Leroy and Latoya Read Marcie and Gina Read "One Hundred Candles"

The twins stood in their matching black suits, the strange patches of vitiligo on their faces the easiest way to tell the two androgynous figures apart. Before them on the table were two dolls, home-made. One with yellow hair, one with black. Buttons for eyes, the cloth they were made from cut from an old dress or blanket; care had been taken to make their anatomically accurate to a disturbing degree. Yet the most interesting part was the hair—their hair was real hair.

Latoya and Leroy's eyes were haunted with horrors that few others had seen—

"—these bitches only did half!" Latoya said, offended.

"Not exactly easy reading, sister," Leroy said as he considered the two poppets. There was a candle on the table, and a long needle; a bowl full of earthworms, and another of white liquid; and finally an old-fashioned syringe and a kitchen knife, sharpened so many times the blade was thinner than paper. Latoya made signs in the air, and on the table top itself, Leroy sprinkled a circle of salt.

Latoya considered the tools before her. "We could stitch them together. Flesh to flesh. A crude but effective marriage..."

Leroy tut-tutted.

"We should tell them first that the Candle Game is real," he told his sister. "As real as some of those horrors described. Though our audience did not appreciate the lack of traditional horrors. Very few vampires or werewolves. One mummy, but, alas, they didn't quite get that far."

Latoya stabbed a long, black nail into the crotch of the black-haired poppet. It began to writhe beneath the pressure like a living thing.

"I could push an earthworm through them. Let it squirm from orifice to orifice," she said, her eyes flashing.

"They were not unappreciative," Leroy said gently. His left hand picked up the candle, and let a few drops of black wax fall on the blonde poppet. It, too, writhed. "There is a little darkness in them. A little something that responds to the call of the night and its creatures. Alas, they sought titillation where the story sought horror. And like all such quests, the author was at times—crude. It is difficult, after all, to achieve the correct atmosphere in shorter works."

Latoya sighed and removed her nail. The black-haired poppet curled up on its side.

"One hundred chapters, in thirty-one days," she said. "A challenge, but quantity can win out over quality. And though Zeebop met their mark, it was not without a certain amount of repetition of theme."

"And an exploration of the world and history of Dagon's Hollow," Leroy said. "Something the ladies touched on but a little, but became, as it were, the game within the game. Names like Thothson appeared and reappeared, horrors traced family lineages, the geography was expanded upon, the lore deepened. Not that it was all consistent, but—well. For something done quickly, it was not done badly."

"Not that they would notice," Latoya said, as she picked up the needle. She ran it through the candle flame once, twice, three times. "I do not think they gave weight to the different storytellers, or the variety of the tales they told. The Freak Fucker, in particular, seemed to elicit little reaction from them, though those were, after all, some of the sweetest."

Two quick moments. The needle pierced the black-haired poppet's chest, and left behind two small rings. Latoya licked the needle. She wondered what the other would think, in the morning, when she saw them.

"HE TOTALLY DID THIS ON PURPOSE!"

"Probably," Leroy agreed. "Although try to write a hundred stories, and certain names will tend to repeat themselves."

“She gave him a horse cock and then **** the poor fuck into a relationship on pain of more fuckery! What the fuck, Marcie!"

"A confession," he said. "This is essentially a rewrite of a much older story, read long ago on a site long swallowed by the march of time. It isn't a very complicated story, but the idea of rewriting it appealed."

"We always take our ideas where we can find them," Latoya said evenly, as she filled the syringe with the white fluid from the bowl.

“I-is this scat? I actually wish this is scat because scat is less disgusting then the alternative!”

"It's meant to be a shoggoth, combined with the osculum infame," Leroy said with a sigh. "Perhaps it would have been better with a slime girl. Did they make it to any of the slime girl stories?"

"They read Changes and Something in the Water," Latoya said as she looked at the blonde poppet, debating where to make her injection. "Which is as slimy as these get."

"Perhaps it is just as well they didn't get further," Leroy said. "I had hoped—well, it is ridiculous to think they could have commented on every story, every chapter. That would be too much of a good thing."

His words seemed to stir something in Latoya. Her grin was nasty. The syringe pushed into the blonde poppet's chest, and she depressed the plunger. The cloth seemed to drink and swell. When it was halfway done, she did the same on the other side, leaving two solid bumps.

"When your milk comes in," Latoya told the poppet. "Think of what you suffered, and know that we give thanks for your sacrifice. Truly. Perhaps next year..."

Her words were swallowed by a cackle. Leroy made the closing signs. He lifted the knife and kissed it, then made a slash in the air to sever invisible bonds.

Somewhere, in their beds, perhaps Marcie and Gina's ears burned. Perhaps other parts of them ached now as well, swollen and sensitive, pierced and played with. Perhaps...but who can say, at last, what effects reading may have on the readers? What dreams may follow them? Perhaps in sleep, Marcie and Gina will, someday, find themselves on the streets of Dagon's Hollow...where some of the horrors they mocked may find them, and mock back.