Uuuugghh. Boredom. Intense boredom. Those must be the thoughts of a certain Roxy Meadows, right? Especially to be out late at this place of all places. Although, it's not like visiting the park on a cool, windy 10 PM night isn't a fantastic vibe.
It was rather dark, most of the light coming from the bright street lights illuminating the empty parking lot. The wind rustled the leaves of nearby trees, causing a rather loud, well... rustling noise. But! hey! It was better than whatever she was doing before this.
Wait… is that... a person in the distance? She looks over at the figure, somewhat astonished. She hadn't expected anyone else to be here at such an hour, and tries to make conversation. Y’know, like an idiot.
“H-hey?” she stammers. The person crouches on all fours, and begins to growl at Roxanne menacingly. As she registers that the thing before her is a hound, panic begins to set in, and only grows as she realizes that it’s not a hound, but the Rake. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!!!” She begins to run from it, on the verge of tears. This is one of the only things that can kill her. She does not want to die yet. As she runs past a trash bin, the monster scurries out from behind it, tripping Roxanne. She falls to the ground, and it crawls on top of her, looking her dead in the eye.
“It was your time, yet you dared to cheat death,” the Rake whispers to her. Its voice is deep, raspy, and distorted. Its pale, thin flesh seems to be plastered to its bones, and its eyes are deep, empty sockets. The claws on the beast are sharp, as are its teeth. Thin, dark liquid seeps from its mouth as it talks to Roxanne, soon to kill her. However, a car is seen in the distance.
During this rather peaceful, cool, relaxing night, a low wage worker for a pizza parlor has to deliver to some jackass who can't wait for tomorrow. He's tired, only his eyes really able to be seen in the dark, reflecting a bit off of the streetlamps. He's got one arm out the open driver seat window, the other mindlessly flicking a little hanging air freshener in the shape of a pine tree. Pines... the guy would probably kill to be chilling next to some lake in the middle of a pine forest, with a little log cabin to rest in for the few vacation days he has to spare.
However, he couldn't afford even half of a pine tree, let alone a log cabin next to a lake, so the little not-even-really-pine-scented plastic cutout will have to do. He takes a right onto the road by the field, steering with his knees, checking a little pocket watch he had strung up next to the fake pine. "Delivered in 30 minutes or it's free!" is a good way to bring in customers, and extra burdens for the workers to get there on time. He's tracking it down to the minute. Or at least, would be, if he didn't catch a glimpse of what was going on in the field, slowing down just a tad, because it's the only interesting thing he's seen all day.
“Hey- HEY!!! YOU- YOU IN THE CAR!!! HELP ME, PLEASE,” Roxy yells.
“Do you really think anyone would help you, Roxanne? Do you think anyone cares? Pathetic. I cannot wait to put you out of your misery. Wouldn't you love to join Toshiba and Pluviophile?” the monster asks, looking at the car, and back at Roxanne.
The guy slows the car upon hearing Roxanne’s cries for help, raising a barely-visible brow. He takes a moment, seemingly looking between something in the backseat and the scene outside, but grumbles something under his breath and leans out the car window a little. Having his face in the light, his messy, kinda scruffy black hair could be seen, with something clearly over his left eye.
“Well uh... Whaddya expect me to do? I'm on the clock so if you could, make it quick,” he pipes up in a tired, deep voice.
“Can you like,” She looks at him only with her eyes, trying not to move, “Try to get this thing off me? I dunno man!!!” She's visibly terrified, and is shaking. The Rake chuckles, and the guy sighs. Soon, he gets out of the car, being a rather tall, bulky kinda guy. He's got a large coat over a standard pizza delivery uniform, refitting the cap on his head. He approaches rather nonchalantly, fiddling with something in his pocket.
“What'd you do, pick a fight with an overgrown street rat...?” he mumbles under his breath, “Does it have rabies or anything? I can't really cover the costs of two trips to the hospital.”
“Uh,” she looks at the beast’s mouth, “No, I don’t think so?” The Rake rears its head towards the man.
“I can hear you,” it laughs, smiling. It gets up, off of Roxanne, and crawls towards the man. It says, “Why not repeat what you said, hm? This time, you will say it directly to me.” The guy narrows his eyes a little, starting to back up a bit.
“Ah, not a rat,” he says to himself, “Hey bud, I hope you can cover up any damage I'm about to deal because I don't want ‘assaulting the homeless’ on my record…” He slips a sharp knife of his own out of his pocket, taking a deep breath, “unless you'd like to euthanize this thing now.”
“Yes, do it, euthanize it, kill it, whatever works!” she yells, panicking, as she backs away from the monster and the man.
“I’d like to see you try,” the Rake smiles.
“Well, would rather like this to go down as self-defense then…” he gives a slightly nervous chuckle. He stops backing up, keeping a strong grip on his knife. The Rake stands up with jerky, unnatural movements, still maintaining the hunched-over look. There's several cuts and scars on its body, the scar tissue looking extremely hard. You can see its bones beneath its skin, and its torso looks as though it's barren of organs. It lunges at the man, clawing at him, ripping his jacket, smiling and laughing to itself.
The man winces with the lunge, being knocked off balance. Although taken by surprise, he quickly tries to begin wrestling the thing into submission, hastily attempting to dig his knife into its flesh. It screeches and growls at him with each stab, jab, and cut. It lets out a guttural yell, and scratches him hard. It steps away from him, and reverts back to crawling.
“You are not ready to join them,” it yells, angrily. It looks at Roxy, then back at the man. It lets out something that sounds like either a sigh or a grunt, and crawls back into the woods quickly. Roxy gets up, and approaches the man.
“Wh- dude, are you okay?” she asks, her eyes lighting up after a second, “WAIT dude oh my god- you just fought off-, you fought off the fucking Rake, like THE RAKE, HOLY SHIT, HAHAH DUDE, YOU’RE FUCKING AWESOME, WHAT THE FUCK?? Thanks for saving my life man??? Holy shit!” He coughs a bit with that, getting up with a groan, Roxanne helping him up. The hard cut across his chest from the fight has already started bleeding profusely.
“You're welcome. Just, I hope you have a spare needle or something, work uniform and all. Can't-” he readjusts himself, pressing on the wound lightly with his hand, “Can't use the raccoon excuse when the gash kinda looks like it came from a mountain lion,” he chuckles.
“Uhh,” she looks over to the road, and points towards her house, “My house is literally just right over there, I might have some needle, thread, and some stuff to help heal the wound.” She starts walking, kinda. Just one step towards her house's general direction, “C'mon, won't take too long.”
“Convenient…” he sighs, following along. He makes sure to lock his car as they walk back, speeding up a bit to catch up. The wound doesn't seem to bother him too badly.
“So,” Roxy tries to make conversation, “Uhh, what’s your name?”
“Wade Seymour. Would state my occupation, but I might be fired after this. Heh.”
“My name’s Roxy,” she smiles softly, “And, uh, I hope you don’t get fired..?” She tries to maintain the same pace as he does, and awkwardly asks, “What were you doing out at such an hour?”
“Delivering a pizza,” he yawns.
“Ohhh okay that explains the uniform, gotcha,” she chuckles softly, arriving at the house. “Well, here we are. Come on in!”
“Do you have any towels? Wouldn't want to get blood over everything. I probably can't pay for replacements,” Wade asks, taking off his coat and groaning upon seeing all the scratches in it.
“Yeah, I’ll fetch some, c’mon,” she says. They enter through the mudroom, and Roxanne motions Wade to the living room. She goes upstairs and retrieves the sewing kit, towels, and the first aid kit. No one is home, but most of the lights are on. The living room has a couch against the wall, with a coffee table sat in front of it. There's a large flat screen TV on the opposite wall. The floor has some trash on it, but not much.
“ALRIGHT I have NO idea what I'm doing so this will be an experience!” she says, coming down with the items needed, and laying it on the coffee table. Wade keeps a hand firmly on his wound, picking up the towels with the other.
“Alright, I'll be right back. Just going to clean off all of the excess blood,” he says, hoisting his coat onto his shoulders, and then furrowing his brow. “...which way’s the bathroom?”
“Oh! Yeah, it's just,” she points towards the doorway to the kitchen, “Go in there, up the stairs take a U-turn and it's at the end of the hallway.” Wade would then see himself off. Roxy takes out her phone, and opens Discord to message Spider.
--
R: You will not believe what just happened
S: What's up?
R: Okay so yknow that thing I told you about like
R: Last week or so?
R: The Rake?
R: Yeah I almost just got mauled by it lol
S: Bloody hell, you ok?
R: Yeah some guy stepped in
R: We're at my house rn
R: Yknow how I'm one of the only things that can kill you?
R: Well, the rake is one of the only things that can kill me
S: Fuck, so I'm guessing it came back to finish the job?
R: Probably!
S: So you need to kill it first
S: Unless you just wanna catch and keep it for the inevitable day that you want to end it all 😂
R: I doubt I can kill it
R: People have tried and it just keeps going
R: Keeps killinh
S: Huh so it's unstoppable, that's both good and bad
R: Pretty much
S: So what does the person who saved you want?
R: Idk, I’m just helping him get back to stability
R: The rake fucked up his chest
S: Shit, so he didn't know what he was doing so he probably doesn't want anything in particular be careful though
S: How bad are his injuries?
R: They look bad but he seems stable
S: Right so they're not pulling you into a false sense of security? Again be cautious though
R: My guard is always up dw :}
S: :)
--
Wade comes back after a bit, with his coat zipped up. He's got his bloodied uniform in his hands. “I hope you don't mind me keeping the towel wrapped around the wound until I can get some bandages,” he says.
“That’s fine!! Here,” she gets up, “You can lay down if you want.”
“I’m okay, don’t worry,” he says, shaking his head, “Also, are you going to charge me for trying to fix my uniform orrrr…”
“No of course not!!! You saved me from getting permakilled,” she checks the time on her phone, “Parents won’t be home for a couple of hours so if you wanna stay until then I’m fine with it.”
He'd attempt to smoothen his uniform out, “It's alright if you can't fix this too well. Like I said, I'm probably fired.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” she starts carefully, and then goes all willy nilly but it ends up looking actually pretty decent. Wade gives a little grin.
“That's not that bad of a job fixing the uniform. You sure you don't want pay?” he asks.
“I’ll take Taco Bell as payment,” she smirks.
“Maybe I'll work there next,” Wade chuckles, “I'll keep that in mind.” Wade gets up, heading toward the door. “Well, I do have a place to be and all. Thanks for the help, I'll try to repay you eventually.”
“Okay!! See you later, Wade!” she waves. Wade gives a wave back.
“Been nice helping you, Roxy,” Wade says, heading out to his car. Roxy smiles, heading back to her room.
Roxy’s room is pretty boring, two large windows facing, each one facing a different street. Her bed's a full size, pushed into the corner, with an end table next to it. There's trash and clothes on the floor, and her AC is cranked up to the max because she's a filthy cold enjoyer. It's really dark, it's like 10:45pm and she has only the light of her phone and laptop illuminating her corner of the room.
Well then.
The feeling of being watched would begin to set in!
More intensely than it normally feels, considering how much she's u s u a l l y watched.
She glaces up around the room, though due to the darkness she can't see much.
“Ahem,” a presence would make itself known, “Seems you've had a bit of a... scuffle, to say the least, hmm?” A pair of big glowing bright red eyes would suddenly open up, peering at Roxy from the darkest corner of her room. “I am obviously quite happy to see you as alive as you can be, but your shoddy craftsmanship and frankly pitiful attempt at sewing to repay the one who you have to thank for your life has offended me enough to make an appearance.”
“Eghhhhhh,” Roxy shifts in her bed to face the wall, “I don't need this tonight, man. Plus fuck you my sewing is decent!!”
The eyes roll. “I could've done better blindfolded and with my feet which, for the record, have less than half of the toes yours supposedly do.” Roxy sticks up her middle finger at the eyes. “I speak nothing but the truth. Nonetheless, perhaps be more careful next time? Invest in a sword perhaps? Maybe a rather large stick? Something as to not drag underpaid pizza delivery men into your personal hell.”
“...I might invest in a sword now because that’s fucking cool,” she says, “May not need it though, due to my powers.”
“Oh? Powers? You were certainly reluctant to use them tonight. May I suggest a dagger? You could use it to sacrifice an innocent to some unknown god to help fix your mistake of a continued existence.”
“I was panicking okay!? God, can you get off my ass?”
“Have you tried... simply panicking less, hm?” the voice gave a chuckle, “But, if you so wish. Remember to lock your doors, Corruptelam!” The eyes closed, fading into shadows, causing the presence and feeling of being watched to vanish.