Dark mockeries of nature, things the deity above would never, COULD never, appreciate. The feeling of what should be soft grass felt like tarantula hair. The pleasant shade under a grand oak, extended to the entire reality she could inhabit.

Yokki looked down at her hands. How long had it been? Could she even point down a period of change? She was an adult, a grown woman, but she could not for the life of her remember an in between. 

She was a child.

She felt the pain of eternity, and then,

She remained an adult.

"...I wonder if Mom's still alive." She whimpered like a rescued kitten. All energy to run, to fight, to protest, drained out of her over the length of infinite cosmic power. Starved of all energy to do anything without uncertainty.

They weren't words. They weren't spoken. She just... Felt the meaning. In her soul. Would she want to? If she could, would she want to see her again? Even if she was just a melted corpse?

Even still, the thought set her to fight-or-flight. Rising to shaking, starved legs as she found energy to take a step or two away from her point of origin.

"W-What?"

Again, she felt it. Not a communication, just a thought forced into her mind. 

Memories, forced into her mind.

There was nothing.

She saw her childhood home, mangled to splinters, glass, and faded paper from the apocalypse.

She saw her mother. What remained of her. The hands and body, the once-blessed face, trapped in an eternal smile, grinning always, for perfect customer service.

She could feel that her mother wanted out. Like screaming into a perfectly sealed container. Eternally contained pain, suffering, at what she... More, what her daughters, were going through.

She saw her sister.

Forever condemned to a life of running and hiding. Surviving on the bare minimum. No chances for joy. No happiness without the knowledge that she'd have to go back to running soon.

She saw her father.

And that was bad enough for her.

...Yokki knew crying was pointless. In the endless time between now and when the collapse happened, she had been wrenched dry of any expression. A doll-faced symbol of time wearing away a person's psyche.

However, this knowledge, these memories, instantly transmitted to her through unimaginable power, caused her to crack. And the crack split her in two.

She fell to weak knees, clutching the clothing over her neck like it was an open wound, screaming into the endless, uncaring void. Clear tears impacting the tarantula-hair ground - ground who's blades of grass eagerly drank up her suffering.

Grew longer from it. Wrapped around her legs like barbed wire, ensnaring her in her sorrow.

A final set of memories beamed into her mind.

She was never getting out.

She was just a vessel for it's purposes now.

And it was either accept that, and help it along, or be doomed to this.

Forever and ever.

Not a matter of changing scenario. A matter of changing perspective.

It was her fault for caring too much, after all.

Bit of a grim start, but here's my first ever public story I'll be posting here!

Please remember all of this is completely fanwork, I'm not officially associated with the Potions 'n' Spices team, though I hope someone from there manages a peek at this little ditty!

And of course I hope you guys enjoy it! Let me know if you got anything else you wanna see from this kinda work?

Sorry for being a bit out of it lately! I'll be trying to use this place more, I genuinely love the support it gives small folks

Also gonna be posting my first ever writing post after this! A small story based on Sunset Hills (What else)

Thanks for the support, it means the world!

Just a question!

I happen to do Graffiti a lot in Kingspray VR. Would you guys like to see that posted? >B)

The main reason I decided to jump over here was writing. I'm very proud of my writing work and I wanna share it!

Most of it will be based around Hotline, frankly (I'm thinkin short stories or character studies on some of the more interesting parts of all this)

If anyone has any tips for a new user on how to share their writing, I'd love them! Thanks so much!