Unfortunate Circumstances in Meeting PV Howard

OC: Nice writing, you are getting into it. Loving your use of words.

IC:
It would take and It would be felt. That is what they did, these psychic terrors, these eldrich horrors. They take and they are sustained by his... by their misery. Magic may attract like kinds, curiosity and a sense of kinship perhaps or something deeper like a sixth sense or a programmed instinct that goes to their very core. But their need to feed fuels them, that was how Voldermort allied himself with these creatures decades earlier. Indeed, it was the promise of a meal that took them from scavenging parasites to an army. Fascinating really.

She was no leader of a phantom army although she might have appeared to have all the makings of one, she lacked the aspirations for such even if she was mad enough to consider the notion. Rather she was seeking answers about what she was. She was one-hundred percent human, a fact stated many times over yet she was far from humane. She was distinctly different, perhaps broken but if nothing else she was missing something integral. She did not feel anything. Her feet were not glued to the ground in fear, there was no fight or flight response. She should have been running or on the ground like Howard but rather she was a curious and of course foolish. She, like Howard, like everyone here was powerless against this creature. This was not something a pre-teen was going to defeat with her superior wit, it had lived exponentially longer. She was not going to overpower it with her magical capacity that was near non-existent or her physical brawn. 

No, she could not do anything against it and she knew it but neither could anyone else here or there, inside that asylum and they were still alive. No, these creatures were not killers by natures, rather bottom feeders. Her understanding of what it was did not enhance her defiance but it gave her a measure of victory. She had heard stories about these creatures, how they influences her very existence up until this very moment. Again, she was human but she lacked and that was because something was taken from her by them. It happened a little over twelve years ago, almost thirteen. She was not even born. In fact she was barely a consideration, a surprise. Her parents were advocates for creatures such as vampires, werewolves, and varied scavenger races such as these. They believed that they were sentient and capable of choice and that what they are did not make them evil, but there was a flaw in their theory -- it was not evil to eat, to thrive and to find a way to survive. Humans just have a very self-centered view of the world, if it imposes on their believes, safety, liberty, autonomy or happiness that it is immoral. It was her prenatal exposure to these creatures prior to her mother discovering her 'delicate condition' that they believed caused a as they called it 'cataclysmic loss of sentiment.' 

In so many ways it was a loss for Erin, an obsession in fact. She coveted what she could not have. What she lacked was drawn to her, like a void. But it was a boon for her as well, like in this moment that they would not be in if it was not for her making, she did not feel the need to run and the gears of her mind were turning. They were not going to die, it was like a shark biting at what was in reach to have a taste... to know what was there. The people were drab, there was hardly anything to take. She would know, she partook. It was him, Howard that had something of worth. He had substance. Something she wished she had appreciated earlier. She did not want to scuffle with whatever this thing was to have a decent meal.


But how could she win? The sorrow and rage washed over him and she shared his dejection. The fear and the pain. All things she could never hope to feel and oddly enough she wanted what he likely wished to escape from. And what did the creatures take from him, his joy... his light... well, some of it in any case, he was capable of making more unlike them and unlike her. She, like they never learned how. They could pick and choose what they took she supposed, that was why they took what was so rare. A likely prize. 



She stood up to the creature because she knew no fear. Because she was curious and fearless. Because she was a fool. A lucky fool. She wanted to be consumed, not because she wanted to die but because she wanted to know if there was something to take. And she was a distraction, her declared ownership of the Hufflepuff and her physical presence as she stood between him and the creature. She was not his protector, he was her meal. 

Still it took, or rather it tried. She could feel the tug and something would go. It felt like the air from her lungs was being ripped from her. Like her chest was filled with lead. There was no vision, no memory that came that belonged to her, but rather those she shared with others. They were their memories but always in shades of grey. She felt through proxy, the meal tasteless and bland to a creature used to feasting on better. Even the drug-addled lunatics in the asylum had greater death than a hollow creature such as Erin.


Howard found his strength and returned to his feet. He might not realize it but for a Hufflepuff he was very brave. He would raise his wand. His judgement clouded by painic and fear, he still raised his weapon. Did he even know it as a weapon? A part of him must have, it was instinct for him to draw it again despite the spectacle it would make obscured by the choking mists.

“We have to get out of here.”

His voice was shaking as he said that. He used the word we and he did not have to. "No, I dont..." she replied gravely. "You do," she exhaled as the horrors she had committed crossed her eyes. Was this a touching moment? Perhaps something he said touched her. "You're simply too delicious," well if there was a heroic or sentimental moment, it was lost just then. She would reach back without looking and she would try to push him away, into the fog. "Just run and don't look back."

“No, I don’t...you do”

A part of Erin wanted to die. Not because she was mentally unstable, but because she was curious. Curiosity was a dangerous thing. However, life had more mysteries still. 

These creatures were in many ways like her.

They fed off others, yet they had the ability to choose. Their hunger drove them. She wondered if they were hollow beneath it all like she was. She wondered why they were the way that they were. What made these specter-like apparitions? She was different than them of course, she had form, others could see her and she could not choose what she took. She wondered if she could be like them. If she could take what she wanted, if she could someday have their strength. She wondered if they could perform magic, there was a time that they were the sentinels capable of holding powerful and dangerous wizards at bay before they lost favor in the wizard community. 

She was also unafraid when she should have been. That was the problem with being a void. She should run like she commanded Howard, that was the logical conclusion but she was curious. That and she had nothing to take, that was why she needed Howard. Yes, she had a meager mastery over this magical craft but she had no passion and Howard was spilling over. She convinced herself that escape was not necessary, that she would be fine. She was wrong, she was wrong more often than she was right but she was a child after all. 

Howard would grip the back of her dress, a belt of cloth or a bit of cloth that did not cling to her form. She was prepared for the demon before her, not the boy behind her. She was not a lissome youth, she was a brute more than a slender caster dependent on their magic more than the works of her hand. An unusual attribute for a pure-blood such as her. Erin reached out for the creature, she wondered if the fog had a tangible form.

It was terrible and that was what made it lovely.  

She almost touched it when Howard had pulled her back. She stumbled back into him. She could feel his heat against her back, it was in opposition to her chill. Instinct and stubbornness drove her forward. She would try to step away, to the misty monster before her. 

“We have to go! It’ll kill you!”

Howard declared, the urgency and the soul made her bones hurt. "I have to know what... how it is!" Erin insisted, her voice cracked. She felt something and it was something of her own making. It was a nauseated sense she could feel in the back of her throat, this bitter bile taste that she could sense on her tongue. A led weight in the pit of her stomach. 

He gripped her tight, preventing her from moving forward. "I have nothing worth taking!" 

She was not wrong, but she was not entirely hollow. There was something in there. Her legs would start to shake, that violent shiver would climb to her waist and reach her arms. She was breathing faster, everything seemed a bit brighter. Time seemed to slow and she could hear this pounding in her ears, it was deafening. The drum-like noise consumed her senses, moving at a faster and faster rate. It was an echo of her heart.

This was fear and it was her own.

"What have you done!" Erin accused the Hufflepuff. She was partially correct, it was Howard's fault. Howard was scared but he was loyal and that made him powerful and brave. Hufflepuffs are underappreciated for the role they play in this world. Hufflepuffs were strong for others and others were made strong because of them. That was their superpower. 

Erin closed her eyes and she was what she feared, it was a mirror but she did not see her reflection but rather an empty space. She feared what she knew she was, empty. That she would never fill that void. That there was nothing there. It was just a blink but it felt like several seconds had passed rather than less than one. 

She had memories, they were in shades of grey. Her parents formless shadows in her mind's eye. She seemed to remember their office better than their faces. Old clocks and piles of books, all with cracked and aged leather spines. There were notes left on open pages, it was the sum of their life's work. A study of phantasmal creatures such as these. These images like short soundless movie scenes. No face, no words, no affection. She had not thought about them for a long time despite the fact that they were still alive, their paths rarely crossed. They did not care for her, they were not able. She would be the second generation of compassionless wizard. 

She let out a terrible shriek. This was the first time she had ever felt something of her own. She did not even care about the joy that trickled through her that was Howard's. Before this moment she would have jealously consumed whatever he could offer, delectation, hope and love being infinitesimally rare. This fear was something she had always wanted to experience. The adrenaline, the instinct. For the first time in her short life she understood another human being. She understood fear and she envied him for having this sense even if it screamed to every muscle into her body the same thing that Howard had shouted into her ear. 

And the fear or perhaps Howard's words prevailed.

She would reach down and grab Howard's wrist. She had small but strong hands. "Fine!" She relented, "but you don't get to know it either!" She would push back into him, breaking away from the contact that the creature would have made with both of them had they stood their ground. "But I don't know where to run!"

She was far from home. 

==========

Meanwhile: 

The pedestrians would note the fog but also the strange scene between Howard and Erin on the street. The asylum was not far, perhaps they had 'liberated' themselves from their confinement. Perhaps they were merely deviant youths who were having a 'bad trip.' In either case, there was a wide berth between this dramatic scene between Howard, Erin and their 'hallucination.'

I am going to assume we escaped since I think you have been busy. Message me if in either thread you want to resume or do additional follow-up.