Katie-the-Angel-Witch

Content Warning:

Spoiler

Voyeurism, Hazing

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It works. It fucking works. I can’t move a single muscle or look around, but that’s okay. That’s part of the spell. I want to jump for joy, but I have no muscles to jump with. I smell the cold evening air that Liz is walking through thanks to her sense of smell. I feel her bra straps digging into her shoulders and rib cage because she got one that’s too small thanks to her sense of touch. I can imagine it’s because she grew up thinking they were small and thus buys a size smaller than she actually needs out of insecurity. Times like these, I wish I could share the obsessive research I’ve done into women’s fashion and sizing, to help her feel more comfortable. 

Because on my end, I feel glad to experience the sense of security wearing a bra gives you. I can also feel Liz’s defeated discomfort. She isn’t actively thinking about it or paying attention to it, but there is a small part of her subconscious groaning about how tight her bra is. It takes me a bit of focus to tear away from that sensation and try to experience her full body.

It almost feels right. It so very nearly feels right. Like a dress that might be too short for you, or pinches you in the wrong places, or is loose in places where it should be tight. The euphoria from feeling the pieces separately is strong, but when put together there are things missing. Liz is shorter than me; I expect to be taller. She’s frail and barely skin and bones, while I have at least a little bit of meat on mine. She’s trying very hard to not stim, to walk upright, to present herself right. If only I could share with her that which was denied to me. 

Fucking hell, what am I doing? Look at me, I’m one step removed from Buffalo Bill, and that’s only because Liz is alive and I’m not piloting her, just possessing her. But even with those caveats, I’m still wearing her like a skinsuit, all for my own enjoyment, all so that I can experience the parts of being a girl I can’t get otherwise. Liz doesn’t deserve this, she doesn’t deserve some creep in her head, hearing her every anxious thought, feeling the hope she has that maybe once she’s done with this the THE Girls will let her be a sorority member at last. 

Out of all the possible communities to be a part of, why this specific one? I understand loneliness, isolation, the deep craving for human connection, but this bunch of shallow plastics? They don’t even reach halfway up the soles of my shoes. They don’t feel worth it to debase yourself like that, to hide parts of yourself to become part of them.

I know why Liz wants it, though. It’s approval. If she becomes a member, it means she’s approved by society, not just society but by those more popular and powerful than her. Without access to her memories I won’t know what brought her to this course of action. All I can do is share in her now. Something I have no right or claim to. Especially not after this. I prepare to cut the ritual short, to return to my own body and all the ways it reminds me that I had no chance to stop its betrayal. Even if I don’t need to breathe as purely a mind in the body of another, I still think of breathing nervously, letting the air in and out to calm myself. 

I am seconds away from leaving when I feel Liz’s nervousness, anxiety and uncertainty. She asks “How, how much further?” and I start to worry. Liz’s anxiety isn’t that of an introvert going to a party. This is something else. There’s a clear undercurrent of fear courtesy of not knowing the destination of this little walk across campus.

“Not much, the abandoned dorm is just over there.” One of the other girls points at an old building. Its exterior is nearly overgrown with ivy, only its windows and door spared the vines. It looks almost like an Alpine lodge, with its wooden walls and roof, walls that can barely be made out. I won’t lie, it looks gorgeous, but also ominous. The Overlook Hotel springs to mind… and my concern only grows as I connect the dots Liz’s thoughts provide me. The sorority girls have been hazing her. Fucking me was one of the hazings. “Fuck the faggot” wasn’t even one of the first ones they put her through.  

With this new context, I decide to not leave quite yet. I am no longer just a weird creep with no sense of boundaries, but a guardian angel, watching over Liz like no one else seems to be. Liz’s heart rate spikes a bit as the group gets closer and closer, only changing from fearful to excited as she looks at one of the girls. In short order I am assaulted by her crush on the girl, the anxiety over asking her out and getting rejected, or worse, her accepting. Liz, honey, I’m going to be honest with you, the closest those sorority girls get to queerness is quoting Drag Race. And that’s like claiming that you had authentic Cantonese cuisine when all you got was the orange chicken from Panda Express.

As I quietly criticize her taste, they all cross the threshold. The place smells of dust and aging wood, but there’s no hint of mold or rot. For a supposedly abandoned dorm, the place is amazingly preserved. “Hey,uhm, girls, why, why was this place abandoned in the first place?” Liz asks, her gaze shifting around quickly enough that it would have given me vertigo were I riding in her head more literally. In the few quick glimpses I’m able to process I notice the distinct lack of furniture, the light fixtures lacking any and all lightbulbs and the windows missing curtains. The moonlight that shines through the windows makes the place feel even more eerie than it already is. 

What slasher movie killer will it be that jumps out at the girls? A vengeful spirit, left to drown while those meant to watch him fucked? Or an ominous shape, curious in the ways people bleed? “Well, this is where the infamous Cabbage Night Massacre happened.” 

I see, the answer is neither of those. “A lovesick undergrad lost her marbles and decided to do the old Scottish tradition of checking cabbage heads for fortune telling.” 

How long ago was it that she couldn’t simply do speed dating? “Of course, there are no cabbages around, so she cut them right out of the tradition and went straight for the heads of her dormmates.” The girl telling the story mimes a neck being cut. “It helped that it meant less rivals in romance, since this was a women’s dorm, back before this place had co-ed ones.” 

She gestures to the door. “It has a brother building on the other side of campus that’s still in use. The law and economics boys laid claim to it.” She stops dead in the tracks and stares Liz in the eyes. “Point is, rumor has it that all the blood spilled led to this place being haunted. That anyone who tried to move in after they cleaned it up got chased out of their room at night by an apparition of the murdered inhabitant.” 

She leans closer to Liz. “Some say you can still hear knocking at night, the heads of the victims hitting the ground as they drop them while looking for their correct one.” Honestly? I wish that were me. Just pop this sucker right off and put it on a custom body. I’ve got a pretty enough face for it.

There is a knock from around the corner, of something hitting the floor. Then rolling can be heard, as a head rolls into view. Liz screams in terror while the girls laugh. A hidden figure steps out from around the corner and picks the head up, revealing it to be a latex mask on a cabbage. This does not stop Liz from hyperventilating for another few moments, desperately trying to collect herself. 

The girl with the head speaks up. “I thought you wouldn’t make it; I have the challenge all prepared for our pledge.” She gestures for all of them to follow, leading them down a corridor to a bathroom. Tile-covered cement makes up the room, in contrast to all the wood the rest of the building is made out of. There is a large communal bath sunk into the floor on one side. The opposite wall is covered in showerheads. Within the communal bath sits a single person tub, fog rolling down it from the water in it. The leader gestures to it. “Here it is, pledge, your challenge. You have to spend ten minutes in this ice bath. If you’re still in it when we come back, you pass.”  

Do they want to kill her? Liz, this isn’t worth it, it isn’t worth it to risk exposure just to get in a club of judgemental bitches. Liz, you can just back out, go back to your place, and I’ll… I’ll dare to try and reach out to you. Extend a hand in friendship. Try and build a community together instead of attempting to join one that refuses us. I’ll befriend you and come out to you and we will hang out and talk about cute girls and- 

And you’re stripping. Great. Fantastic. I am shocked that there were braincells for me to cling to. 

Okay, I can’t criticise her too much, after all I am also doing something completely stupid, and did a different stupid thing to be able to do it. And hey, a few short moments of relief free of the bra, as she goes completely nude. The air in the room feels chilly. 

“Remember, pledge, ten minutes. We will wait outside and time it. If you get out before then, you fail.” They all stand next to the door as Liz approaches the tub. 

The cold downright burns as she lowers herself into it, her breathing gets heavier and the shivering starts right away. She has no fat on her to work as a barrier against the cold. One of the sorority girls makes a show of starting a timer on her phone, then they all exit the room. Liz’s mind is preoccupied with the cold, her eyes set to look forward at the wall. A wall with a small narrow window on the top, to give the steam someplace to escape through. The sound of the door locking is registered by Liz’s ears, but out of the two of us I’m the only one who pays attention to it. 

And then the key gets tossed through that narrow window, landing near the door. Fuck. Fuck. 

“Fuck!” I scream, scaring Top as I return to my body, jumping out of bed. “FuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK.” 

They never intended for her to pass. The girls want her to lose more than just the challenge. And they made sure they couldn’t be traced to it. 

“FUCK!”

Katie-the-Angel-Witch

I much prefer the rapid agency of Kat here in contrast to how this backstory went in the Monsterhearts campaign that inspired this story. So in the Monsterhearts campaign Liz died of Hypothermia but it was from someone stealing her car at a beach party and the ocean at night making her too cold in August. Like sure it was set in the North Eastern US but it can't be that fucking cold in AUGUST at night.

Hence this shift. Maybe Liz will be saved this time? You don't know.

Not unless you read ahead by getting yourself a copy on Itch!

You should  come yell at me and start a whisper campaign against me for this story on Twitch! It'll be funny! (Not)

Today's also March 31st. That means Trans Day of Visibility, which is an excellent reason to support me on Patreon, but I do have it set up as charge on join, so if you're not in a place where you can shoulder being charged for March and then the next day immediately for April you should just wait a day to join. Buying the book on Itch is more than enough support for TDoV.

Or just tell me I'm a freak on Discord. I'll know you've had a better life than me if you do so.

Not to mention there's more egrerious stuff here on Scribblehub.

Anyway! Thanks for reading, see you next week, or on Twitch on Release Day!