Devouring The Cure [Ticci Toby] (1st Place Ticci Toby & Admin's Choice 2016)

Constant Measures

A silent hallway. The distant voices of a young girl giggling in their sleep.

Silent whispers from an unknown source...

A gentle plea for their daughter to come back...

Toby pressed his fingertips against the bridge of his nose as another pang of nausea swept him. He bit the corner of his lip and he scrunched his eyebrows together, the loud breathes from within escaping from his nose in loud puffs of discomfort. He honestly felt like he was going to be okay. This type of nausea was something he could handle and even though he feared it, he wasn't going to choke on his own vomit. Yes. Toby knew that the queasiness he was feeling was not his own. The headache he was experiencing was not a primary source from his body because of his lack of pain. It belonged to both the baby and Lara.

After the whole ordeal with Slenderman, his boss left him alone so that he could check up on Lara. Slenderman assumed that the baby was reaching out because Lara was experiencing a disturbance. Either that, or distress. Anyway, the faceless man left to check up on her, the implication of her being in trouble almost worrying. Of course, Slenderman made sure that Toby was mentally capable of being by himself, but even so.... 

Slenderman had told Toby to stay in his office.

In his office. Away from the others.

Usually after a fight, his boss would send Toby downstairs to clean his own wounds and to mend his broken ego, to allow the male to brood after his beating. It was a way for Slenderman to give him his space and to allow Toby to reflect on his actions. Though it rarely worked out that way, that was how the two mended their relationship.

But this time around, Slenderman feared for Toby's health.

He was starting to notice a change in the boy, and Toby knew it. Toby was aware that his boss was starting to suspect something. He could also sense that Slenderman was wary of what Toby could pick up on, on what the boy could experience if he went out in the open, out of his sight for just one second. Slenderman trusted the boy, but Toby was broken, unused to the environment he was throwing himself into.

And Toby could sense all of it...

Toby let out a heavy sigh, his back conforming on the small couch Slenderman kept for Sally. Though his blood was staining the light cream of it's cover, Toby knew that Sally wouldn't mind. She likes to draw little doodles on the patterns of blood splashes. At this rate though, he was probably going to bleed out.

How long had it been since Slenderman left? Toby tried to recall, but he couldn't seem to conjure up an answer. It felt so groggy. The chain of events that ensued were blurred and dragged out, the words that they uttered muffled and unclean. Even the emotions he felt were a distant memory. All he could remember was the urge to save her. To save his mommy, to protect his reason for existence, the reason why the child even bothered to live. It resonated with him on so many levels that he thought they were his own, remembering the foggy recollection of his own mother. 

Did the baby...? Is that what it truly wanted? Was Lara hurt?

All he could feel now was the lingering pang of distress and desperation. It wretched his heart in two, the ingrained adoration for the woman and the child's urgency to save her... It was terrifyingly beautiful to feel what the child was feeling. The child depended on his mommy so much, the concept echoing the relationship he had with his mother before he left. Yeah, but in the baby's case, it already knew that it was loved and that it's safety came first. They only saw the purity in her, sensing her unconditional love for it's sinful existence. It loved her so much that Toby felt warm just laying there, bleeding out.