The bell above the door chimed, bright and false. Too cheerful. Jared flinched at the sound.

Kookie Creatures smelled of burnt cocoa. Sweetness scorched, bitterness curling beneath. The scent clung to the air, warning him. The windows were fogged, warmth pressed against glass, pastel letters looping over grinning monsters; too many teeth, too wide. Harmless, it pretended. Safe, it promised. The lie of it made his skin crawl.

He hovered just inside, the door swinging shut behind him. Shoulders drawn tight, weight balanced on the balls of his feet. Ready to run. Checkerboard tiles, black and cream, too clean. Display cases crowded the wall, cookies pressed behind glass. Claws, eyes, skulls, shapes that refused to be named. Cute, if you didn’t look too long.

Jared thought too hard about everything.

“Hey,” Jolk said brightly from beside him. "We keep the ovens hot for all kinds of storms."

Jared startled despite himself, fingers twitching near the seam of his jacket. Jolk's smile was easy, practiced, and entirely mundane.

“I’ll make some tea,” Jolk continued, unfazed. He flipped the sign so it said the bakery was closed.

“Qhall’s in the back. He didn’t want to spook you. I’ll let him know that you’re here,” Jolk said as he moved behind the counter.

That earned a short, humorless huff from Jared. “Appreciated.”

Jolk’s eyes flicked over him with quick, professional awareness. Not concerned exactly. Assessment. Jared recognized the look; he’d worn it himself often enough. Jolk nodded once, as if confirming whatever internal checklist he was running through, then gestured toward a small seating area tucked beside the display case.

“Have a seat. I’ll bring cookies.”

He hesitated. Moved anyway. The chair creaked beneath him, too loud. Back to the wall, always. He didn’t question it. From here, he could see everything: the counter, the door, the hallway that led deeper in.

He kept his eyes on that hallway.

This had been his idea. Or at least, his agreement. Qhall had extended the invitation: carefully, politely, through the goblin. All of it avoided any psychic brush against Jared’s mind. A handwritten note delivered by messenger, of all things. The consideration alone had been unsettling.

The Dark murmured at the back of Jared’s thoughts, a low, familiar pressure. Not words. Not quite. He breathed through it, counting the seconds the way he’d been taught.

The hallway curtain shifted.

Qhall emerged without ceremony.

Jared’s breath caught despite his preparation.

Qhall was a tall, humanoid figure with the unmistakable head of an octopus: smooth, purplish skin, glowing pale eyes, and long, heavy tentacles cascading where a beard and mouth would have been. He was immaculately dressed in an elegant white suit with a richly textured burgundy vest, decorative chains, and a flower pin, projecting wealth and refined taste despite his alien features.

Jared could not help but stare at the tentacles. They were thick, powerful things, their skin a deep, muted violet that caught the warm bakery lights with a subtle sheen. They moved with intention, curling and settling as Qhall took in the room.

His pulse spiked, vision blurring at the edges. Too fast. Too much.

Mind flayer! Something in his brain screamed, ancient and unhelpful. Memory surged up unbidden: cold stone, psychic pressure like a vise around his skull, the intimate violation of a foreign will tearing through his thoughts. He swallowed, jaw tightening until it ached.

Qhall stopped several feet away. He did not advance.

The Dark flexed beneath his skin, restless. He pressed down, holding it in. It pressed back. Let me out.

In one elegant hand, Qhall held a tablet. The screen glowed softly. When he tapped it, a calm, neutral voice filled the bakery.

“Jared. Thank you for coming.”

The words were gentle. Deliberately so. No psychic undertone accompanied them, no pressure against Jared’s mental defenses. Just sound, vibrating the air like anyone else’s voice.

Jared let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Yeah,” he said, voice rough. “You’re welcome.”

Qhall inclined his head slightly. The gesture was precise, almost old-fashioned. He moved to a chair opposite Jared’s, taking care to sit slowly, his tentacles folding in around him like a living mantle. He placed the tablet on the small table between them.

Jolk reappeared with a tray, setting down two steaming cups of tea and a plate of cookies shaped like tiny, grinning krakens. He shot Jared an encouraging smile, then looked to Qhall.

“Anything else?” Jolk asked.

Qhall tapped the tablet again. “This is perfect. Thank you, Jolk.”

Jolk winked. “I’ll be nearby.” He drifted back toward the counter, humming under his breath.

Silence settled between them, broken only by the soft clink of porcelain and the hum of the ovens in the back.

Jared’s eyes kept flicking to the tentacles despite his best efforts. They moved subtly, almost expressively, responding to Qhall’s posture and breathing. They were too reminiscent of everything that he associated with the evil that the other one had done.

He forced himself to look at Qhall’s eyes instead. They were more human than not. There was intelligence there. Awareness. Patience. 

“You said you wanted to talk,” Jared prompted finally.

Qhall nodded. He tapped the tablet, fingers long and steady.

“I am aware that your current employment with Draco Industries places you at significant risk,” the voice said. “Both physically and metaphysically.”

Jared snorted. “That’s one way to put it.”

“I would like to offer you an alternative,” Qhall continued. “Specifically, I would like to offer to take over containment responsibilities should you choose to leave Draco Industries.”

That got Jared’s full attention. He leaned forward despite himself. “Containment,” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

“I mean ensuring that you do not become a Dark Anchor,” Qhall said, unflinchingly. “By any means necessary.”

The words landed heavily between them.

His mind leapt to the worst. Loss of control. The Dark spilling out, unstoppable. The city breaking beneath it. He tilted his head, humming. Just a few notes, old and grounding. Memory of ancient trees, roots deep, a place where nothing could reach him.

“And how,” he asked carefully, “would you do that?”

Qhall did not answer right away. He watched Jared, eyes intent, as if weighing something. Then he typed again.

“I would establish a psychic link with you,” the tablet said. “One that would allow me to monitor your stability from a distance. Should your condition deteriorate to the point where anchoring becomes imminent, I would teleport to your location and terminate the threat.”

Terminate. Not save. Not stabilize. Terminate.

Jared’s stomach clenched. “By…?” He already knew the answer. He needed to hear it anyway.

Qhall’s gaze did not waver. “By consuming your brain.”

There it was. Clean. Clinical. Horrifying.

Jared laughed, a sharp, brittle sound that surprised even him. “You don’t waste time.”

“No,” Qhall agreed. “Time is a luxury you do not have.”

Jared leaned back, staring at the ceiling for a long moment. He imagined it: a sudden presence, tentacles, the end of everything. No Dark Anchor. No apocalypse. Just… gone.

Disturbing, how reassuring it was. Certainty. Finality. His shoulders loosened, relief slipping in where fear should have been. Then a shiver, sharp and involuntary, running down his spine. His body rebelled. He wanted control. He wanted oblivion. Both, at once.

It was also terrible.

But not for the reasons he’d thought. Not the certainty. Not even the brain-eating. It was the face. He didn’t want this to be the last thing he saw. Not this creature, not those eyes.

“I appreciate the offer,” Jared said slowly, bringing his gaze back down. “But no.”

Qhall tilted his head. “May I ask why?”

“Because I don’t want to live with that hanging over me,” Jared said. “Because I don’t want to look at every bad day and wonder if today’s the day you show up to eat my brain.”

Qhall considered that. “You are already living with that hanging over you,” he said gently. “Only without the certainty.”

Jared grimaced. “Sure. In a way. But I don’t want to leave this world being attacked if I can help it.”

“That is fair,” Qhall said after a moment. “Consent is important.”

The word mattered. Jared latched onto it.

Qhall continued. “There is another option I wish to discuss.”

“Alright,” Jared said. He wasn’t surprised that Qhall was coming into this ready to negotiate and had only started out with his ideal scenario. He was a businessman.

“You have been hearing a voice in the Dark,” Qhall stated.

Jared stiffened. “You know about that?”

“I know many things,” Qhall said. “Some through observation. Some because you are not as alone in this as you believe.”

The Dark stirred, a whisper of approval or irritation. It was hard to tell. And it was getting hard to keep it inside.

“I can help you with that,” Qhall went on. “I can help you eliminate it.”

Jared’s heart thudded painfully. “How?”

“The source of the voice is bound to your familiar,” Qhall said. “Which remains entangled in the Dark. Drawing it fully into the Mundane Realm would give it form and free you of its psychic intrusions. I can guide you through that process.”

Jared nodded. “Okay.”

“And I can help you with your trauma,” Qhall added.

Jared swallowed. “Trauma?”

“That,” Qhall said, “would require me to enter your mind.”

The bakery seemed to shrink around them.

“No,” Jared said immediately, the word tearing out of him. “No telepathy.”

Qhall held up a hand, and Jared settled himself. It was only then that he realized that several tendrils of Dark had slipped out from under his skin and now skimmed over the surfaces of the room. One tendril was wrapped around one of Qhall’s tentacles.

Jared looked up into Qhall’s eyes and found them serenely unreadable, which somehow made everything worse. Qhall was clearly aware of the Dark. His tentacle had already drifted forward, brushing the tendril with an intimacy that made Jared’s stomach drop. He watched in sinking, fascinated horror as the two things began to coil around each other. It was uncomfortably organic, all slow pulses and synchronized undulations, like he’d accidentally wandered in on two extraterrestrial worms having a deeply emotional rendezvous. The tentacle flexed. The tendril shivered in response. They seemed to be communicating, and Jared absolutely did not want to know what they were saying. His Dark, apparently, had no shame whatsoever, and Jared was left staring at the obscene little duet, trying, and failing, to think of a polite, adult way to ask it to please stop flirting.

“I would not do so without your consent,” Qhall said firmly without acknowledging the presence of the Dark. “Nor without strict boundaries. Each session would be negotiated in advance. You would retain the ability to end it at any time.”

Qhall lifted his tea and used a straw to take a drink. The tentacles did not lift away to reveal his mouth, and Jared was grateful. He remembered what lay beneath and wasn’t ready to see it again. Jared’s hands were shaking. He clenched them into fists under the table.

“And the price?” he asked hoarsely.

Qhall did not pretend there wasn’t one.

“For treatment of both,” the tablet said, “I would ask that you contractually agree to grant me your brain upon containment.”

Jared stared at him.

“After,” Qhall clarified. “When you are contained. When you are no longer you.”

The implications unfurled slowly. Jared felt oddly calm as he followed them to their conclusion.

At some point, he would become a Dark Anchor. When he did, he would die. Not now. Not soon, maybe. But someday, inevitably. The only way to halt that process was containment. He would be locked in stasis. Preserved. A living relic, suspended between existence and oblivion.

But if he agreed to this contract, Qhall would come. He would bring things to an end rather than letting them drag on forever.

He stared at the table. Couldn’t keep his eyes there. Too much movement. Too much strangeness. The Dark and the tentacle, still entwined. He closed his eyes, tried to call the Dark back. It refused.

“Is it evil?” Jared asked quietly.

Qhall blinked. “Is what evil?”

“Eating a human brain,” Jared said. “If it’s done with respect. With consent.”

Qhall was silent for a long time. When he finally typed, his words were careful. "Evil is not defined by appetite," the tablet said. "It is defined by disregard. I would not take what is not given." He paused, then added, "Consider how humans consume meat. There is a need, and for many, it is necessary. Yet, ethically confronting the need versus cruelty is what defines the morality of such actions."

Jared nodded slowly. That mattered. More than he wanted to admit.

He took a shaky breath. “What happens to me after containment?” he asked. “Am I aware? Am I trapped?”

“Stasis is not sleep,” Qhall said. “But it is not waking, either. Your perception of time would be minimal.”

Jared thought of Adrian. Of the look in his eyes every time Jared came back from the brink.

It would destroy him. Adrian would never move on, not while Jared lingered. Even the smallest hope would keep him searching. A life spent chasing a ghost.

He sighed, hands dragging over his face. Jolk had been right. Qhall wasn’t the same as the other one. No illusions, this wasn’t charity. But Qhall was trying. Doing what he could with what he was given.

He hadn’t chosen this. Neither had Qhall. Fate, chance? That was meaningless. All that mattered was what they did with what they had.

Qhall’s gaze softened. “I can ensure that when the time comes, it ends. Cleanly.”

Jared closed his eyes. He saw it clearly then: his life, finite and burning bright. An end that meant something. An end that prevented worse things. An end. Nothing that lingered. He didn’t want to keep living when that life meant nothing but staring out at the world that was continuing on without him.

He opened his eyes.

“Okay,” he said.

Qhall stilled. “Okay?”

“I agree,” Jared said. His voice was steady. “Help me. And when it’s time, you can have my brain.”

Jolk’s humming quieted behind the counter.

Qhall studied Jared intently, searching for hesitation, doubt, coercion. He found none. What he found instead was acceptance. Exhausted, clear-eyed acceptance.

“You understand that this is final,” Qhall said.

“I do,” Jared replied. “I’ve made my peace with it.”

Qhall inclined his head deeply. “Then I accept.”

Jared’s gaze drifted, unbidden, back to the tentacles. They flexed gently, responding to the Dark’s attention. They had not stopped. If anything, they’d escalated.

The tentacle moved with an unhurried confidence now, curling and uncurling in a slow, deliberate rhythm. The Dark tendril responded eagerly, shivering and tightening as though delighted to be noticed. They brushed, parted, then wound back together again, pulsing faintly with shared intent.

Jared stared.

He didn’t mean to. He really didn’t. But it was hypnotic, like watching a lava lamp if the lava were sentient and deeply inappropriate. The way they moved suggested communication, yes, but also something more intimate. Something mutual. Something that made his brain start drawing conclusions it absolutely should not have been drawing.

A horrible thought crept in. Was he enjoying this? The realization hit him like a slap.

Jared blinked, stiffened, and felt heat rush up his neck. His stomach flipped. Not with fear this time, but with acute, mortifying awareness. He wasn’t just observing. He was watching. Actively. Lingeringly. His mind had gone traitor, assigning meaning and tension and, Dark help him, chemistry.

He tore his eyes away and stared very intently at a perfectly normal, non-suggestive section of wall. A shelf full of cookies. Anything that wasn’t participating in what could only be described as an alien slow burn.

His heart thudded. He told himself that he was not sexualizing a tentacle or a tendril or worms or whatever was happening over there.

The tentacle flexed. The tendril pulsed in response. Jared squeezed his eyes shut.

“Stop it,” he whispered, not entirely sure whether he meant the Dark, his brain, or the universe at large.

Somewhere beside him, Qhall shifted slightly.

“Are you distressed?” the tablet asked politely.

Jared started to giggle. It was bright and melodic, flowing out of him in nervous waves. He put his hand over his mouth as if he could hold it in. Jared made a strangled sound and stood up in a jerking movement, taking a step away from the table while stumbling over the chair he’d been sitting in.

The tentacle stilled. The Dark tendril recoiled, as if caught misbehaving.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, to no one in particular. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and struggled to calm his breathing.

Qhall regarded him for a long, unreadable moment. Then one tentacle made a small, conciliatory curl, decidedly non-sensual this time.

“It seems that you might also benefit from my assistance with integrating the personality of the Tuner you enfolded. I am willing to include that in your trauma package,” the tablet said.

Jared sat back down, shaking.

“Can I ask you something?” Jared asked.

“Yes,” the tablet said.

“Why do you do this?” Jared asked. “Help people like me. People who are dying. Who are unstable. You don’t have to. You could just wait. Be an angel of death of sorts.”

Qhall was silent for a long moment. When the tablet finally spoke, the voice was quieter.

“When I consume a brain,” it said, “the person does not vanish.”

Jared frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”

“They remain,” Qhall said. “Not as a ghost. Not as a voice. But as memory. Perspective. Emotion. Their life becomes woven into mine.”

Jared’s breath caught.

“It is similar,” Qhall continued, “to how the elf you enfolded became part of you when you took in her Dark. She is not separate. She is integrated.”

Jared swallowed. He thought about how the elf’s grief, her resolve, her love had become threads in his own mind.

“So every person...?” He trailed off.

“Yes,” Qhall said simply.

“And you don’t want to live with people hating you,” Jared said quietly.

Qhall’s tentacles stilled.

“I do not,” the tablet said. “Hatred is loud. It echoes. It lingers. I would hear it forever.”

Jared understood then. Not intellectually. Emotionally.

“You want us to go peacefully,” he said.

“I want you to know,” Qhall replied, “that I see you as more than sustenance.”

He leaned back, something swelling in his chest. Not fear. Sorrow, maybe. Empathy. The question pressed in: what would remain of him, inside Qhall? If anything lingered (courage, love, the ache of wanting), would it change the one who consumed him? Legacy, or just a shadow. He didn’t know.

“You know,” he said softly, “people are going to call you a monster no matter what you do.”

Qhall inclined his head. “Yes.”

“But you do it anyway.”

“Yes.”

Jared smiled faintly. “That sounds familiar.”