Can't Say

Chapter 20

      The world rushed around right along with your mind. You did your best to interpret what the rest of your team was strategizing against the target Zalgoid. Toby, Hoodie, and Masky quickly surrounded the demon, aiming their guns and opening fire. You joined in, keeping even spacing between everyone – especially yourself and the Zalgoid. It's black and red skin sizzled at the contact of bursting holy water. The several mouths embedding the creature's body cursed you and your allies in various languages.
      As soon as the enemy saw an opening, it lunged for Masky. Claws slashed through the air when Masky dodged and shot a couple of holy balls into one of the Zalgoid's mouths. The demonic being spat and hacked, practically choking as its throat was undoubtedly scalded from the foreign substance. It wasn't long until the Zalgoid returned to its attempted attacks. Your team and yourself were surprisingly successful in keeping a safe distance from it and the other scuffles nearby. This continued on for several minutes, slowly weakening your target. There were a few close calls, and you were growing heavily out of breath. One wrong move now would surely bring about your end.
      The Zalgoid's sporadic and quick movements were hard to keep up with. It seemed to notice your decreasing endurance, focusing on you the most by this point.
      Then you stumbled; your legs were practically gelatin now.
      Seizing the opportunity, the demon drew close to you with a wild grin. Its spiked arms and clawed hands swung drunkenly in your direction.
      Things began to change for the worse. The Zalgoid's once red eyes were now an abysmal black. Blood seeped from its hollow orifices and oozed down its cheeks.
      He comes. The whispers started out like soft licks of wind.
      You glanced around as you dodged the Zalgoid, searching your teammates for answers. All you found were their empty sockets and gaping mouths, despite their headgear. 
      He comes. They grinned at you, yet still fought the Zalgoid as though nothing had changed.
      Breath short and ragged, you stumbled back, certain that your allies had become possessed. The numerous voices in your head whispered louder and louder, “He comes. He comes!” Black insects spewed from the dark mouths of the Zalgoid and your teammates. Panic quickly set in to you. With a shriek of terror, you sprayed your holy water ammo at anyone nearby with those horrid faces. At this point there was no one you could trust.
      Hoodie quickly took action, tackling you to the ground as you screamed and struggled. He tried to pin you down. Those dark eyes and wide mouth of insect swarms stared you down, hissing the repeated statement. You tried to push him away, tried to roll out from under the man's weight, tried to kick him or scratch him or something! Hoodie did his best to keep you under his control. 
      He comes! The whispers filled your head, nearly drowning out what your ears should naturally detect.
      With two of the four Proxies out of the way, your target Zalgoid now had the advantage. It grabbed Toby, using him as a shield and hostage, though it didn't plan to keep him alive. Masky instinctively spammed his gun trigger, hoping to hit the Zalgoid enough that it would drop his ally. Toby wriggled and squirmed, straining to get a hand on one of his hatchets. He bit the finger of his captor as it reached to grip his head. The Zalgoid only flinched a little, cackling at the sensation of its own pain.
      Just as Hoodie was about to knock your lights out - just as Toby's neck was about to be snapped - your master appeared behind the nearly-victorious demon. Slenderman's usually neat and clean attire was now tattered and torn. He had scrapes of various depths on his head and neck – none too deep. The tall man's long, black tendrils were gripping tight to another Zalgoid behind him. This demon seemed to have had better days. Its limbs were bending this way and that, mangled like a tossed-out marionette. Despite all this, the Zalgoid was heaving a maniacal laugh as though it were busy with a tickling session.
      Slenderman ended that with an abrupt snap of the horned creature's neck. The body went limp. 
       Without wasting a second, your master tossed his kill aside and gripped his new target's head with a single large hand. His bony fingers sank deep into the Zalgoid's eyes, bursting them and pushing out the jelly that once gave them shape. A scream escaped the demon, escalating into a cackle when it dropped Ticci Toby from its grip.
      Meanwhile, you continued to struggle under Hoodie. There was a strength building inside you, and Hoodie was getting desperate. Your screams annoyed him the most, but he had a sure feeling of what was wrong with you. The whispers were practically gibberish now. You knew what they said, but they were at such various intervals and great volumes that you anticipated your head would explode at any moment. 
      He comes!
      A single voice tried to contact you from beyond the whispers. It was a familiar, soothing voice – cool milk to your burning mind. It called for you, but you could barely hear it. “____.” You tried to focus on the voice, your struggles with Hoodie subsiding. He slowly backed away from you, looking over his shoulder and nodding.
      Then, like a fleeting bird, the voices stopped. All that was left to fill your sense of hearing was the sound of reality. Yours and Hoodie's heavy breaths, the crackling of the nearby fires, the tiny ringing in your ears. Your eyes wandered, trying to gather if the eyes and mouths you had seen were ever really there. So far, you could see them – even on Slenderman's otherwise empty face – the insects no longer escaping the mouths like endless swarms. 
      Altogether, though, the collection of voices from earlier announced in unison like a grandeur horn, “He is here!” You felt a headache forming.
      Hoodie whipped his head around to gawk at something. Slenderman, Masky, Toby, even the Zalgoid in your master's grip all froze and turned their attention to a singular direction. You followed their gaze, only to instantly wish you hadn't. 
      Farthest from you, off to the sidelines of the battleground, there was a large, dark blob contorting and shifting on the ground. Six mouths upon this chaotic mass rambled on and on together in a mess of gibberish. A seventh mouth remained closed, patiently waiting for its turn. The air around this thing seemed to distort similarly to waves of radiating heat.
      As you gazed on in horror, Slenderman's voice called to you from within your mind. If it wasn't for his oddly soothing tone, you would have surely jolted from your thoughts. “____, answer your master.”
      You did. “I hear you,” you tried your best to reply respectfully within your mind, but it was difficult for you to think properly. Slenderman seemed to understand this. “M-master,” you continued, finding yourself, “What is that?” No matter how hard you willed yourself, you couldn't seem to avert your eyes from the maddening sight before you.
      “That is our enemies' leader,” Slenderman replied coldly. “Zalgo.”
      By this point, the gibbering blob had begun taking shape, rising upward and stretching into a humanoid form. Each mouth adjusted to a suitable place. The silent mouth centered itself over Zalgo's chest. Crevasses of glowing red marks etched his body. A pair of great bull horns branched up and forward. He had no eyes, only a set of tiny slits for nostrils and a grinning mouth of pearly fangs. In his right hand, a dead star rested; in his left, Zalgo gripped a blood-stained candle lit by shadows.
      Zalgo silenced all of his chattering mouths, then spoke through the one upon his face. “We are gathered here today,” he sneered, “to tickle your dicks.”
      From nearby, you noticed Sexual-Offenderman cringe and weave his white tendrils into a makeshift protective underwear to cover his nether regions. All of your allies began putting away their weapons or simply shifting into a mild defensive stance. You decided to do the same, not wanting to be the one who screws up the possible truce. Still, there were questions you needed answering. Hoping that Slenderman was still holding a mental connection with his Proxies, you thought your concerns to him, “What's wrong with everyone's faces? Even yours has these dark eyes and mouths. Is this something the Zalgoids did?”
      Your master's voice sternly stated, “Don't worry about those hallucinations; ignore them. I will explain it all when we've returned to safety.” That only put you a little at ease. If Slenderman wasn't concerned with what you were seeing, then it wasn't going to harm you – physically. All you had to do was ignore it, right? Easier said than done.
      “The fuck are you doing with your Minions on Slender territory, Zalgo?” Now that you noticed, Sexual-Offenderman looked incredibly ticked off. It was obviously difficult for him to keep his tendrils around his groin as they slithered with fury, wriggling with the energy to strike.
      Three other forms inched closer to the Slender brother, catching your eye. Two women and a man; they looked human enough, so you assumed they were Smexy's Proxies. The man wore a black hoody, though the hood was down. You could see his shaggy brown hair that was matted in sweat and blood. Strapped to his back was a black katana. One of the women was draped in a black sheet of fabric, wearing bright, pink high-heels. She had odd hair – long and blue with a golden stripe down the center of it. From the distance between you, there was just barely a noticeable line along the side of her face that hinted she was wearing a mask. (You weren't exactly facing each other, either.) The second woman looked a little younger. Her hair was a darker blue than her teammate, and cut into a short bob with a long, thin ponytail. She seemed to be clad in a short, dark, corseted dress. Surely it wasn't comfortable to perform hard labor in, but now wasn't the time to judge outfits.
      Shouldn't there be a fourth Proxy? You glanced around the area to see if everyone was present.
      “Can't I send a party invitation without confrontation?” Zalgo shrugged and raised his hands in a sort of innocent play. 
      “We have no interest in your 'party', Zalgo,” Slenderman warned the demon horror.
      Zalgo twirled his hands, and like a magic trick, his star and candle were gone. “You're right. We have such contradicting tastes in fun, how could I be so inconsiderate?”
      Spitting near his feet, Sexual-Offenderman was having none of it. “You know damn well this has nothing to do with a party!”
      With a look of shock and confusion, Zalgo gasped at the accusation. “Dear me, you're right! Minions! We've been exposed! I declare a tactical retreat!” He didn't waste any time to collapse back into his mucus-like form. The minions who still remained alive – all three of them – sprinted toward their Lord, combining with him. Zalgo spoke once more as his gelatinous form dissolved into the ground, “You can keep the corpses. I hear they're great for candles.”
      Everyone watched, waiting for confirmation that Zalgo and his kind were truly gone. 
      You watched the faces of your allies, seeing the hallucinations fade away. A sigh of relief escaped you, happy to see even Jeff with his regular cut-up face. In your moment of respite, you barely heard Sexual-Offenderman's furious growl forewarn his outburst of rage. 
      “That piece of shit!” Smexy lashed out a tendril to a nearby burning tree, making it explode into ashen debris. He fell to his hands and knees, punching the earth as he grimaced. “He's picking off our Proxies!” It was then that you noticed the gore-infested corpse that the Slender-being was hovering over. The three non-Zalgoids you had recently noticed stood close by in reverence, hanging their heads as if all of this was their fault.
      “It seems to be the case,” Slenderman remained in his place.
      Seed Eater, Bridget, Isadora, and Cat solemnly approached their landlord. You could see the far deeper connection and care that this group had for each other. Even the Proxies were mourned. Part of you wondered if your death would be grieved, while the other part wondered if the Proxy before you had simply been forgotten and tossed aside.
      The Zalgoid corpses were disposed of – tossed across the territory line. Slenderman had no interest in them since he had performed more than enough studies in the past. Everyone returned to their residences. Your housemates and master left Sexual-Offenderman and his crew to their own devices. You wanted to get to know the other Proxies you had seen, but the current situation prevented that. Slenderman had no interest in attending a Proxy's funeral. Hopefully, you would meet them properly in the near future.
      Your shower was all too refreshing. The soot and grime from today's events washed away after a thick lathering of luxuriously scented soap. You had to admit that despite the way Proxies were viewed in Slenderman's mansion, he still was a great guy for letting them partake in the extravagance he provided. The scar Eyeless Jack had given you was healing nicely. Your fingers ran over the thick scar on your lower abdomen several times, mentally studying it. Hopefully, it would fully heal and no longer be visible at some point.
      After setting your Proxy uniform washing on a gentle cycle, you adjusted your sweatpants and shirt for the millionth time and headed for the living room. There you found the entire household reclined or standing as though waiting for your appearance.
      Slenderman gestured for you to find a seat, “While the outcome of our recent mission was inevitable, I would like to address a fatal flaw that reared its ugly head during the brawl.” He watched you shyly settle down on the thin arm of the couch. Its actual cushions were claimed by Jeff, Hoodie, BEN, and Toby. You noticed Masky had isolated himself on a nearby armchair. The two Jacks were idly doting around with the bookshelves.
      “Is this about the hallucinations?” The words slipped your tongue faster than you could think about it. Oddly enough, you weren't punished for your utterance. Perhaps your master understood just how mentally scarred you would be from the effects of the Zalgoids.
      With a nod, Slenderman confirmed your inquiry. “It was my mistake to allow you into the mission without forewarning of the Zalgoids' passive abilities on humans. I'm sure if you knew beforehand of what was to come, you would have handled yourself better.” You gulped and nodded, shooting an apologetic glance to Hoodie, especially.
      The yellow-clad man shrugged at you, “No one was hurt by it, so I'd say there's nothing to get worked up about.”
      “Sp-speak for yourself!” Ticci Toby leaned forward to eye Hoodie. “I almost got m-my neck ripped off!”
      “But you didn't,” Hoodie retorted.
      “It was p-pretty damn close!”
      “Masky had your back.”
      “Enough!” Slenderman rumbled. The bickering Proxies went silent, cowering back into their seats. “Regardless, I will not allow this to happen again. I've assembled you here to confirm that everyone present knows of what the Zalgoids are capable of, human or not.”
      Laughing Jack strolled over to lean on the back of the couch. “It's been a while since I've seen a Proxy go bonkers over Zalgoid hallucinations. I wouldn't mind refreshing.”
      And so you did.
      Well, they did. You were introduced and lectured about Zalgoids into further detail than what was previously given to you.
      Zalgoids were a hive-mind type of race. They often shared a similar color scheme of black and red shades, though there are the uncommon ones with other hues. All Zalgoids had more than one mouth; each of these mouths were capable of speaking in a different language. Zalgo, however, had one mouth that has yet to be seen open. If it were to part its lips and sing its song, legend tells that the world would surely come to an end.
      As for the hallucinations, it was clarified to you that all Zalgoids have a passive energy that is potent to humans. It causes the victim to see horrors of similar magnitude – hollow eyes, gaping mouths, and deafening whispers of Zalgo's approach. No doubt, if a Zalgoid has found you, its Lord isn't far behind. Depending on the intensity of the Zalgoid energy, its victim will see dark insects spewing from the gaping mouths that it views. Further intensity leads to the edges of one's vision slowly darkening into a tunnel vision like vines crawling over your eyes and snatching away your sight. If one allows themselves to become consumed by the hallucinations, they most often lose their sanity to the point of becoming similar to an SCP.
      “Ferals,” Jeff shivered.
      You arched a brow at everyone, putting together the pieces that you weren't sure were fitting. “Are the SCPs the result of Zalgoid hallucinations?”
      “Nah,” BEN answered. “Anyone who's gone crazy from 'The Darkness' usually ends up dead.”
      A lump formed in your throat, to which you swallowed in an effort to sooth your nerves. “L-like, you had to put them down dead?”
      “If you mean they put themselves down, then yeah,” Hoodie replied. 
      You mouthed an Oh as your gaze fell to the floor, imagining yourself falling victim to insanity-by-Darkness. How violently would you go out? What route of suicide would you choose during that time of madness?
      “You know,” Jeff grumbled, “us Creepypastas might be psychopaths, compared to your typical humans, but we're stable as fuck when standing next to a Darkness victim.” He wrung his hands tightly, probably recalling a time when he had witnessed one of these victims. “Even the SCPs aren't crazy enough to damage themselves just because they exist.”
      It was quiet for a moment. Something told you that everyone, save for yourself, was thinking of the same person. You weren't sure if they were mourning this person or fearfully recalling the events of said person's last moments. It was probably best that you didn't know.
      Jeff broke the mood when he stood up, “Okay, well, if that's everything, I'm gonna go...” His voice trailed off in slurs as he stumbled and collapsed at Slenderman's feet. The tall being quickly crouched and rolled Jeff over. 
      The room grew into an uproar as BEN and the Jacks cursed up a storm.
      “I told him he needed to stay out of this mission!”
      “You know damn well Jeff wasn't gonna miss out on getting revenge!”
      “Just shut up and do your doctor shit!”
      You scrambled off the couch arm and gave everyone space. Your fellow Proxies had done the same, knowing that they had no influence to this situation. 
      “His scar ripped open. We need to sew him up again.”
      “I thought this was Zalgoid blood!”
      “You idiot! Zalgoids have black blood!”
      Slenderman, BEN, Laughing Jack, and Eyeless Jack disappeared together. Most likely, they had slender-walked to the medical room. You looked over the couch to where Jeff had fallen, only to see a thick stain of blood soaked into the coushion.
      Masky approached you, decked out in relaxed clothing like you. “How's your wound? Are we going to have any more surprise drama?”
      Shaking your head, you rested a hand over your scar. “I should ask you the same thing.” You heard the man release and nasal exhale. It was obvious that the two of you would have already been down for the count much sooner than Jeff, if that were the case.
      “You're gonna be sore tomorrow. Find plenty of protein-enriched foods and water before you go to bed.” Masky walked past you, heading to the kitchen to practice what he preached. You assured him that you would when your stomach settled some more. It was still feeling tight from all the anxiety brought on by the day. 
      Glancing to a nearby window, you saw just how dim the forest was getting. Evening was setting in quickly. Where did the day go, exactly? The thudding of Toby and Hoodie's boots faded as they left the living room to do whatever they did in their free time. You were left alone to your own devices.
      Right now, you weren't sure if that was for the best. For every answer you received, two more questions boggled your mind. All you wanted was vengeance on the people who had wronged you, but now you were stuck in the middle of a war. Neither side really seemed like the righteous one, either. That fact probably scared you the most.