word count: 533

NEOVERSE: COMET ANDROMEDA, CASPER OSCURO, GWENDOLYN OSCURO

in which comet discovers an unlocked door, and finds something she shouldn't have found.

no specific trigger warnings, but general horror themes throughout. author's notes at the end.

Comet likes to think of herself as welcome in the Oscuro's home—Casper, despite her slight sense of uneasiness whenever she is close to him for too long, has been nothing but a welcoming host; and Gwendolyn, of course, would never turn her away. She spends more time with them than she does anywhere else, even more than at Wilbur's mother's, far more than at her own. And they have always been sweet to her, like a second—third—family. But today something is wrong.

Casper is agitated, not sitting still over the small feast Gwendolyn cooked for the three, his cutlery clacking against his plate. It worries Comet to see him like this, and she knows it worries her partner too, though Gwendolyn says nothing. He normally stands put-together, almost arrogant above others, but not enough to make you dislike him. Now there hangs a faint buzzing in the air like a headache, and he shifts in his chair, ready to snap to his feet at any moment.

He watches Comet and Gwendolyn like he knows what they're thinking, paying attention to the glances the pair share. Then—abrupt as a gunshot, hearing something nobody else can—Casper stands, pushes the table away, strides off. Comet sits there disbelievingly, while her partner shakes their head: "Sorry you had to see that. He gets like that sometimes." They spear three peas in a row with a lightly shaking hand and chew slowly, haphazardly disguising the crack in their voice.

"Maybe I should check on him. I don't want to have done something wrong," Comet worries, watching the door gently sway in his wake, moved by a breeze without a source. Her chair scrapes along the floor, not waiting for an answer as she kisses Gwendolyn's temple and picks up the mug Casper left, still steaming, when he ran off.

"I don't think it was you," Gwendolyn says quietly, but their warning falls on deaf ears.

Casper leaves a trail behind him of hastily opened doors and wrinkled rugs, and it doesn't take Comet long to locate the stairs he raced down, the door at the top of them slightly ajar. She isn't one to snoop, but anxiousness overpowers her politeness and she nudges open the basement door. The sliding lock mechanism was left open on the outside, and its counterpart on the inside of the door has been snapped. She holds the warm mug closer to herself as she slips down the steps, socks silent on the wood except where it creaks. The wallpaper here is ripped, the same floral pattern as the rest of the house with significantly more of what looks like water damage. The door at the bottom is closed but gives at Comet's gentle push, the handle rusted with age. "Casper?"

She elbows the door open further, whisper-shouting his name again. Takes a step into the room, onto the cold tile floor, into the dim halogen-bulb lighting.

Then it's dark again, as the mug shatters on the floor; Comet now lies next to it, the steaming liquid spreading between the cracks in the porcelain, dripping off broken shards of the cup, soaking her side like blood from a stab-wound.

i stuck more closely to the prompt with this one, and it was a lot of fun to write—both casper's and comet's characters come easily to me, and i wanted to return more to the horror side of things again with this one rather than just angst. i have been enjoying just writing for the sake of writing and for the list, but i feel not all of them are strictly "horror"—i tried to stay on track for this one and wrote a little more than usual, but i hope you enjoyed. see you on day seven! <3