Nightmare Fuel / Azure Rain

• The children in Illdresil Gera and Marina Omega were unconscious when they were slaughtered so they didn’t feel any pain or fear. It’s even shown that Selkess killed them quickly so they wouldn’t suffer. Lleuwellyn, on the other hand, woke up after having the mark burned over his eye with acid, just in time for him to be conscious when he was killed—if the ritual hadn’t been interrupted.
• All the other children, at least those killed by Selkess, were killed in discreet, pretty much painless, efficient ways. Except for Kwoltan Gera, where his master plan is to shove them through a meat grinder feet-first so they feel every bit of their bodies being torn apart before they die. Not only is this gruesome but it shows just how far gone he is
• Baltan is The Ace, a child prodigy with solving mysteries, a genius when he really puts his mind to work, a damn good shot, and always has at least one fully loaded gun on him. Eureka is The Big Guy, strong enough to break cement and bend steel bars without a lot of effort, etc., with heightened senses of sight, smell, and hearing. These two together seem like a pretty unbeatable team. They worked with the nastiest of the nasty in terms of criminals and always came out on top, so it seems like they should be nothing but confident dealing with one that they’ve caught before. WRONG.
  • When they come to the full realization that they’re dealing with Selkess, not a copycat, Baltan almost has a nervous breakdown.
• Azzie rebounds from his life of abuse pretty quickly thanks to the Power of Love, but he was alone with an abusive parent for fourteen years and had absolutely no way of knowing that anything she did was out of the ordinary, including things like starving him and trimming his nails (which to an Azure is basically declawing, repeatedly). Just let that sink in.
• The hospital scene in Azure Rain when all of the sick Azures are coming out of the basement definitely qualifies. The way they were being treated was horrible enough, some being described as having maggots growing in their open wounds. Imagine being in the first floor lobby when all of them come out, VERY (understandably) pissed off.
  • The narration in the first chapter also states that Azures that have come back to life are usually in a very feverish and deranged state when they do and these Azures have been starving for possibly YEARS. This scene is clearly meant to call to mind zombie horror movies and is one of the only times when the Azures are potentially played straight as zombies. Baltan and Azzie leave before the reader finds out what happens to anyone else.
• Selkess in general, given that he’s a serial killer who targets children and knows everything you’re going to do before you do it. The fact that the souls of the children he kills are offered to an Eldritch Abomination takes this already bad setup and makes it infinitely worse.
• Just the fact that most of the main cast has or had Abusive Parents and nobody in their lives did anything about this even though it was very public in most cases is pretty bad. A few characters get parental substitutes, but for the most part parental abuse just goes totally unpunished in the Azure Rain world.
• Eureka vs. Selkess. Though it’s fully deserved, the idea that Selkess has to use all of his strength to prevent Eureka, who up until now has always been described as a very kind, loving man, from tearing his fucking throat out, is pretty unsettling.
• Imagine being Baltan after Eureka got shot. Not only is your best friend hurt and you have no idea what’s going on, but the child you are looking after is missing. There are very few feelings worse than having someone’s life entrusted to you and not knowing where that person is or if they’re okay.
• Kreor: An Eldritch Abomination that is considered a god in the East that despite not being popular has a fairly strong and very devout following of people who will gladly kill you and your kids in his name whether he’s actually real or not.
  • What is he the god of? Death, madness, and time. So it’s implied that in the East, it is believed that if you get old enough (time), you either die (death) or go insane from age (madness). What a bleak society to live in.
  • And he gains power by feeding on the souls of children killed during the winter solstice. Selkess hints that he’s not the only one offing kids to feed the god, he’s just the one who has the vessel and needs to complete the ritual, so hundreds of kids could have been killed over the sixteen years or so that the resurrection has been being attempted and could still be getting killed
  • Members of his cult use ‘clown’ as a code to identify each other. What makes this a Nightmare Fuel entry is the fact that ‘clown’ is used because no one but Kreor followers have ANY idea what a clown is because clowns DO NOT EXIST in the Azure Rain world. Kreor is at least not from their world and very likely not from their dimension. Which kind of makes Baltan’s “What the hell is a clown?” a Wham Line