[hr][hr][hr] [center][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/b3RmLjEwNi4xOWRkZDkuUld4aGNtRWdWM0psYmcuMA/half-awake-trial.regular.webp[/img][img]https://i.imgur.com/IDMmues.png[/img][/center] [hr][hr][hr] [color=00FFFF]“I don’t either,”[/color] Elara responded to Bryn. In her mind she knew she could hardly deal with another event like the cataclysm. And while she knew this town had faced these kind of threats, and pushed them back, she also knew that this felt different. Usually it was not a massive wave of fangs threatening to overwhelm even their most ardent defenses. [color=00FFFF]“We’ll get through it, Bryn. We’ve been through worse, and we’ll see worse again before long. But if they try to threaten our town they will remember why they were forced into the mountains in the first place,”[/color] Elara confidently said. As they entered the tattoo shop, Elara noticed a familiar man but couldn’t quite pin down who he was. Her eyes squinted as she tried to narrow down his name but the only thing she could remember was that he was someone who fought in the cataclysm. She sized him up real quick. While she was not as ready for a scrap she did want to be as ready as she could be. [color=00FFFF]“Haven’t seen you since the cataclysm. What brings you round these parts here,”[/color] Elara asked with a raised eyebrow. [color=CD853F]“Ready to get started, Elara,”[/color] Bill asked, his voice cutting the tension in the air. The voice was smooth, almost comforting, but there was something too perfect about it, too unreal. Too kind. Elara turned her head slowly, expecting to see Bill—a man she had trusted for years, who had inked her skin until there was nary a trace of unmarked skin left. But instead, standing there, was something… different. It had Bill’s face, or a version of it, but the smile was too wide, too cold. Bill was a hard man who had grown up with the wrong crowd, fought for his place in the world, and left it all behind to become better. He never smiled, he never showed happiness, and he would never be caught dead around a keeper smiling like that. Elara’s eyes lingered on Bill’s face for a second, and she did not see him blink once. She shifted her eyes down to his exposed hand. There were no tattoos on its skin, not a single marking that would tell Elara that this was the man she saw only a few days prior. [color=00FFFF]“You’re not Bill are you,”[/color] Elara said quietly, her voice steady, though her heart was racing. The thing in front of her grinned, impossibly wide. [color=CD853F]“Of course I’m Bill. You act like you haven’t seen me before, I’ve done all of your tattoos!”[/color] Elara’s gaze flicked to Bryn, and then to the stranger in the shop, then back to the figure and squinted. Bill’s real face had never looked like that. He had wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, something Bill told her was from a lifetime of loss. This thing—it wasn’t Bill. [color=00FFFF]“No,”[/color] she said, her voice now harder. [color=00FFFF]“Bill has tattoos.”[/color] The creature’s smile didn’t waver, but there was a glimmer of something in its eyes, something dark. Elara let her eyes linger in his for a moment before she realized it seemed pleased that she discovered the truth. [color=CD853F]“Does it matter,”[/color] it chittered, leaning closer as it did. The air suddenly grew colder as Elara’s emotional field was hit by some unknown force, like something was trying to work its way past her defenses and into her mind. [color=CD853F]“I know you’re having nightmares, Elara.”[/color] Elara’s pulse quickened. Only Bill knew about her nightmares. She had confided with him during their last session. Getting a tattoo was a form of therapy to her and Bill has become a form of a therapist. [color=CD853F]“You describe them so vividly. I can almost taste the ash in the air, or hear the sounds of your elders being hit by the acid. It’s like I was actually there, watching the buildings,”[/color] It’s fingers twitched, as if pointing in horror towards invisible buildings behind the group eyes wide with horror, [color=CD853F]“collapse around me. I can help you forget,”[/color] it grinned as it took two quick steps, much faster than any that a human could do, [color=CD853F]“you just have to let me in like Bill did. And all that pain, that suffering, becomes mine for the taking and you get to be free of it all.”[/color] Her eyes shot towards Bryn as she once again readied herself. Normally she’d talk things through with Bryn before taking a violent action against a member of the community like Bill was, at least tell her that she was about to do something But this thing in front of her wasn’t Bill. [color=00FFFF]“No,”[/color] Elara whispered, shaking her head as she took a step back.. She could feel the cold sweat prickling at her skin, a terror creeping in as she felt more magic pushing against her emotional field, but she fought it. She wouldn’t let it take her. [color=00FFFF]“Where’s Bill.”[/color] In an instant Elara’s hand filled with her magical bow, its vivid white light danced and arched, casting the room in its over-saturating light.