I Am Not The Only Monster In This Story

Igor jolted awake.

Pain surged through him, sharp in his back, dull and throbbing in his wings. It felt like he'd fallen from a height, crashed straight through the sky, and landed wrong. Every movement ached. He winced as he shifted, the mattress unfamiliar beneath him.

His quilt lay in a crumpled heap beside him, untouched.

Something was off.

He didn't remember coming home.

Didn't remember lying down. Didn't remember walking through the door.

The last thing he remembered:

The cubicle.

The voice.

The screen.

His breath caught in his throat.

A cold sweat clung to his skin as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. His bare feet touched the cold floor. He looked down.

These weren't his clothes.

Some kind of stiff, institutional fabric hung on his frame, gray, clinical, unfamiliar. His uniform, his real clothes, were nowhere in sight.

Something was wrong.

Panic rising, Igor moved carefully through the corridor. The house was silent.

The servants' bathroom was nearby.

He slipped inside and locked the door behind him with shaking fingers.

The mirror caught him. He stopped cold.

For a moment, he didn't recognize the person staring back.

Then he saw it.

Blood.

Splattered across his face. Smearing his neck. Dark streaks trailed down his throat, soaking into the collar of the stiff, unfamiliar shirt. Crimson marked his cuffs, soaked the fabric at his chest, and flaked dry beneath his fingernails. Not fresh, but not old either.

His stomach turned.

He stepped closer. Touched the mirror. Touched his cheek.

Whose blood?

Had he been in a fight? Had he?

Frantic now, he ran his fingers over his skin, searching for a wound. Nothing.

He tore the shirt off.

Rust-colored stains bloomed across his chest, misted down his arms like a grotesque watercolor. The blood wasn't his.

But it was on him. In him.

Etched into the skin like a memory too deep to forget, and too broken to recall.

He didn't remember.

His pulse thundered in his ears. What happened?

His mind scrambled for answers. He tried to piece it together: the rally, Jack's voice, the van, the cubicle.

And then… nothing.

Just a void. A blank space where memory should be.

Did I kill someone?

No. No, that couldn't be right.

He scrubbed at the stains, frantic. Soap. Water. A hand towel. The blood clung to his skin like it belonged there. Like it knew him. He scrubbed harder, until the skin turned raw, until the worst of it faded.

His reflection still looked wrong. Hollow. Haunted.

Then, it came again. Pressure. Heat blooming behind his eyes.

And silence.

Thoughts slipped from him like water through glass. He tried to grab one, just one, but they vanished. Not forgotten.

Erased.

He gripped the edge of the sink, trembling.

If the blood isn't mine…

Then whose is it?

Igor collapsed onto his bed, dragging the heavy quilt over himself. Sleep swallowed him whole.

That wasn't normal.

Most nights, he stared at the ceiling for hours, trapped in looping thoughts. If he managed four hours of sleep, it was a gift. But now?

It was like something had drained the life out of him. Like his body had no choice but to shut down.

Then...

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

A sharp, grating tone cut through the void.

Igor groaned, curling deeper into the blankets.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Then came the pain.

A searing jolt shot through his neck. His body convulsed.

The collar.

They'd programmed it to wake him. Forcefully.

Another shock. Then another. Each one worse than the last. No rhythm, no mercy.

Igor gritted his teeth, trying to hang onto sleep. But his limbs were lead. His mind, fogged. Every nerve screamed.

The tenth shock broke him.

With a strangled noise, he rolled out of bed and slammed his hand against the door panel.

The beeping stopped.

He sat there, panting, head bowed. His skull throbbed. A cold sweat clung to him. Not the usual kind of cold, this one felt deeper. Wrong.

Shivering, he grabbed the lightest of the required servant uniforms, layering it with one of the quilted overjackets the older servants used to fend off drafts in the mansion's endless halls. The motions were automatic. Programmed.

He dressed like he had a hundred times before.

Then, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he headed toward the bathroom.

Igor's head throbbed as consciousness crept back in. He sat hunched on the bathroom floor, the cold tile pressing against the soles of his bare feet.

It grounded him, barely. His thoughts were spinning, looping on something he couldn't name. His breath came shallow, chest rising and falling in uneven rhythm. A sharp, metallic tang coated his tongue.

He pressed a hand to his chest, bracing for pain.

Nothing.

No wound. No scar.

But the blood was still there.

It wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

And yet, in the mirror, his reflection said otherwise. His bare torso was clean, unmarred… but his vision flickered. Shadows of red streaked across his skin, smeared over his ribs, his throat, under his fingernails. Blood. Everywhere. His hands were shaking.

He hadn't been hurt. He would've remembered, he should've remembered.

A knock shattered the spiral.

He flinched.

"Igor?"

A voice. Calm. Detached. Too calm.

Igor turned sharply toward the door, pulse spiking. The blood, still there. No. It wasn't. But it was. His fingers brushed his chest again, desperate, frantic. Nothing. No stain. But he could still see it.

The doorknob turned. The latch clicked. The door opened just slightly.

Marlow.

His tall frame slipped into the crack in the doorway, a pale silhouette against the gloom.

Igor didn't move.

"You still look... a mess," Marlow said casually, his voice laced with that ever-present mild amusement. "You really should've locked the door."

Igor didn't respond. His gaze flicked from his reflection to Marlow, then back again, drawn to the red smeared across his chest. His skin felt cold. Clammy.

"I'm fine," Igor muttered, but the words caught in his throat. They felt like someone else's.

Marlow stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "You're still pretending that's nothing?" He gestured lazily toward Igor's chest with two fingers, like pointing out a spilled drink.

Igor stiffened. His heart kicked harder.

"You can see it?" he asked, too quickly.

Marlow tilted his head. "Can't you?"

Igor turned back to the mirror. The blood shifted, ever so slightly, swirled like smoke beneath glass. His mind stuttered. Was it moving? Was it inside him?

"No," he breathed. "No, it's not real. It's not real."

His voice was trembling.

"Get out," Igor said, low and raw. "Now."

Marlow didn't flinch. He lingered in the doorway, one hand on the frame, eyes unreadable.

"If you say so," he murmured. "But you might want to check again. Some stains don't just disappear."

He stepped back into the hall, the door clicking shut behind him.

Igor stared at the mirror. The blood was gone now. Or maybe it had never been there. But something lingered, a presence, dark and unseen. Not just a memory. Not just trauma.

Something was missing.

And whatever it was, it had teeth.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Maisie's Room, Post White Angel's Rally:

Maisie touched her braid with trembling fingers.

It was tight. Too tight. Her stomach twisted.

She didn't remember braiding it.

Didn't even know how to make it that neat.

Her fingertips brushed the woven strands, searching for… what, exactly? A clue? A mistake? But the braid felt alien. Precise. Like it belonged to someone else. The knot in her chest pulled tighter.

Something was wrong.

She opened her dresser drawer.

And froze.

Her shoes, caked in dirt. Dried mud crusted the soles. Dark streaks ran across the fabric like dried blood. Maisie's breath caught.

She hadn't been outside.

Not since the rally. Not even near the door.

Her mind floated in a fog, hazy and unreliable, but this? This was real. Physical. Evidence.

Her hands trembled as she shoved the drawer shut and stumbled backward, heart pounding.

The braid.

The mud.

The hours she couldn't explain.

They weren't just gaps in memory anymore. They were proof. Shards of something she couldn't piece together, too jagged, too sharp. No edges matched. No sense emerged.

Only one certainty remained:

Something had been done to her.

Igor's irritation simmered beneath the surface, but he knew better than to let it show. His masters were unforgiving, especially when it came to his moods.

He swallowed the frustration that threatened to spill over, making a silent vow to speak even less than usual, if that was even possible for him.

He knocked on Maisie's door, the sound sharp in the stillness. "Mistress, I'm here to assist you," he said, his voice betraying nothing, keeping the words as neutral as he could manage.

"Come in, Igor," Maisie's voice came, muffled and heavy with sleep.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Maisie was groggily emerging from the covers, her hair now loose and tangled, spilling over her shoulders in a chaotic mess.

She must have torn out the braid sometime during the night, maybe in the same dazed state she'd found the mud-caked shoes. Her eyes were still clouded with sleep, but there was something brittle behind them. Something unsettled.

He silently observed her sluggish movements before turning to her wardrobe, methodically selecting clothes. His day always revolved around her needs, her comfort, and it never seemed to change.

"So…" Maisie murmured, her voice soft and uncertain as she rubbed her eyes. "How did I get home last night? I don't… I don't remember anything after the rally."

Igor paused, his fingers halting in their search through her wardrobe. His gaze flickered briefly toward her, but his expression remained unreadable. "I'm not sure, Mistress," he answered, his voice careful. "I found you here when I came this morning."

A silence hung in the room where there were unspoken questions. Maisie didn't press, but the faintest furrow appeared in her brow. Something was unsettling about the gap in her memory. Something that felt… wrong.

Igor handed her the clothes he had chosen: a practical set of black slacks, short boots, a jacket for warmth, and a long-sleeved shirt. "Here are your clothes," he said, his tone remaining impassive, almost detached.

Maisie barely spared them a glance before dismissing him with a wave of her hand. "Yes, yes. You may leave now. Come back when I call for you."

Igor bowed slightly, the weight of the dismissal settling in his chest as he turned and left the room. The door clicked softly behind him, but even as he stepped away, a strange unease lingered in the air.

Neither of them knew how she had gotten home, and that uncertainty gnawed at him more than he wanted to admit.