the first sign you remember -- the first little frisson of Gosh, Gee, Is Something Wrong With Me? -- is a giddy throb of 'oh, it's like a hidden object game!!!' at the absolute worst possible moment.

 

the first time it happened, you were sneaking a spoonful of cherry pie filing from the bowl.

 

(half a pinch of memory. you don't think your blood's supposed to taste this sweet.) 

 

you wondered, for a moment, if the house you and your Charmer had just moved into was haunted. like, is this the work of some SPECTRAL SCHOOLMARM with her sights set on shearing away every last undignified impulse you might've moved in with?? _{like licking the bowl. especially licking the bowl.}

 

(scared. scared. you're a final-girl-friday on baby's first combat high and it's nothing like you thought it'd be.)

 

you like cherry pie. you think? your sense of “liking” “”things”” feels a little bit disconnected, a little bit abstract, like the parts of your brain devoted to wishlists are still shaking off a princess aurora special.

 

(the first time, you wear wild eyes and a smile like a wax seal over your heart, hoping against hope she can't smell how bad you want to be sheep. there’s safety in slipping beneath everyone’s notice, right? there’s safety in you’re not worth the effort, right?)

 

but you like cherry pie. you think. it's....it's a simple pleasure? you like it in the sense that you emphatically don't Not like it. and sometimes, sometimes you look in the mirror and think, oh, was i made for this? am I an escaped test subject from someone's black-budget focus group project to create The Ideal Pie Consumer? sometimes, you wonder if there's a sinister force set on swaying your snacking preferences for some secret reason known only to those with ALLSPICE clearance. _{Though....maybe, just maybe, you like cherry pie because you like cherry pie.}

 

(she takes a step forward, you take a step back. a step forward, a step back, a step forward--)

 

"Babe."

 

(nowhere to go.)

 

"Babe. Hey. Babe."

 

(you're so stupid. you're so stupid. you're trying to hold together 'cos you can't bear the last little indignity of falling to pieces but you wish you'd--)

 

"Listen to me. You're here in our home, you're safe in our home, nothing's--"

 

(she bites down and you could swear the butterflies in your chest drown out the pain.)

 

god, she's so....tall and taut like the work of a witch, like a knight in shining armor. like your knight in shining armor.

 

(you dream of the rorschach splotch on your neck for weeks.)

 

you dream of the dream for weeks, too.

 

 

 

it goes without saying that whatever SET YOUR VIVID IMAGINATION ALIGHT has you deep in its clutches, hopelessly in its thrall. you’re committed, now! you don’t know what’s come over you or why, but you know that you can’t go back to a time before the thrilling gamification of your ordinary routine.

 

(because it is a game, right? your day-to-day is so soaked in the scent of dream logic if not the mechanics, a sense that everything follows from everything and it shouldn’t, that ‘oh, i’m in a game’ is an easier sell than ‘someday someone’s going to watch me with a telescope and pick out new flavors of ptsd like they discovered the saddest star in the night sky.’)

 

it is a game. a hidden. object. game.

 

and it is a game you are going to win! you are going to CLICK on her HIDDEN OBJECT until she 𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐁𝐔𝐙𝐙𝐄𝐑, and with time and tireless tenacity maybe you will annoy the architect of this GAME enough that they’ll lead you to the heart of this mystery.

 

 

 

the second time confirms your suspicion that you're in a hidden object game. there's a key! specifically, a car key. specifically, your Charmer's car key. specifically, the car key she asked you to help her find because she's *hopeless* with little things and lost things. (except you, she adds with an only slightly sly grin.)

 

(another heaping teaspoon of memory. it comes out much smaller than he'd meant it to. i'm not little. i'm not lost. you'd be forgiven for expecting him to croak out i'm Not tired of being nice next. you taste every last word on his tongue and you can tell that he doesn't even believe him. she sure doesn't.)

 

now you just need to find her favorite umbrella (it's buried in the closet, of course), her flash drive (it's in the fridge! that’s what they mean by cold storage, right…?), and that gosh darn car key, and surely you'll be on your way to solving the mystery of Peg Leg Penelope. (The Peg stands for Pegasus, which is both very awkward for Penelope and very exciting for connoisseurs of hidden object games like yourself. they just don't Go For It like that anymore! the last pirate-themed game you remember your Charmer gifting you was about seafaring software pirates, and while you can appreciate the cleverness of the concept, you can only spot the same Adobe.Photoship.in.the.year.of.our.lord.1792-REFLOATED crate so many times before you're d-o-n-e.)

 

your hands clasp around the key.

 

tighten.

 

ache.

 

(you remember how it felt. the heft of the key. the strange spongy shape of some forgotten fauxtome game mascot dangling from its ring. you remember being–)

 

“--here in our home, s–”

 

(shaking you’re shaking everything feels like you’ve been soul-vored by a sonic game and all you’ve got left is the grim certainty that the moment you stop moving from motion to motion to motion the second you stop and think and breathe you’re going to lose so much more than a pile of rings)

 

(a howl from the uparmored undyne plush in the distance, harsh and haughty and hungry. “ufufufuck me up, prin–”)

 

“...cess is perfectly safe in her castle.”

 

(a sharp twist. a tug.) 

 

the princess is perfectly safe in her castle, safe in her spell.

 

(you know on some level that you're spiraling, that you're whipping up a myth from whole cloth to explain ordinary cruelty and mundane terror.)

 

melt, sink, drift. 

 

(you also know that you will not escape her. or--or maybe you just know that you won't escape her in this tired themepark golf cart, and in the absence of any better options you can't help feeling like it's a distinction without a difference.)

 

she’s so warm. you’re too far gone to string two thoughts together but you don’t need thoughts to be aware of her warmth, and you don’t need thoughts to bask in it.

 

(so you can bare your belly and your neck, or–)

 

and her knight is ever-vigilant.

 

(your spirit halloween glass slipper slams down on the gas.)

 

sometimes, it’s fun to imagine her like–okay, there’s just as much of a romance to the simple straightforward story of a brave knight sweeping you off your feet and stealing your heart and making you hers, and carving out a castle worthy of her princess, but

 

sometimes, it’s fun to imagine your Charmer as a monster who fell for her prey.

 

sometimes, it’s fun to imagine a warm hiss in your ear. all those rotten feelings’ll spoil the meat, that’s all. a love bite that leaves just enough poison to warm your cheeks. a cottony cocoon for your heart, and she says it’s just so you’ll keep but it still offers a smidge of distance from all your fears.

 

you imagine dropping. you imagine your eyelashes fluttering and your senses fading and the last little thought before you drift being, you’re so hopelessly ensnared in her spell that she could’ve made you anything she wanted and she chose to make you happy.

 

“Babe.”

 

 

(a kiss on your cheek. okay, so MAYBE it feels less like effortless affection straight from a story and more like a sign she scraped up a mental model of gentleness solely from excruciatingly dense Smooch Strat Gdocs and maybe half a youtube tutorial but–)

 

“Babe, you were...”

 

(but there’s charm in that. right? she’s here and she’s real and she’s earnest in her way and she’s trying and all her fumbling flows out from all her love.)

 

"I, I--"

 

your mother always said that someone’s insides have a way of seeping out for all to see. inner beauty, inner cruelty. and in this moment, you share a glimpse of yours.

 

“....I found your car key!” 

 

which is to say, you grin like an idiot.

 

“Yeah, you did.” 

 

and so does she.

 

“I’ll be home at five, babe.”