Never Ending Nightmare (Sunsinger!Male reader)

Chapter 14.5 - The Cost Of Life

(The Maw - Governess' Quarters, Twelve's Pov. Two Weeks After The Defeat Of The Lady)

"Another day, another headache." I groaned as I got up from the makeshift bed. Blinking twice and rubbing my eyes, though something feels...different. "Damn, when did everything get clearer?" I accidentally grazed my bottom teeth with my tongue, noticing how sharp my teeth had gotten. "What happened to my teeth?" I looked in a shard of the mirror nearby, taking in any changes to my body. Well, I'm a little taller now, but I am still growing so it might just be that. I subconsciously sniffed twice, picking up the scent of a multitude of things nearby. One of which smells really good.

My head started pounding, like someone had thrown a ski ball inside my skull and it was just bouncing off absolutely everything. My hands found their way to my head as I combatted the pain. So that was a terrible decision. The pain doubled and so did I, falling onto my knees in a similar fashion to Six not too long ago. A small body with a massive cone shaped head wandered in front of me, curious as to why I was in so much pain.

Me too, little guy. Me too.

My vision became more blurry than usual, I think I blacked out a few times as well. God do I wish the Maw wasn't an absolute disaster because I would love to see a Doctor right now. I'm not sure if I need to lie down or just eat something but this is the most nauseous I have felt in a very long time. The nome got closer to me, it's paper hand reaching my shoulder as I turned my head to it. My body reacted in quite a strange way, and by that, I mean it grabbed the Nome and threw it under me without so much as a second thought. Like a backseat driver in my own body as my vision tunneled, what the hell is happening to me?

I could feel my tongue run across my teeth in hunger, my hands slowly pried the nome's neck to the side as- Wait, this is the exact situation we caught Six in! But it was already too late, my teeth were ready to pierce the neck of this nome and I was about to commit one hell of a traumatic experience on myself. My teeth tore right through the paper skin of the nome and ripped out human meat inside, my eyes widened as my tongue savored the taste, finding an almost divine level of umami as I devoured the nome's blood. My vision had finally stopped tunneling and allowed me to retake control of the situation, I dropped the nome and spit out what I didn't swallow, which unfortunately wasn't much. "I don't mean to use the Lord's name in vain but Jesus Christ!" I said as I looked down at a Nome's corpse, it's papery body shooting blood from its neck wound. I looked at my hands, whispering to myself. "Tell me this is just one bad dream, one day I'll wake up and know I didn't just eat a nome."

I lifted my hands, they were covered in grey blood I didn't even know nomes had. But I could smell it, just like Six can smell her prey from miles away. 'No, no, no! I'm not like her! I can't turn out like her! I'm Not going to be like her!' I mentally screamed to myself, as if the mental reassurance would change my past actions. I looked back at the Nome, hand on fire as my instincts demanded I hide the evidence. 'First Six, now me. If I could live without my stomach, I'd rip it out myself. I didn't want this...' I began to form a solar grenade and watched as it began to burn the papery skin of the Nome into ashes.

"Twelve? You in there?" Six's voice called. I panicked, quickly increasing the heat to burn the Nome faster. I couldn't let her see this, she'll use this to completely degrade my morals and self respect down to her own!

It didn't take long to burn away into ashes as I stood up and straightened myself, 'Nothing happened, Nothing Happened. Nothing Happened!'

....

I tried to cover up my act with an excuse, "I uh, set some paper on fire by accident, and I'm little thirsty but yeah, I'm here. What's up?" I finally answered back, I looked at the ash pile were the Nome used to be, once more apologizing in silence.

Six walked over to me, meeting my still somewhat tearful eyes with a smile. "I just found out how the Lady got here powers, the hidden room in the library has dozens of books teaching her magic.

I got up hugged her, "Your really taking governing seriously. Heh, never thought you'd want to learn magic." I joked as my head still pounded occasionally and my vision got blurry again. "Dio this sucks." I held my head for a moment as I let go of Six. "Hey, where's Runaway?" I asked.

Six gestured to one of the room filled with mannequins, "He's clearing out some of the less useful stuff so you and him could have actual rooms. Rather than waking up with back pain every day." She joked and I let out a small chuckle. "Well, your not wrong. I can't fly properly in a ship with a bad back. I'd crash into something and then we'd really be in trouble." I joked as I cracked my neck. "So, what's first? You wanna go figure out how to run this thing?"

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Twelve rubbed his temples trying to comprehend Six's thought process. "So, we have literally no idea if there's a manual and to add to that, you killed our only possible trainer. Without even asking her any questions."

Six answered without looking from her book, "She's dangerous. I wasn't going to risk it."

Twelve nodded to himself, "Okay, fair. But did you at least wait for me to start breathing before you killed her? If she wanted to she really could've cursed me with some really dangerous disease or something like that. I'm sure you and RK could've found some way to keep her controlled or something?!"

Deep in Six's mind she wanted to yell her darkest secrets that scratched at her mind, 'Because she's killed you! I've killed you! That bitch would've knocked us off the population chart if she got the chance!' Six pushed those thoughts out of her head quickly, "I'm not sure that's possible. Like, at all. I don't remember much about the previous timelines but none of them include trapping The Lady." Shrugging, Six lied and ran with that. Twelve groaned before thinking of what to do.

He knew the Lady inflicted him with some sort of curse. The teeth, the enhanced senses and the newfound hunger.

Twelve's head started pounding again, 'last time this crap happened I ate a nome and I'm not looking for a repeat of that.' He staggered a few steps away from Six before addressing her, "Six, I'll be right back. I'm friggin starving and it's giving me a headache. You want anything?"

"No." Her nose twitched twice, 'Did she just sniff me?' Twelve's eyes linger on her for but a moment before looking away.

Twelve sparked his wings, "Alright well, suit yourself."

(The Maw - Governess' Quarters, Six's Pov)

Twelve was acting weird, like weirder than usual. And he smelt funny too. Like nome blood. He seemed nervous too, and he's never nervous. I sniffed out a nearby nome, I'll need RK to communicate with them but hopefully I can make it spy on Twelve. I need to know exactly what that witch did to him. I looked next to where he stood. Ashes were left behind, papery ashes. He either set a book, a random paper, or a nome on fire. Now question is, on accident, on purpose, or in an attempt to cover something up.

You can't hide things from me Twelve. I'll know all your secrets.