>>135
ILU Writer, thank you. Normally my interpretation of Mado isn't related to Monoko, but I think I'mma let /lit/ be the place for me to deviate from my own established versions of the characters.
Gonna try a story with an idea I got in /seccom/ wherein Masada becomes possessed by Uboa, who is a shapeshifting evil spirit not necessarily linked to Poniko. Possible gore, violence, but no smut. And now, without further ado, I present to you:
[.::.ALIVE.::.]
[Part I: OVER]
The only warning I had been given had been only the slightest inkling of a malevolent possibility. Just words, calm ones, from Madotsuki's lips. Spirits, she'd called them. Madotsuki had always known about things alien to my perception. She spoke often of the things she read from books in a place called Apartment (an apparently flightless spaceship with no piano, and a giant glassless window called a balcony). She talked to me about things like Gods with names I couldn't pronounce and gruesome rituals.
The first time I'd ever heard of spirits, Madotsuki described them as creatures that were ultimately either good or evil. Good spirits protected people, helped them, or sometimes chased away evil spirits. Evil spirits harmed people, caused pain, or crept into dreams to cause chaos and terror. "Madotsuki," I had said over the light, soft melody I was playing, "Are your dreams ever haunted by evil spirits?" The gap between my question and her response was bridged only by my music.
"...Yes." Her voice had dropped in volume and tone, which gave me cause to turn around and glance at her where she sat at my table. She was slumped over, hands planted firmly on either side of her head. She didn't seem to be in pain, but her hands pushed hard over her ears.
"Madots--" I began, but the scrape of the chair against the floor cut me off. She'd gotten up quite suddenly. "Bleep blee bloop..." I said, disheartened. It was piano for "I didn't mean it." I must have said something wrong.
"I think I need to go." She told me in her brief way, and shuffled into the sector of the ship through which she always entered. Even though there was no way out of the ship that I knew of Madotsuki was never in that room when I elected to follow her.
I went back to the piano and quickly composed a song. It was a haunting melody assimilating what Madotsuki had told me, winding in my curiosity towards her departure and my unanswered question. Satisfied, I decided I would lay down. At times I woke up to find Madotsuki staring at me from whence she'd crawled into bed with me. I hoped that would be the case. I missed her, she was my only company... or so I thought. In space, many things meandered past one's window, most of them unidentifiable. I passed by hundreds of lights and shadows every day and night. What was one more? Indeed, what was one more shadow until it was slipping over your sheets? Until it was crawling over you, around you, into you?
I always half slept. Part of my mind was awake, the other half could easily fall into a deep sleep, taking my body with it. Just as my eyes both worked in different fashions so too did my mind. I was aware of someone-- something-- creeping up behind me, but I paid it no mind. Probably Madotsuki coming to curl up against my back. The mattress shifted, but the sheets remained warm over me. Something snaked over them. The air took on a dead coldness, and my restful mind was jarred into creeping wakefulness-- something was wrong. A low buzzing started in my ears, increasing in volume and pitch gradually as whatever unsettling tendrils of horror were upon me multiplied, effectively locking me to the bed. I stirred, turning onto my back, and cracking open my eyes. There was a few seconds of focused before they resumed their typical roundabout rolling. That moment of focus was enough though. The buzzing had turned into a filtered scream, which I understood to be coming from the inky, gash-like mouth of the grotesque creature that now blanketed me. There was a sound like hands smashing on a piano-- my own cries-- as that gaping abyss of a mouth distended into a void that swallowed me completely. Blackness.
......
Do I dream? Madotsuki spoke often of dreams, but as was typical of me, I had not experienced many of the things she talked about. Still, when I scrambled out of bed unscathed as I was so sure I would not be, I was convinced relievingly that umbreous vision I'd had was just a dream. With great effort I managed to remove my bodysuit, seeking any kind of mark to indicate harm. There was nothing. My body was, as always, as white and utterly featureless. I possessed no extremeties but for my arms and legs, no bumps, no holes but for my mouth and nostrils. Nowhere some nebulous astral monster could have climbed up inside of me and taken shelter; taken hold. I slid back into my bodysuit with comfort and started towards my piano to journal my horror story musically.
It was not a grand tune. In fact, it was barely there, a series of higher tinkling notes with a sinister overtone of longer, deeper peals. The piano bayed my fear. My hands trembled, which frightened me-- never could I remember trembling for any reason whilst I played. My anxiety manifested when my hands seemed to take on a life of their own, rushing discordantly over keys I knew so well that I could never suffer myself to disgrace them with such an ugly sound. Still, my hands kept going. There was a sudden, palpable wriggling in my psyche, a mental or perhaps intellectual twitch of some kind. The buzzing from before filled my head this time. Beads of sweat formed at my hairline, hands pulling me to and fro, making appalling, violent noises with such calculation that the knowledge of them had to be mine, but the control was not. My fingertips crashed against the keys, and the spell was broken. With a scream that mimicked the mashing of the piano keys I staggered back, keeling over onto the floor. My breath sped out of control and I wound my arms around myself almost protectively. The buzzing in my head was getting louder and louder, broken up with whips of another, darker sound that floated formlessly in the white noise. These stygian noises solidified into one low rasp, which carried through my brain. It stuttered in a noise which sounded eerily like laughter, fast, chattering laughter that stopped abruptly. The horrid resonations licked at my eardrums affectionately.
"Your hands are good, but mine have a better purpose."
I thrashed on the floor suddenly, looking for the source of the voice, but my flailing stopped at the resurgence of the laughter, which caused me to clasp my hands over my ears. "Who are you?" I choked.
"Me?" It taunted. "I'm me. Uboa, to be exact. But I'm going to be you pretty soon."
I clutched my ears almost defiantly, emitting a few disjointed piano sounds before responding with a scream of "No!" My denial went uncontested, but the sound didn't fade. "What do you want with me?" My voice appeared again, but only as a sliver of sound.
"I have a job to do with your body, a job having to do with that little lady I've found in your memories. Who knew you'd be so connected to her?" The rasp took on an edge of conniving. The entire universe went still for me. Not Madotsuki. Not her. I wasn't sure what this Uboa was but of all things I did not want it touching her. "I'm not going to touch her." Uboa responded testily, reading my thoughts. "You are. In fact, you might just touch her with that silly little knife she pointed at me." Abruptly the sound switched off, leaving me alone on the floor of my spaceship facing an unbelievable but simultaneously undeniable reality: My body was no longer in my sole possession.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
That's it for now, ladies and gents. Feedback much appreciated for my short, dinky little new pet project.