Don't forget to listen to the songs!

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Chapter 33: DAVEY DRAWINGS (BLVCK CEILING)

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Arachne woke up with a scream.

The moment her scream rang out, when her eyes perceived her room, remodelled throughout the years, she let herself slump forward.

It was just an old memory. Or rather, a fond memory twisted to a guilt-ridden nightmare. Nothing that should surprise her; it wasn't as if she hadn't had nightmares before.

She wasn't any less unnerved.

While rubbing her eyes, Arachne reached out for the water by her bedside and downed it in one go. She took several long calming breaths, but her heart still beat a mile a minute. Her eyes darted to dark corners in the room searching for non-existent corpses.

Well, perhaps this was one of those nights.

With a groan, Arachne got up and stretched. Perhaps a long warm bath would calm her nerves. Or maybe a walk around the castle.

For a moment, that dark patch looked like the formless blob…

No, this was just her mind playing tricks on her, still under the hold of the unreality of dreams. She couldn't trust anything she had seen as real, perhaps even the memory itself had been a patchwork of-

No, the memory was there. Probably. Arachne could remember it, even if flashes of that horrible nightmare popped up in her imagination. In the actual memory, Kid had hugged her back, though he still grumbled about his 'asymmetrical' drawing. Arachne had glanced at the clock and had told Kid that it was late, she had some more work to do and that he had to go to bed. Kid had refused, Arachne had sighed, figured that since it was the end of the week she could afford some leniency, and Kid had continued drawing while Arachne work. After about an hour or so, Kid had gotten sleepy and Arachne had carried him to his room, and later on put his drawing away…

Kid's drawings! Arachne still remembered where they were, and her old study was close…

No, she was being absurd. Going over her late child's drawings in the middle of the night would have any outside observers claim she had gone mad from mourning.

Except outside observers already called her mad. And she didn't want to see Kid's old drawing just because she was grieving. She just wanted to… double-check a few details. That was all.

Quickly tying her robe around her frame and patting her hair down so that she looked mildly presentable, Arachne headed towards her study with a brisk pace. No one was in her path, as she expected. The only person she'd trust to be awake at this hour was Mosquito, but only because her manservant seemed to have the preternatural ability of being present whenever Arachne needed him.

The door to her old study was creaky and raised a cloud of dust when opened. Arachne hadn't used it for some time, and it had slowly morphed into a storage space for archives.

Arachne ignored the bookcases full of outdated tomes and mastered spells, drawers full of old plans that were scrapped because they were too inefficient or too ambitious, and looked under the small table in the middle, where a small drawer intended for stationary lay hidden underneath.

She pied the shelf open, shielding her face against another cloud of dust. Inside were dried out markers, pens that probably still worked, short pencils with broken tips, and at the very end, drawing sheets yellowed from age.

Arachne pulled the sheets out and blew away the dust. She laid them out on the table, leafing through other drawings made by Kid, mostly of various Arachnophobia members or himself, until she settled on the ones that haunted her dreams.

Arachne put the drawing she'd made all that time ago away -she must have misplaced it with Kid's other drawings- and pulled out the one underneath, depicting her next to the shapeless black blob. Though the colours had faded and some of the pencilwork was smudged, it was exactly has she'd remember- as the one in her dream.

Arachne stared at the dark shape. There were three areas inside the blob that were scarcely covered by the black pencil, almost white. Two of them were opposite of each other, like a pair of eyes, while the third was below and in the middle.

No, she must be seeing things. It was late, she had just woken up from a nightmare, there was something that was causing her to imagine such absurd details…

Except the white dots were still there. Arachne traced them over with her finger, as if they would disappear under her thumb.

They didn't.

Well. The white dots didn't necessarily mean anything. The dots could just be a coincidence. This was the only time Kid had drawn himself as a blob after all. In all the other drawings she'd just leafed through, Kid had drawn himself as expected, perhaps with a head that was too big but with a wide smile-

Wait.

Arachne put Kid's old drawing away and picked up hers. Then she picked another one of Kid's drawings, one of the newer ones where he'd drawn himself.

The two drawn figures were identical, as if Kid had traced over her drawing.

Arachne carefully put the drawings on the table and sat back on the couch, taking a deep steadying breath.

She was worrying over nothing. It… It wasn't unusual for kids to copy their parents, even in something as inconspicuous as how they drew themselves.

Besides, Kid must have drawn himself in other ways before making the blob. He must have.

Had he?

Arachne leafed through Kid's older drawings, each motion more frantic than the previous. She was old drawings of herself, of Mosquito and Giriko, each less coherent as its age increased. Occasionally she leafed through a drawing with another blob on it, but it wasn't Kid, it was just a scribble, a doodle, it couldn't be Kid…

Arachne reached the last drawing. On it was a messy black shape, made up of sharp angles but a circular centre.

Arachne leaned back on the couch, defeated. She couldn't find a simple depiction -or at least one she recognised, not even a stick figure vaguely resembling Kid, nothing that wasn't a goddamn blob!

If Kid had drawn himself in a different manner, Arachne didn't know.

Arachne cursed under her breath and massaged her temples. She was making monsters out of conjecture, worrying over inconsequential old details.

And besides, so what if Kid used to draw himself as a blob before copying Arachne's depiction of him? It was just a harmless eccentricity, as children are wont to have. It wasn't as if the blob was weirdly detailed, and a blob was a vague enough shape, and any similarity of Death's old form being vaguely dark-blob-like form was just an unfortunate coincidence-!

Arachne let out a shuddering breath. It must have been a macabre coincidence. Unnerving nevertheless, but a coincidence, one accidentally discovered in light of recent events…

Either way, Arachne's energy was sapped. Her face felt warm, her eyes were puffy, and she had to rapidly blink to hold back…

No this wouldn't do. What was done was done. She couldn't, she wouldn't allow herself to be haunted by her past, not again.

As her breaths and heartbeat slowed down, Arachne's dread was replaced by determination. There was one thing that may stop her seeing ghosts. If she faced the truth… no matter how painful, there would be a resolution, like pulling off a band-aid.

Carefully, Arachne gathered the drawings and placed them back in the shelf, exactly as she had found them. After she was done, she stood back and headed to her room, already preparing her instructions for Giriko and Mosquito.

She had kept putting it off, but it was time now.

Arachne was going to pay the Clowns a visit.

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A soul entered Kid's room. Unlike all others it was a pure blue. Alive.

Because of the sheer novelty of the arrival, Kid tried to move, earning him a sharp sting at his wrist.

Right. They were still harvesting blood for him. It happened so often he was starting to ignore the metallic sting of a knife lodged at his wrist.

The blue soul moved around him. Kid was too groggy to make out any more details besides its pure blue colour. Why was it going around him? Was it observing Kid? Why was it there in the first place?

Another soul entered, a purple one. Medusa.

Kid tensed up, earning another sharp sting. Was she going to try and get Kid to eat a soul like last time? Was this what the blue soul had been brought here for.

Medusa and the blue soul approached each other and stayed close. Kid heard vague thuds as some red souls entered the area.

What on Earth was going on?

The blue soul approached him again. It came close, very close.

The knife was taken out, and a shudder coursed through Kid as the wound immediately healed itself. Kid wondered if they were changing knives. The sometimes did that if they'd let it stay for too long. Kid hadn't seen it first hand, but he suspected the knives corroded when left in for too long.

Another sharp sting came from the exposed area; though it hurt, it was nowhere near as painful as he'd expected. Had they put in a very small knife?

A few seconds passed. The area near the insertion felt cold. His eyelids felt heavy.

…Was Kid being tranquilised?

Part of him wanted to resist, fearing he was going to be moved, or have something worse done to him. A bigger part of him was exhausted and glad for the momentary lapse of consciousness.

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Kid was in a city of cyclopean proportions. Skyscrapers intermingled with tangled electricity wires and blocked out the sky. Any light came from flickering fluorescent lights, moth-riddled street lamps and, in the distance, from a trash can on fire.

The streets were empty. Any windows were either shuttered or dark. The area was silent sans the hum of failing lightbulbs and the distant wails of sirens. A smell of burning trash permeated the area. A warm wind caused a few opened cans to roll and rattle. The ground was covered in a thin layer of water, ice cold in spite of the heat.

Where was he?

Kid took an experimental step forward. The earth, or rather cracked pavement below him was sturdy, if not dirty. He had no shoes on. He couldn't quite see his body as it was wreathed in a blanket of darkness.

Kid took another step forward. The burning can was behind him, and the alley in front made a sharp turn.

Kid turned around a corner and the area before him gave way to nothing.

It was as if the world had forgotten to manifest itself. Beyond the corner lay a void, or rather an absence of reality. Kid reached out with his hand and the feeling of warmth of sun-drenched concrete and pollution gave way to an absence of temperature. Seconds later his hand dissolved to nothing.

Alarmed, Kid pulled back. As if it had never faded like a mirage, his hand was back, his skin already dried from the suffocating heat.

Unsure of what else to do, Kid focused on his Soul Perception. His inner sight lit up with a blue soul surrounded by a purple and many red ones, in distances that made no sense and made his head hurt and skin crawl.

Kid stepped back and turned around towards the burning trash can. He walked past it, ignoring a nondescript slumped figure halfway consumed by the flames.

Brick wall gave way to a warehouse entrance, its door half-open. Kid stepped inside.

The warehouse was lightless, but Kid could still make out some details. The water was deeper here. The edges of the warehouse were littered by several humanoid shapes. Some had monstrous proportions. All but one lay unmoving.

Her form was shadowed and vague, as if the world couldn't quite make up what she looked like. Her outline had a subdued pink glow, and skin dissolved to the only outfit she'd ever seen her wear; torn jeans, a worn tank top with a nonsensical, frayed black bra straps, and a ratty fur-lined jacket falling over one shoulder.

"Liz?"

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