√ 𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘! ; 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄!

𝖇𝖑𝖊𝖊𝖉

be careful what you wish for

content warning: sensitive themes and VERY graphic descriptions

━━━━━━━━ ꧁ ♡ ꧂ ━━━━━━━━

Her eyes open to the brightness of the sun blinding her eyeballs right out of their sockets and she blinks the film of sleep away, rubbing it off with her fingers that still contained scratch marks, burns, and bruises.

"It isn't daylight yet," a voice crooned soothingly. Someone sang something from far away. Lithe hands stroked at her face and she whimpered, burrowing her face onto the lap of the one who held her, "Carry on your sleep, and tell me what you've been dreaming about."

"Yes. Yes, I will."

━━━━━━━━ ꧁ ♡ ꧂ ━━━━━━━━

She had woken up to the night sky, moonlight glaring through the open window. She sat up, the key around her neck peeking from the wide collar of her sleeping gown. Her wrists that had been aching, filled with bruises and ugly welts were tied with fresh bandages. Aidan slept beside her, arm around her waist like a lifeline.

Something scratched at the bedroom door and stopped. Y/N waited. The scratching grew louder this time, and she got up out of the bed towards the door, careful not to waken her husband.

"Go away," She murmured sharply, "or you'll be sorry."

The scratching stopped, and whatever it was scuttled back down the hall. Whatever that was sounded familiar, like a crab scuttling out of its little hiding hole when the tide comes to wash over it.

She opened the door. It creaked and it sounded so loud in the silence that she scrunched her face in displeasure. The frigid moonlight seeping through the windows illuminated her face, creating shadows in its midst. All the doors on the second story of the house were closed. So were the doors and windows on the ground floor.

Y/N opened the front door, peering at the early morning rush bleeding into the night sky. There wasn't much time for sleeping, and she couldn't sleep either with all the thoughts of the events from before crowding inside her brain.

Just then, something detached itself from the shadows, making a mad dash for her. She scrambled back from the empty door, running up the stairs towards their bedroom. She turned her head back, catching a glimpse of the figure as it collided with the door. 

She knew what it was, and she knew what it was after. She had seen it too many times in the last few days, holding her arm, carrying their child, reaching and clutching and snatching and popping fat, crunchy beetles obediently into the owner's mouth. Six-footed, blunt-nailed, flocked with yellow scabs and blue bruises, the color of white, fresh bones.

It was the other husband's right hand.