Coffee | An Eyeless Jack x Ticci Toby rewrite

Chapter 10

The last thing Toby was expecting was to get an ancient book ripped from his hands by clawed fingers that honestly resembled a zombie with a Jack-esque manicure. He ticked in surprise, actually feeling hiccups rise in his throat, and he looked up.

It was, strangely, really difficult to tell whether this was a female or a male. Its hair was long, and greasy, and its skin was wrinkled, gray with a slightly green tint. Toby was pretty sure this was another one of those Jack copycats.

What really threw him off was the huge hole in its chest—it had clothes covering its breasts (well, now he knew it was supposed to be a female—key word, supposed), but the tight shirt split down the middle to the belly button, showing off the black gap in the monster's chest as if it was some kind of... trophy. Toby was pretty sure it had no heart. Which really freaked him out, because the thing was staring at him, and it had eyes that were brown where the white were supposed to be and milky where there was supposed to be color.

Toby scrambled back on the bed, falling off at the end and curling his fingers around one of his hatchets.

"Not a ssss—.. step closer, you son of a fuck," he hissed, cracking one of his knuckles with his thumb on the same hand, the other gripping the wood of his hatchet so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"Heart," it spoke, fumbling with the book and dropping it onto its own feet, not seeming to care. Which made Toby wince because that thing was so fucking heavy, he was sure he'd feel a throb from that one. "You have... a heart."

"No," Toby narrowed his eyes, hoping to be able to lie to it. He was pretty sure he couldn't. "What's—what what! What's a heart?" Well, that was an inconveniently funny tick for this inconveniently dangerous moment.

"Heart... I hear..." its raspy, breathy voice, floated through the air feebly as it stumbled one step closer, "I hear... heart... Your heart... Give me your heart... Give it to me!" it suddenly screeched, lunging at a speed that Toby did not expect from something that looked like it came straight out of an expired can of sardines (kind of smelled like it, too).

He ducked to the side, the hand holding his hatchet jutting upwards in the hopes of slicing its arm off. Yeahh, c'mon, let's see that—!

He stared in bewilderment at the hatchet, which now was stuck in the thin, nearly all skin-and-bone arm that wove around it and grabbed onto it. It wouldn't cut through, no matter how much force he put into it, and he couldn't pull it out, either. But he suddenly felt like he should really let go.

The sickly skin suddenly shot out across the surface of the hatchet, snagging Toby's fingers by the length of a hair. Toby jumped onto the bed and to the other side, slamming the door close behind him as he ran out. What the fuck was that? Jack couldn't do that, he was pretty damn sure, and if Frank could, he probably would have by now. While he ran, he glanced down at the fingers the skin had touched, to see some of the skin cleanly peeled off to reveal bloody pink. He cursed under his breath—that shit would get infected if he didn't wrap it up soon. Stupid fucking demon-lady!

Speaking of the devil... As Toby ran toward Slenderman's office, he heard the light taps of the monster's footsteps chasing after him. It was gaining ground—and quick. Toby did his best to run faster, he really did. Through the uniform, long, dimly yellow-lit hallways with red wallpaper and lamps that seemed older than even Jack (please make the phrase "speaking of the devil" apply to him, too, amen), Toby ran without a second thought. It wasn't a surprise that, eventually, he found himself at a dead end. He slammed his uninjured hand on the wall he had come face-to-face with. God, he should have fucking realized when the rooms started getting less common!