{ sorry for the delay! hope this is alright .}

TIKI.

tiki was used to this. the men at the laboratory had raised him to be docile, obedient. although he had since escaped from the lab, he still possessed those attributes, even when conversating with a near-perfect stranger such as elliot.

❝ blessed told me that… the young people are infected by sin, ❞ he spoke of her as if the other would know who the nun was. ❝ that the younger people are giving up on religion & faith… she told me it’s a serious issue… and… ❞ just like that, his rambling of faith came to an end. not because he reconsidered his words. they simply ended with no explanation. this was a common flaw of tiki, his brain often stops thinking, only to restart shortly after.

his fingers tapped against the surface of the table, endeavoring to remember what elliot said. ❝ you… weren’t? ❞ he marveled. tiki was the opposite, and he assumed that his powers cannot be replicated… if elliot’s were an didn’t come from another source. ❝ i’ve had them for… as long as i can remember, ❞ he mentioned.

the fingers begin to tap faster, more nervously at the given question. tiki had been witness to monsters, beasts, unspeakable creatures. but none of them has ever scared him–but demons. the thought of demons terrified him.

❝ Yes. ❞

_{———THERE WAS NO WORD HE COULD UTTER THAT WOULD NOT TEAR OPEN SOMETHING RAW. some time ago, he’d considered atheism. it was a darker time, when the idea of god managed only to feel laughable in the face of what he endured. such as time was past him, and he’d soon rekindled his complicated relationship with religion in general.}

_{still, he wanted nothing more than to separate his choices from his religion. there was nothing corrupt or unholy about the jewish faith, not in the same way he was. to make this distinct connection to the demonic, he chose religion as the bridge between them. nothing more, nothing less.}

❝ i was given a choice a very long time ago, and i chose to live. ❞
running a finger under the mouth of his glove, the man waited to check tiki’s reaction before continuing forward.

❝ a demon did that, and more, if you’ll believe it. ❞