"What are you saying? That I'm not... that I'm not real?"
Phaenn's body shook with tension, undecided fight-or-flight singing through his veins. The 'other him' - the supposed winner of this supposed lottery - was looking at him with a smug expression. He'd won, after all. Smugness was to be expected. That part didn't bother Phaenn at all.
What did bother Phaenn, very much, was the edge of pity in the other's words. Panic snapped into anger, and Phaenn pulled himself together. "You don't have any proof of this, do you?" Phaenn snapped at his duplicate. "You could be lying. Just a trick of the game to manipulate me. It can't be that hard to
DREAM-002: [now saving file] by sosiqui, literature
DREAM-002: [now saving file]
Phaenn crashed through the snow, skidding as his hooves flailed for purchase while a proximity alert blared through his ears. The thing - the Abyssal Worm - behind him made an ungodly noise. "THIS IS AWFUL GAME DESIGN," he shrieked as a tree slammed into the snow behind him, splinters flying past his pinned ears. He was going to log out and file a complaint, except that he'd gotten this far and maybe he could still salvage this situation somehow, it hadn't killed him yet-
The ground flew out from under him, and Phaenn flailed for a moment before falling a few feet into another snowbank. There was a tremendous roar as the Abyssal Worm shot ov
DREAM-001: Eggcellent Beginnings by sosiqui, literature
DREAM-001: Eggcellent Beginnings
"It was fun, they said," Phaenn muttered to himself as he trudged through the forests surrounding Dreamhome. "A life of adventure, they said."
The quest log proclaiming COLLECT EGGS! blinked at him as if in cheerful mockery.
Both Siren and Lyril had pushed Phaenn to try out the latest version of DREAM-ONLINE, regaling him with tales of their own adventure in an earlier patch. It had sounded pretty fun, so Phaenn had let them fit the VN-2 headset over his head after being assured that it was quite different from Lyril's simulab. All they had to do was take it off. He could do it himself. No doors that could be 'conveniently' covered up or an
They are used to being two-in-one. It is a normal state of existence.
They are, emphatically, unused to being more than that.
The Labyrinth unravels them. They are two threads braided so tightly that they may as well be one, but the Labyrinth sees their edges and grips them and pulls. They strain towards each other in panic, then separate in a rush of disorientation and pain.
...
They have never been separate before. One-in-one. They have never been Alone.
One... is one, and what sense is it to be called One when there is no Two? One wonders desperately if Two feels the same, their panic increasing as Two's thoughts do not flow back to t
[LR-002] follow follow follow follow follow fall by sosiqui, literature
[LR-002] follow follow follow follow follow fall
Blue sky, green grass, yellow brick. Their hooves clop pleasantly against the road below. The flowers wave in the wind, sending their sweet, metallic tang over the landscape. The road slices across the hills like a scar that meanders and twists like a wound like a perfectly normal road. Mym has always been here, walking this road, hooves thudding and shrieking and making completely normal sounds with every step.
we have lost the ability to choose otherwise.
Their companions make merry jests, flicking in and out of existence the way normal people do all the time, of course, their edges shifting and dancing and never quite right except that t
[LR-001] Shallow Reflections by sosiqui, literature
[LR-001] Shallow Reflections
Mym is not accustomed to feeling unease.
Imparting it to others, yes. That is their purpose, or at least part of it. They walk the distortions of nightmare with confidence and ease, well aware that they are usually the most frightening thing in the room, so to speak. Other nightmares are simply the same sort of trickery they themselves employ, produced by a being of their own kind. No need to worry, no need to fear.
This, though... Mym feels worry. They feel unease.
They do not feel fear, they tell themselves, in the quiet of their twin minds.
They should know how they came to be here. When one of them is incapacitated, the other remember
[Staff-003] What Is and Isn't by sosiqui, literature
[Staff-003] What Is and Isn't
Mym padded calmly through the fog, their heads turning, scanning the shadows that lurked beyond the obscuring mist. It was difficult to tell what, exactly, they were walking through; the angularity of the shadows suggested something built, not grown, but it was never safe to assume anything in the realm of nightmares.
"One?" Two asked, pausing their movement and holding one forehoof aloft.
"Two?" One replied, twitching their head towards Two, their braids swaying with the gesture.
"We want it to be something," Two complained, stomping the hoof down with an impatient clack; by the sound, the surface beneath them was concrete, maybe. Again,
"Once upon a time, in a far-off country, the people were plagued by a terrible curse. The light of the moon was tainted, and any living thing left outside to bathe in moonlight on the night of a full moon would be irrevocably changed. From that night forth, the unfortunate creature would be driven to seek blood to sustain its own life, attacking other living beings to feed. When a human was thus tainted, they were known by one word: vampire.
Many hundreds of stories have been written about vampires who were once human. But little is said about those other creatures who might fall victim to the moonlight curse. It was not only humans
[Staff-001] Nautilus Core Boss Fight by sosiqui, literature
[Staff-001] Nautilus Core Boss Fight
The warped metal walls of the station open up into a vast room (a docking bay, perhaps?) lined with cracked screens. Static and blinking red eyes play over the screens, interspersed with garbled images of all kinds - everything from what look like dull stock photos to strange, layered scenes that seem to move in your peripheral vision.
A sweeping web of wires connects to a hub in the center of the room, upon which waits SIREN, the FINAL BOSS.
INTRO: She gazes down at you, hands fanning over the wires for a moment like a musician preparing to play a stringed instrument. "You weren't supposed to make it this far," she says, frankly, giving you
[WND-003] By Any Other Name by sosiqui, literature
[WND-003] By Any Other Name
It took about two, maybe three hours for Naea's patience to run out. Rhea had been expecting it, had been watching the parasitic Stygian carefully for the tell-tale signs: lashing tail, gnashing teeth, pawing at the ground, looking balefully at nothing. So the actual explosion, when it happened, wasn't really a surprise. It was still startling, though. The strange tinny music of the rose maze was abruptly split by a shriek of sheer frustration and fury. "DONE! DONE DONE DONE DONE," Naea snarled, wheeling on the nearest hedge and leaping into it, jaws and mandibles snapping, emanating pure hunger and hate. Rhea paused in her map-making, warily watching Naea's assault on the hedge, just in case something in the maze took exception to Naea's actions. Naea tore their way through the hedge like a weed whacker, their tail snapping at the air for a moment before they vanished into the hole they'd made. For a moment, the tinny music faltered; it sounded like someone coughed, then giggled.
she/her | lesbian | neurodiverse | happily married
I love to commission art and collect adopts when finances allow! I also write for the ARPGs I'm in and sometimes post messy doodles. More info on my OCs and adopts is on my toyhou.se.
Icon by miizue.