Sick Bargain (Vile House #1)

by Nordika Night

We’re trapped in a town that owns us, but it’s trapped by us just as harshly. Moros offers a circular pattern of life with no true moment of birth and no finite moment of death. It’s existence and nonexistence. It’s a lifestyle few would choose but so many are consumed by. It’s home because we are addicted to it.

Me? I believe we’re doomed from the moment we’re born. Because the life of a Sauder man isn’t a good one, and eventually, when it gets to be too much and we can’t take it any longer, the prospect of death is such a welcome embrace that we flock to it freely.

With that, the bargain is etched into my future. My life belongs to the Vile Boy in the purple mask.

Moros is a town of the night, and graveyards are our playground. We’re deranged and criminal like Gotham, but historical and darkened like Salem.

“Oh my god,” he whispers, shocked. “It’s Krypt, actually,” I give him my name and grab his hands, tying them behind his back. “And I’ll be your devil. Not your god.”

Krypt doesn’t fear my anger. He wants to build onto it, add fuel to my already burning fire. I’m a lit match, and Krypt will throw me onto any accelerant, encouraging me to burn the world around me like he burned my home.

If he gets to brand me, I want to brand him right back. Because I’m not leaving this world alone, and when I go, I’ll take every fucked-up part of him I can rip free from his body.

I’m a prisoner to his gaze and a slave to his demands, and I’ve never wanted to be anywhere more than I want to be right here. Because I don’t have to think when he does the thinking for me.

Krypt is a sick king, and it’s time he claims his title.

I inhale weed and exhale evil.

I want him to be my secret, my saviour, and my downfall. Because I’ve always been sick, but Remiel makes me sicker.

Seven. Orange. I’m fixing his guitar. Monster. Yellow and agitated. Riot, the one in white from the other night. Menace, the one in blue. The one who took Cain… Facts. Burnt copper. Twitching. Ransom. The stoic one in red. Kyd, the energetic one in pink. Glitch, who is literally glitching with the need to chase something, his neon green mask tilting from side to side. My brother. Ghost. The teal face of his mask warped into a disgusting smile. And Krypt. My monster, who contains his own monsters.

Because Remiel Sauder has become everything to me. My property. My obsession. My fixation. My dream. I’ve never dreamed before.

If Remiel leaves this world without me, I will follow him all the way to the pits of Hell and stalk him there until he knows what punishment really is.

I have something worth losing. I barely got to fucking grip it in my fist because fate took it away from me, and to mourn is to die. I’m dying with him.

We are sick. Sick individuals who are sicker together.

I want his sickness to infect me like poison, spreading throughout my bloodstream to taint me with his darkness. And in return, I want to give him the antidote to a mind that plagues him.

What will my ending be? What will my method be? What will I regret in my final six minutes?

“But I don’t want death. Not anytime soon.” “Finally,” Krypt says, taking the empty thermos from me. “Welcome to life, Remiel.”