Gettin' Spooked ("Mystery" Dishonored TF FtM+semi-MC)

“My my, what an unusual tale….”

Today was a strange day. It seemed to start out good; Hazel was invited to a party by her friend’s three rich aunts. She wasn’t really “invited,” per se; she was dragged into it by her friend, and was goaded into it by her parents. Her family wasn’t the richest bunch of people, so they probably wanted a bunch of rich people credit to get even a little more money. Hazel hated outings; she would rather just watch the lights of the large mansions that this neighborhood considered “standard houses” than go into a loud party.

“Come on!” shouted her friend, grabbing her by the wrist to drag her (in a more literal sense) to the mansion at the top of the hill. Hazel was too busy being mesmerized by the lights; the mansion lights, the street lights, and the stars in the sky. The stars all shined a bright blue, amongst the strangely unnaturally colored night sky, with bright blues mixed with dark, somehow looking like day. A bright yellow light whizzed by her head, snapping her to reality and causing her to crash to the ground.

“We’re here!” sneered her friend, slowly heaving Hazel off the ground. Hazel covered her face while looking away; the lights were too bright for her, and her head throbbed from her crash. “…. Sorry Chase.” She croaked, shaking her head. Her friend, now known as chase, ignored that, dashing ahead through the large doors. “C’mon! My aunts invited you for a reason!” Chase yelled in an irritated tone; “They heard what I said about you, and wanted to see you; they think you’re special!”

Hazel complied weakly, walking slowly towards the large manor doors. Being called “special” seemed to move her forward, yet she had a nasty feeling in her gut; what kind of “special?” A large, leathery hand grabbed hers, causing her to look up to a large adult figure. He seemed to tower over her, clad in red and black. “You’re Hazel, yes?” He said as he wore a weak smile, walking Hazel towards the door. He seemed to not need her reply, swiftly bringing her through the door.

Hazel uncovered her eyes, seeing that it was considerably dimmer on the inside than what was seen outside. There were many people there; mostly adults, and all very rich. She couldn’t recognize anyone there, and the uncanny were not helping. Her friend Chase was nowhere in sight; “Great,” she chuffed irritantly, “now I have to find him.” She slipped through the crowds, trying her best to mimic their waltzing style and to avoid their vague gazes. She yelped when she felt a harsh pull on her ponytail, slamming backwards. Her head swerved, meeting a bright red mask so close to her face that it almost touched her nose.

“Hello there, little girl!” the faceless voice chirped, dragging hazel up high and dropping her on her feet. Two others joined in, pushing other partygoers out of their ways, and dressed in the similar wares as the first. “I didn’t recognize you; aren’t you the girl we heard such good things about?” one of the others chuckled. Hazel couldn’t respond; she was dragged away by the one clad in black, who seemed to stumble as they moved. Before she knew it, spotlights were directly on her, almost blinding her. Static blared before a female voice spoke up. “Welcome one and all! We have a special guest here tonight; a poor girl that one of our relatives would never stop saying the best of things about! Cheer on, cheer on…. HAZEL CROMOTOX!”

Almost instantly after her name was called, the entire room cheered. The room and stage shook, but it felt as though the entire mansion would collapse from the force of the shaking. Hazel almost fell over; “Almost three times the charm” she snickered, keeping her balance. Static blared again, with a new message. “That is it for tonight! Seek your dorms, as we’ll keep this going through tomorrow! Except for you, Hazel; we’ll give you a special room for your best safety in mind!”

“Special room?” she wondered, tapping her foot and playing with her hair. Why a special room for her? Chase did say that the sisters thought she was “special….” She puffed before she noticed that the stage had an eerie silence to it; everyone had already left. One of the sisters, wearing entirely white, who grasped her hand gently. “Come on now, you need to get to your special room!” she chuckled, with Hazel yet again being dragged behind someone. The closed to her “special room” they got, the darker it seemed to get, their footsteps getting louder and louder as the other guests got settled into their dorms. The sound of tapping on wood became the distinct sound of steps on stone as they entered her room, which had a metal door.

Her stomach sank as the sight of the door, but the room itself was quite welcoming; a warm feeling seemed to hang in the air, and there were bookshelves lining the walls. The bed wasn’t fancy, but it still had mosaic covers and pillows. The table next to her bed was lit by candle, which seemed rather outdated for such a fancy mansion. She sat on the bed, which seemed to bounce to life as she rocked back and forth. The lady in white snickered, key in glove, “Have a good night, sweetheart.” She said in a singsong tone, closing the door and locking it behind her. Hazel calmed down significantly, and began unbraiding her hair; they didn’t bother to give her night clothes, but that’s okay. She set her hair holder on the table next to her bed, blowing out the candle and laying her head down. The sweet scent of the candle seemed to lull her to sleep, seeming to be instantly knocked out when she put her head down.

Bright sunlight shone through her large window, irritating her greatly. “Stupid light,” she growled, attempting to move on her other side. As she did so, a searing pain seemed to split her body in two, and she fell off the bed with a loud, echoing thud. She hissed, hacking up both clotted and fresh blood. The stone floor was dyed a brownish-rust color and seemed to be uprooted, the bookshelves looked as though they were knocked over like dominos, and the booked were strewn about the area. The stones were cracked and seemed to open up to more reinforced stone. Hazel looked down at her body to see that she was almost bisected, torn apart on the half she meant to turn upward. She moved her head up weakly to see her bed, which had a large, jagged rock jutting through it, right where her torso was. She was shocked, though her emotions seemed to dull as the world around her faded to a fuzzy black.

Hazel jerked herself up, drenched in a cold sweat. She panted, “It was j-just a nightmare” she sputtered out, looking around franticly. No broken stones, no toppled bookshelves, nothing. She sighed in relief, looking out the window to see that it was still night, the dark blue sky seeming to go on forever. Her mouth felt dry, so she decided to step off her bed. As her feet touched the floor she noticed something was…. Wrong.

The floor wasn’t stone, it was plywood.

And just as the sensation reached her bare feet, she phased through the floor, seeming to fall face-forward into a blue sky. As she chocked on her breath in fear, she was flipped, landing feet-first on cold, raw stone. She choked, her heart racing; what just happened? It seemed as if gravity itself had prioritized her life before its own sense of logic. She looked around, turning all around and messing with her hair, which seemed to have put itself back into a braid. She seemed to be on some kind of floating island in a blue void. The world around her was a bright, familiar unnatural blue, with dark and bright gradients swirling within. The sky seemed all so familiar, then it whirred in front of her; a bright yellow light flashed in front of her face. She had seen this sort of scene before she went into the manor. Her eyes followed the yellow light, seeing that it was connected to an antiqued lamp post on its own floating rock. She looked down at her solid ground, as she noticed that she didn’t feel any temperature change, and saw that she was wearing long black leather boots with an odd shine to them. She stamped on the ground to see if they were real, and the strangely sticky shifting feeling confirmed it. Her body felt… odd, but she brushed it off; everything felt odd here, like an M.C. Escher painting, with stairs leading to nowhere and an odd blue haze all throughout.

She turned around to try and find someplace to step off, but she accidentally walked off the rock and once again panicked. As she fell, she was flipped once again and landed on another island. This word was definitely not normal, especially the physics. Other floating islands slowly passed by, each with a different scene; a man yelling at his wife, a pale, discolored person disemboweling themselves, and other horrifying scenes. The final scene made her reel back in shock; it was her, partially bisected, the same jagged, blood-stained rock jutting from her bed. She stumbled back, stepping on smaller rocks that seemed to have materialized behind her. She continuously stumbled back, yet the gravity and her sense if balance seemed to allow her to step on them without tripping and flipping. After some more stumbling, she seemed to slam into a wall; when she looked behind her, she saw that it wasn’t a wall at all, but a large chair. It was a very fancy chair, with red, gold-embroidered cushions, and dark ebony wood. She fell into the deep cushion of the chair, hurriedly sitting up properly; this mind-bending world’s powers have all lead up to here? It was a silly enough though to give her a little chuckle. The chair seemed to be teetering off a tiny floating rock like everything else, only holding on by one leg.

After she got into a comfortable position, a strange, static-like rumble seemed to boom throughout the entire void. “Hello there, Hazel,” said the masculine voice, “-don’t worry, I don’t have any name for you to call me by. Now, do you know why you’re here?” it asked, static filling the void when he wasn’t talking. She didn’t know, so she shook her head.

The static once again got interrupted by the voice, “It’s because we both have one thing in common; we both don’t have much time left. Remember the earthquake?”

The earthquake… her bed! Her impalement! It’s all adding up, but what does the voice mean by that “we” don’t have much time left? “What do you mean by “we?” Hazel chipped, gripping the cushion of her chair arm tightly. Another chair, larger than hers, floated in front of her, with bone-white wood instead of black, and a figure materialized. Out of soot and shadow, a man appeared; his jacket was a drab brown, with a large collar and strange belts on their sides. His pants were black, and he had on long black leather boots that looked like Hazel’s. His face was pale, and his jet-black eyes were sunken in. He definitely looked like he had seen better days.

“Hello, I am someone with no name, the god of this world, only known by my believers as “the Outsider,” and I’m running out of time.”

The Outsider? A god? She was getting sick of this chaos. “What do you want me for? Aren’t there other people running out of time, like you?” Hazel growled, staring at “the Outsider” intently. The strange being smiled weakly, “Yes, there are, but you….. you’re interesting. You’ve been in my presence for a long time, and I have a gift that will benefit both of us.” He snickered. “A gift?” she said quizzically, “-that benefits the both of us?”

“Let me put it this way-“ the Outsider said, leaning forward with his hand in one of his jacket pockets, “-if we accept this, then we both don’t die, and we will have much more power than we do now.”

Won’t die? Makes sense; if this is some strange power putting her here, then she’s still bleeding out, and this “Outsider” seems to be… “fading.” “Hm, makes us even.” Hazel said begrudgingly, still looking intently at this strange being.

The Outsider seemed to beam with delight, taking a strange white object out of his pocket. “Great!” He said cheerily, holding the object out open-palmed. It was a strange circular object, seemingly carved from some kind of bone, with intricate carvings all over. Hazel hesitantly, and carefully, grabbed the strange rune, causing the Outsider and his chair to vanish in a pile of dust. Hazel’s chair vanished too, leaving her floating in the blue void. The strange rune she grabbed from him had begun disintegrating, and her head began to throb.

She hissed in pain as a burning sensation spread throughout her body. Loud cracking and snapping from her body seemed to resound throughout the void, echoing in her ears. She winched as she tried to move her hand out to see what was happening, as the burning grew more and more intense. Her body seemed to be getting larger and larger, to an adult size. Her chest seemed to vanish, spreading weight around more evenly on her new form. Her hands seemed to age in front of her, growing larger and rings seemed to suddenly clasp around her fingers. Her hair receded back into her head until it was much shorter and messier, and became darker. Her clothes seemed to be changing to accommodate her shifting form; her pants became larger and longer, along with her boots. Her shirt became larger as well, becoming the same drab brown as the Outsider’s and gaining multiple belt-like loops around it’s lengthened collar and to keep their jacket in place. A white undershirt with a similar long collar materialized under her black jacket, seeming to fit perfectly with her new form.

She spat in pain, as her face became more masculine and thicker. She felt her pants get bigger, which caused her to blush a black color when she realized what was going on. That awkward feeling was soon replaced with more pain as her eyes pulsed and throbbed, which caused him to scream in pain as his eyes were converted to a pure black color and forcibly sunken in. His throat ached in pain as he screamed; he had gained a male voice, like the Outsider. The pain seemed to subside as he floated in the void, nose bleeding black profusely though it soon came back, as an even worse burning pain that surged throughout his body. He screamed, hacking up black blood and blacking out from the powerful pulsing feeling throughout his body.

When he woke up, he noticed that all of the pain had gone away, with only an unnatural pulsing remaining. He effortlessly got up, and felt much taller than they used to. He looked down to see that his feet were floating off the ground, and that his shadow had a form much different than his old. He couldn’t help but smile a cocked smile; this wasn’t real, right? He floated higher, deciding to take a good look around. A nagging feeling within his chest seemed to be leading him somewhere, but he didn’t know where. As he floated seemingly aimlessly, he passed multiple scenes again; a strange red shrine with more of those runes, a bunch of strange, star-shaped bone objects, and then a strange blank window. As he peered through the window, the same feeling told him to go through. Obeying the feeling, he phased himself completely through, in which he saw the true scene. The stone ground was torn apart, book cases knocked down, and a little girl lay on the floor. As he approached, he turned the girl over, seeing his old face staring back at him, eyes rolled back in her head. Suddenly, the metal door slammed open, with multiple metal workers busting through. “Who are you?!” one of them shouted, pointing straight at him. Without thinking, he impulsively turned around, absent-mindedly teleporting outside the window. As he floated above the grass, he looked up to see the dark blue sky, and all of the stars above. He sighed, instinctively teleporting back to the blue void.

He looked at the blue void with a sense of calm and familiarity; he was not the little girl Hazel Cormotox anymore, he was the Outsider, and he had a special job to do.