Nightshade

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The air that stank of desperately dispelled staleness greeting [[character:Pascal Baudin|Pascal]] as he got off the subway seemed to bring something else with it today. He couldn't quite put a finger on what it was, but it hit him with a suddenness that almost made him pause in the middle of the bustle - an action that would surely have provoked some collisions with other absent-minded commuters behind him.

There was something about the strange feeling that made him look about, as if expecting an old acquaintance to stare him in the face somewhere amongst the shifting crowds. But there was no one there - neither anyone meeting his gaze, nor anyone he as much as recognised as a friend or colleague. Yet something was different, something about his mental state, making him lament the human inability to accurately self-diagnose anything.

It was a few steps later that the feeling resolved into //premonition//. Sitting on the stairs leading up out of the subway is the silhouette of an emaciated cheetah, grooming one forepaw near the knuckle of a misplaced set of talons. The dark bands characteristic of a cheetah extend this creature's glowing eyes, and what would normally be tufts of fur at the base of the back of its neck seem to have grown to firm spines.

But the most striking aspect of the situation is that no one else cares. The crowd is dutifully flowing around the obstacle, suggesting it more than a mere hallucination, but by the looks of things, only Pascal as much as recognises it as something strange, as more than a forgettable, misplaced art exhibit.

<fc #008888>The sense of sudden change as he steps off the subway catches Pascal off-guard, pausing for a split-second mid-stride before the bustling of commuters reminds him to keep moving. Nothing looks or sounds or smells obviously different or out-of-place, but he can't help but feel like something's off. He manages to find a relatively quiet part of the platform, near a support pillar and out of the way of most foot traffic, pauses there to look around. Nothing quite jumps out at him at first, no familiar face or unusual activity or anything. A chime sounds, the subway doors close, and the train moves on.</fc>

<fc #008888>He resumes walking towards the exit, almost ready to brush the sensation off as his mind pulling tricks on him, before he sees it. It looks like a large cat sitting on the stairs out, completely black with glowing eyes, grooming its forepaw. He stops, staring at the figure, eyes widening briefly. What //is// that? His first thought (probably primed by the odd mental state) is a hallucination, but that doesn't make sense; people are clearly walking around it. There's something there, for certain. And he's certain nothing was there in the stairwell before today.</fc>

<fc #008888>An art exhibit, maybe? Something animatronic? He doesn't remember hearing about anything like that, and everyone else seems to be completely ignoring it. Which... perhaps wouldn't be so odd if it were merely some people, but //everyone// is ignoring it. Also, why would someone put an exhibit like this in a stairway? The platform he could understand, but the stairway is an odd choice.</fc>

<fc #008888>Whatever's happening, the... thing doesn't seem to be terribly interested in anyone, it's not attacking or anything, just sitting there. So whatever it is -- strange art exhibit, hallucination, exotic pet (with glowing eyes?) -- it's probably safe. So he just needs to walk past it. Slowly, he resumes walking towards the exit, eyes locked on the creature in a mix of caution and curiosity.</fc>

Despite the eerie pinprick eyes, it quickly becomes apparent from the way its muzzle is moving that the creature is tracking him in particular as he cautiously begins to leave. Before he's even reached the stairway, though, the creature's lurched out of its passive posture, leaning forward into a brief slink, parting the indifferent crowd, but making it completely unmistakable that it is not, in no conceivable reality, simply some kind of subtly animated statue. Its motions are smooth, awkwardly natural given its wholly //un//natural appearance.

<fc #008888>...okay, not an art piece. Definitely coming towards him. Staring at him with those pinprick eyes. So, hallucination? Except that people are still avoiding it. //Why are they avoiding it?!// It makes no sense. If it's a hallucination, people shouldn't be avoiding it; if it's real, they shouldn't be otherwise ignoring it. This is quickly moving from "strange" to "terrifying"; he can worry about deconstructing what's happening later. Mental note to self, talk to colleagues about this tomorrow.</fc>

<fc #008888>Unfortunately, the platform only has one exit, and the whatever-it-is is still between him and the stairs. Maybe he can get around it? He hastens his pace, veering off to the left, weaving his way through the crowd to try and bypass the creature tracking him.</fc>

As he necessarily approaches the tangible silhouette, its pinprick eyes flare up as if to denote threatening attention. He has little time to analyse the expression - in an abrupt motion, it's launched itself off the stairs and toward him, its arms cast forward, talons aiming for his shoulders to dig its claws through the fabric and into his skin and tear him down the bottom few stairs and onto the platform with its momentum, all the while its maw has opened to reveal distinctly three-dimensional, brightly white feline teeth.

<fc #008888>Pascal has about enough time to utter a wordless yelp, manoeuvring in some mixture of a duck, a twist, and a sideways lunge in the hopes of getting away from the creature. He's not nearly fast enough, though; one forepaw barely misses its mark but the other catches his arm just below the shoulder, the motion knocking him off-balance and tumbling down the few stairs he'd managed to ascend. Somehow, he manages not to knock anyone over, though a few people are jostled a bit and continue up the stairs, completely ignoring the feral shadowbeast and its unfortunate victim.</fc>

<fc #008888>An instant later, he crashes into the concrete platform, thankfully avoiding hitting his head, his shoulder and hip taking the brunt of the impact, drawing a cry of pain out of him. As soon as his breath allows, he cries out: "Help!"</fc>

Even as that single syllable escapes him, the creature's biting down, seizing a hold of his shoulder, its teeth sinking in past the fibres of his jacket and shirt, slamming into his skin, canines of its lower jaw on either side of his collarbone, their fiercer counterparts glancing against the very top of his shoulderblade. A few people glance his way as they hear his cry, then stumble away in confused horror at the unidentified predator, without so much as a visible attempt to make sense of the situation; no mobile phones whip up to take a picture; no one tries to call for professional help. Most distressingly, most people are //still// ignoring the scene entirely, as if he were caught in some bizarre dream.

An instant later, a hot pain stabs down from his mangled shoulder as the creature tugs at him, stalking awkwardly across the platform, dragging his unwieldy, cumbersome body by its punctured shoulder. The pain is intense, his primal instincts suggesting that perhaps something was trying to tear his arm off, but the creature seems uninterested in anything so final.

//The creature.// It's still only a silhouette, an impossibly featureless shape appearing only like a flat-filled outline, with the exception of those alien eyes and the golden, dimly glowing bands marking its muzzle, serving as the only anchor of three-dimensionality for his visual cortex.

<fc #008888>His single-syllable cry for help gets partially mangled into a howl of pain towards the end as those jaws sink into his shoulder. Eyes squeeze shut, his features distorting into a pained grimace. His hands grasp at the monster, one hand pressing against its chest, the other finding the side of its neck, trying to pry it off or push it away, or otherwise encourage it to let go. The texture is //wrong//, not fur or skin or anything else he might think of, but seemingly impossible to place.</fc>

<fc #008888>Some stray thought in the back of his mind doesn't want to harm it, reminds him cheetahs are an endangered species and it's probably lost and confused and hungry, but that doesn't line up with anything he's seen. Well, except maybe the 'hungry' bit. This isn't a cheetah or anything else like it; it's an impossible creature. He can't budge it //at all//. He's too preoccupied to pay much attention to the crowds, though it doesn't sound like most people are taking notice. Nobody's trying to get this thing off of him; he can only hope someone's calling the police or animal control or something.</fc>

The edge of the platform whispers along his side - if his arms were dangling, one of them would have been tipped off the edge. A train rumbles across the tracks, grinding itself to a halt with an industrial growl. As it comes to a rest, he's at one end, the animated obsidian sculpture still dragging him along with an impossible strength, skewering his perception with a hot pain from his abused shoulder, once for each of its strides. The edge of the platform is eating at the side of his spine now, twisting his legs to the side in an instinct not to fall. As the train rumbles back to life, the apparition pauses, raising both him and its own pinprick, starlight gaze to watch the metal cars accelerate, then pass by. Just as the last car gives way to a view of the wall on the opposite end of the tracks, the creature wrenches at his body, half lifting, half pushing him over the edge and letting go.

<fc #008888>It's deeply worrisome how close to the edge he is, the bumps of the white warning strip dragging across his backside in silent admonition. There's a brief moment of panic at the sound of another approaching train, his body managing to twist enough away from the edge that it doesn't get hit. The monster doesn't seem to care one way or the other, though - it's still dragging him dangerously close to the edge, ignoring the train and the handful of people filing out of it. The people seem to be perfectly content to return the favor; he manages another shout for help through the pain, but nobody seems to be paying any attention to the man getting dragged off by an impossible creature.</fc>

<fc #008888>A sharper burst of pain digs into his shoulder as the creature lifts its pinprick gaze, tugging him against gravity. Pascal screws his eyes shut as the train speeds past a handful of centimeters away; a moment after it's passed, the world tilts, and he topples over the edge of the platform, landing face-down in between the rails. A fresh terror grips him, and he moves to push himself up with his good arm, hoping to turn and run and get away from this //thing// while he still can.</fc>

He's twisted himself into half a stand when the weight of the creature knocks him back down, only narrowly missing the grisly chance to ram his skull into the rails. One set of talons sinks into the back of his shirt, emulating a human grip, twisting the fabric until the collar is tight enough to choke him, cloth whispering along his wounded shoulder like sandpaper. The grip combines with his struggles until his spine knocks against the rail. As though using it as a hook to keep him in place, the creature begins to drag him by the collar, itself striding between the rails, still effortlessly handling him, as though he weighed nothing at all. The ends of the cross-beams bite at him, slamming into his shoulder and hip in even intervals, giving him a sense of speed. After the first ten finish raking down his body they begin to tear tiny chunks out of his dermis, bolstered in their bite by the endless litter of sharp-edged stones.

<fc #008888>The weight of the creature knocks another cry of pain out of him, shoving him against the railbed -- thankfully far enough from the third rail that he's not in serious danger of getting electrocuted. Then the fabric of his shirt tugs against his neck, his collar choking him for a moment before he manages to hook a couple fingers between the fabric and his throat. Stones and wooden ties drag against his body at a regular rate, scratching at exposed skin and drawing a fresh wince from him at each thud.</fc>

<fc #008888>Slowly, it begins to dawn on Pascal that he's going to die down here. If not to the monster, then surely it'll only be a matter of time before another train comes by and flattens them both. He probably has about ten minutes left. He could try to wrench himself out of his shirt and escape, but between the mangled shoulder and his captor's speed, he wouldn't make it very far, and it would just end with being dragged by his skin instead of his shirt. Maybe the next train would stop once the driver saw him, but... something about this creature seemed to make other people ignore it. Would the driver even notice? Would they even notice if they ran over him? Would anyone come to find his body? Why didn't anyone else seem to notice something was odd? //Why did he?//</fc>

Precious minutes pass to more dragging, the tiny craters in his skin beginning to demand more of his attention. The light from the platforms begins to creep into unimportance, gradually outshone by the eerie pinprick eyes of the creature and the bands of light leading from those cold stars to the tip of its muzzle each time it glances at him. The flat darkness of the creature becomes somehow even more strange in the twilight, the rest of the landscape, while dimming overall, adopting increasingly high-contrast outlines.

And then, in just a few disorienting motions, the light of civilisation disappears entirely behind a corner.

<fc #008888>The next few minutes are spent in silence, save for the sound of Pascal's breath and the occasional wince of pain as a piece of gravel hits a raw shred of skin. Every now and then, he can hear a train somewhere in the distance, every noise a hint at a possible impending death. There are sounds coming closer, but he's pretty sure it's a train coming the other way -- or at least, he hopes it is. Then again, would dying to an oncoming train really be worse than getting eaten by this thing?</fc>

<fc #008888>Before either of those options can happen, though, there's a sudden lurch to the right, shoving him over the rail -- and then moments later, he's swallowed by darkness, with only the creature's haunting eyes and glowing markings for light. ...a maintenance tunnel, perhaps? At least he's not on the tracks any more... though the train was probably the least of his worries.</fc>

As the grip on his collar relents, the creature's teeth briefly appear in a disembodied, silent snarl - oddly bright and vivid in the darkness, but still by far the most palpable and real part of the monster that had dragged him here - as if to promise a mauling. None comes. Instead, the incomplete face comes to rest again, swerving in the darkness. There's still just enough ambient light here to make the outlines of the creature apparent to a concentrated glance, a sculpted silhouette.

And it's simply sitting there, between Pascal and where - if his sympathy-aching skull wasn't completely confused - he had been dragged in through. The creature's tail swerves behind it, its motion gradual but steady, a slow metronome.

A sharp, angry rumble with electric edges and a gust of stale wind invades the space he's in, suggesting they hadn't been blessed with that much time to spare.

<fc #008888>A moment later, he's released, stumbling forwards and twisting onto his back to look at the -- well, to look at what little of the creature he can actually see. For a moment, it looks like it's going to lunge forward and sink its teeth into him -- but it doesn't. Instead, it just watches him. Cautiously, he shifts away from the creature, backing himself up against a wall. It doesn't seem terribly interested in pursuing him -- not yet, at least. But it's effectively got him cornered.</fc>

<fc #008888>A train rushes by, briefly lighting the edge of the tunnel -- revealing the creature just sitting there, tail swaying back and forth, observing him. //Observing.// What is it waiting for? Why is it watching him and not attacking? It's clearly intelligent -- at least to some degree -- and just as clearly capable of severely harming him. It's not hungry. It's almost like it's... curious?</fc>

<fc #008888>After a long, tense silence, Pascal finally voices a thought: "If you didn't drag me out here to kill me, then why?" It's spoken softly, a rhetorical question more directed at himself than at the nearly-invisible monster -- he doubts it would even understand him, let alone respond.</fc>

There's no immediate answer - no verbal one, at least. In the darkness between the trains, however, something changes. Beside the pinprick eyes, another set appears, first to the right of the creature, then another to the left, then yet another on the right, until there is a band of eerie eyes in the darkness, threatening to become a ring of lights around Pascal. A less visible transformation finally reaches an ankle - a serpentine tentacle curls to grip it, at first seeming to serve purely as an anchor, but evidently quite content to continue its ascent. Just under the centre of the band of pinprick eyes, a pink tongue flicks across briefly revealed teeth. "What confounding riddle," an alien but crisp voice speaks, more breath than tone, set into a frame of mirth entwined with a venomous hiss. "Might you hazard a guess?"

<fc #008888>As a second pair of eyes appears in the darkness, the tense curiosity escalates into terror again. Then there's a third, a fourth, a fifth -- how many of these creatures are there?! (A part of his mind points out the eyes were all packed too closely together to easily belong to multiple creatures -- but everything else about this situation is impossible, he's not sure common sense ought to be trusted right now.) As the eyes multiply, he begins to scurry further away from the creature, following the wall in hopes of possibly finding another exit.</fc>

<fc #008888>He doesn't get very far before something catches on his leg, coiling around his ankle and holding it firmly in place. What //is// that?! It can't be the same creature, can it? His mind races, trying to make sense of the situation -- and then it stops suddenly, as the monster speaks to him. //It can speak.//</fc>

<fc #008888>The entire situation feels surreal, like he's somehow wandered into a waking nightmare, or perhaps a horror movie. Like the environment itself is conspiring against him, seeking to maximize his misery. //If this is a nightmare, when can I wake up?// His body is frozen in terror, wide eyes locked onto the line of pinprick lights.</fc>

Of course, the problem is that it's the least likely nightmare he's ever had the displeasure of experience - it's //more crisp// than he can recall any of his previous waking weeks to have been, as though some kind of filter had been stripped away from him, leaving his nerves bared. "No?" the creature asks, tugging at his ankle in a motion at first abrupt, then steady, dragging him closer to those vibrant teeth hovering in the darkness, like a disembodied grin - as though Alice's //Cheshire cat// had escaped into the real world and taken on an appetite for toying with stray humans.

<fc #008888>Evidently getting himself dragged by the ankle towards the looming monster is enough to thaw Pascal out of his mental paralysis. There's a brief physical scramble to try and tug his leg free, or to fight the creature's pull, but there's nothing he can grab hold of. //The monster's talking to him.// It's strange that this is still the issue he's facing -- but if it can talk to him, maybe it can be reasoned with?</fc>

<fc #008888>Then again, given what it's done to him so far, 'reasonable' isn't a word he'd use to describe it. But maybe he can at least delay whatever terrible purpose it has in mind. "No, I-- Please don't hurt me. I don't know what you want, but -- I mean, unless you want to terrify me, in which case, ha ha, good job, you win! But, I... Look, if there's any way I can give you what you want that doesn't involve me getting hurt, I mean more hurt, then can we do that and both leave happy?" If he were getting mugged, he'd be handing over his wallet right now, but he's pretty sure a monstrous cheshire cheetah thing doesn't have any use for whatever cash is in his wallet. (Is there even any cash in his wallet? When was the last time he went to an ATM? He can't recall.)</fc>

The creeping tendril around his leg reaches his knee just as he tries to yank himself free, its spiral grip tightening into one strong enough that his foot begins to tingle. Maintaining the same odd tone of dangerous amusement, the creature responds with: "There is not," landing a strange emphasis on the 't'. Just as it dawn on Pascal what those three words might be referring to, an arm of darkness lashes toward his good shoulder, sinking claws into the flesh around the joint - revealing its form as that of an emaciated giant's fist, with fingers twice as long as those of a human and claws like a comodo dragon's. With less haste and firmness, another tries to wrap around his wrist. "But perhaps you may want to earnestly try your hand at your own riddle."

<fc #008888>Pascal howls in pain as the claws sink into his flesh, bringing his total number of unmangled shoulders down to zero. Eyes squeeze shut, hot tears leaking out the sides, as he tries to focus through the pain. Massive foreign fingers begin to wrap around his wrist, but he manages to pull his hand away before it can establish a firm hold. His leg is starting to go numb from the tendril's tightening grip. And it's still speaking to him, toying with him, talking about a 'riddle'. What was it he said? Why isn't it killing him, or something?</fc>

<fc #008888>Maybe if he answers the riddle it'll let him go. It's a desperate long-shot, but right now he has no other ideas. Okay, what does he know about this thing? It's intelligent. It's predatory. It's **incredibly terrifying**. It reminds him a little of the Cheshire Cat from //Alice in Wonderland//, not that he remembers many of the details from that story. It likes riddles. It seems to be enjoying watching him struggle. It singled him out. No one else could see it -- or, no, that's not quite the right word for it, but the amount of pain he's in is a bit too distracting to correct that thought. He hazards a guess: "Is it because I can actually see you?" It doesn't quite work as an answer to a riddle, but hopefully it's close. "You're keeping me away from other humans so I can't warn them about you? Separating me from the 'herd'?"</fc>

The impossible eyes flare up and the demonic grin widens in a silent amusement. "It is better than if you had refused to answer," the creature observes. "But I count at least three errors in your response." In a steady motion, the creature's reaching for his upper arm near the trapped shoulder, curling long fingers around it, then easing that circle down until it's closed about his wrist, grip tight enough even as it travels to pinch at his hairs and threaten to bruise his skin. Still with a soft, haunting voice, it speaks: "You may either try again or, if you'd rather, name the mistakes."

<fc #008888>Okay. Three mistakes. Number one is easy, 'seeing' is obviously not the problem with these things. Noticing? Perceiving? It's hard to find the right word. The other people on the platform were unaware, like they were lost in a daydream and unable to perceive that this creature was a threat. Number two... this thing took him away from everyone else and very deliberately didn't kill him. It's obviously separating him, but maybe not for that reason. Maybe there's no concern about him warning them. Maybe he can't, maybe whatever's causing other people to not notice or care about an impossible monster mauling a pedestrian would also prevent him from warning them about these things.</fc>

<fc #008888>What's the third? Panicked thoughts run in circles. Nothing he said is presenting itself as a potential mistake that doesn't fall into one of those buckets. Maybe something he didn't say, or something he missed? But there are too many possibilities for that; any guess he could make is just as likely to be wrong as right. But what's his other option? Try again? Okay, think. Why hasn't it killed him yet? Is this some form of cruel entertainment? Why the seclusion? If no one can notice him screaming, why bother dragging him off to the side? This could be happening in the middle of Saint-Lazare station and no one would bat an eye.</fc>

<fc #008888>...unless the point isn't about how other people react, but about how **he** reacts, being isolated from other humans (regardless of whether they could help him). A game? A test? An experiment? That last option sinks claws into his gut. Is he the experimental subject, or the control group? //Is this thing an alien psychologist? Is this why it singled me out?// Either way, he's running out of time.</fc>

<fc #008888>"I don't--" He swallows, hard, trying to keep his voice steady. "I don't think I can get all three, and you d-don't seem like the type to hand out partial credit." A forced chuckle. "So guess number two. You're observing human behavior. Isolated from others. No... distractions, in the form of me trying to call for help. Maybe it's an experiment, maybe you're just doing this for fun." Why the torture, though? Observing pain responses? Or 'just for fun'?</fc>

Meanwhile, either mercifully or forebodingly, its grip seems to have reached a static state, holding Pascal's arm extended ahead of him. Some of the myriad of eyes hovering around him blink. "Maybe you should have given yourself an easier riddle," the creature appends, its unnatural grin still wide. A subtle shift of the creature's body ripples through its hold on him, briefly punishing his shoulder further, a mild tugging on the joint. But if he feared dislocation, none came.

Instead, a sensation like a light nail travelling down the outside of his pinky finger shoots up his senses, intense for a moment, then dulling as it spreads along the entire digit. From his perception in what little light scatters into their niche, a fleeting flame the same shade of dark grey as the digit peels away from his hand, as though it were an appendage of the creature's that he hadn't been fully aware of that had swept across the finger and now drew back. A darker shadow laps at his finger - and half a second later, a burning sensation wraps itself tightly against his flesh, biting its way down to his knuckle, where it lingers and merges with a dull, throbbing ache. It takes a moment for the sequence to register - a wire of warmth creeps down the outside edge of his hand and catches as a droplet at the base.

Blood.

A part of him had just //evaporated// - as though consumed by an imagined swarm of nanobots. No teeth, no claws; only the pain of an open wound to strike existential fear into Pascal.

<fc #008888>A sliver of irritation at the creature's comment crawls among the nested layers of fear; it was never a //riddle// to begin with. But pointing that out to something that could probably crush his arm -- and who knows what else -- seems like a singularly poor decision. That thought is cut short, though, as the dull throb in his pinky turns into a sharp burning, causing him to cry out in pain. A moment later, the realization of what just happened hits him like a sack of bricks: His finger is gone. Just... gone. A chill laps up his spine, finding his throat and spreading from there to the rest of him. For a long moment, he's frozen, staring blankly at where the vague impression of the finger used to be, before a cracked voice speaks. "What... what did you just... What //are// you?!"</fc>

The ring of eyes around him abruptly lurches, widening as it closes in, blinking in unison. ...is it a game? Is this lost ground? He's shifted away from one riddle and moved on to the next, without solving the first? A skip, then, and a penalty? The grin of the increasingly surreal creature's teeth broadens. Its tongue, previously short and feline, snakes out as a pink serpent no thicker than a cord, and touches his ring finger. It feels like dry sandpaper more than anything organic.

**✘ IN PROGRESS**