By Marcie Hobbs NezumiVA YouTube nezumiva Tumblr nezumiva Twitter.
Released 10/31/2022.
Duration: 1:36.

Listen on Bandcamp.

Lyrics:

Vast Error:

Trust is a funny thing, isn’t it?

Spend enough time around someone, let yourself get used to their presence, their closeness, and you open yourself up to every manner of danger without even noticing. All on the belief that they’re not going to hurt you.

Suffice it to say, Serpaz makes quick work of her task. A round of drinks with some snacks on the side, and her friends find themselves inoculated with the creature’s blood.

The last thought they have before their consciousness succumbs is that it tastes like candy.

Serpaz’s friends go rigid. Glasses shatter between convulsing fingers and scatter on the floor, the sound drowned out by the music.

Serpaz stands in the threshold and watches as her friends collapse amid violent shivers, bodies contorting in a soundless pantomime of agony. She’s still clutching the now empty vial. What has she done?

But one by one, they stop shivering. They open their eyes again and Serpaz gasps as she’s greeted by that same iridescent oil slick swirl she saw in the face of her copy.

They stand up, grins like slit throats spreading on their faces, and drag Serpaz into the crush of bodies now linked together with candy-flavored blood, and they begin to dance.

All of them— except one.

Because that’s the thing about trust. Sometimes, though not very often, it is justified.