“Puppy berry, come on look at that,” the cheerful girl with a lazy smile said as she embraced Carole in a tight hug on the rooftop. The city seemed so empty lately.

The usual bombastic shouts, the coughing, loud horns of cars, children who laughed, adults who cried, all of it ceased.

Even now as she tried to focus, only the winds were the things that spoke to her.

However, despite this stillness, there was something akin to life down below.

What roamed the streets, were less like the energetic citizens of the past and more corpses moving to a rhythm. Moving to... Something.

Carole was not too sure.

They did not look at her, not even acknowledge her existence.

They occasionally turned to Emilia.

Sometimes even spoke to her, but for some reason, their words came off as static to Carole.

Maybe this was deserved.

The smog, although it was still present, no longer spewed into the sky, as a hellish column of sick. Not even a puff of a cloud came from the manor.

Carole wondered what to make of this. She had done her part, get Ildens to die on its own.

However from what she saw current showed Ildens was disappearing.

It was changing.

To what?

Maybe what it was always meant to be.

Yet she would not be there to see it.

What of the Asbjorns.

Her mind went to Loukas and she felt a lump in her throat at the thought of the boy.

The Loukas she had known the past year was gone.

What was in his place was... a thing.

No, Loukas was dead by the time she had met him. The young heir was killed at 12 and what was in his place was mere mimicry of him. Now whatever it was, has Ildens all to himself, a city full of empty shells of humans.

Not everyone can have the liberty of being as empty as the husks that roam below somewhere...

Some were like Emilia...

Carole looked at the difficult rise and fall of her chest as the woman gazed at the stars that finally showed through the smog fill sky.

Maybe it was her own rotting body keeping the woman here for this long.

Maybe she was special.

No... That was a foolish notion.

Carole egged Hide for the sake of this. Get him into that machine and lock the door until he can complete it.

All for this outcome.

She felt putrid guilt for what she had done as she finally saw the mangled remains of once a proud, energetic man.

What else could she have done?

She had to get that machine to shut down.

It was her task, her purpose.

Hide was the person this city picked with his skills.

Loukas, of course, would never accept such an excuse as a proper answer.

He made that very clear...

Maybe she should have ignored this...

But... the way Hide was, he would have been down there one way or the other.

...

It was...

Carole rubbed the stump that was once her hand as it dripped sticky black fluid.

It did not even hurt.

Her mind went back to that torn apart mess of a man.

She... Could not bear to see Hide like this. He was not smiling, laughing nor teasing, he just cried and suffered

His right eye was gone, his arm was ripped off at the shoulder and as annoying as he was, to lose all ability to speak as he had bitten off his tongue was... Not a sight she liked.

Especially when...

He was still smiling.

He was happy despite his critical condition as he lay in that bed.

Carole saw how cleanly his eye socket was.

As if someone ate what remained in it.

The older mas was oddly affectionate to her, something was not right, and thus she made her secret visits scarce.

However, the few time she had done so alongside indulging him, she also asked him a few questions.

He did not even notice nor care about the abomination his boyfriend had become.

His loss of sight may have been a blessing.

“There’s nothing up here,” Carole replied.

“Urg, come on, it's right there. I ain’t high anymore, you know,” Emilia said back with annoyance. “It’s a shooting star.”

“Hm… I’ve never seen one.”

Emily pouted her lips. “Well, time for you to see stars that do something else than stand there.”

Carole let out a light chuckle. She would not correct the fact that stars do not stand there. She rubbed her shoulder.

Her wings had… Peeled off her back this morning leaving behind crater-like pus-filled wounds.

Whilst Emilia chatted and talked, Carole saw her breath that escaped her lips turning red and noted Emilia's sunken eyes and outright pale complexion.

The smog slowly poisoned the unlucky ones.

Carole leaned in on the other girl with a sigh as Emila gave her a funny look as she grinned.

“Whoa, you’re pretty affectionate today.”

She had found her purpose and had done her purpose.

Ildens would die and be reborn into what it should have been.

Hell for all.

Carole was happy.

Loukas looked down at his lover nuzzled in his arms and lap. A white blindfold hid his damaged eye, that horrific red abyss that was once a beautiful grey. His gaze fell upon the still intact gem, it still worked, but even he could tell it was not focusing like it used to. The stump near his left shoulder, neatly cleaned and healed over, had left a large fleshy scar on that side of his body. It was odd getting used to seeing the man with no horns, but Hide never was more thrilled to know of that fact.

Despite his inability to speak, he still made noises, which were sufficient to get a message across. Especially before Loukas gave him pieces of equipment to fiddle with to ease his disabilities and his boredom when they could not be this close to each other.

Camera, for something similar to sight. Although for now they only got shapes, lights and luckily writing. Not any colours nor defined people, hence it being an eventual replacement for his sight was still a long road ahead.

He will live long...

Loukas would make sure of this...

Loukas felt ashamed for eating the useless parts earlier. He just could not stand seeing that mangled arm and that messes of an eye that looked like a bloody, sunken cake.

He was so hungry…

That blood the poured.

Hide would not mind him eating the rest of his eye, would he?

He would not mind eating the rest of his arm.

So hungry...

He tasted the sweet he had ever been that night.

He at the time after he ate feared Hide’s eyes healing.

He would die if he did not act quickly.

Hence Loukas forced into the goat man's maw, a little piece of him. How he choked and gagged, as he allowed himself inside his mouth into his stomach.

How body attempted to expel Loukas' flesh from itself by days of vomiting and retching.

It hurt seeing Hide like this, but Loukas... Would... Not... Let... Him... Die...

Hide's body began to heal the best it could.

Even that eye...

Loukas wanted to taste.

And indulged he did.

It doesn’t matter right now.

He would take care of him until the end of his days.

He does not want those days ever to end.

He would make sure the end never comes to him.

The once human-like monster looked down at his arms. He could barely maintain a human shape anymore as his body morphed like fluid. Some days he was human covered in shadows, other days he was more a dog-like beast of complete shadow, meat, metal and bone.

But even though his body was oh so different, Hide still craved him, regardless of what form he was. Whether more human to more monstrous, he still wanted his body.

Despite how different he felt or how changed he was.

Hide still loved him.

The mansion was empty, but it did not matter. He could cook, he could clean, and he was happy. Carole used to visit Hide very often when he was not looking. As much as he hated that fact, Hide did not seem to mind, made him less want to hunt her down, but now... Hide mentioned he rarely saw the little angel.

He never wants that monster near Hide ever again...

He would make sure of that.

Loukas did not care so much about the lack of people nowadays, but strangely, he had been hearing...

Things.

A whisper, a mutter there.

Some claimed he was their god.

Others will claim to be infected with a sickness that filled his dreams and now.

They were in the streets. They were millions. All claiming to bring the city down to them. He does not belong here.

He belongs... there...

The people of Ilden’s are changing. They come claiming him as their king.

Loukas did not care.

He never wanted much.

And he certainly was not a king nor god.

Whether or not Ildens sank or he lost that little scrap of himself. As long as he had his love, he was happy.

Loukas was free.

Loukas was happy.

Hide enjoyed every scrap of attention Loukas laid upon him at this very moment.

A few days ago Loukas would go out and do whatever, but right now he spent every waking moment by his side. He had even taken him out through the city on a date.

Everything feels so... Fuzzy thou.

Hide rubbed at his throat. He had eaten something... strange.

He could not focus when he allowed himself to think about that.

Ildens was silent, it was a pleasant change of pace, but Hide for some reason had passed out after an hour outside. His head hurt so badly from the noise...

He had awoken that day to the feeling of Loukas licking at the blood that dripped from his nose.

He did not need to think too much about the current situation especially with all the frequent mind-blowing sex that was as kinky as he liked.

Who knew this shy boy was so open to trying so many things with him and to him.

Hide at times wished for his regular sight back. It would make things a lot easier. Using a computer without full sight was a challenge but he can navigate using his other senses, his touch and hearing. Thus at a first device that recalls the info on screen through sound made the task of navigation so much easier.

He should invest more time in that camera devise to at least make it fly around via a remote like a drone, but that would take a while and he needs to get shit like, proper sight on that camera first.

“So Patches, I'm planning to set up a horror movie marathon," Loukas said

Not a romance for once.

Hide nodded with approval at this event. He could not wait to spend the entire day with his love, who always felt different, yet the same every time they were together. Gentle, firm and loving.

He felt something heavy in his stomach, at the thought.

Something that squirmed...

What did Loukas feed to him?

He missed Carole.

Since their last chat, she never came back, saying that her task was finished.

Where did she go?

He tried to ask Loukas, and he would not give a straight answer before saying he did not know. Why was Loukas so aggressive when he even mentions her name? It was a shame. She was their best friend.

Nuzzling up to the man in an empty theatre, Hide listened to the cries and screams from the film as the camera relayed the shapes of people moving and running frantically.

He felt so dizzy, his body shuddered from cold winds and he had trouble going outside.

Now every time he was alone he felt the touch of... Somethings.

Things like Loukas.

But they were not him.

Their grip touched and caressed him in ways that felt cold, desirable and wrong.

Hide became terrified of being alone. Being able to snuggle with Loukas who seemed to be the few things that he could understand, was something he held onto.

Loukas was eating, Hide knew this.

Loukas had put something that should not be in his body and he was sick because of this.

Hide knew this.

He just did not care, he had found something he never thought he would find in all his years.

Unconditional love.

Hide was happy.

HAPPY END