Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Long Time, no see, serial killer enthusiasts!! Anyways, I’ll stop beating this dead horse when it stops consuming my every waking thought. I know it was years ago that I finished the Crime Au, but things like that don’t leave you. There’s not much more for me to add to the story, though, so this isn’t a sequel. Instead, I realized the only first kills we saw were Dream’s, and on a glimpse, Drista’s. Now, where’s the fun in that! 

Disclaimer!!! We all retroactively know that MOST OF THESE FUCKING PEOPLE SUCK ASS! OOPS!! Let it be said here: I don’t support Wilbur. I don’t support Dream. I don’t support George. I don’t support Sapnap. I don’t support- yadda yadda yap! If you’re still in this fandom, you know who all has fucked up this that and the other. In my brain, this au has original characters damn near it and they’re so “OOC” anyways that whatever. Fanfiction is not support of the creators, especially when I make them Serial Killing Homicidal Maniacs. 

These will be in first-person perspective, from the person the chapter is titled after. It’s also all dialogue, mostly. They are telling you a ‘ghost story’ around the bonfire, and you are sitting there alongside everyone else. The fire is warm and comforting, and everyone is safe in their new home in Australia. It’s time to get to know each other. 

These chapters are short, all only around 1000 words.

TWs: Murder, Kidnapping, Torture, Burning Alive, Blood/Gore/Violence, Cannibalism, Attempted Rape
Brief Mentions: Child Abuse, CSAM, Sexual Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Police, Addiction, and Drugs (used for metaphors, not actual).
Check back frequently, TWs and Mentions might update with each chapter. 

And for ease of reference:

Phil: Charon, the boatman leading the dead.
Kristin: Epoine, goddess of soothing pain
Techno: Protesilaus, hero of the Iliad'
Wilbur: Icarus, the winged man who flew too close to the sun
Tommy: Theseus, the man who slew the Minotaur.
Tubbo: Deimos, god of fear and panic
Ranboo: Phobos, god of dread and terror
Puffy: Ceto, goddess of the dangers of the ocean.
Bad: Chiron, the wisest centaur
Finn: Bia, Force, anger, raw energy
Eret: Eros, god of love and sex
Dream: Morpheus, god of dreams
Karl: Kairos, Time.
Charlie: Hermes, messenger of the gods.
Drista: Nike, goddess of Victory
Skeppy: Plutus, god of Wealth
Quackity: Tyche, Goddess of Chance/Fortune
Sapnap: Hephaestus, god of fire.
George: Zelus, god of Jealousy
Niki: Persephone, goddess of flowers.
Fundy: Vulpes, just fox in Latin. 

Rev: Reggie or Ghost
Jack: Poltergeist
Ponk: Wraith
Punz: Ghoul
Foolish: Phantom

Sam: Momus, the Greek personification of Satire and Mockery
GD: Hestia, Greek Goddess of the Hearth and Home
Callahan: Harpocrates, God of Silence, Secrets, and Confidentiality.
Schlatt: Glaucus, prophetic Sea-God, born mortal. Turned immortal due to a magical herb.

Chapter Text

“I don’t even know why I really started doing it, ya know? It felt… I don’t think I meant to kill the first person… it was a curiosity. Some proof of something… I think I wanted to prove that other people would… that I wasn’t weird for knowing the difference, I think those words from Xavior dug deeper than I pretend most days. I had… I knew those woods had multiple types of fungus, so finding the ones I needed wasn’t hard. I knew the difference… I found the well by accident. I don’t know what I planned to do, I think I was looking for a place to… experiment, but I didn’t know of the well beforehand. 

I used to do rappelling a lot ya know? Hephaestus doesn’t like it, is scared of me up there on the cliffs… but I had some of my old supplies, and it let me climb down into the well with no issue. I knew it would work…” 

“Why a transphobe?” Wilbur asked, “I mean… You didn’t plan to kill them.” 

“...I knew they might’ve died. Knew it was a possibility. Very least, I knew they likely would hurt. Wasn’t gunna risk that on someone good. So, found a transphobe… it’s… so easy to drug people, ya know? Especially with a cop badge. I could ask to enter their house to question them, and it was so easy to slip something over their face… being a cop gave me plenty of perks since it meant I could carry them too… drop them into the well… The first one ate the poisonous ones. The first one died in that well… and I realized very quickly what would happen… 

So I chopped ‘em up… minced them… animals eat anything, but the smaller the pieces, the faster they’re eaten. Crushed up the bones… I think it was… only the 8th person who only ate the hallucinogen. Had to adapt fast in that moment, since… I kind of thought they’d all be stupid enough to eat both. I waited them out for a bit, but I knew I only had about 4 hours of hallucinogen in them. Around hour 2, I changed my plan… that’s where the blood loss came in. I wouldn’t just kill them, they had to have a chance… so… I think the first person, it was only one hand. I told them it would feel… fuzzy before I did it. They fell to the ground, giggling at how fuzzy it felt, and bled out there… I went to both hands after someone almost made it. They didn’t; they just got too close to getting out before collapsing. I dragged them back… minced ‘em the same.” 

“Did anyone ever survive?” Reggie asked, tossing his finished cigarette butt into the bonfire between us all. 

“...No, stupid fucking choice to have let someone live after torturing them… I decapitated someone when they almost did. Got too close to the edge of those woods and I threw the knife… the cleaver I had into their back.” 

“A cleaver!?” Techno asked, “I am impressed with you, Zelus!” 

“Thanks, Protesilaus. Yeah, the uh… decapitation was a panic thing. They lived through a cleaver to the back and two cut off hands, what the fuck, who even does that?!” The group all laughed, amused by the idea. “So I panicked, grabbed my cleaver and sent it through their neck… I had also had a bad day. Uhm… News story about Eros and Chiron ended up playing at work, and having to pretend like I knew nothing meant I couldn’t change it. Some stupid fucking reporter called Eros a monster and I… I think Hephaestus knew something happened at work when I got home.”

“Oh, I did, you walked in, slammed the door. Went to our room, came back with a backpack, and said you were going for a walk and would be home before midnight,” Sapnap said. “I just also knew better than to ask questions at that point.” 

“Smart man, I’m reminded why I married you.” Sapnap laughed at my joke. “...I don’t think there were a ton of note… they… blur together at a certain point-” 

“No shit,” Phil chuckled, “I mean, I remember my first few… they were… more eventful, but especially anything after getting the boys? A blur.” 

“We’re special like that,” Tommy teased. 

“You think that Theseus.” 

I chuckled. The way Phil talked to his kids was becoming rapidly familiar. “...how’d you meet Vulpes during all that?” Bad asked. 

“I mean, like I said, he snuck out and ran into me… at a rather… inopportune time-” 

“Oh my god, he saw you kill someone,” Dream said, eyes wide and taunting. 

“No! Just… mincing someone… again, like I said, I knew that Vulpes was Icarus’ son. I think he knew immediately what I had done-” 

“I did!!” Fundy sounded proud of himself. 

“...he helped me crush up the bones. I said I needed to forage some more mushrooms, but I’d take him home first, but he asked to help me forage… he snuck out pretty regularly. I’m surprised that Theseus never saw him messaging me asking if we should hang out. I mean, we were subtle about what we said, but… I really thought Theseus had to know Vulpes and I were up to something with our texts.” 

“...Vulpes, were you deleting messages?!” 

“What? No???” Fundy lied, “Never, Uncle Theseus. I would never c’mon-” 

“...brat.” 

“Ay! Be nice to your nephew!” Wilbur shot at Tommy. I chuckled as Tommy huffed, Drista jokingly elbowing his side to make him stop. “...I can’t believe he snuck out that regularly.” 

“I can’t believe you were kidnapping people, Zelus!” Niki said, “What the hell?!” 

I shrugged, “People don’t tend to just wander into random woods.” 

“Makes him a whole lot more organized than me,” Sapnap huffed. I rolled my eyes at that. 

“...I dunno, from what I read you were pretty organized about your fires, Hephaestus…”