Normally it was times like these where I’d be content to have a little introspection - ruminated over a handful of drab words to make some kind of point. But right now, I couldn’t. My mind just felt…

Empty.

And not in a way that was usual in times of stress or recovery from the Hells. There were no cold sweats or panicked twisting of my internal monologue. I felt calm, and I sunk a little lower into the warmth of the water - my eyes tired and wanting to close.

I barely even minded that the water was fast turning crimson. Light at first, as the tendrils of color slowly dispersed through the water, and it darkened into a deeper scarlet. Mesmerizing, in a way.

'Wight!'

Unable to move the muscles of my living face, part of me called out internally to my patron. A few tense seconds later he loomed over me.

His arms grabbed at me, and he was surprisingly… weak. It was a struggle to pull my limp body from the water, and I thudded to the bathroom mat, wet and steaming. He was also cold to the touch, which sparked shivers in me, jolting a bit of life back into the system.

“Ow,” I murmured, face half squished to the floor.

[Are you okay, Eric? Your body is unresponsive.]

“Blood.” Was all I managed to think, my mind blanking at any further thoughts. I watched as he stood, and I had a gaze at his odd clawed feet which barely touched the floor.

[There is no blood, Eric.]

Neat. That was almost as bad - almost. Imagining that I had been bleeding profusely was generally preferable to actually losing most of my blood; the latter had been tried and I wasn’t a huge fan. This didn’t feel like normal corruption antics, though.

I blinked away at the floor as the demon put his hand on my back.

[Apologies, Eric. I am not good at this part.]

“It’s… okay.” My mind recoiled from forming the words. Part of me hoped that Pearl had stuck an early warning system within my broken parts one of the times she had put me back together. The lack of her appearance told me that was wishful thinking.

I gasped for air as if I had been holding my breath all this time, and control came back to my muscles. Sluggish and awkward - but I was able to right myself into a sitting position against the cupboard where the basin was. My hands covered my eyes in hopes that my brain wouldn’t explode. Again, I got lucky on this one.

[Perhaps no demon killing tomorrow.]

My arms lowered, and I looked back at my patron with tears rolling down my cheeks. “But, we have to kill all demons…”

His beak looked sad.

I shivered as the bath water cooled on my skin. Helped sober me somewhat, and risking death, I stood slowly to my feet. Indeed, the bath looked normal. Not filled with blood - and I had no evidence of bleeding on my body. Sighing, I grabbed a towel to wrap around my waist. Wight had seen it all, but it was naturally human to want to cover up.

[Rest may help.]

It was worrying how out of place the demon felt, how he was unable to offer me a solution. When it was corruption or injury, he was fine to let me soldier on or just take a break from hell. Whatever was going on with me now, he had about as much clue as I did. No doubt, it was due to the eldritch rat thing.

I stumbled towards the bedroom, his cold, clawed hand on my back. Beside the drawers, I paused to pull on some underwear - you never knew when you’d have company. The bed deflated slightly, indented under my weight. My tired eyes closed as I sat on the edge. It had been quite the day, in fairness. Battled a Titan, dethroned a King, was absorbed by an evil god, and Partridge chewed me out. Still, at least I had pancakes.

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[How do you work this technology? I can message the Pearl?]

Wearily I opened my eyes to see the bird-Wight jostling with the upside-down phone. A maddening, if not amusing, sight in of itself.

“Here, let me have a peek.” My arm extended, and he passed it over. She hadn’t responded, and it didn’t say that she had read the message. It stood to reason if she was doing some demonic business, she wouldn’t be able to check her mortal-plane phone for her boyfriend’s text messages. If that was what I was, of course.

Little under the weather, nothing dire. Wight is looking after me. X

I added the little cross this time, immediately feeling the roll of awkward panic as soon as I hit send. My head shook as I exhaled - here I was, a grown man getting all flustered at expressing emotion with someone who I had been living with for weeks.

[Tell me what happened in the chamber.]

“Hmm? Oh.” I shuffled back in the bed and laid against the pillow, allowing him to sit on the edge. “After I said I accepted the boon, I was… floating down through nothingness. Then into his waiting maw.”

[Odd. After your acceptance, I saw none of that, Eric.]

“You don’t know who or what that was, though?”

[Unfortunately not. If I have those memories, it is a part of me the Org withholds.]

If there were one of us who might know a little - it would be Rodney. Actually, I had no idea why I thought that. I felt bad that he had been left out of the current proceedings. I brought the phone back up in front of my face.

Hey Rods, if you’re up to it, we have some weird stuff going on - come round tomorrow. No pressure.

Maybe I was laying it on a little thick, but I had never been good at dealing with people dealing with loss. Or dealing with loss myself. Or dealing with people. Hmm. His reply came back relatively quickly.

Sure. Ten okay? Hope you’re in one piece.

Couldn’t help but smile. I don't remember even being in the normal amount of pieces - and when I was, they were often arranged in awkwardly useless ways. I sent him the confirmation and sunk further onto the bed. “Rodney will come over tomorrow to see if two brain cells are better than one.”

[I had missed the Rodney, I am glad.]

I’d better make sure that I had actually bought poker cards and didn’t feverdream the purchase. Wight even had hands now. I need the normalcy to ground me and act as a polar opposite to the horrors of the Hells. It didn’t matter if we were a weird mix of altered humans and demons. My brain was capable of smoothing over the details in a desperate search for happiness.

I watched as the bedsheets began to soak through with deep crimson from around my body.

“You see that?”

[See what, Eric?]

Wight stood from the bed and looked down at me. The dark red began to pool wetly in the indents of the fabric as it soaked through until sodden. Drips ran down the side and onto the floor as almost the whole half of the bed was now bloodied.

“Oh, it’s nothing.” I sighed from my nose. The smell of it seemed real, and even with my eyes closed, my fingertips could feel the dampness. “Just more delusions.”

With an exaggerated pout, I opened my eyes, thankful that at least my patron looked normal. The landscape painting on the wall had begun to bleed from behind the frame, though. I watched the drips run down the wall. That would be a menace to have to clean up.

[Blood again?]

“Yeah - bed looks soaked through with it; some of the walls are bleeding too.” My face scrunched up as I looked around for other inanimate objects that were bloody.

[You do not seem worried, Eric.]

True, and the reason was simple. “It’s not my blood - I would have the urge to activate my ability if it were. Plus, you can’t see it, so it’s unlikely to be anything that I need to worry about.”

Wight turned to look around the room, his large crimson eyes narrowing slightly.

[Very measured. Still, it is not a good sign.]

Probably not. I lifted my hand up to see it marred in the fake blood. There might be a reason for it. Like, a message was trying to be sent to me, but the sender was unsure how beings of my minuscule capabilities properly communicate. I tried to find patterns, as the walls themselves started to run with crimson streaks.

“If this was some kind of message, how would I read it?” The thought left me vocally just to give it more weight - I didn’t expect an answer from my Patron.

[Maybe it has not been completed yet?]

I grimaced. Even the windows had taken a red hue as the blood seeped from every crack and corner of the room. Over the side of the bed, I could see it start to pool up. Filling up the bedroom despite it not exactly being a closed vessel.

Hmm.

“I have an idea, Wight. Possess me.” I held out my bloodied hand as if that had any part of the process.

[I… If you insist, Eric.]

A wave of black feathers briefly filled my vision before the cool power of my patron flooded my body. “Can you see any difference?”

[Everything seems normal.]

Well, that was anti-climatic - I had figured that either Wight would be able to see something I couldn’t, or at least what I could. Maybe even look inside and see if we had a new visitor, their presence-

[Oh, actually... Can you not hear that voice?]

“Voice?” I strained my ears, but nothing filtered through.

[It is screaming deep within you. Constantly.]

Somehow, that seemed perfectly reasonable.