Mistaken for a Masked Munchkin

Vulgar Slaughter, Cowardly Survival (5)

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"Luck has favored you twice now."

"......"

The words came out easy and unhurried.

Something was wrong.

The last attack hadn't been a mistake on the Director's part. The distance was too close to miss. The strike too precise to go wide.

And yet it had.

Like someone had reached in and bent the fist's arc mid-swing.

"Who knows."

The mask grinned, grotesque and wide. All the jester had done, again, was draw one light gesture through the air.

"......"

The Director's smile began to die.

How had he done that? What trick was he pulling?

He'd checked every possible risk. Every one. No energy to detect. No muscle on that scrawny frame.

'That body, and it deflected an attack I'd layered with Blood Manipulation...?'

How was that possible?

Impossible by any rational measure. But it was the reality planted right in front of him.

"Wh, what did you just do?"

"Do you want to know?"

The mask tilted its head and smiled. That grin was pure mockery.

An unfamiliar situation. An enemy he couldn't read. The killing intent thickening with every second, and that sneer on top of it all. The Director's composure shattered.

"This, this bastard and his cheap tricks...!"

He lunged again. This time, Blood Manipulation had shaped a weapon in his grip. Vivid red blood condensed and hardened into a massive hammer. One blow to turn the jester into ground meat.

Shriek!

A louder crack split the air. The heavy hammerhead came crashing down toward the boy.

The mask was still.

"No capacity to learn?"

"......"

Click.

Again, it went wide. The hammer caved into the floor instead, leaving a sizeable crater in the corridor.

"Im, im, impossible...!"

Now the Director was certain. His opponent was not normal.

No sorcery. No mana. No dark mana. Not even a trace of a ghoul. Just human. Ordinary. And yet he was pulling off something like this, relaxed, like it cost him nothing at all.

"F*ck, f-f*ck...!"

He was starting to come apart. All that unhurried ease, gone.

"Ugh!"

He threw himself forward without thinking, intent on overpowering with sheer size. Same result.

"Slow. Honestly, I could fall asleep."

"F*cking piece of sh*t...!"

"When are you going to land one?"

"Shut up!"

"I'm not sure how many more chances I can give you. I've had at least ten openings to kill you by now."

"Ugh, aaagh...!"

Click. Click. Click. Click.

Attack after attack, every one going wide. The ticking of the watch needled into his eardrums. The Director was wearing out. Breath burning up to his chin. Cold sweat soaking his spine. Dozens of swings. All of them wasted.

"D*mn it... this is impossible!!"

For the first time in his life, he was afraid of a human.

To the Director, humans had always been raw material. Inferior creatures. Trash that needed to be reborn as art. That was what they were. Always had been.

"I'm getting tired of waiting. I was going to let you land one."

"G-get lost...!"

"I think that's long enough. Time I started moving."

"Eek...!"

What he'd thought was trash was cornering him. Past cornering, even. It was trying to kill him.

The Director squirmed like a worm. "D-d, don't come closer! Don't!"

Stumble, stumble.

He swung the hammer wildly, backing away without realizing it. Then.

Crackle.

The boy who had been stepping lightly in place disappeared. A shimmer in the air, like a heat mirage, and then nothing. The Director looked around, bewildered.

"Wh, what! Where did he...?"

Stab.

Just as he turned to look behind him, something pierced his right arm. Pain like molten rock pouring through his veins. His flesh burned, loud and terrible.

Sizzle!

"Kgh, aaagh!!"

He screamed. His arm crumbled apart piece by piece, dry and brittle as scorched earth. Tears streamed down his face. A voice came from behind him.

The jester who had vanished was standing at his back.

"Quite a reaction."

That glinting fragment in his hand.

The Director jolted and toppled backward with a crash.

"Kugh... haah... gasp, gasp..."

"Vampires and ghouls can supposedly regenerate indefinitely as long as blood is supplied. Unfortunately, the wounds I've given you won't heal. The weapon I'm holding is rather special."

"Krghk!"

Whoosh!

He flailed with his remaining arm, but all it tore through was air. The boy wasn't there.

"How is it."

"......"

Behind him. Already there. When had he moved? Too fast to follow with the eye.

Before the Director could run, the stake drove into his right thigh.

Stab!

"Krghaaaaah!!!"

"Does that hurt."

Same as before, burning and then crumbling away like ash. From a throat gone hoarse, only whimpers leaked out.

The boy vanished again. Reappeared at his back.

"Are you frightened."

Thrust. Stab.

No hesitation. One drive into the remaining arm, one into the other thigh. Both limbs gone, leaving nothing but a torso squirming like a larva.

Thud.

The boy's shoe came down onto what remained of him.

"You can't run anymore. Are you in despair."

"A-ahh..."

The Director denied reality. Or tried to.

"Th, this can't be... this can't be happening, this can't be happening!!"

"Enough."

Crack!

The Director screamed, and the boy seized his jaw. Then clenched his fist and drove it into his mouth, again and again. Teeth shattered and scattered.

On closer look, it wasn't a fist. A chunk of stone. Swinging like he meant to shatter every single fang.

Crack! Crunch, crunch!

Every blow split the boy's own hand open too. Not a flinch. Just ruthlessness.

The Director wasn't even allowed a scream.

"Grrk..."

"Quiet."

"Sto, stop..."

"Quiet."

"Gk..."

"Quiet."

"......"

"Quiet."

"......"

Sizzle.

He pressed the stake against flesh, burning through raw skin, steady and deliberate. Burns spread across the entire body. Every last tooth, gone.

Crack, crack!

"Sp... spare me..."

He was begging now.

"I'm s-sorry... I was wr, wrong... wrong..."

"......"

"Spare, spare me, please..."

"......Ha."

A short, hollow laugh. The jester set down the weapon he'd been holding. Then brought his face close, that mask hovering right in front of the Director's eyes.

Was he actually going to grant the request? A flicker of hope sparked in those crushed, ruined eyes.

"There's a line I like to use in moments like this. A bit cliche, admittedly."

The mask.

The smiling mask.

"You want to be spared. But you..."

Hm.

Had that mask always smiled like that?

Had

it

always

smiled

like

that.

"Those people who begged you, did you ever spare even one of them?"

Everything in his vision twisted out of shape. The mask's grin had stretched all the way below its ears until it could no longer be called a face. Too late, the Director understood he had said something he should not have.

"Ah..."

The next moment, the mask's eyes and mouth flooded red. That torn grin split open all the way to the ceiling.

From within it, a gateway opened.

Somewhere deep.

A bottomless abyss.

A world that should not exist.

The Director fell into a crimson space.

"......"

Tentacles writhed on every side. A sea of blood, pus, and rot risen all the way to the underside of the sky. Things squirmed inside it. Phenomena that defied comprehension unfolded around him.

A sun hung overhead.

Enormous.

No. That was not a sun.

It was an eye, as vast as the sea itself.

"......"

Tentacles coiled around his body. It looked down at him. He was reflected in those writhing pupils, and yet he could not tell what color those eyes were. Probably because his own eyes had burned out the moment their gazes met.

"Ah, ahh..."

A high, thin breath. The Director sank. Blood, pus, rot flooding his lungs. Still, that thing gazed down at him.

"Ahh..."

A sound reached him. A sound that could not possibly exist.

.- - -... .- ... .... -.-. .. .--. .... . .-

It.

It was speaking to him.

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

A moment where one second stretched like a hundred years. Language that should not be understood poured into him. The Director's body seized and shook.

And not long after.

The Director's brain burned out.

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