Terror. A dimension mirroring the living one--but morphed to reflect the imagination of its Overseer. And the current Overseer... has refused to relinquish her power for centuries, tormenting her souls--"terrors"--into becoming... zombies.
Arielle f...
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The squelching sounds were, in their own ominous way, a relief to Penelope. As long as they continued, uninterrupted, it meant her minions were feeding. And as long as she wasn't the one sprawled over the wet grass being devoured, then everything was still in order.
For now.
She rarely breached her perimeter of fire, and less so when she was so disturbed, so unsettled. But she'd needed air. A reprieve from the house's haze, its confined spaces, its hallowed halls and eerie silence. A breather from the incessant heat, the crackling of the fires she'd caused. She'd been too cooped up, too concerned, and the more she focused on that mirror and its racing numbers, the more another migraine threatened to take over her head.
Empowered, ready to embrace her new skills—whatever they were, she'd accept them—she stood on the precipice of her property, watching her zombies feast on a recent kill. Their teeth clacked and clicked as they chowed down. Their blood-stained nails clawed into flesh and tore it apart, and their moans were those of pleasure, of satiation. Penelope enjoyed seeing them busy eating, because it meant she was protected from them. At least, until they'd robbed the carcass of every organ and muscle available and twisted to see her spying on them. She planned to be gone by then, but one could never be too careful in the presence of fiery zombies of Terror.
She knew she wasn't safe from her little monsters and their hunger—if she were to get too close, too curious, they'd turn on her. They didn't differentiate between powerful terrors or weaker ones. Any inhabitant of Terror was a potential victim in their glowing, reddened, droopy eyes that Penelope refrained from looking into for too long.
They terrified her, too. Sure, she'd created them, but she hadn't meant to. Her rebellious actions had launched a poison in her direct radius and swarmed into the noses and mouths of anyone in the vicinity. Yes, she could sometimes control them, hiss commands at them, and pray that they'd obey. That they'd dip into the Void and scare ghosts or even fetch them for her. But for the most part, she was as scared of them as anyone else in the realm. Despite how they entertained her, how they seemed to revere her, they weren't her pets. They weren't even her minions, though she loved calling them that. They were independent individuals who thirsted for fresh meat—and her skin wouldn't be spared if she wasn't cautious around them.
It was true that her fury fueled them, and her thirst for violence tended to animate them. They were all linked to her, through the toxins she'd spread when refusing to give up her throne. Her moods affected them, and that was another reason she locked herself in her house. Because if they were too close, they'd sense her anger, get riled up, and eat anything in sight. Including her.
To see the creatures crouched in front of this corpse, gnawing at its bones, shredding through its bloody flesh, Penelope cringed. Not in disgust, but in worry. She despised being bothered while eating, and she had no doubt her monsters would dislike a disruption, too. Yet she knew she might have to pester them; she might have to shoo them off, lest they eat too much and become too strong. They were already becoming too hard to manage, to mutter orders to. The more they fed, the more their strength grew and Penelope feared she'd be unable to stop them. They'd taken to trying to peek into the Void unprompted, and some dared attempts to venture into the living world, too. That breach was a massive faux-pas that would get her into deeper trouble than she already was.
