Chapter Seven: Gracie oh Gracie, mood like puff pastry

Player: Damian

Location: World 2, Damian's castle.

“The brat is in there. Kill him! Kill him!”

Such rude enthusiasm. I do wish they’d learn to pace themselves. Murder should have a certain decorum, don’t you think?

But more importantly—and I do mean far more importantly—the castle smelled delightful. Not just pleasant. Not just vaguely floral. No, it was the kind of aroma that made you question if your nose had died and gone to heaven. It was warm and sweet and... mysterious. Like someone had baked nostalgia into a pie and left it cooling on a windowsill of your subconscious.

“I think he’s upstairs!” someone bellowed, as if the volume of their voice might grant them an ounce of intelligence.

I barely registered them. My nose was busy reminiscing.

The scent reminded me of long ago. Possibly childhood. Possibly a bakery I hallucinated during a mild fever. Either way, someone—at some point—smelled exactly like this, and I’m nearly certain I liked them.

“Hope you don’t mind being set on fire,” Hanako said airily from the east corridor. She says things like that the way most people ask if you want a biscuit. Charming, really.

It was that kind of smell. The kind that made you feel like something terribly sad had happened, but also that everything was going to be okay—possibly because your nose was too delighted to panic. It smelled like a dear friend who had died in a rather dramatic castle siege but left behind excellent cologne.

“Aaaaaaaah!” someone screamed in the distance. I assumed Hanako had found another intruder. She’s always fussing about me dying, ever since that fortune teller told her I had “the aura of someone who would trip over destiny and fall directly into a sword.” She's been insufferably protective ever since.

She and Mary are convinced they’re some kind of elite death squad. In reality, they mostly bicker and accidentally destroy furniture. But I let them believe what they like. It's good for morale. Besides, they do kill the occasional intruder.

Then, quite suddenly, a ghost emerged from the floor. As one does.

“Damian, are you scared?” Hanako asked, in the tone of someone offering you a complimentary mint. “I could read you a bedtime story if you’d like. Or hum something hauntingly melodic.”

I was still in bed. The intruders had woken me up, which was terribly inconvenient. I had just begun to dream about an opera performed entirely by disgruntled ferrets.

“No, I’m good,” I told Hanako, yawning.

She, on the other hand, had tears in her eyes Right. Today was her death day. Or maybe tomorrow. I am not sure how long I slept until I was rudely awakened by the now dead intruders.

“Do you want to hang out?” I asked, trying to sound casual. Like one does when speaking to a haunted emotional event in the shape of a girl.

She blinked. “Like… do what?”

“I don’t know. What do ghosts like to do?”

“Look at the stars,” she blurted.

Ah. Yes. The stars. Again.

I made a face. “Okay, maybe something else. What would actually make you happy?”

She tilted her head, pouting like she was auditioning for a ghost-themed soap opera.

“Ummmm… you saying the stars are pretty.”

There it was. She would not give up.

“Maybe something else,” I suggested politely.

She crossed her arms and let out a dramatic sigh that echoed for a great long time. Ghost perks.

“Today is my death day and I am soooooo sad.”

I was starting to suspect she was acting a bit.

I sighed louder.

“Fine,” I muttered. “The stars are... pretty.”

She lit up like a haunted Christmas tree.

“See? That wasn’t so hard. Sometimes the hardest challenge in life is just admitting you’re wrong.”

“That’s funny, because I was thinking the hardest challenge in life is being emotionally blackmailed by a ghost.”

“Pfft. Drama queen,” she grinned.

I sat up in bed, mildly annoyed by how smug she looked, and fully aware I was being manipulated by someone who no longer has a pulse.

“So is there anything else you want to do besides emotionally extort me and stare into the abyss?”

“Well, you’re the one lying in bed. Not exactly the picture of energy.”

I threw off the covers with the flair of someone making a dramatic exit from a very cozy burrito.

“There. Standing now. See? I’m upright and full of deeply repressed feelings. Let’s do something.”

She hovered an inch above the floor, pretending to think. Her version of “thinking” involved a lot of floaty spinning and eye contact that felt like a dare.

“Hmm. I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“We could read? I like reading.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. As long as the book isn’t written by a complete idiot.”

"Okay," she said, pulling out a book. The cover read The Great Old Gods.

"Oh right," I said. "Mary mentioned getting that from someone."

"Yeah. It looks kind of boring now that I’m looking at it." She tossed it onto the floor without ceremony.

She reached into her bag and pulled out another book.

"Alice in Wonderland?" I read aloud.

"I guess she wonders a lot," she said, smirking. "Because it’s wonder, land."

"Very funny."

"Come on, you like puns. I’ve seen you laugh at puns."

"Not anymore, I don’t."

She started to tear up.

"You know what?” I threw my hands up, “Stars are pretty. And your dress is too."

"Really?"

"No, I was just saying that to make you feel better."

"I should never have said 'really.' Really ruined everything."

Then I heard it—stomping. Heavy, chaotic, disorganized stomping. The kind of stomping that suggested a group with more enthusiasm than coordination was coming up the stairs.

“He’s in here! Get him! Get him!” someone bellowed from downstairs, full of confidence and just the right amount of theatrical rage.

A door somewhere down the hall slammed open with dramatic flair.

“He’s not in here. Never mind. Keep searching,” the same voice muttered, now noticeably less heroic.

Hanako’s translucent features scrunched in confusion, like a ghost trying to do mental math.

“I already dealt with the last batch of intruders. Pretty thoroughly, I might add. This must be a new group.”

“More intruders?” I muttered, starting to pace. “We usually get them, what—twice a week? But twice in one night? That’s a subscription service. We're practically a haunted tourist attraction with a murder clause.”

Stolen story; please report.

Hanako gave a thoughtful nod, as though considering printing brochures.

“Oh—right,” she added casually, as if just remembering she left the stove on in the afterlife. “I overheard one of the ones I, um... neutralized say they got the castle’s entry code from one of your old butlers.”

I stopped mid-pace. “What?”

She shrugged. “Apparently the attacker was disgruntled. Said he hadn’t had a vacation in three hundred years. Claimed the job was emotionally draining. Something about smashing chandeliers without hazard pay. He didn’t mind giving information. Of course, I minded his will to be alive.”

I groaned. “We have a Loch Ness Monster guarding the gate. He only lets people in if they know the code. You’re telling me Nessie was tricked by a group of thugs with a cheat sheet and a bad attitude?”

Hanako floated an inch off the ground, twisting mid-air in thought. “I mean, he’s technically a subcontractor. Maybe he’s not as motivated as he used to be.”

“Well, he’s getting a strongly worded performance review,” I muttered. “I didn’t hire an ancient aquatic cryptid to be casual about castle security.”

What’s the code, you ask, dear readers? I’m not telling you. Then you’d know how to get into the castle. Do I look like an idiot? Spoiler alert: I’m not in the business of handing out invitations to impending doom.

I glanced out the window. An entire army was marching toward the castle—torches flickering like fireflies on steroids, banners flapping with all the subtlety of a toddler’s tantrum, and enough armor clanking to wake the dead. Seriously, it looked like the world’s least coordinated parade, but with considerably higher stakes.

“We’ve gotta get out of here,” I said, my voice calm but urgent, the way you’d announce there’s no more coffee in the break room.

“But how? I’m a ghost stuck to this place, and you’re… weak.”

“Thanks for the compliment. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me. In fact, you deserve a medal for how good you are to people.”

“We’re gonna die! Well, you are. I’m already dead.” She started to tear up. “I died on exactly this date. At least we’ll both have the same death day.”

“Way to look on the bright side.”

We were doomed. But there had to be a way out of this. I looked around the room—scattered toys, curtains stained from the efforts of countless butlers who had tried and failed to clean them. My eyes drifted to the floor, where some toy blocks lay—expertly placed, if I might add. And then I saw the book.

What did Mary say? “Try not to summon anything..”

“That’s it. We’re summoning an old god,” I said.

“We’re what?”

I flipped through the pages, searching for an incantation. The pages were old and crusty, smelling terrible—nothing like the smell that had graced my nose earlier, this was a scent decidedly lacking in good manners.

One page caught my eye. It had a picture made up of a hundred circles, each containing a star. Together, they formed the shape of a cat. In big letters, it said: “SUMMON ME.” Hope rose in my chest—this was going to be easy!

Then I saw the smaller letters beneath: “It just takes the death of a loved one.” Nope. Should’ve known it’d be terrible. I mean, this god liked stars.

I flipped to another page. This one showed a creature in the center, but the picture was smudged. It looked like it had been drawn in the sea—there were seashells and catfish surrounding it. No stars, though. Next to the picture, in big letters, it read: “Safe Summoning!” followed by a jumble of gibberish.

“Look,” I pointed. “A summoning chant here.”

“But we need to check if they’re even a good god and not an evil one.”

“We don’t have time.”

In the background, I heard chanting: “Kill him! Kill him!”

I read aloud the incantation:

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn,

Then... nothing happened.

“Well, that failed. Time to start planning how to turn you into a ghost. The only way for a soul to be reborn as a ghost is if another ghost is present to watch you die.”

She sat down on the bed and stared at me.

And stared...

And stared...

“I’m not turning into a ghost,” I said. “We’ll find another way to survive... maybe I just said a word wrong.”

“Or maybe that’s a work of fiction. I’m sticking with my plan to turn you into a ghost.”

“Plans?” a girl called out from downstairs. “I hate making plans. Please tell me nobody is making plans!”

“I plan to kill the boy. No prince is going to stand in the way of TV!”

“TV!” a group of attackers shouted.

“TV?” I turned to Hanako.

“The object from another world. You forbade objects from other worlds, remember?”

“No?”

Somebody knocked gently on the door.

“Excuse me?” said a young male voice. Sounds like someone around ten.

“Is anybody in there? I don’t mean to intrude, but if you’re the prince, I need to tell the rest of my mob—they want to kill you…”

I started saying the incantation again.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

“What god are you saying?”

“Cthulhu.”

“Who?”

“Cthulhu.”

“I’m sorry... ‘Cute-doo-loo?’ That’s a rather unique name. Maybe you should try a different god.”

“Cthulhu. It’s a stupid name, but at least you got it right to insult it properly.”

A giant bubble appeared. Inside it was a squid with tiny black wings, about the size of a human head. Its eyes were closed as it wrote in a diary, using its tentacles to hold a pen.

I thought the creature looked ridiculously cute. An old god was supposed to be scary, right? This one had clearly failed. It looked annoyed, but even its annoyed face was adorable. It resembled a squid—only a cartoonishly cute version, like someone had drawn it for a kids’ comic.

“Sigh, I haven’t had a meeting at Dante’s in a century. I don’t even know if I have any followers!” it said.

“Hey, idiot, I’m being attacked,” I snapped, my voice sharp with panic.

“Oh great,” came the voice from the bubble, dry and detached. “Now I’ve got voices in my head calling me an idiot. How charming. They sound like angels... maybe death has finally come to collect me. Took it long enough.”

The door burst open with a loud crash. A dozen figures stormed in, weapons raised, eyes wild. I could hear their boots pounding against the floor, could feel the rush of air as they entered.

Hanako didn’t move. She just sat there on the bed, eyes fixed on me like I was the only thing in the room that mattered.

I turned back to the bubble, slamming my fists against its surface. It didn’t pop. It didn’t even shake. It was like punching a wall of rubber and silence.

“At least,” the creature muttered inside, flipping a page in its diary, “I’ll die without having to sit through another dreadful magic show. They’re either offensively boring or just plain embarrassing. And don’t even get me started on the fortune tellers... Honestly, if I hear one more vague prophecy about a ‘darkness rising,’ I’ll start rooting for the darkness.”

The noise in the room grew louder—shouts, footsteps, weapons clashing. Someone lunged at me. I felt their hand close around my arm.

No more waiting. No more hoping something would save me.

I grabbed the book with both hands and slammed it against the bubble, harder this time. Nothing. Desperate, I began the incantation, forcing the words out through my fear.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn...”

My voice shook, but I kept going. Maybe the words were nonsense. Maybe they were dangerous. Maybe they would do nothing at all.

But I had to try something.

“What?” the squid talked to his diary. “You think I’d only care about someone just because they’re down on themselves and think they can’t do better than me? No. Forget it. Forget you. I’ve never been into guys who hang out with people flaunting gold chains, acting like that makes them irresistible.”

The air shifted.

There was a beat of silence—just long enough to realize I’d made a mistake.

Then someone surged forward from the crowd, too fast to stop.

A hand grabbed me, rough and cold. I didn’t even have time to scream before I felt the searing flash of pain tear through my side.

My breath caught. The world tilted.

Heat spread beneath my ribs—wet, pulsing warmth. I looked down and saw crimson blossoming across my shirt like ink dropped in water. My knees buckled, the strength draining from them like air from a punctured lung.

Laughter rang out—not loud, but sharp. Cruel. Someone muttered something I couldn't make out, their voice thick with mockery, almost sing-song.

I pressed my hand to the wound, trying to hold everything in, trying to stay upright, but the room was spinning. The pain wasn’t just physical—it was dragging at my mind, turning every thought into a blur of fear and noise.

Hanako was still watching. Still not moving. The bubble behind me remained untouched.

I fell to one knee, breath coming in short, frantic gasps. I could taste iron on my tongue.

Tears began to fall from my eyes—slow at first, then steady, like the fear finally broke the dam holding everything in.

Was this it?

Was this how I was going to die?

Not in a blaze of glory or after some grand, heroic act—but like this. Bleeding on the floor, in a room full of strangers, with Hanako silently watching me like a ghost frozen in time.

Maybe the fortune teller had actually gotten something right. Maybe this was my end.

The pain in my side was impossible. Not sharp. Not dull. Just... complete. It took over everything. My thoughts, my breath, my voice. Every second it lingered, it stole a piece of me. I couldn’t even scream anymore.

I tried to move my hand, but it was soaked. Warm, sticky, red. My blood. It clung to my fingers like it didn’t want to let me go.

I wanted to cry out. To shout for help. But everyone had stopped thinking much me. Even the people who had attacked me were laughing away, like I was already a memory.

And Hanako still didn’t move. She just stood there—eyes fixed on me, face unreadable, lips pressed tightly together.

Somewhere in the back of my fading mind, a memory flickered. Mary’s voice, calm but firm, echoing in a dusty attic:

“To survive the attack of Yuck-Something-or-Another, you’ll need two things—one maid, one butler. Otherwise, your soul won’t stay anchored to this land.”

I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t care. I just knew I was slipping—my breath was shallow, my limbs cold, the world tilting like it was giving up on keeping me upright.

I turned my head—barely—toward Hanako. She was still watching.

If I was going to vanish from this world, I wanted someone to try and hold on. I turned my head to look at the “god” I summoned. He didn’t even noticed I was here. He just complained about magicians.

My lips trembled, but I forced the words out, soft and broken:

“Will you... be my butler?

“What!?” Cthulhu abruptly stopped writing in his diary, his tentacle trembling as the pen slipped and clattered onto the worn pages. His eyes snapped to me, wide and unreadable.

“That is not what I imagined the afterlife to be like nor what I would hear from an—”

He turned slowly, his gaze darkening as he whispered, “...Angel?”

Behind me, the intruder yanked the knife free from my side, the cold steel gleaming as it swung toward my head.

I had no time to scream.

I shut my eyes tightly, waiting for the blade to come down, expecting the sharp pain to claim me.

Maybe becoming a ghost wouldn’t be so bad after all.

But then—nothing.

No impact. No crushing darkness. No final breath.

Slowly, I opened my eyes.

The knife was pressed against my skin, just barely scratching it, but frozen there—motionless, as if held by an invisible force.

I blinked, confused and terrified.

The person holding the knife was frozen too—their face twisted in shock, eyes wide with a fear that ran deeper than anything I had seen.

Around us, the air grew heavy, thick with silence.

Everyone else in the room was completely still. Movements paused mid-action, breaths caught in throats.

“Yes, I paused time. How lucky for you,” said the squid. “I noticed you were bleeding—and you could never be an angel.”

He waited a moment, then grew impatient. “Get inside the bubble,” he ordered. “Insolent human, and you will be protected.”

I shakily stood up, barely able to keep my balance. Clutching the wound in my side, I stumbled toward the bubble.

I reached out and tapped the surface with my finger—only to have it pass right through, like it wasn’t there.

“Walk through. Stop acting scared of it.”

“Well, you are an old god.”

“And the ones outside this bubble just stabbed you.”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped through.