Chapter Text
“Don’t kill me,” Richie pleaded, his voice suddenly growing sheepishly quiet as he stared up at the hollow, blood-splattered face of Max Jagerman. None of this felt real. “I’m not a nerdy prude. I’m not a loser.” He said quickly, hoping Max would listen to reason. Nerdy prudes must die? Well, since Richie wasn’t a nerdy prude, Max wouldn’t kill him, right?
The corner of Max’s lips twitched upwards into a half-smile. “Oh,” Max said, “Of course not, Richie.” Max stressed the e , holding it for a little longer than usual. Wait, would this actually work? Richie’s heart swelled with hope as he glanced at the mascot suit, a glaring indicator of how, especially in the past two weeks, he’d finally been accepted at Hatchetfield High.
Then, as quickly as the hope had arrived, it faded as Max’s expression grew serious once more. “But you have lost.” He said in a near-growl.
What?
“Everything.” Max took a step towards Richie as he scrambled backwards into a wall. Richie could see the rest of the locker room shimmering through the translucent Max, whose ethereal body was shaking with growing laughter. Laughter that Richie was sure that he’d never have to face the horror of hearing ever again.
“No,” Richie could feel his stomach twisting and turning in fear as his voice cracked. “No, no, please-” He was about to throw up, surely. Max’s laughter grew louder. “Please, no, no!” He wanted to plead, he wanted to cry, but nothing else would leave his mouth. Max moved to punch him, and Richie screamed.
The back of his head hit the cinder block wall, cutting off his scream suddenly. It didn’t matter. No one could hear him anyway. His ears began to ring as he felt Max grab a fistful of his hair and slam his head into the wall again and again. Now he really felt like throwing up. Max’s wild mix of growls and laughter took a pause as he spoke again.
“You know, Richie… It’s too bad you never wore suspenders like good ol’ Micro-Peter.” Max said, letting go of Richie’s hair. Richie dropped like a sack of rocks, hitting the bloodied tile floor with a thud. His eyes had a hard time focusing on the ghost of Max kneeling over him. “Seems you’re in need of some tenderizing .”
With that, Max roughly grabbed ahold of Richie’s nipples and began to twist. Some people called it a purple nurple, others referred to it as the titty twister. Either way, it fucking hurt . Somehow, Max kept twisting, and Richie screamed. He couldn’t fight back. It’d be worthless to try - even when Max was mortal, he was the star quarterback. So Richie screamed instead. He screamed for Kyle, for Jace, for Pete, Ruth, Steph - god, even his parents would be better than this hell.
The force of Max’s hands tore straight through his shirt and his binder, right down to tearing the skin. Tears streamed down his face as he writhed beneath Max. His chest burned, and he was sure that if he somehow survived this, he’d have bruises all over. Then, Max pushed Richie’s head to the side, into what Richie found was a cooling puddle of - his own blood? God, there was so much. He’d been told that head wounds bleed a lot, but… the smell alone made him nauseous.
Max scooped up some of the blood and started to smear it on the wall, giggling to himself all the while. “Maybe this will make them remember you after they clean up your blood off the floor.” He mused. “HA! No. You’re replaceable, Richie. Zeek the fightin’ Nighthawk? Anybody could play that part. Even that pathetic little Flemwad.” Shit, Ruth. Ruth and Peter, he had to warn them. Richie tried not to let the words sting as he quietly crawled away from the distracted Max, even as every muscle in his body screamed for him to just lie down and go to sleep.
Then Richie blinked, and he was staring at those hauntingly familiar white sneakers, now stained red with a mix of Max and Richie’s blood. “And what made you think we were done here, Shit-lips?” Max said. “I am your god . You do as I say, nerd.”
“O- Oka-” Richie couldn’t even rasp out a response before Max had grabbed the back of his collar and begun to drag him towards the restroom stalls. The weak attempt at resistance didn’t matter. Max was too strong.
“I’m going to make sure there’s nobody left to pray for you.” Max kicked the stall door open with a clang. “The way nobody at this fucking school prayed for me.” He dragged him to the toilet and grasped his bloodstained hair once more. Richie weakly grabbed either side of the toilet bowl instinctually.
“No- no, please-”
“Don’t worry, they’ll join you soon!” Max shoved his head down and hit flush. “Richie.” The spinning motion filling his vision was too much, and Richie’s body involuntarily vomited as the water flushed down. Well, that was convenient. Blood red dripped down from his head into the water as it filled back up. Richie squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath as the water rose up, submerging his face. This couldn’t be real, this couldn’t-
Richie started to fight Max’s grip, but Max only doubled down, holding him under the water. His lungs burned. He just wanted to take a breath, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t get up. Panic rose as he slowly realized that he was going to die here.
Eventually, Richie couldn’t hold his breath anymore, and his body forced him to gasp mouthfuls of water. He tried to cough violently, but the sharp gasps forced him to inhale only more water. His brain was in survival mode. He thrashed, he fought, but he was already so weak. Maybe Max was right after all. Max held his head down for what felt like hours (but realistically lasted minutes or even seconds).
The pain faded, as did all of Richie’s other senses. He realized all of a sudden that he couldn’t feel anything anymore. He wasn’t coughing, he wasn’t in pain. Faint laughter sounded from far away, but this group wasn’t Max or his friends. His eyes snapped open to blackness, endless blackness.
“Now what do we do with this one?” A voice that came directly behind him. Richie spun around to see two glowing greenish eyes, with a writhing mass of fuzzy tentacles functioning as a mouth. Oh hell no, Richie had watched enough anime to know where this was going.
“Can’t we play just a little?” Richie’s head turned to the side to see a yellowish goatlike amalgamation, illuminated by the glowing yellow box that twisted and turned as if it had a life of its own.
“I wanna lick it. Just a little bite…” To the left, pink lips with sharp white nearly-human teeth. Richie would really rather it didn’t do that.
“Patience, Nibbly. It isn’t time yet.” The green thing spoke once more.
“Am I… dead?” Richie asked. A chorus of laughter echoed around him.
“Dead!” The goat one cackled. Then, five voices spoke in unison.
"Poor little Richie has been damned, surrounded by lords of night! Murdered by the Jagerman, you stepped in the Black and White!"
“Yes, you have left the mortal realm.” The green creature confirmed.
“But the story’s not over yet.” A voice from behind a white mask spoke. Some kind of glowing blue substance dripped from the empty holes in the mask.
“Don’t you want to watch with us?” A large eye stared directly at him with a glowing purple pupil.
Richie felt uncomfortable with this many unknown creatures watching him. Surrounding him were five… things , and also apparently he was dead? That was also distressing. “What are you?” He asked.
The five spoke in union once more. “Out of the depths of hell and back, the gods of endless night! They call us by The Lords in Black, the forces of good we fight!”
The green thing tilted its head. “Dark gods, eldritch devils, the Lords in Black. We go by many titles. But none of that matters, Richie, we’re friendy-wends, aren’t we?”
Do not argue with the fuzzy Cthulu. “Y- yeah, we sure are!” Richie looked between the five gods. “What was that about watching something?”
A sudden flash of light and hisses, yelps, and growls from all around forced Richie to squint and cover his ears. He could barely make out the enormous, nearly abstract forms of a few of these… god-things. As quickly as the light was there, it was gone, like a lighthouse whose light had been turned back out to sea.
“Well isn’t that fun!” The green one said, regaining its composure as if it had never faltered. “Just know we’ll get you eventually, my little pally-wal.”
He blinked, and all he could see was darkness. The voice echoed in his mind. We always do.
His senses had come back, though. He wiggled his fingers against the toilet bowl he still gripped tightly. Oddly enough, the feeling was… muffled. As if he was holding on through layers of fabric. He lifted his head and looked around. There he was, in the Hatchetfield High boys’ bathroom, but it was weirdly foggy and dark. Everything was in shades of gray or near-gray.
He stood up and reached to open the door, but found that his hand went right through. Well, that was upsetting. He took a step to go, but noticed something below him in his peripheral vision. He looked down, then stumbled backwards, through the door and out of the stall, causing it to rattle slightly. His hand clapped to his mouth and he felt like he was about to cry.
His body was still there. A large bloody streak on the floor followed his path from the lockers towards the door and back to the toilet stalls and ultimately led up to the toilet, where his body’s head hung limply in the toilet bowl. That was his body - his corpse. Richie was a ghost. He was dead, really truly dead.
“Okay!” He said, his voice cracking. “Okay.” He repeated. That was a lot to process. “Okay.”
Okay.