ONE MORE DAY FOREVER && return

[beatae]

tw: described gore & mention of self starvation

his journey into the bunkers that housed their friendly neighborhood harbringer had seemingly ended upon agreement to allow the beast to keep his own space below. it appeared that mikolaj had simply disappeared after that. not a sound or scent above to lead anyone back to where he had been, especially during red's unfortunate capture to not even hint at where mikolaj might even be. the typical assumptions would slowly come one by one.

he had left.

he had died somewhere.

he had been taken.

he had been killed.

rumors were only short lived, as the vampiric beast had little to no friendly acquaintances within tanglewood aside from the few other paranormal's around them. no reason to care for a ticking time bomb ready to kill for his own benefit. no reason to feel any sort of attachment toward a monster that only fed for himself and held no loyalty to crow and his beliefs and actions toward the pitt. no familial love toward the other swamp dwellers. village people. whatever they called themselves.

in truth, mikolaj had been repenting. punishing himself for his distasteful behavior. he simply laid across the cold stone floor and allowed himself to be swallowed by the dark. time went by with little to no care. the first week, his little audrey-ling had gotten tired of simply gnawing on his ears for food. she began testing her limits. tugging fur. pulling fur. eating fur. there was no response from the shepherd, simply allowing her to keep herself sustained while he refrained from it himself.

fur gradually escalated to flesh. after marking several patches across his back and neck, ridley moved onto his ears. slowly chewing away at the tips and scuffling away in case he acted out as he normally had when she simply bit them. his eyes were merely closed, even his breathing was questionable in telling if he was alive. he was simply shut down from the world around him. locked away in some dark room within his subconscious and slowly forcing himself to grow weaker and weaker.

the days turned to several weeks. by the time he eventually awoke, his body was... almost unrecognizable. multiple patches of fur larger than a grown man's palm spread across his body. his ears were almost completely chewed and eaten away. his tail, while also patchy, was missing bits of flesh around it. while he had been in a shutdown slumber, his regenerative traits had also been. his wounds were infected, and waking up so weak would cause them to slowly fix themselves over time instead of immediate as it had been before.

still, mikolaj felt nothing. no anger to the potted plant for using him as a meal every day. no pity for himself any longer. no frustrations with his hunger. he was... utterly... completely... neutral.

he stood slowly, stumbling and realizing that his back leg had been chewed into nothing but bone. the dead flesh round it smelled terribly rotten, as did the majority of his body. his body had genuinely died, only his brain active during it all.

the beast stepped forward, finding his footing with his exposed leg, and exited the bunker with shaky strength. mikolaj looked like a walking corpse. let alone the fact parts of his body was eaten away and decomposed, but his fur was  dusty and gray. his eyes dull. had he not physically been standing and moving he could have easily passed off as just another dead tangler.

expressionless, he made for the rubble of marble in the center of the town, simply seating himself in front of it without another word.

"SPEECH"

♡♡♡
tags

[wormwood.]

It now seemed as though Wormwood wasn't the only undead looking member of Tanglewood anymore. Well, he hadn't been the only one for a little while in the first place, since Mirrorimage was at least half rotted away, but somehow the hellhound thought that the state that Mikolaj was in was worse than both he and Image. At least he and Image could be considered properly undead, still living while looking only a bit rotted. They were most definitely dead, but at least their injuries were vague enough that it wasn't too unappealing to look at. With Mikolaj now though... he looked utterly wrecked. He looked as if he were dead inside and out, and when Worm emerged from his house and saw the other canine sitting in the middle of camp looking the complete opposite of the hostile but healthy form that Worm was used to the vampire having. Sure, he had never been particularly close to Miko, but Moth definitely liked him, and he was still a valuable member of the clan, so when Wormwood saw him, he immediately made a beeline towards the other. He wasn't about to go shouting for Selby just yet, since he knew the medic already had a massive amount of work on his shoulders, and Mikolaj seemed ultimately unconcerned with his own present state, but Worm was ready to make the decision to call for a medic at a moment's notice.

Worm had been vaguely concerned about Mikolaj ever since he had presumably disappeared off the face of the earth, but the chaser had assumed that Miko had disappeared down into the bunkers and was just familiarizing himself with his new home. He had gotten half of it right – the part about Mikolaj being within the bunker – but the other certainly hadn't been familiarizing himself with the place if his appearance was anything to go on, unless the bunker was full of cannibalistic rats. He had also assumed that if something was really wrong with Mikolaj, then Red would've said something, but he supposed that was a pretty big assumption for him to make. After all, Red had been gone for a while, and even after his return he had pretty much only been confined to his one room in the bunker. He probably hadn't had a lot of time to go and check on his roommate to make sure that he hadn't gone into a lethargy state where his plant ended up eating him. Worm felt a little bit guilty that he hadn't put more effort forth into searching for Mikolaj, but Red had honestly been his top priority for a while, and Miko also sort of had a habit of freaking him out thanks to his vampiric tendencies.

Settling back on his haunches in front of the other rotting canine, Wormwood bit down on his tongue in thought for a moment before he finally spoke in a raspy voice, a frown on his muzzle, "Mikolaj... what happened? Where have you been? None of us were sure where you had disappeared off to. We thought maybe the Pitt had taken you, or you were hiding off somewhere after what happened with Perseus... do you need me to get Selby for you? You... you don't look healthy." The male was pretty sure that Mikolaj already knew that he didn't look too healthy right now, given the way that he had awkwardly half limped and half dragged his way into camp, but Worm really needed to hear it from Mikolaj's lips that he needed help. His thoughts then traveled to Moth for a moment, and he glanced around anxiously for any sign of the injured large feline. She would probably be distraught at seeing her friend like this, and Worm was not looking forward to it, especially so soon after the attack by Trojan.

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