#𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗠𝗨𝗡𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡: Nicolas.

[daught3rs]

𝑽𝑨𝑪𝑰𝑳𝑳𝑨𝑻𝑶𝑹.

Arriving at THE STREETS OF THE TOWN ⟳ ˚ ╱ written for @baarra !

𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗬𝗟 𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗛𝗢𝗦𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗬𝗟 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗛𝗘𝗥, a fragment she never asked for, a shadow that DOESN'T fit. It’s as if Cheryl’s fragility — her scarcity, her madness — was sewn into Meryl’s skin the moment her sister died. They were twins, after all, and in the old myths, that bond was always a bad omen. Twins were unnatural in some cultures, an affront to the balance of things. Yet the same stories claimed that when one twin died, the other was made WHOLE, as though the world righted itself in their reunion. Complete. Meryl wonders what kind of cruel lie that is. She doesn’t feel completion. She feels haunted, as if her sister’s absence has carved a hollow inside her that nothing will ever fill.

The dreams have become unbearable. Night after night, she wakes CHOKING on the phantom taste of blood, her throat tight with screams that don’t escape. She dreams of eyes blown wide in terror, of hands trembling like dying leaves, of Cheryl’s voice echoing in her head, begging for release. In the dreams, she feels herself dissolving into Cheryl’s miasma, that cloud of despair and vulnerability that once clung to her twin sister, now seeping into Meryl’s lungs, drowning her. It’s too much. Too heavy. Meryl, who had always thought of herself as the strong one, the anchor, the protector, begins to crumble under the weight. She used to pity Cheryl’s fragility. Now she feels it creeping into her own mind. She begins to understand the slow undulating, the quiet horror of losing yourself, of not knowing where dreams end and waking BEGINS.

I’ve always been lucid, she tells herself, a mantra she repeats like a LIFELINE. But it feels weak now, paper-thin. Am I awake, or is this the nightmare of my own undoing?

Still, she is a survivor first and foremost. That much has not changed. Meryl clawed her way out of the labyrinth beneath the library, her mind as BATTERED as her body. She ran blindly, leaving someone behind — Karen? Coraline? No, Cora. Or maybe it didn’t matter. Meryl only knew she couldn’t stay. She had to escape the depths of hell itself, the place where reality bent and shadows took on too much shape. But what truly drove her to run wasn’t the underground caves; it was the thing waiting for her in its darkest corner. She saw her father again — or something pretending to be him. His grotesque form was burned into her memory: his body mangled, sprouting too many limbs, castrated and BLEEDING. And worse, his eyes still looked at her as they had when she was a child. That same leer, that same hunger.

The memories crashed over her like a wave, dragging her under. She remembered the nights spent hiding beneath the covers, holding her breath to STIFLE her sobs, offering herself up to his monstrous need so that Cheryl wouldn’t have to. One night of reprieve, Meryl had thought. Just one night to keep Cheryl safe. But the weight of that sacrifice never left her. It lingered, carving itself into her soul, twisting her sense of who she was.

And Cheryl. Sweet, broken Cheryl. Meryl could still SEE her sister clawing at her own skin, screaming to be let out of her own body. She remembered the nights Cheryl begged for death, the nights she tried to take her life into her own hands — slashing at her wrists, swallowing pills, desperate to escape. How Meryl had stopped her every time. ( Not for her sake, she admits now. I couldn’t let her go because if she died, I’d lose the last thread keeping me alive. I needed her to stay, so I could stay. )

The cold night air BITES at her skin as she runs, but she doesn’t feel it. Her legs move on instinct, driven by terror. She screams into the night, her voice raw and broken: ❛ DON'T TOUCH ME! ❜ She doesn’t stop to look back, doesn’t dare. She thought she’d KILLED him. Thought she’d ended him that night when she drove the knife into his neck, felt the blade tear through flesh and sinew. She remembers the warmth of his blood on her hands, the way she’d pulled the knife free as her own personal memento and ran, dragging Cheryl behind her. That was the first time Meryl felt power, real power. But it was fleeting, a spark quickly smothered by guilt and fear. She recalls the handcuffs, the jail cell, the trial. She told herself she could bear any punishment if it meant he was gone for good.

However now, the past STALKS her. She feels his hand on her shoulder, hears his voice slithering into her ear like smoke, and she spins around, screeching: ❛ DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! ❜ Her voice cuts through the night, feral.

When her vision clears, it isn’t her father standing there. It’s the man she saw in the library a day ago. His face is kind, almost warm, but there’s SOMETHING in his eyes that unsettles her. His hand grips her shoulder, and she recoils, a bitter laugh escaping her lips, sharp and cracked.

❛ Don’t touch me, ❜ her voice is TREMBLING on the edge of hysteria, words repetitive. Meryl's laugh turns vacant, echoing in the empty night. ❛ Don’t… just don’t. ❜

[daught3rs]

𝑱𝑶́𝑮𝑨.

Arriving at THE LIBRARY ⟳ ˚ ╱ written for @baarra !

𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗬𝗟 𝗗𝗢𝗘𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗪𝗜𝗦𝗛 𝗧𝗢 𝗪𝗘𝗔𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗔𝗚𝗔𝗜𝗡. Nineteen years were spent in a living purgatory — fear pressed into every corner of her existence, its weight bound to her by silence, by defilement, by fists, by eyes that turned away while the labyrinth she called home twisted into something cruel. Safety had been a hollow promise, a mocking ghost of what it should have been. That was a lifetime’s worth of torment for any soul to endure.

Now, loneliness curls like smoke around her, strange and sharp. Cheryl, her companion and shadow since the womb, had been her constant — a hand always there to grip through thirty-four years of survival no matter how little she had reached for it. Cheryl was the light, the warmth, the ANCHOR. And with her death, Meryl drifted into an uncharted sea, untethered. The ache of being unseen lingered, relentless. It is why she withdrew behind the patchwork curtains of her little docked boat, opening them only at night to gaze upon the monsters outside.

There is peace in them. Honesty.

They wore their monstrosity OPENLY, unashamed and viscerally haunting. Meryl could understand that. She’d always done better when she could name the shape of her fears.

The scale of what’s been lost is beyond measure. Any flicker of doubt left in the sprawling dark of her heart has been extinguished, a star COLLAPSING into oblivion. Cheryl had been radiant, aglow in whites and sky blues that defied the brutality she endured. Cheryl was the compass, the North Star guiding her. Without her, Meryl’s own light faltered, dwindled, and disappeared. Meryl carries no glow, no shimmer of silver or cosmic blaze — maybe she never has. But there’s a stark beauty in the reflection she sees now: the fragile poetry of decay. Her pallor is ash and bone, her grief etched into her every line. The cycles of death and rebirth — withered but unbroken — are written across her skin.

She’s a writer. She knows how to find meaning in ruins. Her long, curly auburn hair hangs in disarray, shadows weigh heavy under her eyes, and her hands tremble like leaves in a storm. Baby, you’ve never looked better, she thinks to herself with bitter mirth. She’s never had the luxury of falling apart — not like this. The cold burns her skin, her thoughts weave and UNRAVEL like frayed threads. The pride that once carried her, the defiance that dared the universe to try and strike her down, has been battered into silence. Grief has hollowed her out, leaving no space for the pseudo playfullness that once kept her upright; that had been reserved solely for her sister.

She broke in the forest, screaming her anguish to the indifferent trees, drawing only the wrong kind of company. After that, isolation became suffocation. Arcadia’s narrow confines pressed in from every side — so few places to go, so many people to avoid. The whispers in her mind followed her everywhere, seeping into the delicate shelter of the boat. If she couldn’t quiet them, she’d unravel completely. She’d tear through the fragile peace and order the others had built, scatter their happiness to the winds. She’d feed them all to the same monsters that wore human faces and took Cheryl in the night. Like a CEREMONIAL sacrifice — just so they could feel a modicum of what she does.

Instead, she gathered enough strength to stumble into the library, the closest thing to salvation this town could offer her. She’s been here for an hour — or maybe a lifetime — searching without knowing what she’s SEEKING. Dusty tomes, their titles long worn away, feel like relics unearthed from the wreckage. She brushes away layers of neglect, her movements slow and deliberate, waiting for something — anything — to break through the void. Her focus is so singular she almost forgets the man sharing the space. But her instincts, honed by years of maltreatment, won’t let her ignore him. Every step he takes, she mirrors in retreat, maintaining a gulf between them. She prays — for the first time in decades — he won’t speak to her, won’t acknowledge her presence.

But prayers have never been kind to Meryl. God has always been a quiet, EMPTY absence.

[daught3rs]

𝗧𝗛𝗘  𝗚𝗨𝗡  𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗦  𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛  𝗔  𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗  𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧  𝗦𝗣𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗦  𝗧𝗛𝗘  𝗡𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧'𝗦  𝗔𝗜𝗥,  a  rupture  in  the  earth’s  frozen  breast,  a  thing  not  meant  for  snow  but  bled  into  it  nonetheless.  It  does  not  clatter — it  settles.  As  if  it  has  always  belonged  there,  as  if  the  weight  of  it  was  destined  to  sink  into  frostbitten  essence,  an  unspoken  prophecy  that  she,  too,  must  make  a  choice.  A  test.  A  THRESHOLD.  Will  she  cross  it?  The  metal  lies  stark  against  the  frost,  dark  and  waiting,  the  bloodless  alternative  to  something  far  worse.  It  does  not  breathe,  does  not  leer,  does  not  grab  or  whisper  or  press  its  weight  into  the  tender  hollow  where  her  shoulder  meets  her  neck,  but  it  is  no  less  a  predator  than  the  hands  of  men.  Cold,  indifferent,  not  cruel  by  its  own  design,  but  cruel  in  the  way  all  weapons  are — because  they  are  only  as  kind  as  the  one  wielding  them.  And  yet,  in  the  shallow  hush  of  snowfall,  where  the  trees  whisper  to  one  another  in  the  wind,  where  the  distant  dark  is  watching,  waiting,  hungering,  the  gun  feels  like  something  else.  Something  more  than  steel  and  trigger  and  the  brutal  mechanics  of  death.  It  feels  like  a  demand.  A  riddle  to  be  solved  with  blood.  A  contract  written  in  the  thinnest  of  margins,  signed  with  her  breath  on  the  frozen  air.  The  kind  of  thing  that  cannot  be  refused,  only  delayed,  only  circled  like  carrion  waiting  for  the  dying  to  still  their  limbs.

Meryl  watches  it  as  if  it  will  shift  beneath  her  gaze,  as  if  it  might  roll  onto  its  other  side  and  show  her  a  face  she  recognizes,  a  thing  with  too  many  teeth,  a  grin  stretching  ear  to  ear,  something  slithering  in  the  corners  of  her  vision  that  wears  her  father’s  hands,   her  father’s  voice,  her  father’s  hunger.  She  is  not  afraid  of  it,  not  the  way  she  is  afraid  of  what  waits  inside  of  men,  but  she  is  afraid  of  the  moment  after.  The  second  between  breath  and  exhale,  between  lifting  the  gun  and  what  must  follow.  Because  she  knows — oh,  she  knows.   If  she  picks  it  up,  she  is  EXPECTED  to  use  it.  The  metal  is  not  made  for  holding,  not  for  cradling,  not  for  anything  but  the  act.  Her  father  had  never  needed  a  gun.  He  had  needed  only  her  silence,  her  stillness,  her  compliance.  And  yet — had  there  been  a  gun  between  them  once?  A  long,  long  time  ago,  when  she  was  not  yet  fully  grown,  when  she  was  still  soft,  before  the  calluses  had  formed  around  the  tendons  of  her  hands,  before  she  had  felt  the  first  real  heat  of  blood  against  her  skin?  If  there  had  been,  she  would've taken it. And  now,  as  it  lays  before  her,  as  this  stranger  with  a  name  that  does  not  yet  fit  him  walks  away  as  if  the  matter  is  settled,  as  if  he  knows  her,  as  if  he  understands  the  depths  of  her  enough  to  say  here,  this  is  yours  to  do  with  as  you  wish,  she  feels  something  even  uglier  take  root  inside  her  chest. It has not been forced into her hands. It has been placed before her like an altar, an offering, an expectation sharpened to a fine point. This is yours now. Do what you will. A kindness dressed as surrender. A performance of trust. A trick she refuses to play into.

Her  fingers  twitch.  Not  in  hesitation.  In  memory.

Because  it  is  not  the  first  time  she  has  stood  in  front  of  a  weapon  and  had  to  decide  if  she  was  going  to  pick  it  up.  It  is  not  the  first  time  a  man  has  given  her  a  choice  that  was  not  really  a  choice  at  all,  dressed  it  in  words  that  were  meant  to  sound  merciful  but  instead  felt  like  another  chain. The  difference  is  that  last  time,  it  had  not  been  spoken  aloud.  It  had  been  there  in  her  father’s  eyes,  in  the  gurgling  noise  that  had  slipped  from  his  throat  when  the  blade  went  in.  It  had  been  there  in  the  way  Cheryl  had  looked  at  her  afterward — grateful,  horrified,  broken.  It  had  been  there  in  the  silence  of  the  courtroom,   in  the  way  the  words  self-defense  had  rung  hollow  in  the  mouths  of  men  who  had  never  known  what  it  was  like  to  fight  for  their  own  body,  their  own  skin,  their  own  right  to  exist  without  being  devoured.

And  now  this  man,  this  stranger,  this  potential  threat,  this  thing  she  still  does  not  trust  not  to  turn  on  her  the  moment  her  back  is  turned,  is  offering  her  the  same  choice  wrapped  in  different  colors.  The  same  breathless,  waiting  silence.  The  SAME expectation.

Meryl  clenches  her  jaw  so  tight  her  teeth  ache,  breath  leaving  her  in  a  slow,  shaking  exhale.  The  wind  claws  at  her  cheeks,  stings  at  her  exposed  fingers,  tries  to  work  its  way  beneath  her  skin  and  settle  there  like  ice.  She  does  not  shiver.  Not  yet.  Not  while  the  rage  is  still  sitting  in  her  chest  like  a  smoldering  coal,  burning  so  HOT  it  makes  her  stomach  curl  in  on  itself.

She  will  not  touch  it.  She  will  not  give  him  the  satisfaction  of  thinking  that  he  is  right.  That  this  is  the  choice  she  would  make,  the  weight  she  would  take  into  her  hands  as  if  it  had  not  already  been  pressed  into  them  a  long,  long  time  ago,  before  she  had  learned  that  men  always  prefer  the  decisions  to  be  THEIRS.  He  walks  away  as  if  she  is  meant  to  follow.  As  if  this  moment  was  only  ever  meant  to  funnel  her  into  one  path,  one  inevitable  corridor  of  fate,  one  locked  door  that  opens  only  into  his  silhouette,  his  will,  his  expectations.  That  is  what  this  is,  isn’t  it?  The  act  of  walking  ahead  without  looking  back.  The  confidence  of  assumed  obedience.  Even  when  they  do  not  grab  you,  they  expect  you  to  be  held.  Even  when  they  do  not  pull,  they  expect  you  to  be  tethered.  He  is  moving,  and  she  is  meant  to  move  with  him.  That  is  what  he  believes.  But  belief  is  not  truth,  and  he  does  not  know  her.

❛ You’re lucky I don’t take you up on that. ❜ The words drop between them, BRITTLE as frostbitten glass, sharp as the memory of blood beneath her fingernails. All men are monsters. Some of them just haven't shed their skin yet.

The  gun  remains  in  the  snow,  untouched,  gleaming  dully  under  the  thin  blade  of  moonlight.  She  steps  over  it,  deliberate,  measured,  her  body  a  raw  wire  of  tension,  her  breath  leaving  in  sharp,  curling  bursts, like a woman stepping over the body of a thing already dead.  Not  because  she  is  rejecting  it.  Not  because  she  is  AFRAID  of  it.  But  because  she  does  not  need  it. She has done more with less.  If  he  turns,  if  he  pivots  wrong, she  will  unmake  him  with  nothing  but  her  own  body.  The  knife  of  her  voice,  the  razored  edge  of  her  bones,  the  muscle-memory  of  survival  writhing  beneath  her  skin  like  a  second  soul.  He  does  not  look  back,  and  she  does  not  allow  herself  to  count  her  steps  as  she  follows,  not  a  chase,  not  a  yielding,  but  a  hunt.  The  snow  consumes  the  sound  of  her  movement,  and  the  door  waits  ahead,  pried  open  like  a  wound,  dark  and  waiting.

The  doorway  is  a  black  mouth  yawning  wide,  a  gaping  cavity  in  the  fabric  of  the  world,  and  he  disappears  into  it  as  if  he  has  never  known  fear,   as  if  he  has  never  LEARNED  the  terror  of  stepping  first  into  the  dark.  She  does  not  follow  immediately.   The  wind  presses  against  her  back,  urging,  whispering,  and  her  breath  knots  itself  somewhere  beneath  her  ribs.  Something  is  watching.  Not  him.  Not  the  man.  Something  else.  The  woods  around  her  are  too  quiet.  The  sky  above  her  is  a  frozen  thing,  waiting,  listening.  And  her  father’s  voice — that  thing  that  wore  his  face  in  the  labyrinth,  that  thing  that  should  have  died  but  did  not,  that  thing  she  feels  in  her  breath  when  she  closes  her  eyes — is  curled  up  in  the  roots  of  her  spine,  purring,  waiting. The  threshold  is  a  vice,  something  tight  against  her  ribs,  something  pressing  her  down,  something  whispering:   If  you  step  inside,  you  will  never  step  back  out.  The  dark  does  not  let  go.  The  dark  does  not  forget.

She  shivers.

The  first  sign  of  collapse.

It  is  faint,  a  flicker  of  a  thing,  something  she  barely  registers  because  the  heat  of  her  own  anger  has  kept  it  at  bay.  But  the  fire  is  dying  now,   the  edges  of  her  awareness  growing  thin,  the  REALITY  of  now  creeping  in  where  fear  had  taken  root.  The  warmth  she  had  forced  into  herself,  the  rage  that  had  stitched  her  together,  is  leaving.  And  with  it,  the  walls  begin  to  close  in.

The  courtrooms,  the  holding  cells,  the psychiatrist's office, the  small  rooms  where  she  had  not  been  alone  but  felt  more  trapped  than  ever.  The  places  where  men  sat  across  from  her  with  hands  folded  over  paper-thin  judgments,   where  they  looked  at  her  and  saw  something  to  be  NAMED,  something  to  be  understood,  something  to  be  dissected  in  the  neat  and  clinical  language  of  crime  and  consequence. The  places  where  she  was  not  believed. The  places  where  she  was  forced  to  sit  across  from  people  who  thought  they  could  explain  her  own  life  to  her,  as  if  they  had  been  there,  as  if  they  had  seen  his  hands  on  her,  as  if  they  had  been  the  ones  holding  the  knife  instead  of  her.  It  wasn’t  self-defense,  Miss  Silverburgh.  It  was  premeditated.  As  if  she  had  planned  her  own  suffering.  As  if  she  had  spent  years  waiting  for  the  moment  where  she  could  take  back  what  had  been  stolen  from  her. And you know what? They were half right.

She  knows  this  feeling.  The  feeling  of  being  watched,  being  assessed,  being  turned  into  something  measurable,  digestible,  understandable.  She  knows  what  it  is  to  be  NAMED  before  she  can  name  herself.  And  she  knows  what  it  is  to  step  into  a  room  and  lose  the  right  to  leave.

And  now  here,  now  THIS,  a  closed  door,  a  space  she  cannot  see  the  ends  of,  a  man  inside  who  she  cannot  trust  to  not  be  another  lesson  she  will  have  to  carve  into  her  skin  just  to  survive.

The  cold  WINS.

Her  body  moves  before  she  tells  it  to.  A  step  forward,  then  another,  then  she  is  inside,  and  the  wind  is  gone,  and  the  night  is  shut  out,  and  the  sound  of  her  breathing  is  deafening.

She  will  have to close the door.

Her  hands  tremble as she does so,  and  she  hates  it.  She  locks it behind them before clenches  her hands  into  fists  at  her  sides,  locking  her  jaw  tight,  forcing  herself  still.  But  she  cannot  stop  the  shiver.  It  rakes  down  her  spine,  crawls  into  the  marrow  of  her  bones,  makes  her  feel  small.

She  is  NOT  small.

She  keeps  her  distance.  Does  not  move  further  in.  Her  back  stays  to  the  doorway,  her  body  rigid  with  something  FERAL,  something  twisted  and  waiting,  something  that  knows  that  if  she  steps  even  a  single  inch  further,  she  will  not  be  able  to  run  fast  enough  if  she  needs  to.

Nick  is  ahead  of  her  still,  a  shape  in  the  dark,  something  she  can  barely  make  out.  He  is  waiting.  Not  in  the  obvious  way.  Not  in  the  way  men  do  when  they  are  trying  to  seem  patient,  to  seem  like  they  have  nothing  to  fear.  He  waits  like  something  that  has  already  made  peace  with  the  inevitable.   Like  something  that  has  accepted  the  outcome  before  it  arrives.  If  you’re  going  to  shoot  me,  aim  for  the  head.  Those  had  been  his  words.  And  yet,  here  he  stands.  Here  he  waits.  Here  he  remains  unburied,  still  breathing.

Meryl  exhales,  slow  and  sharp,  like  the  release  of  something  DANGEROUS.  Her  breath  fogs  in  the  cold,  curling  in  the  air  between  them,  filling  the  space  she  refuses  to  let  him  claim.

And  then she  speaks.

Her  voice  is  not  soft.  It  is  not  kind.  It  is  not  GRATEFUL.  It  is  the  jagged,  rusted  thing  inside  of  her,  the  thing  she  has  sharpened  against  the  bones  of  those  who  thought  they  could  touch  her  and  survive  it. ❛  I  let  the  gun  sink  into  the  snow.   ❜ A  pause. Her  shoulders  roll,  the  last  remnants  of  cold  shaking  through  her  bones,  and  her  mouth  curls  into  something  that  is  not  quite  a  smile,  just something  thin  and  bitter  and  bloodless. ❛   It's better  for  the  both  of  us.   ❜

Languorous months pass in wroth chimes,   constituting the brickwork of you.     Within the mortar,   there are grey gasps and pink-pasted eyes.     Reddened by your touch,   and then blackened by your heart.     It is there,   in your residual thump,   living swallowed seconds,   that he resides and wrests life from the beat of it.     Another punch through the gap between blood-pulses.     One,   singular:   that is what the afterlife makes you,   and all it permits atop the bridge to the living.     He was there when you waded through Russian ice   –   blue in its sky-reflection;   the mark yet unspilled   –   into tepid Arcadian soil.     When life shifted to the next,   he was there.     Alacrious   /   Awake.     And he was here,   after the month struck eight,   for the first reprise of your gelid endings.     White snow and whiter toes,   entrapped by bark-swollen earth and the stretching slant of moon-soaked grins.     Teeth without lips.     Partially flayed cheeks.     Harkening back to your military days:   the drills that dubbed you Zero,   and the wrongly bent elbows that soldered it into place.     Vagarious advents.     And she is here now.     The snow has returned,   days after meeting this woman.     This talcum-cress woman,   clinging to the serrated edge of her own undoing.     Loud as his shared womb.     All jugular,   and no will to rip with your own nails.     To sow atrocity into yourself.

Her court name was Meryl Silverburgh.     She said it days before,   in sight of an exit’s comfort,   like she must sever it from her throat.     Abrupt yet un-swallowed.     As if she couldn’t bear neither eye nor ear.     The word hurts,   then,   when spoken.     Like an improper pulse wedged within a composed heartbeat.     I see all you are,   for it is in me.     On television,   her voice couldn’t waver in its dense watch.     Eyes beyond her world,   yet of her tenor.     His eyes.     His stringent gaze that would,   one day,   look upon pixel made flesh.     And how wan it has become.     The room was sunless,   yet each curl glistened like a glassing eye.     Raw with the prospect of the rest of her life.     The scored body blasphemes in its proximity to humanity.     You bleed,   therefore you are.     YOUR RIB IN ANOTHER HEART.     This is a living twin’s mellifluous toll.     I breathe,   therefore you aren’t.     She might think it’s her own heart   –   for it drums,   invitingly,   near the grave   –   peeling love from wickered tendon.     Weary bones encased in evermore child-flesh,   mortified in place by father-hands.     They would be red,   like his father’s,   and overbearing,   unlike his father’s.     You know the truth of meat.     Of how marrow writes on its cloak of bone.     The skin of the eaten,   and the teeth of the eating.     You were born sliced.     You are the uneaten one.     And so,   you will eat.

Within that courtroom,   she loved needling word,   spoken and written,   to catch on spectator’s breath as it had embedded within her own throat.     Life-long relics from another’s sin.     A howl cast into newspaper’s wind until it finds her own typewriter,   word beyond lip and tooth.     How the televised want to make their image unpalatable to an adoring mass.     There would be a blank page,   and she would finally find herself.     Crimson silence settles in the aftermath   –   clenched jaw and pen-knife in hand   –   and in the written account of it.     There is finality to pen on paper.     The fact is no longer simple.     It is truth.     The precarity pronounces itself when your ears wed your eyes.     You heard,   once,   but can you bear to read?     To separate fact from its definition.     She could be a case study.     [   HER FATHER IS KILLED BY HER HAND.     HER UNREPENTING HAND.   ]     He knows the sculpt of her scene,   the god-sent paintbrush that carves hollows to her cheekbone.     The unlit corridors:   wood-slat floored,   gritty in its aged unclean;   bare of life yet full of breath.     Coyote-yowled night.     Settling grass after timed water jets.     The heartbeat in her wrist,   reaching to the tips of her nails,   brushing against the knife’s hilt.     Her drying taste buds.     His home   /   Your house.     This pay-off must define the rest of her life,   for this routine is outlined in blood.     How free can you be,   when you are defined by his lack?     Therein lies the rub:   the pervading truth.     YOU WILL NOT KNOW DEATH-LESS COMFORT,   AFTER THE MURDER BEGINS.

Albeit,   the first truth of many.     There is only one fact,   but there are many truths.     The firstborn took her,   feeling unfound in the elseworld,   to this half-death.     To a purgatory populated by those you loathe to remember,   and those you loathe to forget.     That is a truth of this place.     Everything numbs within it.     Your face,   and then your unwept face.     Your salt-water image,   and then your glass reflection.     Let sweat turn to bile.     Spit to blood.     Touch to taste.     Sight to swallow.     It brings stomach from below your heart,   to the eager soft tissue of your mouth.     There,   however,   it will not stop,   for it doesn’t stay where it is wanted.     The veins that connect tooth to eye,   unraveling you into flipped eyelids and exposed muscle.     By god’s will,   you won’t whiten in night-earth among your dead.     YOU WILL SEE RED.     YOU WILL BE RED.     The white of you is already buried.     Death has already seen your face,   and wants no more of it.     You do not make him hungry.     You sate.     You breathe.     She was a child that knew.     In an alcove hewn from an eyeless socket,   thumb-ground,   and an appleless throat.     Nick was a disgraced soldier,   home-sojourning,   but he was a child that knew.     Once.     An endless moment.     Your brother’s digested soul.     Still in the throes of its impending loss.

Your red hands   /   His clean face.     Plumes of gore unspooling from his cracked skull,   like a snake’s tongue,   forked at every sharp tip,   pulling out of its guts.     Your blaspheme rests in the hands.     You could touch the haemorrhaging puddle,   but not his paling skin.     You could hear his garbled blood-breath and the desperation that angles your gaze towards his.     A touch of red.     The sight of white.     [   HE DIED IN A LAMPLIT ALLEYWAY,   FLAILING FOR YOUR HANDS IN HIS.   ]     Without the horrified gasps overhead,   you would’ve cleaved guts from him.     A slab of a different ilk:   street-fogged and wriggling body.     A worm on soiled ground.     You are,   after all,   a butcher’s son.     You prepare meat in death,   and he was almost there.     He looked at you and knew your hands kill.     Your hands are hungry.     Tamed only by his warmth,   however much it leaks on the pavement.     This is the kind of truth that tangles man into myth.     Lungs into smoke.     Light into shadow.     YOUR BROTHER SILENTLY BEGGED FOR SOMEONE MORE THAN YOU.     FOR A WHITE TUNNEL OUTSIDE OF YOUR FACE.     For those more man than shape,   this would rend nightmare into reality.     You are the dream and the perennial.     You are the fallacy of the end.     Both the prefix and suffix,   without the noun.     Thick-skinned.     Cored.

It is this cataclysm of her delirium that blurs her pallid skin into the blizzard air tonight.     She remembers the before,   balking at what could become the after.     And that,   he wouldn’t abide.     Nothing begets nothing.     She speaks,   and so,   can’t be nothing.     For all of it to culminate to naught.     To a gasp in the woods.     To another ravaged flesh.     Because of a mere fact that fears truth.     Paused gait.     He is still,   side-long,   eyes narrowed to slits.     Slimmer target.     ‘   I know,   ’     he rumbles back.     I haven’t done anything to earn it.     His words crack fact   –   I   –   from truth   –   know   –   and discard the waste into the febrile ground shakes the night’s flake-work:   the snow that separates soil from skin,   mud from boot.     It reaches with those bark-sore fingers   –   feeding on itself once marrow dries to grain,   before its incensed hunger feels you upon its ivory blanket   –   to the source it yearns to absorb.     Welcome home,   Death;   let us feed upon you.     He doesn’t listen.     There,   stands a living twin turned woman.     And he,   a living twin turned man.     His shoulders are light,   but the world is upon hers.     She knows the barbiturates of killing,   riding its coattails into a wounding town.     Into him.     She raves and blisters.     You watch and wait.

Nothing he says will be enough.     Word will not coax mind from craze.     It is too soft.     A lifted,   stolid hand,   fingers splayed in surrender,   before his free one delves into his inner coat pocket.     He procures a handgun   –   for smaller prey,   a quieter shot in this weather   –   and holds it by the barrel.     Thrown at her feet,   his hands drop back to his sides,   bequeathing fate to her own hands.     Empty without him.     Full with what he can give.     There is already a deep gulch of what she should be.     You live for them,   it says,   for no one else can.     As the human you,   that walks without enfleshed reflection.     ‘   If you’re going to shoot me,   aim for the head.   ’     He throws these vestiges over his shoulder.     ‘   It’d be better for the both of us.   ’     The answer doesn’t matter.     He walks away from her,   showing his back like a patrolling dog.     Tireless in its trudge against harsh gale and prickling snow.     Galoshed by hackle and claw.     He reaches the door of a boarded building,   arms rough when parting ice from wood.     She will decide whether she will fend teeth or skin.     Them or him.     The monster you know,   or the monster you don’t.     The pig doesn’t squeal in the backroom of a meat shop.     It is already dead and bled.

[daught3rs]

𝗧𝗛𝗘  𝗡𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧  𝗜𝗦  𝗔  𝗚𝗔𝗣𝗜𝗡𝗚  𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚,  a  hungry,  writhing  beast  stretched  wide  over  the  earth,  its  mouth  swallowing  the  last  remnants  of  daylight,  its  throat  a  tunnel  she  cannot  see  the  end  of.  It  moves  like  breath,  expanding  and  contracting,  filling  the  spaces  between  her  ribs,  curling  its  tongue  around  her  throat,  SLITHERING  into  the  cracks  of  her  mind  where  the  past  still  festers,  raw  and  untreated.  She  cannot  breathe  right,  cannot  steady  the  tremor  in  her  hands,  cannot  slow  the  sick,  animal  panic  creeping  up  her  spine  like  a  parasite  that  has  always  lived  inside  her,  waiting  for  moments  like  this  to  remind  her  that  she  is  never  truly  free.  It  does  not  matter  how  far  she  runs,  how  many  doors  she  locks,  how  many  knives  she  buries  in  flesh  and  calls  it  justice — the  past  has  teeth,  and  it  knows  your  scent.  It  has  found  her  again,  pressed  itself  against  her  shoulder,  curled  its  fingers  around  her  skin  with  a  touch  so  simple,  so  fleeting,  and  yet  it  has  unraveled  her  completely,  flayed  her  open  to  the  bone,  reduced  her  to  the  shaking,  snarling,  feral  thing  she  has  always  been  underneath.

She  wants  to  run again,  but  running  is  not  safe.  Running  makes  her  back  vulnerable,  makes  her  blind  to  the  hands  that  could  reach  for  her,  the  ones  that  have  always  reached  for  her,  the  ones  that  turned  her  childhood  into  something  guttural  and  wet  and  filled  with  quiet,  desperate  bargaining.  She  will  not  be  SMALL  again,  will  not  be  pinned  and  quiet  and  suffocating  beneath  the  weight  of  an body engorged by excessive liquor consumption,  of  voices  that  tell  her  what  she  is,  what  she  is  for,  what  she  is  meant  to  endure  because  she  is  something  less.  The  thought  alone  makes  her  breath  ragged,  the  sharp  edges  of  memory  cutting  into  the  tender  places  she  has  tried  to  forget,  places  she  has  burned  out  of  her  mind  but  never  from  her  body.  The  muscle  remembers.  The  lungs  remember.  The  skin  remembers.  And  now,  now,  the  nightmare  is  remembering  too.  The  forest  unspools  in  front  of  her,  shadow-breathed  and  pulsing  with  something  unseen,  something  she  cannot  name  but  knows.

It  is  him  again,  but  not  him,  not  the father,  not  the  corpse  she  made.   Nicolas? That  should  be  enough  proof  that  this  isn’t  real,  that  it  cannot  be  real,  because  someone else stands before her now. Someone she has seen before in Arcadia, someone she has shared some words with, recalls being a vision in the LIGHT.  

He  is  changing  as  she  looks  at  him,  something  shifting  beneath  his  skin,  stretching,  pulling,  limbs  lengthening  into  something  grotesque,  something  designed  to  take  and  take  and  take  and  take,  an  impossible  thing  made  only  of  HUNGER,  an  amalgamation  of  every  shadow  she  has  ever  feared,  every  night  she  has  spent  curled  beneath  thin  sheets,  her  hands  clamped  over  her  ears  to  drown  out  the  sound  of  footsteps  that  meant  pain.  His  mouth  curls,  but  the  grin  is  too  wide,  splitting  his  face  open  like  a  wound,  showing  teeth  that  are  too  many,  too  sharp,  too  eager.  His  hands  twitch  at  his  sides,  reaching  before  they  have  even  moved,  reaching  because  they  can,  because  they  always  have,  because  they  believe  she  is  something  meant  to  be  reached  for. But  she  isn’t,  she  isn’t,  she  isn’t.

The  scream  rips  out  of  her  before  she  can  stop  it,  bursting  from  her  like  something  alive,  something  ESCAPING.  It  is  not  just  fear,  not  just  panic,  not  just  the  frantic  clawing  of  an  animal  caught  in  the  jaws  of  something  bigger — it  is  rage.  It  is  hatred.  It  is  everything  she  has  ever  swallowed  down,  everything  she  has  ever  kept  quiet,  everything  she  has  ever  done  to  make  herself  strong  enough  to  survive,  now  breaking  free  in  a  single  breath,  raw  and  ragged  and  unforgiving.  It  is  a  warning,  but  not  just  to  him — to  the  night,  to  the  past,  to  every  hand  that  has  ever  reached  for  her  and  thought  it  had  the  right.

The hand is different, but it doesn't feel different. The  hand  is  gone,  but  it  doesn’t  feel  gone.  It  lingers  like  heat,  like  a  brand  pressed  into  her  shoulder,  like  something  crawling  beneath  her  skin,  burrowing  deep,  claiming.  She  wants  to  scrub  it  off,  wants  to  peel  away  the  skin  where  it  touched  her,  wants  to  carve  herself  out  of  her  own  body  and  rebuild  it  from  the  marrow  up.  Instead,  she  stumbles  back,  breath  shuddering,  throat  raw,  legs  aching  to  move  but  unwilling  to  turn  her  back,  unwilling  to  leave  herself  vulnerable  to  the  hands,  to  the  hunger. She sees Nick in his true form again, but Meryl's too lost to the building INSANITY.

Her  knife  is  gone,  and  that  is  the  worst  part.  If  she  had  it,  she  would  have  already  used  it,  would  have  already  carved  a  line  between  them  that  he  would  never  cross  again.  Her  fingers  twitch  at  her  sides,  aching  for  the  weight  of  it,  the  comfort  of  something  cold  and  solid  and  HERS.  Without  it,  she  is  bare.   Without  it,  she  is  nothing  but  a  body  waiting  to  be  taken.  The  thought  makes  bile  rise  in  her  throat,  burns  at  the  edges  of  her  ribs,  curls  her  fingers  into  fists  so  tight  her  nails  bite  deep  into  her  palms,  but  she  barely  notices. She  cannot  run,   and  she  cannot  fight,  so  she  does  the  only  thing  she  has  left.  She  WARNS.  Her  voice  is  shaking,  but  there  is  something  inside  it  that  is  iron-hard,  something  cold,  something  ultimate.  It  is  a  threat.  It  is  a  promise.  It  is  the  only  thing  she  can  give.

❛  I don’t need to be remembered. I need to be gone. And if you think you’re the only one who’ll remember me, then you don’t know what I’ve left behind.  ❜ She  hears  the  tremor  in  it,  hears  the  frayed  edges  of  panic  still  threading  through  the  words,  but  it  doesn’t  matter.  He  will  listen.  He  HAS to. Because  if  he  doesn’t — if  he  makes  the  wrong  move,  if  he  shifts  toward  her  in  even  the  smallest,  most  meaningless  way,  if  he  so  much  as  breathes  with  the  intention  of  closing  the  distance — then  she  will  make  sure  that  this  time,  there  will  be  no  survival,  for  either  of  them.

Nicolas' next  words  barely  register,  drowned  beneath  the  static  that’s  been  screaming  in  her  skull  since  the  moment  his  hand  had  touched  her however briefly,  since  the  moment  the  night  had  shifted  and  swallowed  her  whole.  Everything  is  still  too  close — the  weight  of  the  past  pressing  into  the  shape  of  his  fingers,  the  breath  of  old  nightmares  curling  against  her  skin,  the  phantom  sensation  of  hands  that  do  not  belong.  Her  stomach  is  twisting  itself  into  knots,  something  deep  and  wrong  clawing  at  the  edges  of  her  ribs,  the  old  fear  curdling  into  something  uglier. She  watches  him  move,  shoulders  hunched,  posture  resigned,  a  shape  withdrawing  into  the  dark  like  something  UNFINISHED,  like  something  waiting  to  return.  There’s  distance  now — finallyfinallyfinally — but  it  does  nothing  to  loosen  the  knot  in  her  chest.  He  doesn’t  have  to  look  back.  He  has  already  left  his  mark,  already  said  enough  to  sink  its  teeth  into  the  hollow  parts  of  her,  to  remind  her  what  she  is.

Shelter  for  the  halved.

The  phrase  sticks,  latches  onto  her  ribs,  digs  into  her  like  a  splinter.  Like  she  is  a  thing  meant  to  be  taken  in,  to  be  held  between  two  hands  and  kept.  But  that’s  the  mistake  people  make  when  they  look  at  her,  when  they  think  she  can  be  HELD  at  all.  There  is  no  shelter  for  things  like  her.  No  safety.  No  home.  There  is  only  the  run,  only  the  bare-bones  survival  of  what  is  necessary,  only  teeth  bared  in  the  face  of  something  bigger  than  her  and  the  promise  of  blood  if  it  does  not  back  down.

She  sways  on  her  feet,  exhaustion  creeping  in  like  ROT  beneath  her  skin,  but  her  legs  will  not  move  forward.  Every  muscle  in  her  body  is  still  taut,  still  waiting  for  the  inevitable  moment  where  it  turns  wrong  again,  where  the  lull  in  tension  is  a  mistake,  where  this  man — this  stranger,  this  threat,  this  thing  she  has  known  for  only  a  day  but  already  recognizes  in  the  marrow  of  her  fear — changes  his  mind. Her  breath  comes  shallow.  Her  body  screams  at  her  to  move,  but  she  is  caught  between  what  was  and  what  could  be,  between  the  instinct  to  flee  and  the  terrible,  gnawing  certainty  that  there  is  nowhere  to  go.

She  swallows  hard,  blood  and  bile  thick  in  her  throat,  her  fingers  curling  into  her  palms still,  clawing  for  something  real,  something  sharp,  something  she  can  use. ❛  You don’t know a damn thing about what I want.  ❜ Her  voice  is  quiet,  but  there  is  ferrous  beneath  the  vulnerability,  something  rusted  and  jagged  and  full  of  promise.  A  declaration.  A  reminder  that  if  she  steps  forward,  it  is  on  HER  terms,  that  if  she  moves,  it  is  because  she  chooses  to,  that  if  he  so  much  as  looks  at  her  the  wrong  way,  she  will  not  hesitate ( you will NEVER hesitate again ). ❛  I don't trust you.  ❜ A simple fact. A truth spoken aloud, meant to take up space, meant to remind him — and herself — that this moment, this space between them, is not safety. It is not peace. It is not an understanding. It is a wound waiting to be torn open again.

Sometimes it is day,   and sometimes it is night.     This time,   it is wolven,   forbearing in that eased muscle way of a half-full stomach.     Or half-empty and,   thus,   moon-eyed.     Final moment of sate,   before saliva strings back into your teeth.     Whetting the hunger that precedes you,   and your skin,   and your jaw.     Down to your bile,   the lining that separates it from the rest of your organs.     A modest spill,   and it would swallow its home whole.     Gorged on death,   sizzling at grass-hairs until it too succumbs to its pervasive hunger.     Its ambition for a meat much bigger than itself.     Mouth meet tail.     Cyclical,   as all things should be.     The essence of all patterns:   circles cascading into more circles.     Pores,   pupils and paws.     Every pinprick of your body,   and none of the earth it walks upon.     Arcadia is the first place,   in your life,   to make perfect sense,   reciting itself until the viewer’s marrow accepts the chorus for what it isn’t.     A lullaby of sharp rain and huffing radiators.     A dry kiss on your sleeping brow.     Stay here,   it says,   with me.     At the end of the world,   again and again.     Sunrise   /   Sunset.     Those vinyl record rhythms.     A crack of heaven.     Watch as it sleeps with you,   to awaken by your side,   whispering for sacrifice.     Your life for warmth.     Your life for safety.

Tonight is a break in this reverie.     This day won’t blend into the next.     Neither will tomorrow.     Salted prayers.     Scorched earth.     Which is fine   –   every cycle must reset   –   but refitting ligament to bone takes time.     And that,   he knows,   they do not have.     A short lesson from the piano-string of your childhood.     Teetering length:   all that you couldn’t do alone.     It’s strange to share a life with another.     To know the silent bond between touch and tell.     Material and word.     Language fails but their gaze didn’t.     Naming isn’t the issue.     A name would sully its nature.     They are the in-between.     Silence after a full stop.     Flick of light in the final moment of a pupil’s dilation.     Their breath fogged your cheek,   and then you knew   SIN.     The kind without the humanity of it because then,   in their absence,   it would be gone.     You were born;   so were they.     And now,   they died,   and you did not.     Apple’s flesh in human skin.     The world presents itself.     Wheat fields needle at your skin,   and you smell lamb in the distance.     Hog-tied together,   hooves and bouquet,   until hay is wool and wool is red.     And red is all you see,   from ashen straits to blue-bruised leaves.     White-slick sidewalk,   roaming through every street,   to mewling alleyway faces.     A hunger unchained.     You are human again.     You are inhumane again.

There is no word other than cruel to describe this.     To drop a heavenly taste into an unsuspecting womb;   foster a pair’s gaze through four eyes instead of two:   how green the world becomes in their presence;   and then the reward for such a childhood means closing them again.     All you know,   but can no longer look upon.     In your dreams,   you see the grained dark of their burial.     Lidless and bone-full.     The afterlife is boundless in sight.     An end to blood,   but not to the taste of its lack.     How you thirst without a throat.     Yearn without tongue,   like a mouse lamenting its final moments in a cat’s stomach.     You persevere.     Still.     Through this kindling wilderness,   you breathe and survive.     The night becomes you.     Glistening pupils skirting past bark,   standing tall,   genteel and whistling,   once within cowering distance of the target.     Between his arms and the tree’s grip,   there is no escape.     Nor lip,   nor shoulder.     There is only shadow.     Bug-sung silence,   and a flayed throat.     SEE WHAT I BECOME IN ABSENCE:   HUNT ME,   HUNT ME FAST.     A wolf must be precise,   to deter other snouts from entering its territory.     It must take the blood,   and leave the rib.     That is the order of things.     The natural order,   where his needs outweigh theirs.     Divine submission.     I will be what you make,   and what you make is red.     Dead-cheeked and stomach-lined.

You happen upon her like a sore blink.     Spoken in another language:   you knew she was there before you could see.     A mere second.     There is the woods,   running past you,   unfurling into ragged hills and even more ragged wants.     Your neck cricks;   you turn and,   this time,   you happen upon yourself.     Within your own rough breath.     Your gaze in her eyes;   a hunger in your maw.     She runs where she would ride off into nothing,   beyond the lamb’s call.     The hand upon her shoulder is an afterthought.     It stings in the aftermath of her and then you remember it.     Nick’s brow furrows.     He finds reason where there is none.     ‘   Those hills won’t do you any good.     No one would remember you.     Except for me,   and whatever you’re running from,   ’     he says without inflection.     That closed part of her,   that you leave porous in its absence.     Telling through touch.     His hand was too absolute,   privy to the word of God but not man.     Tender in its fresh air.     The remains of another her.     What should be the subtle light seeping in like blood through floorboards.     Fine.     He’ll concede.     He doesn’t look back as he trudges towards the nearest building.     Shelter for the halved.     ‘   You know what you want to do   ( … )   come on.   ’