WARNING: body horror, death, undeath, blood, hospitalisation, reality warping, mentions of religious concepts, psychological manipulation, toxic mindset.
A.N. - יחי האספן!
A golden throne reached halfway to the ceiling, and bordering it on either side were bowls of fire that stood upon thin stems made from metal. The fire was extinguished and then relit with blue flames, casting a warm glow across the green rug stretching from the foot of the throne to the doors.
The doors to the throne room were made of hand-carved wood taken from the forests of the Boiling Isles and were taller than any living witch. Opening the doors took as much effort as heaving a large rock, yet the Collector burst into the room with the ease of blowing a feather.
Despite never sleeping, the Collector dressed in the type of roomy jumpsuit and nightcap that someone who intended to stay in bed would wear.
Beads of sweat trickled down your face at how fast the Collector was carrying you through the air, your legs dangling above a floor that was approaching far too quickly for your old bones to catch. "Nay, nay! I'm not as spry as I used to be!"
The Collector slowed their descent with a groan of disappointment, but they kept their hands near you until you found your footing.
You stumbled forth with a lame leg on your right side and a cane in your left hand. The butt of the cane hit the floor at the same time as your foot, helping you amble to the throne. Your right leg clumsily landed beside the armrest, which you leaned against to stop and breathe for a moment.
"Buddy!" shouted a high-pitched voice with forced sincerity, and the dark-furred shape of something resembling a canine emerged from behind the throne. "I just had, like, the best idea. What if we had eight people hiding instead of just us three?"
As the Collector flew to hug the owner of the voice, your brain filled with static. The words exchanged between the two of them were hard to understand and seemed to be missing all meaning. The painful flutters in your chest returned, and by the time you deciphered one word, you had forgotten the rest.
After a few moments of staring into space, you shook yourself free of the mental mud and noticed someone was tugging at the bottom half of your clothes.
It was King, a bipedal, dog-like creature with an exposed skull for a head. Atop his head was a pair of long, straight horns, the left of which bore a sizeable crack at the middle.
He barely reached your hips, but you did not need to look far to see how his clawed paw was motioning to the doors. "I'll be back-uh, lickety-split!" King swung his arm forward in mock cheer, glancing at the Collector every other second to confirm that they had not gotten closer or were suspecting anything.
The Collector applauded the news with claps and laughter as they spun in a full circle.
King was gone for so long that you kept forgetting and then remembering that he existed and was supposed to be coming back, although the truth was, you did not know how much time had passed.
The large doors to the throne room were pushed open with a sweeping creak, and a group of five villagers walked forward in varying degrees of suspicion and curiosity. At the sight of you, four of the five villagers fell into hushed gossip and called you by an unfamiliar name.
King was scurrying at the flank of the group, his arms raised in a 'Y' shape as if to herd the much taller people in a specific direction. "Okay," he shouted to ensure that his voice was heard, "here we are!"
The droop of his tail and the way he was tapping his claws together while glancing between the heads of the villagers were indicative of the knot twisting his stomach. "The old throne room. Just like I said," mumbled King, dropping his gaze to the floor.
Murmurs of bewilderment and speculation spread from villager to villager as each one noticed the Collector, who had tucked their knees into their chest and were spinning vertically without rising or falling.
At the sight of additional players, the Collector gasped with joy and swooped to the front of the group with such haste that the villagers recoiled in fear. There was a cyclops woman, a two-headed reptilian, a humanoid with flaming purple hair, a shorter gremlin and Steve the former Coven Scout.
The Collector was shaking their fists up and down in an outpouring of enthusiasm. "Everyone, go hide! And I'll count to three hundred!"
Waving a hand as if it would dispel the fear leaking out of the villagers' wide eyes and clenched jaws, you babbled, "This place is a maze. I'll go get you folks a map."
In the couple of minutes that passed in your absence, a thread of unrest was sewn into the group in the form of the cyclops narrowing her eye at the vacant throne. "Where's Emperor Belos?" she demanded, and the other villagers repeated the question while glaring at the cracks in the walls.
"Ol' Steve's gonna be late to brunch," chuckled Steve, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the doors.
The noise of confusion soared to outraged chatter until it had descended into overlapping chaos.
Once the Collector had finished counting to three hundred, they turned to search for the villagers. No one was even pretending to hide-save for King, who took one look at the Collector and backed away from the group-, and this caused the smile to slip from their face.
King scurried to the opposite end of the group and clutched Steve's gloved hand, tugging on it with all his might and thrusting a paw at one of the more distant corners.
Steve allowed himself to be pulled for a few steps before he crouched and looked at King with an air of friendliness. "Did you need something, little buddy?" His answer came as all the voices behind him ceased at once, followed by absolute silence.
You staggered back into the throne room with the map tucked under your arm to find it empty of people besides the Collector, Steve and King. The Collector was levitating next to a gobsmacked Steve by the throne, and King was in the furthest corner.
King was cowering half-draped under a tapestry of Emperor Belos, eyes shut and paws covering where his ears would have been.
After squinting your beleaguered eyes and opening your mouth slightly, you peered around the space. "Where has everyone gone? Did the game start already?"
The Collector floated over to you like a brooding child, head down and lips pursed into a pout. This discontent morphed into a smile when you looked at them for an answer. "I sent them to the Dark Place," explained the Collector, and the unconcerned ease with which they spoke was that of someone describing the weather.
"The Dark Place?" you repeated with a hint of hesitancy, wondering if it was a nickname for a shadowy corner or a subterranean part of the castle.
"It's where the fibbers go," they said.
The footprints made by the villagers minutes before were no longer visible; it was as if they had never existed.
Sweat gathered on your brow, and something on the inside of your chest tightened. You peeked at the entranced Steve, who was slowly rocking back and forth and groaning unintelligible things in an attempt to communicate.
Your eyes pulled back to the Collector and their unwavering stare, to which you offered a smile that you hoped was convincing. "You know, I changed my mind. Maybe we can keep the games between the two of us for today."
The joy vanished from their face. In its place was a blank mixture of surprise and lost excitement. Within seconds, it evolved into curious happiness as they tapped their chin and outstretched their arms in a cheerful shrug. "Hmm, okay!"
Steve disappeared from the room with a snap of the Collector's fingers, and he was dumped on the steps outside Police Precinct 206.
A Coven Scout dressed in a golden and white cloak was stationed at the foot of the stairs. He watched as Steve bonked his singular horn on the stone step and rolled down to the dirt, shaking his head. "You've gotta lay off the Apple Blood, dude."
In the Emperor's throne room, the Collector hovered upside down in front of you with their legs outstretched so that they could touch their toes. "What'd you wanna play?"
The names of a few familiar games tumbled through your head, but these thoughts were dashed by a twinge in your chest.
You pressed a fist to the area, gritting your teeth and squeezing your eyes shut at the pain around your heart. Even though the pain faded within a minute, the knowledge of what it meant did not.
A question sat on your mind as the weight on your chest during a nightmare, and it took you many seconds to gather the courage to ask it. "Can I visit my home?"
When you spoke these words, the Collector froze in midair and looked at you as if you had declared your hatred for the game of tag.
"We can play as much as you want after," you added with a hasty smile, although you were not certain there would be an afterwards.
This enticed the Collector into gaining a wide smile and floating higher. "All right!" They held up a finger. "But just for a little while!"
Not sure how to piggyback on a teleportation stint, you assumed that there needed to be some kind of physical connection and extended your hands for them to take.
The Collector stared at your offering with an unchanged smile and no indication of movement, causing you to lower your hands slightly. This mild embarrassment at making what appeared to be a dumb assumption faded when they pressed their palms against yours.
A short burst of laughter came from them, and for a brief moment, you worried that the Collector was only messing with you about going home. However, as their fingers clamped down on your hands, the world around you became fuzzy and blurred.
* * *
Fireflies buzzed throughout the hills and the grasslands that sloped between them, with each winged beetle emitting a greenish-yellow light. These dozens of glowing dots lit up the night like fallen stars.
A pleasant breeze swept along your neck and slithered through the grass, tying blades of it around your fingers and tickling the skin on your hands. It was a soothing coolness that was neither too cold nor too mild, chilling you just enough to relieve some tension in your muscles without ruining your ability to focus.
Air whooshed from behind, and the Collector sat beside you with their legs crisscrossed.
They rocked back and forth while gripping their feet, eyes becoming fixed on the various light sources scattered around the hillside. Their repetitive motion slowed as they leaned against your shoulder, which was stiff and sore.
The Collector moved off you and stood up, looking between the silvery light of the crescent moon pouring across the countryside and the glow of the fireflies illuminating it like helpful lanterns. "The world's so bright now."
"When I first got here, it was all dark. I couldn't see much until that big bully came around." Their curious face soured into a pout at the mention of the "big bully," and they crossed their arms with a sulky glance to the side.
This frown was washed away in a surge of laughter as the Collector flew into the air and circled you. "And I didn't have anyone to play with! Not like now!"
You watched their flight as best you could, struggling to keep at bay the pain in your neck that struck each time you used those muscles. The exhaustion of a creature in desperate need of a long nap weighed heavy on you.
It had nearly overtaken you when the Collector plopped themselves at your side again, startling you into awakening.
The glowing eyes of the Collector raked the infinite number of white dots in the sky and, from their seat on a hill, saw beyond the lens of the most advanced telescope. They saw the giant balls of gas as if floating in front of one, seeing celestial bodies of blue, red, orange, yellow, and a few that remained white.
Their mouth opened a bit, and the words that came from their study of the cosmos were laced with wonder. "Your sky has so many stars."
You looked down at the celestial pattern on their outfit and skin and spared a moment to ponder what stars were to the Collector; cousins in the same way that a bee was to an ant; children still new to the universe; ancestors from a past life-or just bright objects that happened to share a space with them.
"It's more than pretty." You lifted your head to the sky once again, pointing a decrepit finger and tracing a constellation overhead. "People would draw pictures of this and say you could see bears and old heroes. Some of them base their whole lives around it."
Sitting up, the Collector raised their hands to the sky with the thumbs and index fingers extended. They shut one eye and narrowed the other, sticking out their tongue as they adjusted the nearness of their hands like a painter judging the measurements of a subject.
With a satisfied hum, the Collector lowered their arms slightly and eyed the piece of the galaxy they had chosen. They then moved their hands sideways in a sweeping motion, and all the stars except for a small cluster were pushed away to different areas of the sky.
The grunt of shock and confusion that burst out of you went unnoticed as the Collector dragged each star in the cluster to a new position with one finger. A smiley face was etched into the night sky, looking down at you with its white-dotted face among the sea of black.
As boredom started to itch like razors across their mind, the Collector snuck a mischievous glance at you before tapping your shoulder. "Tag! You're it!" They propelled themselves off the ground in a flurry of grass blades and wind sooner than you could acknowledge the tap.
The outsized fabric of their sleeves and nightcap flapped in the air as they levitated far out of your reach, floating back towards the stars. The Collector began to swim in the night sky and swoop near the surrounding hills to give you a chance of catching them if you reached out at the perfect time.
The sound of uproarious laughter carried on the wind, and it pulled your weary eyes to the airborne shape of the Collector. "Chase me!" they shouted with so much childlike glee that it was hard to believe they were ancient.
You matted a spot of grass with the butt of your cane, heaving your rickety knees off the ground and fighting the shaking in your arms.
"Come on!" whined the Collector.
You pushed yourself to stamp the ground with your cane faster and drag one foot in front of the other quicker, but this tiny increase in speed was a joke compared to the Collector doing cartwheels in midair and zipping around the sky like a peregrine falcon.
A sudden flutter in your heart was the only warning that was given to you before your vision blacked out.
"Huh?" The Collector turned after the consistent thumps of your cane stopped, their excitement faltering at the sight of you tumbling down the hill.
Your eyes were closed, and your body was as limp as a wet handkerchief. You made no move to stand or pull your face out of the itchy grass. When your cane rolled into your shoulder with an audible thwack, you accepted the bruise that would surely appear.
* * *
You awoke to a pair of red and yellow eyes staring at you. The Collector had stuck their face as close to yours as it could be without touching, leaving little else in your vision besides the light and dark running down their skin.
The once steady rhythm of the heart rate monitor exploded into a series of rapid beeps, and your eyes widened in what the Collector assumed to be the joy of seeing them again. You dragged your arms from side to side across the cot and clenched handfuls of the sheets in a drugged, half-paralyzed attempt to get out of bed.
"You sleepyhead! You've been knocked out for months!"
Leaning forward until their forehead bonked yours, they placed a finger on the top and bottom of both of their eyelids and pushed their eyes open wider. A slight glow emitted from their eyes when they did this, and you wondered if they had taken the phrase "eyes are the window to the soul" literally.
The Collector did not need to blink, so their eyes were able to bore into yours for hours without any kind of interruption. They took advantage of this fact daily, leading to a recurring situation where your bedridden self was forced into a staring contest with someone who had the stillness of a mannequin.
On the first day of the third week, a new kind of tiredness seeped into you.
They glided around the side of the bed and swept one of your hands between both of theirs, tugging your arm. "Get up! Get up! Let's play," sang the Collector.
No part of you possessed the energy to budge from their pull. Your limbs were like the heaviest stones, immovable and numb.
Your eyes fluttered to the heart rate monitor, and the Collector pondered the significance of its rhythmic beeps. "I'll be leaving soon."
The Collector tilted their head. "Can I come with you?"
"No," you answered with a feeble melancholy, your eyelids beginning to fall.
"But the game's not over," they spoke with resistance.
Summoning the final bit of strength still clinging to your body, you lifted a shaky finger and pressed it to the Collector's shoulder. "You're it," came a whisper from the last gust of breath rolling past your lips. The finger then dropped to the bed.
A high-pitched hum filled the room as the heart rate monitor fell to a straight line, displaying the number zero in the top right corner.
The Collector turned to cock their head at the change in the machine, but when they looked back at you to ask, your eyes had closed. "Huh? Don't fall asleep again." They gripped your upper arms and lightly shook you. "We have lots more to play."
Your total lack of reaction caused their eyes to glow, their frown deepening at the way you sagged in their hold like a ragdoll. "Wake up now." The constant rise and fall of your chest had ceased, and the Collector wondered why you were holding your breath.
Before they could resort to anything else, a panic-stricken voice flooded out of the intercom and echoed down the hall. "We have a code blue in Room 528! Repeat: a code blue in Room 528!"
A stampede of footsteps thundered in the intersecting corridors outside the door, and the noise drew closer to the room with each passing second.
At the first sound of the doorknob jiggling, the Collector hurled an impatient look over their shoulder and threw out their right hand with a defiant, "No!"
Just as the doorknob was beginning to turn, a triangular shadow raced along the right arm of the Collector like a snake and sprang from their hand at the door. It constricted the doorknob and stuck its spearheaded end halfway through the centre of the door, splitting a jagged crack into the surface.
Muffled yelps and confused chatter erupted on the opposite side. The doorknob rattled as it was jimmied by multiple hands, and someone began to slam against the door every few seconds like a battering ram.
The Collector stared at your closed eyes as if attempting to see through your eyelids. "If you're playing peek-a-boo, I don't like it." Your skin was cool to the touch now, lacking the natural warmth it had generated so many times before.
On the eve of the third minute of uninterrupted humming, the Collector's arm flew out from their side and aimed at the heart rate monitor. "Be quiet!" they yelled, and the machine was banished from this reality to the Dark Place.
Your lips parted.
Some of the joy returned to the Collector as they perked up in anticipation of hearing you speak to them and announce an end to this charade.
Instead of words, a ghostly wisp of light streamed out of your mouth and began floating to the ceiling.
It was your soul, realised the Collector, but the fact that it was leaving meant there was no more time to play. They rejected this truth by launching themselves off the bed.
The Collector jumped into the air and swiped at the ball of light. "Come back!" they shouted, chasing the soul with frantic swings of their arms but reaching just below it every time.
The soul was slow-moving until they came near it, at which point it zoomed higher.
As their attempts to entrap it grew sloppy and uncoordinated, the building started to shake. It was minor tremors at first, but the rattle of metal tools soon became audible.
When the soul passed through the ceiling with a blip, all the shaking and swinging ceased. The Collector stared at the spot on the ceiling where it had vanished, their eyes aglow with an intense fury.
No matter how much they willed it to happen, the soul did not return. The room was colder for it. The light was dimmer, and the colours were fainter.
Clenching their fists, the Collector screamed, "I said come back!"
Their shrieking of the word "back" coincided with the shattering of every window and light on that floor of the hospital. Lamps melted like eggs; lightbulbs exploded like popcorn; storms of glass shards flew through the corridors.
Yelps were drowned out by the cacophony of destruction, for the one orchestrating it was deaf to the pain of those outside Room 528.
A whimper was all the Collector mustered as they looked at your body again, their lips drawn into a pout.
The shadow holding the doorknob was retracted.
Just as the door was thrown open by a team of ragged nurses and a defibrillator cart, the Collector vanished.
* * *
Deep in the caverns running beneath the remains of the Titan's skull, there stood a door. It led to an infinite number of realms if the traveller paid the price of blue blood, but under the hand of the Collector, it opened without tribute.
Tubes of colour writhed in the doorway with a vivid array of sparkling hues, forming an image like a liquid galaxy. Among them, stars twinkled and opened the swathes of colour just enough for a glimpse into the endless universe that lay beyond.
The Collector leaned forward slightly with their eyes glowing, and the portal changed to a land of death and after-living: the netherworld. No sooner than they reached out a hand to pass through it were they ejected from the doorway in a sudden and harsh push that sent them flying backwards into the rock wall.
The buzzing that had risen in pitch when the Collector was flung had settled down to an idle hum, flickering in tune with the rotation of the matter inside the door. It pulled them to approach the doorway and, upon reaching it, tilt their head from side to side with a curious finger hovering next to their lips.
In the reflection of the portal, they saw long horns protruding from the top of the skull-like face of a Titan. The deity's eyes were black, empty sockets that contrasted with the white of the skull.
It lunged out of the doorway as little more than a silhouette, but the imposing physique of the Titan was familiar enough for the Collector to yank their hand away. A grunt of alarm escaped them as they were forced back until they fell to the ground.
The shadow of the Titan stretched to the height of the cave, and for a moment, it seemed more than a shadow. The gigantic outline of a creature long since laid to rest in the dirt towered above them.
Raising their head to follow its ascent, the Collector expected the Titan to swoop upon them in a great tide the way it had over three millennia ago. The memory of the humongous bones falling over them and pressing them into the abyss was as fresh in their mind as it was on the day it happened.
The Collector looked down to see the door, but they noticed the slightest shaking in their arms. It was a strange sensation of a fear forgotten, one that had been revived by the Titan and instilled in them to relive at the sight of it.
They dug their fingers into their palms and stilled the shaking. With the birth of an open-mouthed smile on their lips, all the light in the room was dimmed. An abrupt gust of wind swept the Collector off the floor and placed them on their feet.
The buzzes and whines quickened and swelled as the Collector threw themselves at the portal time after time, only to end each attempt with their back slamming into the wall. Shadows spilled from their fingertips and mutated the one cast by their body into that of an eldritch beast.
Darkness crawled along the walls, ceiling and floor in jagged shapes that moved with independence. The shadows splintered into waves of formless black that crashed over each other and swallowed the natural light of the sun, growing taller and wider until they began to scream.
They howled and shrieked with such power that the walls were shaken and dropped chunks of rock to the ground, and the shadows then mutated into grotesque imitations of people with mouths open in trembling fear.
The Collector was blasted against the wall for the umpteenth time, but on this occasion, they waited to get up.
The motionless face of the Titan mocked them from the far reaches of the doorway, taunting their upside-down position at the foot of the opposite wall.
Trading their frown of displeasure for a smile of schemes, the Collector rolled to an upright position and stood with one hand on their chin. "If I can't go, I'll just find someone who can."
* * *
Scuffling and inane muttering followed a crooked-backed warlock of many years, his staff swiping old scrolls to the floor and stamping it as he hobbled along. He came to a spot where the balcony ended and the start of the throne room behind him began.
The sun shone life into the flowers adorning the balcony, all of which had died and wilted into brown lumps except for a lotus. The warlock grumbled at the daylight and the long shadow he cast through it, only to reconsider the light when he noticed a second shadow beside his.
A rapid swing of his staff cut nothing but air. Laughter, like a child at play, echoed in the dimly lit room. It oozed from every crevice that the torches failed to reach, and the warlock yelled, "Reveal yourself, foul demon!"
The Collector emerged from a shadow on the wall, a wooden smile on their face and a glassy look in their eyes. "Demon?" They tilted their head. "I'm not a demon!"
They floated in such a way that they appeared taller than the warlock, a fact which caused him to bare his teeth and pull his staff to his body. Their visage of childlike innocence drew a vicious scowl from the warlock.
"Remove your mask of virtue!" he cried, and the Collector raised a hand to their mouth.
Their head bobbed somewhat as they delivered a snicker, keeping their bi-coloured eyes narrowed in an ominous expression that tore his sense of security away from him. "I don't think you wanna see that," they chuckled.
The distant booms of cannon fire lay beyond the walls of the palace. The air reeked of smoke and copper, the stench of a battle waged unseen from the opulent drapes of the throne room.
The Collector smelt the fetid air, and their nose shrivelled. They stuck their tongue out in disgust and gagged with a comical "bleh!" before inspecting the warlock. "Does your house always smell this bad?"
At this, the warlock's eyes widened as if he had been struck by a revelation. "Are you," he stammered, his defensive posture slacking, "are you here to turn the tide of this war? Have you finally answered my calls?"
With the fluidity of someone drifting underwater, the Collector leaned forward and slowly rotated until they were floating on their back. "You could say that," they replied while looking at the mural on the ceiling instead of at the warlock. "I'm here to play a game with you."
The warlock rushed to the balcony, clasping the guardrail and screeching his excitement into a city filled with soldiers shouting orders and peasants wailing.
"Adonai speaks to us!" roared the warlock, shaking his staff in the air and raising his hands to the sky as if reaching for the heavens. His raspy voice carried on the arid wind and sank into the mob below to evoke a clamour of responses, the loudest of which was the chanting of the name Adonai.
He whirled around and flung himself at the space below the Collector. "Great One, grant me power so that I may purge this realm of those who speak ill of my rule!"
The Collector floated back to an upright position, and they looked down at the grovelling warlock with a face of indifference. "Power?" Placing a hand on their chin, they squinted and hummed in thought. "You mean like all the magic in this world?" They outstretched their arms as if to illustrate the size of that much magic.
The warlock nodded his head so fast that the Collector wondered if it was going to pop off his neck. "Yes, yes! All the magic!"
A smile began to spread across the Collector's face, a foreboding and devious kind of smile. "Okay!" They turned and threw up their hands in acceptance. "But I'll need tribute."
A sprinkle of relief crossed his face, and some of the tension in his shoulders released at what he perceived to be a simple task. "Of course, I can fetch you any number of souls."
The Collector balled their fists and extended their arms to rigid positions at their side. "No!" they barked, and the warlock cowered. "I need one soul in particular."
They then chose silence for a bit instead of giving the next detail, eyes drifting. "This soul is gone." The noticeable pause before the word "gone" was a glaring sign that it had been substituted for something more final. "It's in the netherworld."
Pointing his staff at the Collector, the warlock spoke with a booming voice. "Pray tell, O Great One, how may I locate this soul?"
From the space between spaces, the Collector lifted an amulet of blue and grey. It bore the same design as the one around their neck: the darker face of a crescent moon slotted against a lighter half-moon. "Take this," they said, "it'll light up if you're getting close."
The warlock held the amulet with his right hand, and with his left hand, he waved his staff in a perfect circle. "It shall be done," were his last words to the Collector before a portal to the netherworld opened at the end of his staff.
A miasma of sweat and decay flooded the throne room when the warlock returned in a mess of panting and pallid skin. He fell to his knees, scrambling to catch the glass jar under his right arm before it hit the floor.
Levitating on the inside of the jar were the amulet and a ball of light, a soul.
Within seconds of his getting up, the warlock was bombarded with a pushy voice asking, "Did you get it? Where is it?" The Collector was floating upside down at his eye level and lurching after him every time he stepped back or recoiled in any way.
As soon as he pointed it out, the Collector snatched the jar and zoomed past him as if seeking privacy.
The warlock sunk into his robe and glared judgement over its collar as he thought they were going to shatter the jar and devour the soul like some ravenous beast, but they came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the balcony.
The Collector loomed over the jar for longer than was necessary, dragging their fingers across the glass and drilling their unblinking stare into it. The soul moved in the opposite direction of wherever their hand went, but this prompted the Collector to hug the jar in a fit of delighted laughter.
They pressed the jar to their chest and squeezed it while kicking their legs and spinning in midair.
"Great One, my magic! What about my magic?" The haggard voice of the warlock badgered the Collector in their time of joy, prodding them like a stick used to poke a sleeping bear.
Following a slow turn of their head, the Collector looked askance at the warlock as he stumbled closer to them with an impatient sweep of his staff. "You want magic?" they asked, curling their lips and narrowing their eyes into a devilish look.
The jar levitated out of their grasp and hovered in front of them. "Here you go!" The Collector outstretched their arms, and when they clapped, all the magic born in that realm was ripped from its place.
Gales of strong winds flowed into the throne room as every window and door was flung open, banging against the walls in a rush of whooshing and howling.
Rivers of light and colour, magic in the form of a vibrant ooze, plunged into the warlock and enveloped him in a blinding tornado.
The whites of his eyes swallowed his irises and pupils, and his feet lifted from the ground. The length of his staff tripled, as did his spine until he was contorted into the image of a demonic prince ready to command the legions of hell.
Horns like jagged antlers sprouted out of his skull and twisted themselves into the shape of a crown. The warlock's neck sagged from the weight of it, but he had no time to care when his jaw widened to accommodate the birth of yellow fangs on each side of his mouth.
His bones split, his muscles tore like the fabric of his clothes, and his body started to dissolve under the stress of the transformation. His fingers became elongated and curved into deformed claws, stripping away the cuticles and nerve endings until his hands went stiff as if struck by frostbite.
Cracks dashed across his skin and allowed droplets of magic to seep through them. The breaks in his skin began to peel and glow, forcing streams of magic to gush from his ears, nose, eyes and mouth in unstoppable torrents.
"It's too much! It's too much!" he bellowed over the sound of his skin crackling and blistering from the searing heat of the magic tearing him apart from the inside out.
With the last bit of vitality still clinging to his bones, the warlock extended his hand and reached out to the Collector for help. No one answered his plea, for there was nothing but an empty room looking back at him.
An explosion of overwhelming light then filled the throne room and brought his painful yells to an end. The warlock had splintered into pieces and imploded, leaving only his staff to clatter to the floor.
The cheers from the masses were deafening, but the Collector had not stayed to listen.
* * *
The dewdrops of a recent drizzle hung on the branches and leaves of trees, blowing into the air with each gust of wind and landing on the Collector's face in cold plops. Some of the dewdrops flew to the sky after touching them, while others were repelled off their skin and sent back to the trees as if time had reversed.
A subtle glow invaded their eyes, and the Collector outstretched their arm and pointed their palm at the square of land in front of them. They hovered like this for a moment before squeezing their hand shut into a tight fist, twisting their wrist and cocking their head along with the motion.
The grass was torn from the earth in clumps of stringy dirt. Roots, seeds, and pebbles were swept onto the breeze surrounding the Collector like a shroud, and the petals of flowers split in twain glided in circles around the gaping hole in the ground.
From the depths of the earth, rising from a dark grave as if pulled by invisible wires, came a half-decomposed skeleton. There were no clear remnants of who it once was, save for a few scraps of tattered clothing and the rush of joy that filled the Collector at the sight.
Whereas the grass was ripped off the ground as if the ground had stolen it and deserved to have it taken away, the skeleton was slowly lowered to the dirt like a priceless piece of china meant to be handled with the utmost care.
The Collector floated down to a kneeling position at the side of the right arm. When both of their knees were submerged in the dirt, the wild breeze that had churned plants and branches like a typhoon fell silent. It stopped as if struck from the air by a mighty hand, and a wave of leaves and sticks then rained on the disturbed land.
None of this debris was allowed to touch the Collector or the skeleton. It had been deflected by a gust of wind every time it came near, falling around the pair in a cluttered and dense circle.
The Collector cupped their hands and held the shape close to their face. They pressed their palms together before cupping their hands again, and then a brilliant light spawned in the space between their hands.
It was a warm ball of light that started to flicker and shrink like a dying candle, one that contained the life essence of a soul displaced.
The Collector's eyes began to glow as the smile on their face stretched. They maneuvered their hands around the light but never touched it, instead choosing to hang their head over it and whisper, "Let's play together again soon, okay?"
The soul flared, burning brighter and whipping the air.
Under the silvery eye of the crescent moon, the Collector shoved the soul into the ribcage of the skeleton. A jolt rocketed through the bones in the form of both arms and legs twitching as if hit by a defibrillator.
Bones that had been threatening to dissolve and break apart collected fragments rolling up and out of the grave, fusing back together into a skeleton so complete it would have made an archeologist cry.
With a loud crack, the lopsided jaw popped back into alignment with the rest of the skull.
Fractures in the spinal column and right femur vanished as if waved away by a magic hand.
Crooked teeth were straightened, and bad knees were healed.
The flesh and innards returned with the blue of veins; the purple of blood vessels; the cartilage of the nose and ears; the red of muscles turning to the colour of skin; the body filling out with organs and fat-a crime against nature that did not go unnoticed by the great Titan in the sky.
You lurched up in a fit of screaming, shrieking at the agony of being dragged back to life. Your physical form reassembled around you in a mess of writhing tendons and misfiring nerves, and the Collector watched it all with a slow tilt of their head.
The unnatural length of their smile stretched wider as if they were playing with building blocks and had arranged the blocks into a funny word.
The shrieks spilling out of you were uncontrolled and mad, becoming clearer with the addition of a tongue until the issue of a limited lung capacity and a stinging throat forced you into silence.
As your new brain grappled with a flood of old memories, it spread a buzzing tingle throughout your skin that was like dozens of needles poking you at once.
Your breaths were quick, shallow scrambles for oxygen that you had grown unaccustomed to needing. Remembering how and when to breathe was an invasive and uncomfortable experience, for the air running through your mouth and puffing out your chest was akin to someone sticking their arms down your throat.
With the eyeballs fresh in your skull, you could see this corner of the world tucked away in a forest under a moonlit night. The taste of rain on the air; the smell of pollen; the dew on your skin; the hordes of trees; the chatter of nocturnal animals-it was all too much, an overload on your senses that had your legs kicking and your arms flailing.
It was then that a pair of small arms encircled you. An equally small body leapt onto your side with an eager burst of laughter.
They hugged you as a child would hug a stuffed animal, eyes closed and head resting on your shoulder. They seemed at peace, but just as their patience lasted no longer than a five-minute game of hide-and-seek, your frantic movements caused them to open their eyes and look at you.
The unearthly glow of their red and yellow eyes, like a pair of lanterns in the night, awakened a memory so deep that it bypassed any thought and sent you scurrying across the dirt. Cold and damp soil was crammed under your fingernails as your hands flung wads of it in every direction.
The Collector jumped up with the crescent moon framed behind their head, which cast a long shadow over the front of their body and dunked every bit of it in darkness except for their eyes. "You want to play tag already?" they asked, feet beginning to lift into the air.
There came no pain from moving your neck; no wrenching in your chest; no wobble in your knees; no brain fog to suck the thoughts out of your head-a vile disease had been ousted from you.
For the first time in decades, you stood without nearly toppling to the ground on knock knees. Having such control and energy to spare was akin to the weightlessness of a bird in flight.
It was not so easy for your mind to return, and the scraps of memory and consciousness floating around in it were more confusing than enlightening.
A jolt then ran through your body, like a painless punch to the gut. It recharged you with the high of an eternal sugar rush.
The Collector was holding their index finger in front of where your heart sat, pointing at the organ as they looked at you. "You couldn't stay before."
The glow in their eyes brightened, and a maddening hum invaded your ears. "I'll make sure that never happens again."