This town needs an enema!
THE MARAETH WHO LAUGHS
INT. WELLS ACADEMY ELEMENTARY — STEUBENVILLE, OH.
CLOSE ON: A cork board decorated with classroom art from decades long passed.
A scribbled OPTIMUS PRIME battles MEGATRON.
GHOSTBUSTERS LOGO, crooked and out of proportion.
HE-MAN locked against SKELETOR.
Giant fighting robots, frozen in time.
It’s flanked by rows of matte-brown lockers standing above mottled black and off-white floor tiles. Every inch washed in sterile light from HUMMING fluorescent bulbs.
A harsh SCRAPE echoes as CHAIR LEGS drag across the tile.
THE KID enters frame, tugging the chair into the middle of the hallway. He turns it, sits.
He looks no older than ten. Long, tangled hair spills across a crude leather mask strapped over his face. His clothes are wrinkled, secondhand, hanging loose.
And yet—every feature beneath the mess is unmistakable. It’s looks like CHARLIE NICKLES as a child, but the likeness is too sharp, too exact. Something about it feels wrong—and unnatural.
THE KID
Charlie… yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, you dumb son of a bitch. Look real close. You know this face. You seen it in the mirror when you were still worth a damn, before the mask, before the gray started peeking out of the rats’ nest.
I’m the version you lost behind bars. The one you try not to think about as you lace up your busted boots like the pain that follows means something.
Twenty-five years of grind, of broken bones, of paydays that wouldn’t cover gas money. You brag about it like it’s a badge of honor.
But what it really is? A list of excuses. Every time you missed a kid’s birthday, every time you missed another first step or a first word, you told yourself it was for the business. For your career. For this stupid mask.
And now you’re what? A hobo in leather begging people to pretend your name still matters. A stray mutt sniffing at garbage, waiting for scraps, hoping somebody throws you a bone.
And don’t gimme that look like you’re proud of what you do in the ring, either. You remember that TV Title match. Fifteen minutes. You think it proved you were unstoppable.
Bullshit. You didn’t stop Them. You didn’t beat Them. You hid. You stalled. You put your chin out, flipped Them off, and prayed the bell would scream before They tore your head off.
That bell saved your ass, and you strutted around like you’d done Them a favor. Like you were some kinda saint handing out forgiveness.
But I remember what came after. One more kick, one more count, and a different belt left with Them. You walked around saying you were the man, but They took the Xtreme Title off you in front of the world. You’re too stubborn to admit it, so you hide behind the bell like it was your tag partner.
That wasn’t mercy, Charlie.
That was survival.
That was you begging time to fight for you.
And then there was Fenway. Oh, here comes big bad Charlie Nickles, beat James Shark in two straight falls! Like that was the nail in the coffin, like that made you king of the mountain.
But you know what really happened. I saw it. Everybody saw it.
Shark threw everything—at Maraeth.
The moment the name leaves his mouth, the lights FLICKER. A sickly HUM rattles the lockers. The hallway swims in uneven flashes, the light never holding steady.
THE KID
He bled himself dry to keep The Eater of Dreams down. You didn’t fight that Shark. You fought the leftovers. You fought the lazy, sloppy, half-empty version who thought he could coast.
And you snatched brass knuckles outta his trunks and called it destiny.
Hand raised. Pyro. But you know the math don’t add up. You know the Shark you got wasn’t the Shark Maraeth got.
The fluorescents jerk alive, then collapsed into darkness.
Once.
Twice.
On the third flicker—a single, blinding flash of light—
MARAETH’S FACE where The Kid’s once was. Eyes black voids filled with iridescent haloes, Their mouth split open with a very Spiral-like grin. They stare directly INTO THE LENS.
And just as quickly--
The lights SNAP back to a steady, normal hum.
THE KID
And the proof? Dolly Waters. She took that belt from you before you even got a chance to warm the leather. If the crown was really yours, if it was destiny like you pretend to believe, it’d still be yours. But it ain’t. It slid out of your hands and you were left standing there with nothin’ but excuses. You think she stole it? No, Charlie. She just picked it up because it didn’t want you.
The buzz of electricity cuts and the hallway is blotted out. Ambient glow catches off the lockers, bouncing against the back of what now sits in the chair. It isn’t the Kid at all. Its shape is distinctly Maraeth. Tall, unmoving, Their kaleidoscope eyes locked into the lens.
MARAETH
(layered voices)
Heh. You get your rocks off putting opponents down like dogs…
Another flicker, and the Kid is back.
THE KID
Shoot ‘em, bury ‘em, whatever dumbass thing comes to mind. But look in the mirror, big man. You’re the stray. You’re the mutt limping through alleys, snapping at shadows, hoping somebody throws you a bone. You’re the one the family ran from. You’re the one that doesn’t get picked up.
Another flare, another glimpse—Maraeth’s frame rigid, impossible to mistake. Back again, gone again. Like something half-caught in the corner of the eye, insisting it was real.
MARAETH
You swap masks like a flea market clown. One week you bleed as the martyr, next you snarl as the monster—
Fluorescents cackle alive.
THE KID
—then you’re the guy begging for mercy. You call that reinvention. It ain’t. It’s camouflage. It’s hiding. Because underneath all that?
You’re just tired.
Empty.
And desperate for anybody to believe there’s no one more dangerous in the XWF than you.
The mask of the child slips. Every flash, every crack in the voice chips away at the illusion. The Kid is less himself with every breath, less real with every word.
THE KID
But here’s the part that really stings—
(lights out, voice GLITCHES, drops low)
MARAETH
—you know I’m right.
(lights on)
THE KID
You hear me every night. When the crowd shuts up, when the house goes dark—
(another FLICKER, voice fractures)
MARAETH
—when no one’s calling, you hear Us.
(lights on)
THE KID
You hear the kid you used to be, and he’s telling you the truth. He’s telling you that all the belts, all the matches, all the big talk—
(lights out, voice drops again, guttural, deliberate)
MARAETH
—it’s all borrowed.
(lights on)
THE KID
Every second you’ve been living on—
(lights out)
MARAETH
—has been Ours.
(lights on)
THE KID
And now, Charlie…
The light collapses into TOTAL BLACK.
Even the faint spill of glow from somewhere off-camera is gone.
Out of the void, only Their eyes remain—two shifting coronas of color, burning slow and alive, staring through the dark as if nothing else exists.
MARAETH
…the debt’s coming due.
The words hang in the dark. Silence presses against the walls.
Colors bleed into the nothingness.
The school returns—only it isn’t the school anymore. The lockers are swollen with damp, their paint blistered and curling. The tiled floor sweats beneath the chair, gleaming wet. Ceiling panels sag and pulse as if something breathes behind them.
The children’s drawings on the cork board sag and shrivel into monstrous creations. Dust drifts too slowly in the air, like ash falling through deep water.
The hallway has crossed over into its own shadow, gutted and hollow, echoing what they used to be. A school remembered by something that hates memory.
And Maraeth sits in the chair, tall and unmoving, watching with eyes that are lighthouses in the ruin, steady and merciless.
MARAETH
Do you hear it, boy?
A LOW CHUCKLE rattles Their chest.
MARAETH
Of course you do. That sound gnawing in your ears when the world goes quiet? That isn’t the crowd. That isn’t the bell. That’s Us. Whispering behind the ropes. Laughing under the canvas. Crawling inside your skull.
They straighten, head cocking sharply to one side. The grin doesn’t move, but Their words splinter into a sing-song lilt.
MARAETH
(child-like chant)
…you bowed to seconds…
…and called it victory…
…you spread your arms…
…let the clock drag you into its arms…
…and when the bell screamed…
…you pretended it was mercy…
(voice dropping guttural)
M E R C Y !
You never beat Us, Charlie. You beat arithmetic. You clutched the clock and begged it to cradle you.
The LIGHTS BUZZ overhead, throwing jagged shadows across the warped lockers. Maraeth rises to Their full height, towering over the chair, joints craaacking.
MARAETH
This time? No time limit. This time We’ve devoured every second you pray to.
They step toward the camera, slow and deliberate. Each FOOTFALL echoes through the ruined hall.
MARAETH
You owe Us, Charlie. Shark burned himself out against Us. Fists clenched, lungs tearing, all blood and hunger. That was the Shark We faced. That was the predator who fought a god.
(mocking sing-song)
The one you met at Fenway?
A husk.
A showboating corpse in motion.
You pounced on his carcass, and you called it conquest.
Two straight falls!
Fireworks!
History!
They suddenly CLAP their hands once. The sound ricochets down the hallway.
Maraeth LAUGHS, shrill, manic, filling the space.
MARAETH
HA!
HA!
HA!
Oh, how the crowd cheered while you feasted on a cadaver.
Their laughter dies in an instant. Their head SNAPS toward the lens, eyes wide, tone razor-sharp.
MARAETH
And your prize? A belt that never loved you. A reign so brittle Dolly Waters plucked it from your hands like a toy. She didn’t steal anything. She revealed you. She unwrapped you in front of the world.
The belt slipped from your fingers because it despised you, like everyone else in your LIFE. It stayed just long enough to humiliate you on its way out. You call it a fluke, bad timing. We call it truth. We call it judgment. And your worth? Zero.
Their hand JERKS upward suddenly, fingers clawed, voice breaking manic.
MARAETH
You parade yourself as chaos. You boast you break the show. You stomp around barking that you are the storm.
(snarl)
But you are not the storm, Charlie. You are its debris. You don’t summon chaos—you hide in its pauses. You milk the counts. You stagger on the limp. You wait for referees to collapse and bells to save you.
The CAMERA QUIVERS faintly, as though the floor itself groans under Them. Dust falls sideways, caught in currents that shouldn’t exist.
MARAETH
Even your own reflection hates you. It mocks you every day you have the courage to look at it, and in its eyes you see that it knows the man you are and knows the years have been wasted.
Their face fills the frame, voice softening into a whisper that feels intimate.
MARAETH
You call yourself a Pro’s Pro. Do you know what it really means? It means you learned how to suffer without dying. It means your legacy is scar tissue. Your body is a eulogy written one broken vertebra at a time.
Their eyes blaze brighter. The words land like a secret delivered too close.
MARAETH
(hushed)
Lean closer, Charlie. Hear this. You are not Our rival. You never were. We will tear you down so thoroughly that the children who left you will not remember your name. Not even as a taste on their tongues. Not even as a shadow in their dreams.
Their body JOLTS with laughter again, manic, jagged, then crashes into a guttural snarl.
MARAETH
Every strike you land only drags you deeper. Every second you steal only fattens Our hunger. And when the bell tolls—you will not see Charlie Nickles.
You will not see Maraeth.
They fall silent, eyes locked. Voice barely a whisper, almost tender.
MARAETH
You will see only the end.
THEY HYATT REGENCY BAR is a meat market carnival of the terminally unwanted who wear asexuality as a defense mechanism underneath capes and latex. Why? Because the XWF, in its infinite idiocy, booked Atlanta the same weekend as DragonCon. Every booth heaves with bodies pretending at power.
We’re not here for them. We’re here for “Muscles” Marinara.
The XWF referee is wearing Batman like a joke. Party City fibers stretched taut over real meat, his shoulders bulging past the seams, his chest too heavy for the foam-stitched abs that sag beneath. The cape drags, the cowl sits crooked, and his gel-slick hair spikes out like weeds through cracked pavement. He struts with a foam batarang in one hand and a drink in the other.
“Justice never sleeps, babe.” He tries it on a Poison Ivy. She doesn’t hear. She doesn’t want to.
“Gotham needs us,” he breathes at a Catwoman already moving past.
One-liners fall flat like a spill on the floor. Nobody laughs. Nobody stops. Every brush-off frays him thinner, but still he struts. An erection in search of a willing audience.
And We laugh. He can’t hear Us. Not because Our laugh is quiet—oh no, it is loud. And haughty. And hacking. He can’t hear Our ribs splitting because We’re not there. We’re elsewhere, peering through another’s eyes. And you?
You’re watching with Us—meaning you and Us—and We have secured a front row ticket to the Kat show. Our Kat. Our bride. But not from across the room. From inside her head.
See as she looks down at the glass sweating in her red glove. She hasn’t touched it. The drink is a prop, something to help her blend into the scene.
The bar is humming with costumes, music, and laughter, but none of it troubles her mind. That is where We live, and Our whisper is the only melody she needs, a melody of Our creation, playing across sacred chords laced with command.
Go to the bar. Wait. Watch.
And now it’s telling her to move.
Her eyes catch the mirror behind the bottles, the whiskey stacked like a cathedral of glass. She isn’t checking makeup and her hair is hidden beneath a red and black fool’s hat, with two horns ending with two fluffy balls. She’s looking at Us.
Her palm slides upward over spandex and presses her breasts together through the fabric, slow and easy, a pantomime for Us to enjoy and no one else.
The mirror returns her gaze. In it, her smirk tugs left, sharp and glittering.
“See you soon, baby,” she purrs.
Hear it—the glass singing, the ice ticking; little worms of sound crawling into nearby ears of anyone close enough to overhear. But they will never know who she’s speaking to. Only you will.
Because you see what they cannot: every breath she draws tastes of Us. Every blink of her lashes frames the world through Our gaze. She is Our eyes, Our mouth, Our lure, and tonight—one, two, three—she walks him along the painted line into Our hands for a little menage trois.
Oh, don’t worry, precious. This isn’t the kind of story that makes desperate housewives sparkle. The only part of Marinara We’re going to penetrate is his mind and soft is how it was born.
In the far corner Josie and the Pussycats strum and primp beneath chandeliers fat with dust. Shiny instruments, shiny smiles, all of it twinkling like a Saturday morning rerun. As Kat’s heels touch the floor, the lights flutter, and the eyes of the band blacken, sockets swallowed whole, while We crawl inside. Every note, every beat, never stop giggling until We turn the laugh inside out.
The drums chatter across the toms, then lock into a mirrorball heartbeat. Boom-chk, boom-chk! The bass sinks in tight with the keyboard’s jagged sawtooth grin. And then you hear it. That opening riff. That paranoid little anthem, ‘Somebody’s Watching Me,’ resurrected in sequins and sweat.
She sways across the bar, hips sharp, heels clipping to the rhythm. The singer’s voice drips into the microphone, I’m just an average woman, with an average life; I work from nine to five and I pay the price. Marinara is sulking, beer slumped in his hand like he’s drowning in it when she snatches him up by the collar, yanking him into a kiss that burns with urgency. It’s messy, full of tongue and something like hunger. Beer sloshes from his glass onto his hand—the only thing spilling faster than his self-control.
It happens fast. His crotch itches with desire as she pulls him by the hand through the throng of nerds costumed in desperation and spandex. Lost in the music. Lost in the haze.
Their eyes turn black, one after another, and a wave of lust ripples through the crowd as Kat strides past. Lips lock. Hands roam. Moans burn into the air, curling up like smoke in the rhythm.
Then the kitchen door swings open like hell’s gate. Inside, the staff are frozen—knives suspended above vegetables, spatulas mid-swing over food that’s already starting to char. The dishwasher is elbow deep in water, arms tense in some cosmic still-life. Faces locked in trance, lost to whatever We stirred into their minds.
Marinara doesn’t see it. His eyes are too busy tracing Kat’s ass like it has the answer to the meaning of life.
We turn the Chef’s head like a marionette on strings. A hooked finger peels his eyes open that are already filled with black ink. Another tugs his lips into a curling smile that stretches wide enough to swallow the world.
Marinara sees the hollow stare but before he can react Kat spins around, locking her blue eyes with his. She drags her gloved fingers across his cheek while singing, “I always feel like somebody's watching me.”
Marinara can’t stop Our words escaping his throat. “And I have no privacy!” The outburst shocks him as Kat drags him into the hallway and to the next door marked LAUNDRY.
It’s where We’ve been waiting all this time, wrapped in the hum of hissing machinery, air wet and choking with steam that fills every breath. Our gaze snaps away from Kat’s, yanked back to Our eyes. Our real eyes. And now, We watch from the wings as Our wife leads Marinara to a lone chair waiting for him in the center of the room like an inmate making the last walk to Old Sparky. Beneath a sharp circle of light, the concrete floor bleeds cold. The rest of the space—full of washers and industrial clutter—sinks into shadow. Dense. Hungry.
The chorus repeats as Kat dances around Marinara, keeping his eyes forward. We shimmy across the floor. Our patent leather loafers cut across the floor to the beat, the taps silenced beneath the music that was just as loud as if the band itself was in the room.
We spin, We pause, flipping Our purple fedora down the length of Our arm before rolling it back up to Our crown as We do a little turn like a catwalk strut.
Kat pulls away from Marinara, letting her gloved finger linger on his chin until her arm straightens and its pad slips away. He leans forward, hoping to maintain contact, until he hears Our voice.
“Woh-Oh-Oh… I always feel like somebody's watching me,” parody sliding into prognosis, the melody already charting his decline. “Tell me is it just a dream!”
Our white-gloved hands crash down on his shoulders with the weight of a falling star, and the music severs, clean as a guillotine. Marinara jolts. He would have flown if We weren’t pinning him deeper into the raw chair.
Kat drapes over him, spandex and mischief, the jester mask slipping as she purrs through a candy-coated Harley Quinn lilt: “Aww, what's the matter, cupcake? Ya scared ya gonna meet Ol' Daddy Shady?”
Then her cadence explodes like a candy shop on fire, breathless with glee.
“Oh my stars, TOO BAD! You’re still gonna meet Them—yesss you are! Shiny shiny shiny, no take-backs, no hide-and-seek, no escape! You get glitter, bows, and Them. All at once!”
We coil around him, slow and deliberate, one hand crawling up his shoulder, skating across the tender neck, and sliding down the other side as We circle around. By the time We’ve come full, face to face, he’s already wrapped in the shape of Our grin.
“The Dark Knight…” We chuckle, soft and broken at the edges, stepping straight into his stare. His eyes climb, hesitant, until they meet Our face—pale skin bright as porcelain theater, ruby lips slashed into a wound of mirth, eyes spiraling voids banded in whirling kaleidoscope. A braid of poison-green slips down one shoulder like a strangler vine. The suit? Blasphemy dressed to kill: a purple jacket cut with razors, a green vest clenched tight, and a bow-tied orange shirt screaming beneath it. The fedora tilts, shadow carving the grin too wide for mortal bone. We let him gag on the sight.
“You should’ve stuck with the stripes and whistle. Heh.”
Veins thicken across Marinara’s neck as he trashes. The chair screeches against the concrete as the legs grind across the surface.
He croaked, “What the fuck do you want from me?”
We lean close, smile honed like a blade. “What We always want. Chaos. A thumb on the scale. You’re the law, zebra cake, and tomorrow you’ll snap it in half for Us. One nod, one breath, and order goes screaming into the grave.”
“No.” His teeth grind, jaw locked. “I call it fair. I don’t play games.”
We laugh—loud, layered, jagged, like glass cracking. “Fair,” We purr, voice dripping honey and bile. “is a fairy tale to keep children asleep. You think there’s choice here?” Our grin splits wider, too wide. “You belonged to Us the moment Kat laid a hand on you.”
Kat giggles in her best cartoon lilt. He flinches as she leans into his ear and says, “Awh, puddin’, ya really thought ya could say no?”
He jerks again, but Kat is already behind him, her small frame clamping his shoulders with impossible strength. His eyes bulge. “What the—” He can’t even finish.
We raise a gloved hand, fingers pinched. From the darkness between, threads of ink descend and knits together into a chitinous shadow-creature. Legs twitching, antennae tasting the damp air, skittering as it now dangles from a whip-tail.
And We are lowering toward him, inch by inch.
Marinara’s bravado cracks. “No! Get that thing away from me!” He thrashes, but Kat holds him still, cackling, as We lower the parasite.
It lands on his cheek, skitters across skin slick with panic. He screams, high and raw. Kat pries his jaw wide, his cry breaking into a gurgle as the thing claws across his lips, scrabbles across his tongue, and vanishes down his throat.
The chair shakes. His body becomes rigid, muscles tightening into a snapping wave of convulsions, hands gripping the armrest, head grinding side to side like a door swinging on a broken hinge, convulsions rattling the chair into the cement—until at last the violence burns out.
He sags forward, gasping, then slowly raises his head and his eyes open, but they are no longer his. They are Ours—spirals of black swallowing color.
Kat releases him, smoothing her gloves with satisfaction.
Marinara whispers, voice hollow, steady as if it isn’t him speaking at all, “As you command, Motherdream.”
We pat his cheek like a beloved pet. “Good boy. Don’t worry. We don’t want you to help Us win. We merely want you to make it…interesting. We’ve already done one for the fall, two for the show, three for the bodies broken in a row. This time? Carnival chaos. No DQ. No countout. No mercy. The only rule is there are no rules.”
And Our grin spreads, serrated and endless.
“And even that’s a lie. Hah!”