"I caught you~"
My words echoed across the freezer. The tentacles wrapped around Lucian's neck and tightened.
Vivienne and David looked at me with wide eyes. They did not expect such cruelty, especially from me.
David tried to speak but the tentacle quickly covered his mouth. Vivienne was too shaken to mutter and Lucian was slowly suffocating.
Lucian's face turned pale as snow. I moved towards Lucian, using the tentacle as my stepping stone to be head level with him.
I grabbed his chin and made him look me in the eye. I whispered in his ear, "I'll be back."
The tentacles retreated into the fluorescent rods, and I collapsed onto the floor. My red eyes dimming back to brown.
Vivienne and David were released, and so is Lucian. David immediately ran towards me, holding me in his arms and checking my pulse. He forgot what I just did to him earlier.
Once again, I could hear muffled voices as I blacked out.
***
Darkness.
Not the freezer.
Not the cold.
Just… nothing.
"I remember red. I remember screaming… and— and—!"
My head throbbed. Images crashed into my mind—
Lucian's face.
David shouting.
And the shadows moving because of me.
"Stop… I don't want any more of these, please…"
Then a voice whispered:
[You liked it, didn't you?]
"Huh…?"
[The fear. The control. The way they couldn't move.]
"I didn't—
[Sadism, you should not lie.]
Another voice yawned lazily.
[I told you he'd enjoy it. He just doesn't want ot admit it.]
My chest tightened.
"Who… are you?"
[Sloth, you let him in without a proper welcome.]
[Oh? My apologies, landlord.]
The darkness shifted.
[You own this body.]
[We own what you feel.]
"W—what is happening…?"
Their voices echoed together.
[We are what you become when you break.]