03 || The memory screw

#ENTxUNDGspooks

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Hey everyone! This is a story made for the our teams's chosen mascot, and this is the result of what we came up with!

Let's get into the story!

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➯ ꒰ Word Count: 1259

➯ ꒰ Characters: Hatsume Mei, mentions: her mother

➯ ꒰ Summary ˎˊ˗

Mei is reminiscing about her past.

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"No, no, no, this is still not right!" the pink haired girl complained loudly while looking over her newest baby, as she liked to call her gadgets. Her voice was slightly echoing from the walls of the cave, but she was long used to the faint sounds by now. How long has it been? 3 years, 4 years, 10? She had stopped counting the days a long time ago.

Don't be mistaken, this young goblin loves her life. She could spend every day working on her babies, didn't have to take any requests or suggestions from nosy know-nothings. She could let her creativity flow free, pour her heart and soul out, to make the perfect newest little gadget. Once she had perfected it, she would go look for her newest target to test her invention out, revelling in their reactions every time her scare proved to be successful.

As she went to rummage through the drawers of her desk, she heard a quiet clattering noise, as a tiny object fell out of the drawer she just opened. Curious, she bent down to pick up the object and examine it. It was a screw. But not just any screw, as she soon discovered. Engraved on the top were the letters M.H., a little heart next to them. This was the screw that Mei's mother had given her on her 10th birthday. She could still the day, as clear as if it had been yesterday.

The morning of her birthday, her mother came to bedside to tell her a little story. She told the young girl that soon, she would undergo a certain "maturity ritual", which would turn her into the creature she was predestined to become one day: a goblin. During this ritual, she would become attached to either a building, or a family, and would from that day forward, roam the halls of the building and play pranks on the people inside.

She had been so excited back then. The thought of finally becoming who she was always meant to be was invigorating to Mei. Even back then, she already started working on little gadgets, inventions that she could use to prank people as soon as the time had come.

But years later, her excitement gradually started to faint. According to her family, she was long overdue for the ritual, and since it wouldn't be triggered manually, all they could do was wait. She was even wondering if her mother was right, and if she even had the right DNA in her.

During that time, she enrolled in UA High School in the class, further working on perfecting her gadgets, and setting herself up for future career success. Living life as a normal high school student, she worked on showcasing her gadgets at every opportune moment she could, just in case her DNA turned out to be defective, and she would never undergo the ritual after all.

Then suddenly, one cloudy Tuesday morning when she was 16, she felt something odd going on in her body. Her limbs hurt, her head felt like it was being smashed into a wall, and her throat burned, no amount of water being able to satiate her. She yelled out for help, and soon her mother came rushing into her room, picking her up and carrying her to a secret room Mei had never seen before.

"This might hurt a little. Be strong." Mei's mother said, trying to soothe her daughter's nerves. Mei just scoffed at the words. She was in pain, yes, but honestly? She was happy. Happy that she was just a late bloomer, happy that she was going to attach herself soon.

She was given a cup with a strange looking liquid and gulped it down in one go. It tasted slightly bitter and made her blood curdle. Luckily though, the pain in her body seemed to slowly fade…until all she felt…was…nothing….

When she woke up, she was in an unfamiliar room. Dim lights from wall lamps and candles lit the room. The walls looked made of natural stones, there were no windows, and the ground was just soil, and she soon realised she was in an underground cave. Did that mean the ritual was already concluded? The realisation stinged just a little, because she knew she could never go back to being a normal student at UA. She had become attached to the school and its people, and was a little bit sad she had to leave it all behind.

Her sadness soon became overshadowed by her excitement though. She was finally a real goblin! Speaking of which, her appearance seemed to have changed. Not by as much as she had expected, but still a considerable amount. Her arms and legs showed cuts, bruises and burn marks, her clothes were torn on the edges. And did her ears become more pointed? Nevertheless, she liked her new look.

Now there was only one thing to find out: which family had she been attached to, or which building? She wondered if it was going to be a place she had been to before, a place she was already familiar with.

After checking out the rest of her cave-room, she exited through a wooden door and was presented with stairs that seemed to lead up to the surface. It seemed as if there was a whole underground maze, with smaller tunnels leading from the main corridor to different places. For the time though, she decided to stick to the main corridor. When she arrived at the end of the tunnel…there was nothing. Just a wall, a dead end. Narrowing her eyes, Mei looked around, maybe there was a hidden compartment somewhere?

She inspected the walls until she found a pressure plate built into one of the nearby walls. When pressing it, the wall in front of her shifted, revealing a somewhat rusty ladder, leading up to what looked like a vent system. As she climbed up, she could hear faint voices.

"I wonder what happened to her…" one voice said. "Didn't you hear? Apparently one of her inventions caught on fire and she's in the hospital for god knows how long." a second voice ed the conversation.

The girl stopped in her tracks upon hearing their voices. She recognized those voices, they were classmates of hers! And they were talking about…her?

Then it dawned on her. No…she had been attached to UA! And there she was, overthinking if she would know the place. She chuckled lightly. What a turn of events. This was gonna be fun~

So the official story was she was in the hospital huh. She wondered if it was at all possible to return to UA as a student, if she was able to find a way to conceal her appearance properly…

-Back to the present-

Spoiler alert, she did find a way. After a few months, she was able to return to UA as a normal class student. Finding a balance between leading her student life, while also working on her secret gadgets down in her cave, on top of roaming the hallways at night and scaring people had not been easy, but with time, she had found a way, and she couldn't be happier. Tinkering with her gadgets, making them scarier and scarier every time, then testing them out, enjoying her prey's fearful and confused faces every time an experiment turned out well.

Rolling the little screw between her fingers, she relished those memories, and then continued working on perfecting her newest gadget.

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Author's notes:

Not quite happy about this one, it was a little too rushed, and I wish I had started writing earlier haha. Also, it turned out a lot longer than I had anticipated? I thought it was maybe gonna be 800 words or so, but then suddenly it was over 1200 xD