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"Me... like you..."
"You... like me..."
"Sleep...? Me and you..."
Those words–– they make your stomach churn.
How long has it been since you got tangled up with this... thing? The same creature that dragged you into that forsaken world, that cost you your freedom, your peace, and your life as you knew it? Too long. And now, even though you managed to claw your way back, even though the nightmare should have ended, the chaos follows.
You would have left him behind if you could! Should have. But you couldn’t. To escape that twisted world, you made a deal with him. A desperate pact, forged in the heat of survival. You’d bind him to you, make him your servant, and he’d help you break free. It sounded simple back then, a means to an end.
But now? Now it’s the worst mistake you’ve ever made.
“Me... eat... then can... serve...”
Scarletella's broken words claw at your nerves. He clings to you, his arms latched on like a lifeline, refusing to let go. It’s pathetic. But then again, so is he. After all, he’s dead. Or at least he was.
That’s the thing about whatever he is, death doesn’t stick to him. Not entirely. When you returned to the human world, you thought it was over. Instead, he followed you, dragging his half-living, half-human form along for the ride. Now he can walk among people, speak in broken sentences, and worst of all.. get hungry.
And boy, does he get hungry.
“Food...” he mutters now, eyes gleaming with an unsettling mix of desperation and excitement.
You groan, pressing the heels of your palms into your temples. “You’re not even supposed to be here!” you hiss through clenched teeth.
“Me... here... with you...” His grin stretches unnaturally wide, as if he finds joy in your suffering.
You glance at him, regretting the pact all over again. Back in the other world, it made sense. You needed him. You were stuck in a realm where nothing obeyed the rules of logic or physics, and he was the only one who understood it. He was strong, clever in his own twisted way, and he owed you. But here, in the human world? He’s a liability. A parasite.
“You don’t need food,” you snap. “You’re not alive.”
“Half... alive,” he corrects, his tone almost teasing.
“Half... human. Eat now.”
His persistence grates on your nerves like nails on a chalkboard. He’s not even wrong.. whatever deal you made to drag him back here didn’t just bind him to you, it gave him a foothold in this world. A half-life. Enough to be seen by others. Enough to interact with them. Enough to cause trouble.
And oh, does he cause trouble.
Your mind flashes back to earlier today, when he scared the living daylights out of your neighbor’s dog, then proceeded to apologize by trying to eat its bowl of kibble. Or yesterday, when he nearly got you kicked out of a diner for scarfing down an entire plate of pancakes from someone else’s table. You swear, if you hear one more complaint from the landlord, you’ll––
“SHUT UP!” you explode, unable to take another second of his whining.
He flinches, momentarily silent. Then, in that infuriatingly childlike way of his, he tilts his head and asks, “Shut up... me?”
“Yes, you!” you growl, your voice echoing through the small room.
For a moment, he just stares at you, wide-eyed, as if he can’t comprehend why you’d ever be angry. It’s infuriating. But then his lips twitch into that same unnerving grin, and he leans closer. Too close.
“Me... like... when you mad...”
Your fists clench. Your patience snaps like a brittle thread. You want to scream, to throw something, to kick him out of your apartment and out of your life. But deep down, you know the truth.
You’re stuck with him.
He’s bound to you, and you to him. That’s the deal you made, and there’s no undoing it now. Not unless you want to risk going back to that world, the one you barely escaped. BARELY.
So instead, you take a deep breath, grit your teeth, and mutter, “Fine. Food. But this is the last time today.”
His grin widens, and he claps his hands together like an excited child. “Me eat! Me serve!”
And as you watch him dart toward the door, his movements jerky and unnerving, you can’t help but think.. What the hell have I gotten myself into?
..
Days turn into weeks. Weeks blur into months. The longer you’re stuck with Scarletella, the worse things get. He’s a constant, nagging presence in your life, always there, always needy, always wrong.
And you hate it. You hate him.
But most of all, you hate yourself.
It started small. A harsh word here, a shove there. Scarletella would say something stupid in his broken, fragmented language, and you’d snap, your voice sharper than it needed to be. But he didn’t seem to care. Or maybe he just didn’t understand.
“Me... serve...” he’d say, his voice so low it was almost reverent. He’d look at you with those wide, empty eyes, like you were his entire world. Like you were his god.
And maybe that’s why you pushed harder.
Because no matter what you did, no matter how cruel you became, he never left. He never fought back. He just took it, like he wanted to. Like he believed he deserved it.
“Why don’t you ever shut up?!” you roar one night, slamming your fist against the wall. He flinches, but his expression doesn’t change.
“Me... sorry...” he mutters.
“Sorry?” You laugh, but it’s not a happy sound. It’s sharp, bitter, like broken glass. “You don’t even know what that means, do you? You’re not sorry. You’re just pathetic.”
He lowers his head, his shoulders slumping. It’s the closest thing to shame you’ve ever seen from him.
And yet, even as the words leave your mouth, you feel a pang of guilt. A small, sharp sting, like a needle prick to your chest. But you shove it down, bury it deep where it can’t hurt you.
Because guilt means weakness.
And you can’t afford to be weak. Not now. Not ever.
“Me... fix?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Fix?” You grab his arm, your grip tight enough to leave bruises. “You can’t fix anything, Scarletella. You’re useless. You’re nothing.”
He doesn’t pull away. He never does. Instead, he just stands there, letting you hurt him, letting you take out all your anger and frustration and pain on him.
And somehow, that makes it worse.
“Say something!” you scream, shoving him backward. He stumbles but doesn’t fall. His eyes meet yours, wide and glassy, and for a moment, you see something there, something almost human.
“Me... here... for you...” he says softly.
His words cut deeper than you expect, slicing through the layers of anger and hatred you’ve wrapped around yourself like armor. You feel your chest tighten, your throat close up, and for a split second, you wonder if you’re the monster in this story.
But then the moment passes, and the anger surges back, hotter and sharper than before.
“Don’t you dare say that!” you snap, shoving him again. This time, he falls, landing hard on the floor. He doesn’t try to get up. He just looks at you, his expression blank, as if he’s waiting for your next move.
And you hate him for it.
Because no matter what you do, no matter how far you push, he always comes back. Always forgives you. Always looks at you like you’re the only thing that matters.
“Why do you stay?” you ask, your voice trembling with a mix of rage and desperation. “Why don’t you just leave?”
He tilts his head, as if the question doesn’t make sense. “Me... bound. Me... yours.”
The weight of his words settles over you like a heavy blanket, suffocating and inescapable. You don’t want him. You never did. But now, you can’t get rid of him. He’s bound to you, body and soul, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t break the connection.
And the worst part?
A small, sick part of you likes it.
Likes the control. Likes the powers.
Because for the first time in your life, someone needs you. Depends on you. Worships you.
And that’s a feeling you’re not ready to give up.
It wasn’t just the words anymore. No, your anger had turned into something far worse, a game.
“Run,” you sneered one evening, pointing to the street outside your apartment. Scarletella blinked at you, his head tilting in that slow, infuriating way he always did. “Go stand in front of that truck.”
“Truck?” he asked, voice flat, like he didn’t understand the meaning.
“Yes,” you hissed, stepping closer. Your voice was venom, dripping with disdain. “Go. Get hit. Let’s see what happens to you.”
His expression didn’t change, but his body moved. Without hesitation, without a flicker of doubt, he stepped outside.
You stood frozen as he walked into the street, right into the path of an oncoming truck. The driver honked, swerved, screamed, but Scarletella didn’t flinch. He just stood there, staring at the headlights as they bore down on him.
The impact was sickening. The truck slammed into him with a deafening crunch, and his body crumpled beneath it, folding like a paper doll. You expected him to die, or whatever it was he did when his body stopped functioning. But as the truck screeched to a halt, Scarletella slowly, impossibly, began to move again.
His limbs snapped back into place with grotesque cracks, his broken form righting itself as if nothing had happened.
You watched, horrified and fascinated, as he stood up, turned to you, and said, “Me... do good?”
For a moment, you couldn’t speak. Your mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. Then the laughter came, sharp and cruel and uncontrollable. You laughed until your chest hurt, until your throat burned, until tears streamed down your face.
“Good?” you choked out between fits of laughter. “You call that good?”
He nodded solemnly, his broken body still visibly mending itself. “Me... follow... order.”
And that was the moment something inside you snapped.
Because he did follow orders. No matter how insane, how dangerous, how cruel, he obeyed without question. Like a dog chasing a stick, like a puppet on strings. It was intoxicating.
It became a habit after that.
“Jump off that building,” you told him one day, gesturing to the roof of your apartment complex. He climbed up without hesitation and threw himself off. You watched from the ground as his body hit the pavement with a sickening thud, limbs bent at impossible angles. A few minutes later, he was back on his feet, stumbling toward you like a broken toy.
“Me... okay,” he said, his voice faint, his body trembling as it stitched itself back together.
“Of course you are,” you muttered, your voice dripping with sarcasm. “You always are.”
Other times, you told him to hurt himself in smaller ways. Walk barefoot over broken glass. Hold his hand over an open flame. Slam his head against the wall until it cracked, both the wall and his skull. And he always did it, never flinching, never questioning.
At first, it was thrilling. The power, the control, the sheer audacity of it all. You reveled in it, laughing at his pain, mocking his blind devotion. But over time, the thrill faded, replaced by a gnawing sense of unease.
Because no matter what you did to him, no matter how far you pushed, Scarletella never fought back. Never got angry. Never even cried.
He just looked at you with those empty, adoring eyes, as if you could do no wrong.
“Why do you let me do this to you?” you asked one night, your voice quieter than usual. You were sitting on the couch, watching him clean up the blood from his most recent “task.”
He paused, tilting his head in that familiar, infuriating way. “Me... bound. Me... yours.”
“Yeah, I get that,” you snapped. “But don’t you care? Don’t you feel anything? Anger? Pain? Anything?”
“Me... feel,” he said, his voice soft, almost hesitant. “Feel... happy. Me... with you.”
The words hit you like a punch to the gut. You stared at him, your chest tightening with something you couldn’t name.
Happy. He was happy.
Even after everything you’d done to him, after all the pain and humiliation and cruelty, he was happy just to be near you.
And for the first time, you wondered if you were the broken one.