32 Figmen (1/2)

If you ever had a small child, you have undoubtedly been woken up by them. If the child is a baby, their unending cries would cause the unfortunate parents endless sleepless nights. Fortunately, such a stage eventually ends, but it's not uncommon for a toddler or preschooler to wake one of their parents in the middle of the night because they need to go to the bathroom or are hungry. A loving parent would probably react a bit grumpy but still kindly pat their child and handle their business. Of course, the matter at hand was somewhat different. Being woken up by a daughter that doesn't exist and he had personally slit the throat of a few hours ago didn't exactly fill Joshua with parental love. To put it simply, he was utterly terrified. As soon as he had seen her, he had jumped up and backed off and was now staring at her with his body placated against the wall of the room.

”Daddy, I'm hungry, can I have some toasts now?” the thing asked, with an adorable voice.

'Don't talk to it. No matter what, don't talk to it.' he thought.

'Think, Lockman, think! This is clearly my soul world, it cannot be another trap from Delila, she's dead. My soul world consists of objects I created personally… in other words… did I create this thing by accident?”

The appellation 'thing' instead of 'child' is of great importance here, for Joshua utterly denied to recognize this little girl as a human being. If he had accidentally made it materialize, he just had to dismiss it like all the rest of the objects in here. Unfortunately, his attempts were fruitless as he desperately tried to make her vanish. Her little dress was now colored entirely black as blood kept streaming down her neck.

”Daddy, don't you want to play with me?” it said, a sad look in its eyes.

'How is this possible?' he thought, gulping.

'Luna! Show me the last log entries!” he ordered the system.

The log appeared in front of him and he clearly saw the line.

[>Creating daughter: Diana - 50% upkeep]

'FIFTY FREAKING PERCENT! This abomination is taking up half my resources! I have to get rid of it immediately!'

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'Phew, this should buy me some time. I still don't understand how I conjured this thing… I never made something appear I didn't want before… unless…'

His eyes suddenly grew wide, he just remembered what happened in the room the Crow had placed him. He accidentally made some bizarre giant eyeball thing appear.

'That eyeball called itself a figment of my imagination, I guess that matches. This thing ain't real, it's just something I dreamed up.'

He remembered how that eyeball had eaten all the other animals he had drawn and had a very bad feeling. His gut was right, a few seconds later, he heard a crunching sound, someone appeared to be eating something. He saw in horror a hole starting to form in the wall in front of him, that little monster slowly tearing it down with her teeth. While thinking what to do, he quickly checked his energy reserve. His available stock was decreasing while the total that abomination was consuming was steadily going up. It didn't surprise him as the eyeball had told him it had devoured the other drawings in order to have more energy for itself.

He needed a solution before that thing ate his entire soul world. It had climbed out of the room by now and was walking toward him, still smiling. Without hesitating, he made a machine gun appear in his hand and unleashed the whole clip on the creature. Thanks to the aiming assist, he didn't miss a single bullet. The little figure fell over backward, yet Joshua felt it was too soon to rejoice. He had the feeling it would somehow get up. Indeed, a few seconds later, it stood up again. Its body was now covered in bullet wounds, all leaking that disgusting black blood. The creature was crying now.

”Daddy, why are you so mean to me?” it said.

Joshua was trembling in fear by now. In a desperate attempt, he bit his lip and charged forward.

”FINE! IF BULLETS DON'T WORK, I'LL CUT YOU TO PIECES!” he yelled while replacing his gun with a sword.

In one strike, he cut the monster's head off and kicked it away. Unfortunately, just as he feared, the rest of the body just ran after its head and picked it up. Holding it in its hands, it turned back to Joshua.

”Daddy, please stop! It really hurts!” the detached head said, still crying.