The Fogman steals eyes. What happens when he decides to go for bigger game?

Rated E10+

Swirls of the unknown captures everything in sight. Fog. Kathreptis' domain. The thing he did, the thing he was. He only existed in the fog. And he was fine with that. And up until a few nights ago, he was fine with his job too. His job was to steal eyes, and at first it was really fun. Seriously, who doesn't like to watch random people you don't know trip over obvious objects? It's like watching a person who spends too much time on his cell phone and then runs into a pole. In other words, just plain awesome.

Then he met George. George sucked. George started out as a pretty ordinary guy for Kathreptis, ordinary stalking, ordinary taking of the first eye, then things went to crap. Then, Kathreptis got the bright idea to start the creepy deep voice coming out from behind the dude. Normally, that was the point that the guy or girl or whoever he was screwing with started to freak out. George was different. At first he seemed pretty frightened by what was happening to him, and that he could no longer see out of his left eye, but after Kathreptis let loose a little "Hey there," the dude got this weird look on his face. Calm. Steely.

"You know," George said. "It's a very stupid thing that you do, Mr. Fogman." At this point, Kathreptis was just about to take the other one, but he froze in his steps. "There are legends of you all over the country. I've known about you since I was five, but you've never scared me." That pulled Kathreptis out of his surprise. What? Not scary? Seriously? The nerve of this guy! Here he was, insulting the guy who had his future in the palms of his metaphorical hands. And for your information, every single person who dared to come into Kathreptis' domain had regretted it for the rest of their life, thank you very much! He put on his fogman voice.

"That's an awfully tough comment coming from a puny human such as yourself." Kathreptis thought that maybe he might have been playing it up a bit much with the "puny human" stuff, but hey, it was his show, so who cared? Then George smiled. Maybe he wouldn't let up on the pain for this prick. Yeah, the next eye he took would hurt. A lot.

"It doesn't change the fact that you don't really have much of an ability. Is that all you do? Really? Making people blind is all you do? Anyone can do that. It doesn't take any talent or skill to make someone blind-"

"Oh yeah? You'd be surprised how hard it is to get at someone's eyes without them bashing your skull in! Or at least, you would have to deal with that, I wouldn't. Do you know why!? BECAUSE I'M THE FOGMAN. I'M IMMORTAL YOU IDIOT. LIKE A GOD. GODS' ABILITIES LACK THE ABILITY TO BE STUPID-"

"-and the fact that you are being defensive means that you find my point valid. If you're so all-powerful and wonderful, then why not take the whole person? Can you? I honestly don't think you can. All you can do is take the person's sight, you can't do anything else to affect their life. All you can do to me is make sure that I can't see. Big deal! I can still live my life the way I want to almost completely unaffected! You are completely worthless as a monster and as a productive member of society! You're no different from stupid kids who put toilet paper all over other peoples' houses!"

"What's your name anyway?!"

"George. And no amount of arguing will change the fact that you're dumb, and your power is too." What happened next wasn't too fun for George. But the aftermath wasn't too fun for Kathreptis either. Even after leaving behind that prick George's corpse, he just couldn't get George's cruel comments out of his head. Stupid? Him? No one had ever dared to call him that before. Well, he supposed it might not have been much of an ability... the guy had a point on that. But... he had a place where he put the eyes! That was something like a power, right? And he certainly didn't just pin the guys down and rip out their eyes like a human would have to! That would be barbaric. He just willed them out and dulled the pain so they would be left with an empty socket and no blood. Maybe he should stop easing the pain for them, that would definitely make him scarier.

These thoughts whizzed through his mind as he relaxed in his white room. The white room, his abode, had lots of square holes in the walls, and that was where he put the eyes. He stared at the pair of brown eyes in the upper left corner of the room and felt like they were staring right back. George was haunting him from the grave. Curse it all, it was Kathreptis that was supposed to be doing the haunting, not that stupid, ignorant, foolish, irritating, feckless prick. Just thinking about him put Kathreptis' nerves on edge. Then again, for a stupid, foolish, irritating, feckless prick, he did have a point. Why didn't Kathreptis take on anything more that eyes? It didn't make any sense for such a great being as himself to resign himself to only taking people's eyes, so why didn't he just take the whole person? It couldn't be that much more of a challenge than stealing people's eyes.

The thought stuck in his mind and refused to budge. It was decided. Kathreptis, the fogman of legend, was no longer going to be the pathetic, unfrightening thing he had been a mere ten minutes ago! He wasn't just going to take their eyes, he was going to take them. Kathreptis giggled with joy at his own wickedness. How clever he was to have come up with such an idea. Now all he had to do was pick a victim. Kathreptis was so giddy with excitement, he ran into the wall and dislodged a few eyeballs from their correct places instead of slipping through the wall. After setting things back up the way they were supposed to go and scolding himself for being an idiot, he slipped through the wall and into the nearest foggy area, which turned out to be somewhere in Scotland, judging by the scenery. Well, that was as good as any other place, he supposed. As long as he wasn't in some remote place with no people around, he was fine.

Kathreptis floated through the white hazy goodness in search of prey. Lampposts drifted lazily by him, the only dark thing in a sea of white, until he finally saw someone. She appeared to him first as a pink and purple and blue splotch on the edge of his vision, like a confused bruise. Then as he got closer, he brought the cold. That was his usual warning. Now for something unusual. He took human form, which wasn't too difficult. They were was big for a human. About six and a half feet with red hair and really pointy teeth and hooked claws, (hey, it couldn't be entirely human or there would be no fun in it.) He formed clothes too, which were slightly more difficult considering the fact that most clothes had to be manufactured, and thus had a lot of tiny threads to work into a solid garment. He went with a baggy gray sweatshirt and sweatpants. Suitable creeper wear.

He approached, slowly but carefully, making sure to stay behind her. She had a cute haircut, he supposed. Short and a warm hazel color. He instinctively called up a few tendrils of vapor to pluck out her eyes before remembering that he didn't need those. He paused for a moment behind her, wondering what the proper way to kidnap someone was.

"Can I help you?" Oh crap, she noticed. His eyes went wide. How was he going to explain this? Hold it, why did he have to explain himself? He was here to snatch her, not indulge her in conversation. He'd never really tried to scare someone while looking like a human himself. All right, the first step was finding a way to get close to her. This was a step he had gone through countless times, and was a lot easier when he was just smoke, and that normally came after the initial scare, but he got the feeling that performing a scare without something to precede would be exactly the wrong thing to do in this time. He was on unknown ground where only his insticts provided him guidance, so he went with whatever his gut told him. And right now, his gut was telling him to drag a long gash across his chest before retracting his claws and dulling his teeth. He could work the "poor wounded man" angle.

"Please..." he said in the quickest voice he could come up with. It sounded gravelly and hoarse and waayy deeper than his usual warbling voice he used when he wanted to scare someone, but it would do for the moment. "Please... help..." The woman furrowed her eyebrows in concern and took a few steps towards him.

"Hey, are you alright? How can I help?"

Kathreptis thought this would be an opportune time for him to perform a theatrical cough and wheeze uncontrollably.

"Hey! What's wrong?!" The woman leapt towards him, putting her small hand on his shoulder. For a moment he thought he should just take this opportunity to snatch her and go, but no. That wasn't what his gut was telling him to do, so he didn't do it. He grabbed at her hand with his much larger one and made his knees tremble and shake like he was about to fall. The girl responded by slinging his arm over her shoulders and trying to keep him upright. Woah, this girl was nice. Waaaaaayy too nice for her own good. Still, that helped a bit with the process. He leaned most of his weight onto the girl and took a shuddering breath.

"We.... need to go. Quickly... we have to move..."

"We gotta get you to a hospital is what we gotta do! I'd call an ambulence for you, but my phone is shot, but don't worry! It's not that much furthur from here. We'll be there soon, don't worry."

"No."

"What do you mean 'no?!' You need to go to a hospital, and after that we're going to the laundry mat where you're going to pay for my dry cleaning," she added jokingly. "You can't be okay if you're spilling blood all over my clothes! So hospital first, then drycleaners. Got that?"

It only then dawned upon him that she probably thought he'd just cut himself on a piece of glass or a jagged pipe or something. Well, at least she wasn't one of the idiotic, superstitious, hysterical people, but what was he going to do now? He didn't think any of the usual creeper stuff would even work! How was he gonna scare her? Did he even have to? Maybe he should just grab her and go! It made the most sense, but that wasn't what his gut told him, so he didn't. What was his gut telling him? Did he even have a gut? He was a fog demon, basically composed of just evaporated water, so why did he have a gut? Why did he listen to a nonexistent thing? It was just dumb...

"Huh?"

Wait. Did she just say, 'huh'? Why? Why would she just say "huh"? Oh crap, was he talking? Pleeeeaaaassseeee say that he wasn't thinking out loud, pleeeeeeeeeeaaaassssseeee. She touched him and he made a wound there for her to feel. He made it deep and, for the most part, clean. If she knew anything about wounds made by accident, then she probably knew that this wouldn't be one. (Wounds made by accident were most often jagged, so if she knew anything about wounds, she should be freaked out by this. He'd done his research.) Please let it be that she just noticed there wasn't a wound for the blood to come out of. That could be dismissed easily by her as a "I just hadn't noticed the wound before, that's all. Nothing too out of the ordinary." His speaking his thoughts out loud couldn't be dismissed so easily.

She abruptly let go of him, and he did his job of falling to the ground in a crumpled heap like a good little dying man. He gasped and writhed, because it actually did hurt! Why?! Oh yeah, idiot, he forgot to turn off the pain. Tch, no wonder it hurt. Oh well, at least that helped make it convincing. He turned off the pain and glanced up in the girl's direction. Her eyes flew from him to her own hands, which were stained with his blood.... which was evaporating. Turning into fog. Well. That was dumb. He really should have kept an eye on that. So much for passing for a human.

He got up, letting his full height show off, and willed his body to bleed. Bleed in evaporating rivers. He grinned, showing off his teeth, which he had sharpened into devilish points. Kathreptis aimed to frighten her, and from the look on her face, he was succeeding. Situation salvaged! Take her now! He exploded, splashing himself all over her before evaporating into a fine mist. She screamed, high and clear, and he pounced, slithering his tendrils to bind her tightly and vanished to the white room!

Triumph washed over him in waves. TAKE THAT GEORGE! STUPID POWER MY HEINIE! NOT SCARY MY HEINIE! Kathreptis had captured large game, and he had enjoyed it! No way was he going back to just eyes! No! He would forever take the whole body of his victims, never again would he take only the eyes! Kathreptis took the first physical form he could think of, the tall man, and did a sort of victory wobble. (Kathreptis never was one for dancing.) Yes, victory was bliss.... right up until something small came up and punched him in the face. He hadn't turned off his pain sensors either, so that hurt a lot. (Every time Kathreptis changed forms, that form could feel pain unless he turned it off.)

"OW!!" he said in his actual voice. "What was that for?!?!?!" Another punch came his way and hit him squarely in the nose.

"You had better take me back RIGHT NOW!" The girl's voice raised in volume with each word she spoke and dang did she look ticked.

"Hey!" said Kathreptis, master of words. "You can't just treat me like that! Don't you know who I am?!" Kathreptis tried to compose himself and look giant and imposing and altogether impressive. "I am Kathreptis, Lord of the Fog! Kneel before me you pitiful creatu-" She kicked him in the groin, hard. He still hadn't turned off the pain receptors. "MOTHER DOUBLE FFFFFFFFFFFFF-!!!" He sort of trailed off here as he tried to cope with the pain. The girl gripped his throat.

"Take. Me. Home."

"You can't order me arou-" SMACK.

"Now!"

"Fine! Just quit hitting me you crazy b-"

"I do whatever the hell I want, but right now you don't have that luxury. Right now your going to take me home. And also, your name is stupid. Kathreptis means mirror, not fog you idiot."

Okay, that was uncalled for.

"That was completelly uncalled for! If you keep talking like that I won't take you back and will you please stop interupting me when I tal-" SMACK. "OW!"

"We go. Now." She wrapped her arms around his neck, promising strangulation if he didn't obey, not that he had any intentions of not obeying at this point. No way was he coming home to deal with this every day! He transformed, slipping through the walls of the white room with the girl and into the first foggy place there, dropped her off, and then hightailed it straight back to the white room on the slight offchance that he hadn't dropped her off where she had come from.

The brown eyes from the top lefthand corner of theroom glared at him, laughing. Shut up George. Kathreptis strode over to theeyes, picked them up, and squeezed. Really. Shut up George.