KITMON DEMONBOARD FEBRUARY


Authors
blackcoffee
Published
3 years, 4 months ago
Stats
4210

story can be read here but toyhouse's shitty formatting really ruins it, so i HIGHLY recommend you read it there - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rEZsl7M8xhbe2tgd5Q9LBeafJqLtgHVUAQHg_JDR560/edit?usp=sharing

Theme Lighter Light Dark Darker Reset
Text Serif Sans Serif Reset
Text Size Reset

ANOTHER CALL AND REMINDER TO READ ON GOOGLE DOCS INSTEAD . I'M NOT MESSING WITH U TOYHOUSE FORMATTING BAAAAD -  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rEZsl7M8xhbe2tgd5Q9LBeafJqLtgHVUAQHg_JDR560/edit?usp=sharing
____


The world was dimmed under a pale blue blanket of clouds, the dead grass lining the ashy sidewalk; everything a desaturated, washed out grey,  icy as the wind as two kitmons made their way down the street, arms full.

“Before we get down there, you sure you wanna go to the sewer for this, right?” Branwen asked, glancing to the other between two candlesticks in her arms.

“Certainly,” Guilt affirmed, with a nod, “not the most spiritual of places, but this isn’t the most spiritual of methods,” she explained, bouncing the ouija board held out in front of her.

Branwen exhaled through her nose, nearly chuckling. “Guess you’re right…” She muttered, turning her attention up the street, to the approaching entrance. “It is just a toy, though, remember we can’t get pissed if it doesn’t work.”

Guilt flapped a hand at her dismissively, before speaking. “I’m aware! That’s why I’ve brought other things to entertain us  if it reveals itself a pointless pursuit… I’ve got my camera, cards, and a few snacks in my bag.”

The two were silent after this, hearts fluttering in anticipation as they neared the grate. They’d attempted things like this often--summoning demons, contacting spirits, bridging the gap--but still couldn’t help the initial excitement--wondering of what might happen, if this would be the time they brought something truly extraordinary upon themselves.

“You ready?” Branwen checked, breaking the silence, wearing the same soothed smile she always did as Guilt picked her head up to find it.

“I’m afraid so.” She responded, giggling deviously at her word choice.

“Give me that, and take these.” Branwen started, Guilt producing a crowbar from the side pocket of her backpack, and trading  it for the candlesticks her friend had been holding. Wasting no time, the taller kitmon got to work, bending down and wedging it under a bar, needing the leverage to hoist the cover up, which was so heavy she still grunted as she did it, even with the help of the tool. 





“Things’ heavy, looks like we’re really not supposed to go down here,” Brawnwen commented, the thick metal scraping loudly against the asphalt as she dragged it aside. “Make sure I leave in front of you, I’ll have to open it back up.” She instructed, both of them knowing she was the stronger one.

She’d be the first to leave, and first to enter, too. The six foot drop in wasn’t much for her, but would be for the three foot Guilt, so she’d have to help her in.
Branwen stepped in quietly,  her long, serpentine tail raised behind her, to keep it out of the puddle of rancid water she found first. Wordlessly, she raised her arms, and the other girl excitedly jumped down into them, paw slapping at the surface one last time as she was still held high, collecting the crowbar into already full arms.

“I’ve got it!” Guilt assured, a cue that led Branwen to set her gently down on her feet, taking the crowbar back as soon as she was steady, and hooking the grate on it.
The grinding of metal against rocks echoed loudly through the chamber below it, gritty rattling ended with a solid clang as the cover found its place again, dropping down and locking in like the lid of a coffin, its announcement hanging in the air around them until it tapered from ringing to nothing… Leaving the two with silence and the reverb of droplets falling in the distance as they prepared for the journey… In other words, as Branwen jammed the crowbar back into Guilt’s full backpack, and took back what she was supposed to carry.

“I’ve not a specific setting in mind, worry about finding our way beyond here, to the main sewer first, before thinking about our resting place.” Guilt ordered, turning right to face one of three narrow tunnels surrounding them, big enough to crawl through. “We just have to squeeze through here, it’ll lead us in on its own.”

“Roger that..” Branwen replied, only to confirm she’d understood, shoving the candlesticks up the long sleeves of her hoodie as Guilt slid the ouija board up the tight body of her dress, before turning to the rectangular opening, and fearlessly hurrying in. 


Space was tight, but the two ventured forth almost effortlessly, having grown skillful over time at getting into places they really shouldn’t be, shuffling without complaint through the cold, damp stone. Neither of them paid attention to how long they’d been creeping up the tunnel to keep themselves calm,

both lost in their thoughts of potential success, demons, and, at the very least, a good time with each other. Whether it had been five, ten, or twenty minutes of forcing themselves up the rectangular prison, distraction was key in making the exit approach quicker, and soon enough, Guilt saw the light at the end of the tunnel. She decided to wait until they were only a couple yards away to announce it.
“We’ll be free soon enough.” Guilt called back, raising her arm and bowing her head under it, trying to throw her voice past the end of her body that Branwen stared back at.
“How soon is that?” Branwen shot back,  speaking into a pair of white legs.
“About eight feet soon.” Guilt clarified, still shoving forward.

A few moments later, the kitmon could pop her head out into open air, her fan of hair springing back into shape as soon as the pressure was released, and Guilt hummed softly in thought as she looked around the surface of the wall she was sticking out of. It was a pretty far drop down, at least twelve feet, but there were rungs beneath the hole for working kitmons to use if they ever had to enter the way the two girls did. As she noticed a notch in the cement above the opening, how exactly they were supposed to find their footing on the ladder quickly made itself clear.

“I’m rolling over.” Guilt warned, before doing exactly that. Laying down, she stuck her legs out straight behind her and her arms out straight in front of her as she rolled onto her back, before reaching down to find the back of the bars with her fingers. Hooking her paws around it, she pulled herself out still on her back by grabbing them, one after the other, until her entire upper half was out. At which point, she could squeeze her legs out and lay them on the wall above her, one at a time. Being upside down with only her butt in the hole didn’t last long, and, going stiff, she let herself fall forward, her grip still anchoring her in place as she reversed herself, legs spreading and coming forth mid fall to catch herself, paws slapping into the cold wall first as she came to face it now; maneuver a success, thanks to flexible joints.

Branwen had slid forward now, head sticking out of the tunnel to watch her friend complete the sequence, and make sure she’d done it successfully.

“I’m not sure if you’ll find yourself able to do what I’ve just done, I have double jointed shoulders… However, essentially, I rolled over and grabbed the rungs, pulled myself out using them until I could get my legs out, then, fell forward from upside down, till I was facing the correct  way.” Guilt explained, waiting in place to make sure the other understood.

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do…” Branwen responded, stopping to think about it before making a move. She found herself strong enough to simply rotate herself once she was all the way out, supporting herself with only her two arms, feet in the air, as she turned herself across the wall clockwise.

“Wow, Schwarzenegger!” Guilt hollered, already standing on a strip of concrete at the bottom.


“Thanks, uh… uh... Cirque Du Soleil!” Branwen barked back, still making her way down.

It wasn’t long before she joined guilt on the ground, and they took a moment to get ready. They removed their supplies from out of their clothing, rearranged their hair, and took in the world around them. The section of the sewer they were in now was different… Massively tall, stone walls holding  up a high, cement ceiling. Thick layers of grime were coated and dried onto every surface, greys darkened into brown from years of build up. Everything was a dingy brown down here, from the murky, still water, to the flat trails of concrete laid down alongside it, the dim yellow lights every few yards along the ceiling only amplifying the effect. The air was cold and damp, carrying a stale, moldy stench with it throughout the entire chamber, the type of awful smell that stuck in the back of your throat.

“You think this is gonna be worth it?” Branwen inquired, somewhere between actually asking and just thinking aloud. She wasn’t one to complain, usually, but a long trip through a crushingly tight tunnel, into a dank, dirty, dangerous sewer, all for the sake of it being a bit cooler and more atmospheric as they tried to get a toy to contact ghosts for them; a toy which they were already pretty sure wasn’t even going to work.

“I’m not sure,” Guilt admitted, her ears pricked up as she kept looking around, “but at least we’ll be able to say we did it, right?”

Branwen paused for a moment, then sighed and nodded, realizing this was still pretty cool of them,  down to a fundamental level, no matter what happened. “Yeah, that’s true…” She agreed, finally.

Not needing to explain herself, Guilt started heading for the left platform along the water, glancing over her shoulder as she spoke. “Well, no reason to hesitate! Let us go forth!”

And so, they did, wandering wordlessly in along the stagnant water’s edge, no sound between them but echoing drips and trickles in the distance, because none else was needed. The occasional out of place splash or churn was chalked up easily. After all, it was a sewer, of course there would be other things down here with them… Roaches, lizards, and rats.


It was once they’d gone on so long that the lights along the ceiling had gone from growing scarce, to nonexistence that Branwen realized they’d never had a specific area in mind, and that going further would really only mean further to walk. After all, it wasn’t like putting more distance between them and the city would mean less distance between them and ghosts.

“How about right here?” Branwen suggested, her friend stopping and looking back at her quizzically in the dim light, before turning to inspect the rest of the area around them. Same as everywhere else in the sewer they’d been, just darker. With a smile and a shrug, Guilt lowered herself gracefully to her knees.
“How about it.” She agreed, simply.

The girls were quick to get to work after this, laying down the ouija board, and putting a candle each on the short sides, the sizzling crack of the matches synching up with a slosh in the distance, their red eyes locking in the stark, yellow light, the moment intensified. If there was any way to make the atmosphere chilling  while you were surrounded by toilet water, this was it.

Guilt moved to sit at the top side of the board so they could face each other, and the pair set their paws on the planchette, starting to slide it in wide, smooth circles across the surface, to ‘warm it up.’

The wet chime of water rolling over itself in the distance sent a chill up their spines as it broke the silence, the dank chill of the sewer creeping up their backs, a vague sense of a presence telling them it was time to begin.

“Do you want to be here?” Guilt began, deciding to keep the question simple… The planchette didn’t budge… Their gazes flicked up to meet each other, so Branwen tried next.
“You wanna be here?” Branwen repeated. The planchette shifted effortlessly to no.. Well, effortlessly for Guilt, that is. For Branwen, it required a push. She decided not to complain about the work when a wide, excited smile cracked across Guilt’s face, and she started to chuckle giddily.

“Will you still talk to us, though?” Victoria asked, watching intently. The planchette seemed to glide more easily now, this time to the spread of letters-- L - O - L - M - A - Y - B - E .

Guilt was quiet, but Branwen snorted. “Did it just say… lol? “
The planchette slid over yes.

Thrown off but desperate to have something truly supernatural happen, Guilt tried to rationalize this, and asked accordingly. “...Are you young?” She followed, that being the only justification she could think of for it to say.. Something like that.

1 - 8 - 2 - 0

Like the score in a horror movie, a splash up the tunnel came with this message… Could it be the chilling reveal of an ancient spirit?

“Did you die in 1820?” Guilt asked, voice shaking with anticipation. The planchette stalled for a moment, before sliding back to the letters. W - E - A - R - E - 1 - 8 - 2 - 0

Branwen, unaffected, blinked at this dully. “Guilt. We are eighteen and twenty.”

The cogs in the other kitmons head turned audibly, followed by an even more audible groan. She would’ve slapped herself if she didn’t have to keep her paws on this stupid toy.
“Have we been talking to ourselves?”

Branwen pushed the planchette over yes.

“Y’know, the ouija board wasn’t meant to contact ghosts. When they made it they were honest about the answers just being your subconscious.” The taller kitmon explained, not wanting to let her friend down, but wanting to go take pictures and eat chips even more.

“Yeah… And it is just a toy. Made by Mattel.” Guilt subsided, sounding disheartened. No matter how much hope she had had, there wasn’t any point in doing something that they knew would be fruitless.

“Could we try just a little bit--!” Another splash came, but this time, louder… And it didn’t stop. The rushing of rolling water followed it, as if something long was being dragged through. “What was that?” She asked, snapping her head to the side.

“That’s not funny, bro.” Branwen shot back, trying to dismiss it. Although she pretended to be unconcerned, she lifted her tail up behind her back; making sure it wasn’t her accidentally making the noise, but hoping it was.


“No, I’m serious!” Victoria hissed, absentmindedly scooting back out of her spot, shifting a little closer to Branwen.

They both knew she was being serious… Sure, they could chalk all the noises earlier to rats, and other animals, but this sounded… big. Too continuous to be something easy to deal with. Even if it were an animal, something like an alligator or an overgrown snake could still be a huge problem considering they weren’t the biggest of kitmons.

A silhouette began to clarify from the darkness, approaching quickly at first, but stopping and lingering up the tunnel when the girls had quieted down. Two circles at the top, down into a thin neck and straight shoulders, the dark sticks of spindly arms confirming this was a bipedal creature. The way it glided closer, without moving its legs, made their hearts stick in their throats, racing, but the anatomy was something calming to cling to; it suggested either a kitmon, or a really, really skinny human child, in a mask.

Not wanting to talk, but not wanting to be humiliated, either, Guilt tried to be brave and croaked out-- “Hello?”
The stranger lurched forward at the sound, the movement so sudden it distracted them from the increasing darkness of another form appearing behind it.

Now unwillingly shrunken behind Branwen, Guilt huddled up next to her side as the taller kitmon put a comforting arm over her back. Now was not the time to make fun of her for being a coward, she decided… If Guilt couldn’t be brave, she would for her.

“We’re not scared of you!” Branwen hollered, in an instant, snatching the candlestick up from beside the board and thrusting it out in front of her, the flame billowing under the gust of her movement.

The flickering light revealed the full horror of what had found them. First shaking over a pair of dead, blue eyes, attached to that hunched heathen of a thing. If they hadn ‘t been scared before, now they knew they should be.





 Although it appeared too sickly to do damage to anything, the bony, unnatural dangle of its limbs made it uncomfortable to look at, and the real worry about it came when they realized it wasn’t a creature they’d ever seen before, and was too disproportionate to be a costume.
Behind it, a red pair of eyes glinted in the darkness, a gurgling, guttural shriek beginning to rumble through the dark chamber, high up and far apart enough to suggest the massive beast they were attached to. Far too large, and from the sound of it, too ruthless, for the pair to tackle on their own.

The girls struggled backwards, Branwen dropping the silver candlestick and letting it clatter across the concrete with a sharp, ringing clang, the candle itself dropping into the rancid water and cutting their visibility in half. However, they didn’t need to see to hear the screeching roar rise, accompanied by a sharp slosh in the water, to tell them it had just lunged closer, a massive splash of water coating them in grime as its thick, heavy body fell back in after its attempt. Luckily for them, it knew approximately where their candle was, but not exactly where they were. Still, even with a few seconds of grace, there was no time to waste, and the two felines jumped up and started running in the opposite direction it lunged in, legs flying before they even knew what they were doing.

Thuds, clangs, and breaking water thundered behind them as the beast tracked their scent and reoriented itself. They were ahead for now, but this could only last so long. Too busy sprinting to cry out, it went unsaid that the thing was gaining on them. No time for rejoice was given as they made their way into increasing lighting, as a large shadow loomed over them, the girls realizing it was throwing itself onto them in the knick of time as the form thickened, leaping out of the way, into the grimy water, dodging the heavy body that fell with a solid, meaty slap.

After the initial, massive slap, they rose as quickly as they could, struggling to find their footing on the slick bottom of the passage. Now knee deep in filth, the pair made their way back to the opposite side of the concrete, not realizing the beast was becoming disoriented as it coiled over itself--a mix of the light source having nothing to do with them, and the waste on their bodies masking their scent.

Soon after the light returned, they came to another cement wall, with rungs leading up to a familiar looking, square hole.

“Jump!” Guilt cried, launching herself halfway up the wall and grabbing a rung a few feet above her head, skipping steps as she clambered up the wall--Branwen trailing hurriedly behind her. As Guilt disappeared into the opening, the last thing the other saw behind them was the titanic, furry serpent slamming itself face first into the wall beside them; only enraging itself further through the pain.

They managed to get in, panting heavily as they crawled up the space with unbelievable vigor, getting only a few meters in before the light behind them disappeared… Telling them the thing was able to single them out, and stuffed its head into the undersized chamber. The only thing slowing it down enough for them to still have time was its own girth, but the two knew they had no time to spare. It wasn’t giving up despite the struggle of shoving itself in, and was managing to force its own meat down its body, thinning itself down to skull, throat, and muscle as it continued after them, its’ cries now choked by the pressure gripping its’ throat, croaking. It was pitch dark now as it blocked off the only other exit, but Guilt and Victoria continued forward tirelessly. At least there was only one way to go. 


Minutes felt like hours when you were in peril, but they were so terrified it was all a blur, the cries fading out, and the light of the next exit looming closer both going unnoticed as the pair focused on nothing but escape.

Guilt threw herself out of the hole gracelessly, falling to the wet floor of the drain and staying on her arms and knees for a moment in the water as she caught her breath, chest heaving.

“Victoria!” Branwen called, dropping her nickname out of fear this would be the last time she ever spoke to the other, pulled Guilt out of her daze.  “I’m stuck right now, I’ll be able to get out, but not that fast! You need to get the grate off without me!”

“Oh, god.” She groaned, coming to her feet hurriedly and looking up, bewildered at the cover of the drain,  which was three entire feet above her head.

Just as she was wondering how she was possibly going to do this, a  voice came from the surface.

“... Is someone in there?”

Husky, bewildered, and most importantly of all, familiar… It was that kid she always messed with, Beau!

“Beau it’s Victoria! Guilt! The freaky goth bitch from your class, get over here now!” She shrieked, already fumbling for her backpack.




Startled and confused, Beau hesitantly came up to the grate nonetheless, leaning over to find that the other had been telling the truth, finding the nearly unrecognizable remnants of his classmate. Her white fur was now tinged brown with sewage, her signature hair was crumpled, and ruined, and her red eyes were wide with a never before seen look of terror, but sure enough, it was her!

“What the hell are you doing in th-,”
“I don’t have time to explain, open this fucking grate! Open it now!” She interrupted, the crowbar already ripped from her bag and being waved wildly in the air.

He didn’t know anything about why this was happening, but he could tell she was serious, and without a second thought reached into the drain and took the thing from her, locking the crowbar onto one of the bars and moving it aside immediately, confusion twisting his features up further as another girl he’d never seen before came out of the drain behind her.

“If that’s what you’re running from, she’s behind you!” He warned, taking a few uneasy steps away from the unlidded opening.

“She’s not, she’s my friend!” Guilt shot back, already being hoisted up by Branwen, and literally jumping out of her arms onto the surface, claws unfurled and scraping at the grit of the road, clinging to it and dragging herself out shamefully at Beau’s feet, eyes unfixed and wild as she thoughtlessly humiliated herself. Being seen like this didn’t matter anymore, all that mattered was that they got out of their stupid decision with their lives.

“You reek! What the hell happened to you guys!” Beau cried, holding his nose and stumbling back further, gaze flicking back and forth over the two girls, who were both flat against the ground as they crawled out for the last time from the depths of the sewers.

“I can’t explain right now.” Guilt wheezed, dragging herself to the grass before she collapsed into it, rolling onto her back, only moving to turn her head to Branwen, making sure she successfully got out alive. “I need to catch my breath first.”

Although they stank to high hell, and the sight of them was so ghastly he wanted to stay away, Beau’s curiosity got the best of him and he decided to linger a little longer. Guessing what he should do next without being told, he closed the grate; more generous than usual due to the dire appearance of the situation. “Well do that shit…” he muttered, under his breath, “Then tell me.”

After a long stretch of nothing but panting, guilt brought her dirty paws to her face and dragged them down before she began.

“Do not go down there.”