A Fool's Guide to the In-Between [A Twisted Wonderland Fanfic]

Chapter 23

 A/N: Not in the Nowhere... but the Nowhere might be coming to us so be warned of darkness and creepy Y/N!

Y/N slowly rose from the pool of ink, the black liquid slowly dripping from her form and falling back into the pool, revealing the twisted state of the girl. Her f/c skin had turned to the colour of lustreless metal, her hair the colour of ash, and her eyes nothing but black voids that seemed to sink into her soul. Her Octavinelle attire had melted away, leaving behind the strange costume of a court jester. A three-pointed hat, with all three points, tossed carelessly to one side so that a startling mask could sit on the other side, cackling silently as it sneered up at the sky. A stiff collar encircled her neck, with tiny golden points identical to the ones on her hat sticking out in the space just beneath her chin, and connected with a loose black top that looked as though it had once held more colours than grey and black. Her pants bloomed around her hips and thighs, before tightening around her calves and slipping into short black boots that curved at the tip. 

"N-N/N," Floyd stuttered out, crawling away from her dripping form. Only once he felt his brother's arms embrace him did he stop moving, and instead gripped his brother's shirt, almost as if he were a little boy, scared that Jade would disappear into an empty abyss if he didn't hold him tight enough. His eyes were wide with fear, and his voice had lost the airy aloofness that it usually had. Now, he was truly terrified by what he saw. The girl he had started to love as a sister, had been corrupted by the ink that had infected Azul. 

"What happened to her," Jade hissed, turning to Yuu and Azul.

"I-I don't know," Yuu choked out. This was nothing like what he had seen before. The others who had overblotted had retained at least a little colour. Y/N had lost every ounce of it, save for the golden tips around her collar. And while she seemed to be barely clinging to life, no more than just a doll waiting for her master to manipulate her limbs as they so chose, the others had been in complete control of their own actions. Y/N was nothing more than a marionette without a master. 

With the sickening crack of bone, Y/N started to turn, slowly turning towards the boys. They felt their fear increase tenfold when they saw cracks starting to form on the surface of her skin, and ink starting to bleed from the cracks. She lifted her hand, and the boys froze when they saw a clock hanging from her hand, slowly swinging back and forth in time with the ticking of the hands in the centre. 

"My friends don't walk they run..."

The boys flinched at the girl's hollow tone. It sounded as though her voice was coming from the depths of a cavern, lost along the stalactites. 

"Skinny dip in rabbit holes for fun..." 

She took a step forward and the boys flinched back instinctively. They didn't like this new version of Y/N. Not at all.

"Popping, popping, balloons with guns... getting high off helium~" Y/N giggled and waved to the boys, her fingers wiggling like worms as her body started to fade. 

The boys looked around, expecting Y/N to appear in the same room, but when no one could find her, they were forced to realise that Y/N had disappeared to somewhere completely different. Somewhere where they couldn't find her. That was... until they heard a crash from the VIP room.

Y/N trailed her finger along the edge of the counter, humming slowly as she felt the familiar edge. Cold... sharp... she felt a strange sensation in the tip of her finger and lifted it, smirking when she saw her black blood dripping from the tip. She slowly stuck the tip of her finger in her mouth, swirling her tongue about the wound as she sought to stop the blood. Or perhaps simply enjoy the sticky liquid. It was more metallic than her blood had been before. And infinitely more addictive. As she pulled her finger away from her lip, a string of black saliva went with it, connecting her lips to her hand as the liquid slipped from the wound to her arm. Momentarily, she forgot what she had been doing. Her blood was more interesting now...