Sleep came uneasily to them both that night. The wind seemed to be howling again, and amid its anguished cries, Cuppy thought he could hear the shrieking of the bunyip, its lost spirit caught in the winds circling the apartments - forever. He lay in his bedroll, its full size intended for an adult feeling exceedingly spacious to Cuppy’s underdeveloped body. His short legs kicked up against the fabric restlessly, and he unconsciously began wiggling his toes and grasping the corners of the sleeping bag within, mindlessly fascinated by the breadth of room left before his feet could reach the bag’s end. He wondered a lot of things that night as he tossed and turned, and played with the inner seams of his bed that should have brought comfort but didn’t. He felt hotfelt at once hot flashes and chills. The night was cold, and the haunting memory was colder still, but the heavy weight of the fabric felt stifling. At the foot of his bedroll, where his legs did not reach, Freyja lay sleeping in her wolf form. The alleged hellhound seemed strangely peaceful and pretty in that shape, no different than a gentle and trusted family pet dog. Her snores were uneasy though, and beneath her eyelids, her yellow-ringed eyes were stained with the image of the man in the suit executing a subdued victim without mercy.

Freyja whined a little in her sleep, her back leg kicking. In the daylight, she could dissociate from the origin she had come from, and from the memories of the many blows she had been dealt for so long. But in her sleep, the wall was brought down, and her canine instincts were transfigured from those of animalistic wrath and predation to those of a whimpering, cowering whipped dog, hiding in a corner. Begging. Praying, perhaps.

But no god answered the prayers of demons.

Cuppy, when sleep did briefly claim him, dreamed that many shadowy hands were pressing against the walls of the apartment from within again, trying to break through the spiritual barriers erected by the many paper talismans strewn about the place. The sigils were wavering, weak and brittle, and in various places, fingers of darkness pierced through the drywall.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

But it was no longer masses of faceless shadow trying to break inside. The walls all around Cuppy, who shrank into his nest at the center of a room now empty and darkened, turned into the faces of countless beasts and demihumans of mythology - gryphons and harpies, sphinx, mermaids and ghouls - all looked in at Cuppy with eyes that were not malevolent - but lost; pleading.

The pain and sorrow in those eyes where there should have been only pitch black malice scared Cuppy far more than he felt, in that moment, any evil eye ever could.

He woke in a cold sweat. In the few weeks he could recall of his young life since waking up alone and devoid of a past in Station Bay, Cuppy had not been well-acquainted with fear. It would be a while still till he learned how to identify it for what it was.

Looking at the foot of his bedroll, he saw Freyja sharing a nightmare as he had before springing awake. She was shivering now, her hackles raised even in her sleep. Cuppy moved to the foot and placed a calming hand on her back. She stirred briefly, then stilled, and her sleep became easy.

“It’s ok. At least one of us can sleep soundly tonight.” Cuppy whispered.

With nothing better to do, he paced about the apartment and reinforced the talismans with tape where they had begun to peel and droop, and then sat awake in the hall painting new ones by lantern light. Looking through the book of kanji he had acquired to better understand half the world Richie had come from, he gently penned the strokes of another linguistic character:

未来

‘Mirai’ - Future.

Cuppy, once finished tracing the mark, held it up with both hands stretching the sheet out like an unfurled scroll to look upon his work.

Richie, where are you? Come back to us soon. he thought wistfully.