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tessimagines · 5 years

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Wash Me Clean // Thomas Shelby - Part Four

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Reader

Summary: (Y/N)’s nursing skills come in handy when Martha Shelby’s conditions worsen.

Series masterlist is linked in my bio.

Warnings: angst, death, sickness, swearing and shouting. Overall, a pretty heavy part.

Word count: 3.2k

A/N: Hey guys! I’ve had plenty of messages asking when this part was going to be out so I hope you all enjoy it after your anticipation. It’s a pretty heavy one, so beware, but I am pretty happy with how it’s turned out. I’d love to hear what you guys think!

The knocking comes at midnight.

It’s frantic, each one rapidly following the other, clear desperateness on the other side of the door. Your thin white dressing gown clings to your skin as you open it, the brown eyes of an unfamiliar woman greeting you. She’s breathless and cuts off any sort of question before they can pass your lips.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N)?” She breathes, her husky voice matching the stern look of her face. “I’m Polly Gray, Tommy’s Aunt. You're needed.”

“Why? What am I needed for?”

“We don’t have time, I need you to come now.” She grabs your wrist in earnestness. You can tell by the look on her face that there is no refusing. Her word is final.

“Just let me get changed.”

“I told you, there is no time.” She notices the burgundy overcoat strung up on the coat hanger by the door and yanks it off. “Just put this on and shoes, we need to leave now.”

You’re too startled to say anything and take the coat from her hands. You slip your shoes on and follow her out the door, Polly’s hand gripping your wrist and tugging you behind her.

Making your way through the streets of Small Heath are a blur. The street is almost quiet in the dark of the night, but some figures still emerge from out of the fog. Drunken men, most of them. Each one of them darts in and out of the streets, a bottle of whisky in their hands and some old song from their childhood on their lips. None of them dare to touch Polly, and her grip on you seems to keep their prying hands off your own body too.

By the time she pulls you into an unfamiliar house, you seem to have come out of your haze. It’s small and similar to the Shelby family home, parallel in the decor stationed around the room. Yet it somehow lacks the warmth you felt upon entering the Shelby family home for the first time.

“Polly?” You hear him call. It sounds as though Thomas Shelby is half dead and alive, and when he descends the stairs, you see he looks it too.

“Yes, I’ve got her.”

His hair and clothes are an unruly mess and his forehead is soaked with sweat. His eyes frantically look into your own, desperateness deep within them.

“(Y/N),” It comes out in a rush, each sound of the word soaked in relief. He reaches out and grabs your arm, his emotions taking hold. He snaps his eyes down to where his touch meets yours and pulls his hand back. “Follow me.”

“Can someone please tell me what is going on?” You ask, frustrated. Thomas doesn’t answer until your on the next floor, standing outside a closed door.

“My sister-in-law, Martha. John’s wife. She’s gotten really sick and we don’t know what to do.” He pulls a hand through his hair, his shirt now off-white with the colouring of sweat.

“Is she through there?” You nod towards the door in front of you. Thomas only nods in response, a large release of breath coming out.

You take a step towards the door, placing a hand on it’s worn golden handle. You allow a last deep breath to settle in your lungs before opening it up and stepping inside, the sound of Thomas’ steps behind you.

You are instantly met with the trademark smell of human pestilence, the sickly sweet smell of sweat rife in the air. A woman with hair of strawberry blonde lays weak on the bed. You can tell that her hair would once have been immensely bright, but in her weakened state, it has been made dull, lifeless and limp. The pillow she lays her head upon is stained with patches of blood, her body nothing but a delicate pile of bones wrapped in the sallowest of skin.

“Is this her?” A man from beside the woman gets up, John Shelby. He has the same blue eyes as his brother and sister, but these are framed by dark, dreary shadows. He doesn’t know you, and you can tell he hates the idea of a stranger so close to his sick and vulnerable wife.

Thomas only nods as you walk around the double bed, kneeling down beside Martha. You reach a hand up to her forehead. Before you even touch her skin you can feel the heat radiating off of it. Then she gives a shake, the stark difference of your cold fingertips on her skin chilling her right through to the bone.

“How long has she been coughing for?” You ask, taking the woman’s thin, fragile wrist in your hand. Her pulse is rapid, unmaintainable.

“A few weeks, at least,” John says, very clearly on edge. “And she’s been coughing up blood too.”

TB. Tuberculosis. Consumption. They have many names for it, but once it gets this far, it always ends the same. Martha Shelby won’t make it through the night.

Thomas meets your eyes and you can see the question in them. But behind the question, you can see he already knows the answer. You nod and watch his jaw clench, his hand reaching up to his head.

You suck the air out of your mouth and look at the flame of the burning candle on Martha’s bedside table. You cannot cry. This is not the time to get emotional.

By the time you open your mouth and speak again, your voice is the only stable thing in an otherwise chaotic room. “Open the window up halfway.”

Thomas immediately starts to walk towards it until John’s anguished voice erupts from behind you. “It’s fucking winter! She’ll freeze to death!”

“She needs fresh air!” You respond. “You need it too if you don’t want to get sick!” Thomas had already opened the small window across from the bed. The frigid air ruffles the champagne curtains as it wafts into the room.

“Tommy, get Polly to fetch some lukewarm water and a sponge. John, I need you to help me strip her down.” Thomas had already disappeared by the time John had helped you pull Martha into a sitting position. She wears a yellow-stained white shift, the lace-frilled collar holding splattered patches of blood.

In the dim candlelight of the room, the sweat on her body glistens like stars in a pitch-black sky. Thomas had returned with Polly, brandishing a copper bowl filled with warm water and a sponge. She immediately passes it to you and steps back.

You let your eyes met Tommy’s for a final moment before plunging the sponge into the warm water. You twisted it, letting go of the excess water before pressing it into Martha’s forehead and trailing it across her face.

She lets rip a violent cough, thick white phlegm mixed with blood splattering on her bare chest. John holds her back, his face almost as white as hers in distress. You pull her hair back and rub a thumb along her right temple. “It’s alright, Martha, you're doing fine. My name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N), I’m a nurse, okay? I’m a friend of Tommy’s.”

Martha seems to calm at your touch, some of her muscles loosening as you press the warm, wet sponge to her skin. Every breath is flimsy, a wheeze coating every inch of it. But she meets your eyes for the first time, tired green meeting a bright (e/c), and she nods.

You continue to sponge her skin as she falls asleep in John’s arms.

John paces the second-floor landing, arms flying. “I don’t fucking understand!” He shouts, specks of spit flying out with every word. “You’re a nurse! You're supposed to heal her, bring her back! Not just wait around for her to fucking die!”

“John, she’s done the best that she can, as much as any doctor could do,” Thomas speaks to his younger brother. He is standing as close to you as he ever has before, his arm only an atoms width away from your side. You try not to think about it, and instead focus on the pacing Shelby in front of you.

“John, I know this is hard. But I’ve treated enough patients with consumption to know that Martha isn’t going to make it. It’s too severe, it’s weakened her too much.”

John opens his mouth to shout again, but finds no words come out. In his falter, he pulls his hands to his head and crouches down on the floor in front of you.

“Oh, fuck. The kids.” Was all he could get out. It was clear he was trying to hold back violent sobs.

“It’s time for them to say goodbye to their mother. I’ve ventilated the room, so it should be safe for them to enter.” He was still crouched in the dim light of the second floor. “And John, I think you should say goodbye too.”

He says nothing as he gets up off the floor and walks over to another one of the doors on the landing. He hesitates in opening it, and instead violently pounds his fist against the oak timber. The shrill sound of frightened children sounds from inside and Tommy makes his way over to his brother, gripping his neck and pulling his face close to his own.

“Pull your fucking head in.” He mutters. You feel as though you should turn away and give them privacy, but your eyes are glued to their huddling forms. “I know this is hard, the hardest thing you have probably had to go through but this isn’t just about you. You’ve got kids in there who are going to lose a mother just as much as you are going to lose a wife. Now pull yourself together and let them say goodbye, John. They deserve that, eh?”

John’s jaw is clenched tight and the muscles in his face are stiff. He doesn’t say anything as Thomas lets go of him, but turns to open the door of his children’s bedrooms. He disappears behind it as Thomas turns back to you.

You don’t speak for a moment, silence clinging to the air like a waiting storm. Tommy has his hands on his hips, half of his shirt untucked and hanging past his pinstripe grey trousers. It is only then that his eyes settle on your body and he notices for the first time that night that you were only in your dressing gown, a burgundy coat hastily thrown over the top.

“You’re in your dressing gown.”

You take a glance down at yourself and remember the hurriedness that had seized Polly’s voice as she had dragged you from your house. “Polly was adamant there was no time to change.”

Thomas nods and another moment of silence passes between the two of you. When he speaks again his voice is sincere and light.

“Thank you.”

He is looking right at you with those piercing blue eyes. It was only then that you felt he could see every inch of you, pass the solid exterior that you forced yourself to hold up. And for some reason, the thought didn’t scare you. You want him to see you, all of you, for what you really are.

“It’s my job.” You say as he takes a step closer to you.

“Still. Thank you.”

He is only an inch away from you, his closeness prickling the hairs on your skin. They stand upright, alert, as you reach for his hand dangling by his side. He lets you pick it up and enclose it in your own, a comforting gesture in a house currently turning to shit. And you want to hold him, have him hold you too, until the sound of a bedroom door opening quickly pushes you apart.

John walks out with the youngest of his children, a boy no older than two and a half, sitting in his arms. The other three children walk out behind him, all their faces pale with fright. They’re confused, having just been told it is time to say goodbye to their mother. But for what? Where is she going?

You nod at him, watching as he leads them across the landing and into the other bedroom. Polly hugs him on her way out, closing the door behind them, allowing them the privacy of their last few moments with their mother they will ever have.

“I’ll take them to our place after they say goodbye.” Her voice is husky. It is hard to tell if it is generally like that or only because of the current situation. “(Y/N), are you going to go home? I’m sure Tommy can walk you.”

“It’s alright,” you quickly respond. “I should stay here, to check on her in the night. She might need to be sponged down again.”

Polly nods, turning to look at her nephew. “And you?”

“I’ll stay here too.” When he sees her raised eyebrows, he quickly adds, “for John.”

“Sure you will,” Polly says, descending the stairs beside you. “Thank you for what you’ve done, (Y/N).”

Tommy pours the tea into two porcelain teacups, the bitter aroma of the English Breakfast tea filling up the small, compact kitchen. He places the delicate silver spoon into each of them, mixing the sugar until all of it dissolves. With an air of intent concentration, he picks up both of the floral-painted teacups by their saucers and carries them over to the small table where you sit, taking a seat across from you.

“I’m not an expert tea maker, so I apologize before you drink it,” he says, a tired smile on his lips. The stress of the night had left dark bags under his eyes and his skin increasingly sallow. You supposed that your appearance mirrored his, fatigue visible in every pore of your skin.

“I’m sure it can’t be that bad,” you say, lifting the teacup and bringing it to your lips. It only needs to sit on your tongue for a fraction of a second before your face involuntarily scrunches up at the overpowering bitterness.

“Do you take it back now?” He adds, noting the expression on your face. You laugh before a snort erupts from your nose, instantly widening the smile on his face. Then you’re both laughing, eyes glistening in the light from the gas lantern between you.

“It’s... bitter.” Tommy takes a sip of his own before he turns back to you, his eyes crinkling at the unpleasant sharpness of the tea. He swallows it and nods.

“I see what you mean.”

The two of you just sit there, smiling at each other, taking refuge in this small pleasant moment against the other not-so-pleasant ones tonight. But then his face changes, and he lets something slip from his lips that he hasn’t spoken about since he left France.

“I watched so many men die of consumption in the war, so many mates.” His eyes are on the red tea in his cup, watching the wisps of steam float up into the air. “I thought I would grow used to it. But that smell that always comes with it... every time it brings it all back.”

He looks up from his tea to your face once again, noting the understanding in it. “I’ve tended enough patients with it, but yet that smell always gets me.”

Tommy notices your hand resting on the table and reaches out to grab it. His touch is delicate and soft, hardly the demanding man that everyone seems to know. You turn your hand in his, gripping it, letting him know that the touch is welcome.

“There is something you put in that first letter you sent me,” you say, holding his hand. His eyes move up to your face and he waits for you to continue. “You said that I probably wouldn’t remember you, that you were just another soldier to me. You were wrong. As soon as my landlady handed me that letter and said it was from a man named Thomas Shelby, I remembered. I couldn’t get out of that room quick enough to open it.”

He’s silent, motionless. You want him to say something but it’s clear that he doesn’t know how to respond. So you continue, eyes still focused on his face. “You see, I could never forget those blue eyes.”

This time, he smiles. It’s faint but still there, no matter how hard he tries to suppress it. You feel a lightness spark in your chest when you catch it and then your hand grips his just a little bit tighter. If it wasn’t for the table keeping you apart, you might not have helped leaning over and kissing him.

“Come on, I’ll get you a blanket and you can sleep on the sofa.” He stands up, lifting his hand up out of yours and placing them on his hips. He hasn’t bothered to tuck his shirt in and it still hangs half in and out. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up, exposing the skin of his forearms.

You nod, following after him as he walks out of the room. He walks over to a cabinet, opens it up and pulls out an old patchwork quilt. It smells faintly musky but you hardly mind, taking it from his arms. He pulls a second, thinner blanket out, this one plain white and leads you over to the drawing-room.

You roll your blanket out on the settee before taking your coat off and hanging it over the end. You hesitate before untying the rope of your dressing gown, not sure if it would be appropriate to stand before him only in your nightshirt. But by this time, surely all formality has been thrown out the window.

After taking it off, you turn to him again. You notice him look at your nightshirt before quickly forcing his eyes back up to your face again. He has laid the blanket out on the floor next to the settee, his make-shift bed looking anything but comfortable.

“You can’t sleep on the floor,” you state, crossing your arms over your chest. He shrugs, pulling a spare cushion from the sofa and placing it down on the foot of the blanket.

“I don’t have much choice. I doubt the both of us would fit on that sofa, eh?”

You get under the quilt on the sofa, watching as he does the same on his make-shift bed. He doesn’t bother changing his clothes and instead just hops in with his dirty shirt and trousers on.

A moment passes in the dark of the room, only a single slit of moonlight trickles in from the gap in the blinds across from you. You hear another cough come from upstairs, followed by a scuffle of footsteps.

When he speaks, it’s almost a whisper. “Goodnight, (Y/N).”

You can make out the outline of his face so close to your own. He cannot be comfortable, laying there on the floor, you think. “Goodnight, Tommy.”

And you shut your eyes, waiting for the sleep that you know will never come.

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grim-faux · 3 years

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17 - Prometheus Lies

More of the floor had fallen due to rot or fire higher up on the stairs. I nearly missed it in my climb, I was still taking the steps as I flicked the nightvision on and stumbled upon the gaping tear. It was a large jump and I had my doubts about being able to drag myself up on the other side, given the slick tile, but no other options were available. This time I made sure the camera was secure in its pack before I put my back against the cool plaster and steeled myself for the short sprint. Focus on the leap, on footing, don’t hesitate—

I hit the edge of the floor with my middle and gagged, I couldn’t see in the shadows where I would collide with the splintered wood. I recovered and was able to get my elbows under my chest and hoist up. My chest ached, as did my bad arm, nothing new. Had to keep going, couldn’t stop, never again. Soft glowing candles decorated the broken shelf across from me. The usual message Follow the Blood was painted on the wall above them. I leaned through the gate examining the closed in surroundings, a gate on my far left looked locked. Probably was. A lone battery had been left to me between the candles wax drippings. I took it feeling very little gratitude to my ‘benefactor.’ It was like being given a brick in this place. Or a flashlight. Didn’t help much but to keep me going. I paused as I glanced to the darkened hall at my left. I thought…could’ve been ‘Farther’ Martin. But I didn’t linger to certify this, blood was marked to the dark hall ahead. I adjusted my hand under the cameras strap and took my time, in no hurry and with no drive for my current objective. I wasn’t certain where I was headed, only that I was in another one of the numerous and indistinct corridors. In a room someplace nearby, someone was shrieking as though their skin was peeling off. I shuddered, but felt no other sentiment toward the matter. Too preoccupied with that tingling in the back of my skull. I was anticipating the horror that awaited my presence but it never ceased to terrify me. Blood was brushed across the floor curving to the right. Follow the Blood. However, there was still a stretch of corridor to check ahead. It wasn’t worth the trip at any rate, the corpse of another patient with his head nearly twisted off his shoulders, the air rich with copper, and a door boarded up. Disquieted, I returned to my marked path and found the floor there wrecked by the fire, a light hung from above enabled me to store my camera away. I inched closer to the wall, the boards underfoot reduced to charcoal and dusted with white, creaked as I moved to the edge. A door sat nestled in the wall on the left, with the faint traces of blood marked on its sides. There was very little space to press my heels back onto, and maybe I just didn’t give a damn how dangerous this stunt was on the unstable remains of floor. But it was my path and that was all my mind had locked onto. The light overhead flickered occasionally, but its illumination remained steady. As I inched along, a shirtless patient began to patrol on the floor below bumping into walls despite the light and smashing his fist against doors. I grimaced as I moved, the path was not as stable as I had hoped and shifted under my weight. I didn’t need to fall down there with him. When I was directly across from the door, I braced for impact and leapt, hitting the ledge and freezing when the splintered wood punched into my chest. My coat absorbed most the impact, but I still lost my grip and slipped backwards. I barely snagged the edge with my hands and dangled, below the patient sobbed something about his shadows, I really couldn’t jot it down. The wood lamented my weight and creaked, I held on for dear life trying to decide what to do. It wasn’t really up for debate. I growled between my teeth and pulled my body up as much as my arm would allow, then swung my leg up over the burnt timber. I fit my heel onto a little notch that held my weight, enabling me to lift myself parallel with the side, until I could get my elbow over. I scooted the rest of the way up until I had cleared the edge, and rolled far-far from it. I had to pause and catch my breath and let my muscles a moment to loosen. I felt the familiar spreading warmth in my backside. Damn. Maybe next time I should just drop and run like a bitch. I jerked up when I caught a flash of static, light flooded the next room. I regretted it and winced as my ribs pulsed. Damn it. I heard thunder and chalked it up to the fierce weather that raged on outside. The room was large but cluttered by all manner of bed and furniture, most stacked in the center as well as along the walls. I paused when I cleared the doorway, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. It felt like someone was watching me, though I couldn’t – could not detect a physical presence of any sort. The room was empty aside from me, and silent, the soft patter of rain outside hammered on the thick glass as my heart thudded in my chest. The feeling wouldn’t leave and I was wary to travel further within the labyrinth of disorder, fearing something inhuman would lunge out at me and shriek as my brain erupted inside my skull. I moved towards an open area on my left, crouching low and peering over the confusion of beds and mattresses. My battery was already getting low on power, I had to watch it and would probably need to change it soon anyway. Nothing was on this side, the shadows the nightvision couldn’t penetrate revealed no hidden eyes, no shifting shapes. Absolutely nothing living. I moved around the support pillar off center of the room, rising to my full height and slipped forward, ready to bolt at the first hint of movement. The floor shifted beneath me, I turned the camera down as the boards gave a horrendous groan and I fell. My spine jolted between my muscles when I hit, and I twisted in a stunned mess on the floor. Right in my ear something shrieked and I turned over in time to see that hazy form dart overhead, at the outskirts of the NV. I rolled aside and crawled behind a pillar, before I peeked out to watch it glide out of sight. It was gone. Whatever the fuck it was, it was gone. It could come back. I had no sick desire to move around too much and draw attention, but I was becoming aware of the small room I was in and its lack of doors. And escape. I moved away from the pillar scouting the open area visible. It was identical to the floor above, I’m sure, but less clutter, more boarded up doors and windows. A few items had been abandoned, a table cart and some bed frames stacked. I pressed my palm to the side of my head while examining the blocked double doors. This was one of many I had passed in the burnt out corridors, either those that had been locked inside had escaped, or there was nothing here to begin with. On the floor around a sequence of stacked bed frames, lay rotted wood and masonry. I lowered my arm to peer up the way the shape had flittered, and saw a large hole where the floor had collapsed. Maybe patients had been trapped in here, and they found a way out? The NV was dimming, I had to stop and change that before I could secure the camera and climb up. I was detecting a pattern here. It was nice to actually grip something smooth for a change rather than the splintered and rough floor surfaces of lately. I hopped up to the ragged floor boards and pulled the camera up before climbing onto the floor. The camera wasn’t necessary, light flittered through the murky windows, allowing my eyes to perceive some of the dark edges. More beds discarded, empty of mattresses and patients. I kept low as I slipped towards the obstructions, trying to see the odd flickers just beyond the perception of dark, lights that flashed behind my eyes without the storm. That odd vibration in my muscle. Maybe I just wanted the paranoia, maybe I wanted the delusions to be true. It felt more real than my current predicament. Most of all, I feared what I was thinking. I stopped when that churning sound occurred and felt myself quiver. There was nothing, I told myself. The room was empty as far as I could see, I was seeing things. I wasn’t seeing things. Or was I? It sounded like scratching, or subtly rubbing. Over and over, in a constant rhythm until I wasn’t sure if I was still hearing it or if it was the sound in my ears. I let it drone on and ignored it as I ventured around the thick pillar near the hole, and scanned the cameras visor for movement, eyes. A lone wheelchair sat beside the gaping hole I had fallen in. A few feet beyond it was a small connecting hall, with light cutting through the dark shapes I imagined shuffling around. Blood had been splattered along the floorboards, I shut off the NV to confirm the crimson hue before pushing the next door open. Somehow this room seemed darker, the shadows pressing on the NV range and giving me a feel for claustrophobe I was not accustomed to. I took a few tentative steps forward testing the depth of my view, the black veil gave and retreated as I pressed further into the room. Beds upturned, blotched with dried blood. Overturned desks and rushed shelf stacking; I took the open path along the wall at the left. On one of the beds beneath a shattered window, boxes had been dumped, more scattered files lay about the crusty mattress. I gave my perimeter a short glance before poking through what remained of the damp pages. I pulled out one file with two names that seemed familiar, couldn’t remember where I might’ve read about them. (Excerpt from the diary of Shirley Pierce, Mount Massive Mental Hospital Patient, 1952-1964) How can I not remember where the cuts are coming from? They hurt so deeply, even days later. Doctor Newhouse tells me that it’s my fault, I’m subconsciously resisting the hypnotherapy. But I want so much to get better, I don’t know how I could be doing this to myself, Dr. Newhouse says it’s another condition of my bedroom-inspired hysteria. Poor Bruce, I make him suffer so. I’ve tried, subtly, to ask Mrs. Jackson if she’s had similar “issues” with her husband, but she is loathe to talk about it. Her husband, too, has found comfort in a younger woman. I know the doctors mean well, and with the help of the government men who’ve joined the staff, I am in the very best hands possible. I should just take my pills and sleep, and hope for more pleasant dreams tonight. I was unmoving for a time, unaware that I had been standing a full minute holding the side of my ear. The date on the page. That date barely came to me. That was long ago. Long-long ago. I reread it a few times before it finally began to sink in. God, I’m an idiot. Mount Massive was shut down in the early 70s. Miles, you fuckin idiot. How did I not see this sooner? It was staring me right in the face. Right in my face. Murkoff came along and ‘reopened’ it. What was I reading again? She was committed to the Asylum from 1950 to 1960, before Mount Massive was shut down. But they were doing experiments before then. I didn’t need to linger on the subject any longer. I lost my train of thought as I knelt beside the bed, staring at the page. I was certain of what was in this note, but I couldn’t focus. Was that what the patients meant when they talked about sleep therapy? I thought this over carefully, ignoring that buzz in my head. The Whistleblower said ”Sleep therapy going too deep.” The experiments were happening before Murkoff came along, the government was involved before Murkoff commissioned Dr. Wernicke. Was I just blocking this information out? Everything that was started here. Could this go any deeper? The Hypnotic transgression to alter individuals thought patterns, and the Project named Walrider for those side effects? It seemed to lock together, yet the same old holes remained in my theories. Murkoff never started this. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. One mass hallucination. Nothing more. And I was buried deep in the center of it seeing what the patients saw, feeling what they felt. For them it was real, and for me it felt real. Too real. I lowered the camera and pressed my forehead into my palm. A massive hallucination. That was all it was. But… hallucinations didn’t tear people to pieces. Had I really seen the MHS cops murdered? I was drugged at the time, my recollection wasn’t the most credible. I stood off the bed and continued around the room, passing between stacked beds and mattresses. They must’ve been storing all this away when Project Walrider took its wrong turn, they butchered up most the patients and needed to put they vacant beds someplace. What a grotesque thought. Even though some of them did NEED to die, they were still human beings. I think. I had no idea what the female patients were like, aside from the one transgender I had come across. I hadn’t had the privilege thus yet to run screaming from a woman. I’m such a man. Another small connecting hall appeared to my left, but the door that would lead to the next room was blocked by something large and unmovable. I couldn’t budge it with my weight and gave up to resume my path to the front of the room. The sunken outline of smashed out double doors loomed ahead, and a corridor beyond that. I hastened my steps, but jerked to a halt when that dark shape drifted by. I recorded that - I SAW THAT! That was no hallucination! NO! You can’t tell me I didn’t see that! I backpedaled around the corner, until I toppled backwards over a table cart and lay staring up. That buzzing in my head was getting obnoxious. If I didn’t think about it, it would dissipate somewhat, but it was there at the back of my mind scratching at my thoughts. I sat the camera on my chest and pulled up the most recent recorded file and played back the last few minutes. Yes! A clear shot between frames, as it was at the center of the door. I stared at the image trying to make sense of what I was looking at. It looked….almost skeletal and corporal, at the same time. Like black dust, or a statue carved from obsidian. I could almost describe it as beautiful, if my mind were not so fractured. Time to go. I pulled my legs off the overturned cart and stood. It was going to the right, maybe I should try the left. The hall extended a distance and took another left. Double doors sat in the corridor to my right, but as with many doors they had been boarded up tight. I blinked as I turned, and felt a searing blaze of light behind my eyes as though I’d been hit. I didn’t understand it, I knelt to my knees and waited for the pain to subside, it didn’t actually hurt. Felt like the memory of a hard punch, like when Trager beat me out of the dumbwaiter, I was shaking all over again and my breath came labored. Anxiety attack. Just an anxiety attack. Not shock, just relax, deep breaths, get it under control Miles. I was in a bad place for this, I was totally exposed and if a patient happened upon me I would be done for. Get it together, deep breaths, rhythmic breathing. My chest felt like it wanted to splint open, and I dropped the camera beside me as I fell over. The dust tickled my nose but I kept trying to drag myself back into focus, my left leg went numb. Just anxiety, not shock, not heart attack. I’d know if I was having a heart attack. The pain in my head died somewhat and the feeling slowly returned to my leg. Good, good. Get up and move, walk it off. I fumbled in the dark for my camera and picked it up. I half expected a face to be staring right in the visor, it was almost a shock that there was none. I pushed myself up and resumed walking. Chairs, broken beds stacked, more doors tempting but going nowhere. On the wall there was the occasional dark arrow, still seeping with the fresh lines of its making. I took another left, coming to realize I was going in a circle if this route endured. Some open double doors, at least I was still headed somewhere, and apparently I could not have gone in the wrong direction. A few feet away the flicker of candles caught my attention, yes, I was going the right way. Though I think I could’ve come the other way, and still reached this place. This door would still be here when I came back, the blood stained arrows were still running thick lines down the plaster. The door left ajar, inviting me. It could wait. I crept slowly down the corridor, always aware the thing could be at any turn and suddenly spring from nowhere as though from thin air. The hall took a right and a ways down I could see light, wavering from an open door. Inside was the mother load of files. Shelves stuffed with boxes, and binders full of notes. Boxes stacked around the room, many had been torn to pieces, some still had scraps of folders and pages littered everywhere. None of them looked complete, exerts from Frankentein’s Monster, and more letters from family to patients and vice versa. Some of the pages I handled felt brittle and were yellowed with age, a few dates on letters read as far back as 1950. On the wall was a cross painted in blood and the familiar word in bold LIE The red was fresh, it still trickled down around where a trash chute was set into the wall. My shoes squeaked on the tile as I checked down the opening, then proceeded to go through the boxes. “I recognize the handwriting. Father Martin killed a man here. Are the “LIES” he’s talking about all the files missing from these boxes? The facts? The records? They look like government agency material, at least thirty years old, probably older. I start thinking MKULTRA, CIA. Mind Control. The buzzing won’t stop.” There was a file about patients claiming to see a Dr. Wernicke in their dreams, though they had never known a man by that name. There was a file of one individual that screamed so much his tongue and throat had swollen, and he had perished. Another about a violent individual that had eventually died from blood loss when he had worn the skin from his fingers away, and tore his entire face off. I started feeling sick, I wanted to stop and sit down, rest a moment. But I couldn’t. There was no telling what lay ahead, everything was coming together now. Or maybe it was the feeling I was having about this place, the hallucinations. The whispers. I returned to the marks on the wall, the door left ajar encouraging my progress. As I moved forward to push it open, someone shut it from the other side. I drew my hand back. Was the door now locked? No, it couldn’t be, this was where I was supposed to go. That just sounded insane. I took the handle, it turned easily in my mutilated hand, and I pushed the door open just a bit. My movement wasn’t unheard by the occupants of the room, and I cued in on soft foot falls just before they entered the range of the nightvision. The twins! I slammed the door shut and pulled the little cart with the candles on it and put it between the door and I. Why I did this, I’m not sure. I took a few steps back as the door opened and the first twin gave the small cart a baffled look before he scooted it aside with his machete. I took the hall I had first come down, through the double doors and paused to look back. The twins stepped into the hall, glancing one way then the other. I crept behind the corner and watched, they couldn’t see me I was certain but they knew I was here, or someone was here. The candlelight, they might have seen me standing in the doorway! One twin began down the opposite hall, while the other turned and moved in my direction. They were going to corner me like they tried in the caged hall, but this time there was no window for me to use to get around them. They were counting on me coming this way, with no other option but to follow the Priests blood trails. This didn’t hardly seem fair, but I wouldn’t get a word in edge wise if I was caught. I might still beat them back to the other room, but it didn’t change the fact I had to get by them to that door and with the two of them patrolling, it was only a matter of time before I was caught. I ducked aside when the twin reached the open double doors. I needed a way to get around them, someplace to hide and double back. The stacked beds I passed. I dropped down and scooted under them until my shoulder was to the wall. My camera was getting low on power again, damn. Why now? I held still as the bare foot falls grew louder with each step. I shut the camera off and tucked it into jacket, gritting my teeth hard when the fibers caught on the remains of my index finger. At least the bone was exposed only on that finger, the camera and loop somewhat protected it in my travel. I shut my eyes and focused on the sound of the brittle wood as the twin stalked past. Couldn’t see me, couldn’t know I was here. I exhaled a low breath when his steps faded down the hall, and I began a count once I could hear them no longer. One-one thousand. Two-one thousand. Three one-thousand. I was still counting as I slid out from under the bed and moved towards the door, and the candle light. Four one-thousand. Six one-thousand. A sharp pain filled my skull as the candlelight clashed with the NV. Couldn’t pause. Keep moving. Eight one-thousand. Nine one-thousand. The door to the room was left open, I could barely make out the extending edges through the failing nightvision. I entered and flung the door shut, all the time keeping by the wall and straining to pick up early warning I heavily relied on. I couldn’t gamble that the other twin was unaware of my intentions, and would still be out to corner me off at his brother. With the door shut I was more likely to hear of their return. Now it was impossible to see through the visor, I had to fumble and get the batteries switched out before proceeding. It was another room identical to the previous ones I cut through, the few items of furniture scattered about, broken night stands, beds along the far wall. I crept around the thick pillars, wary of what might be lurking. A door to the side of the room was jammed in its frame, another on the opposite side gave false hope. Through the window I could see broken wood and the dusty tile on the floor far below. I tried the handle out of habit, locked. It didn’t matter, there was no visible way to climb down. I pressed my palm to my head, the stress caught up to me as the revelation hit. I could easily die if the twins returned this moment, and I had still not gotten my shit together. Keep moving, keep moving. Where didn’t I check yet? It was obvious enough. The back of the room? I moved close to the wall and the windows. It sounded like the storm had lessened for a short while, but boards nailed against the wall made it impossible for the meager amount of light through. The joining corridor was on the right side, and the door beyond open. Boards had been torn away allowing chunks of light through, enough to pick out the jagged floor where the fire had eaten through the wood. The wood protested my weight but the structure seemed stable enough for my weight, at least where the damage was not as sever. Each gap of ruined floor was a distant, I couldn’t tell from a glance what sections were solid enough. I tried not to think of it either. I sprang forward clearing the gap easily, the floor creaked under me and I tottered as wood snapped and clattered somewhere below. Needed to stay sharp, none of this floor was stable. For now it held. I crossed to the corner where the fire had done ‘less’ damage, and maneuvered around a bed as the wood groaned, warning its lack of patience with my weight. The wall beside me had burnt out, leaving the skeletal remains of the framework within. I leaned against it certain I saw something at the edge of my vision, something there without the NV. There was comfort in my dependence of the camera, a trick of the light. A voice reverberated from the floor below and I moved the camera over the demolished room, seeking its source. A bright beam flashed over me and I met eyes with ‘Father’ Martin. “Only God needs be so mysterious. Be patient, hold faith.” As he spoke he turned away, looking across the edge of a gap of where he stood upon. I couldn’t be sure, but I doubted he was speaking to me. I moved on, reinforcing my resolve. I needed to get out of this area, with the twins geared to hunt me down. They wouldn’t hesitate to gut me on the spot, and I felt in my deepest fears that they wouldn’t kill me before they went to work. Shuddering, I edged myself onto a thin path that ran flush with the wall, I had very little room for my feet but the edge felt stable enough. The ruined timber moaned as the structure shifted under the malicious storm, it sounded like the whole place could topple at a wrong move, yet still it stood. I used the NV to make sure that I was scraping onto a solid surface, the charcoal was black and blended with the shadows. The floors center between the support pillars was still intact, not a big surprise. Another break in the floor separated me from the next door, by a distance I was leery to attempt jumping, but I was certain that I had leapt farther previously this evening. There was no easier way over. Lamps undamaged by the fire gleamed down, revealing the tile floor of the room below. I focused on the door trimmed by light, wide open and inviting with only the ominous abyss of dark beyond. I would have a moment to gather myself before I pushed resumed. The floor didn’t seem stable enough on my island, I shuffled near the edge and tested the thin boards. It made quite a bit of noise, but it felt solid. Maybe made from a different wood, from whatever comprised the asylums charred sections? I clicked off the NV and put some distance between myself and the edge, then dashed forward and threw myself out over the fissure. I hit the other side with more force than anticipated, the wind gushed out of my lungs and my arms hit the boards. Hard. I didn’t have a chance to inhale, my body began to slip backwards. I panicked and slung the camera out of my grip a safe distance and braced my hands and elbows against the splintered wood, sweat trickled into the corner of my eye obscuring my sight. I think I might’ve snapped a rib. It sounded like it. Or was that the floor creaking against my weight? As I pulled myself up, the board snapped and I fell catching the next piece with my hands. A streak of light flashed through my eyes as my ragged finger tips locked into the timber. The whole floor was falling! I clambered up, kicking and clawing for a stable grip, and finally got my torso over the edge in time to witness— My camera! My camera was skidding backwards, off the slanting floor! No! I shuffled along trying to reach it before it fell. Visions of it hitting the black tile, dashed into a million pieces of plastic and metal. All my evidence! My only source of light in this shit hole! I reached, scratching it with my remaining fingertips as it tipped, then flipped jolly like over the edge. Down, down, and down it went. Everything in slow motion as I was stuck up here, watching it get smaller and smaller, the further it descended. Any minute now, a millions pieces scattered everywhere. You wouldn’t be able to tell what it was in the first place. Scattered to the far corners. I’d never be able to find them all and put it back together. But it didn’t scatter. I watched as it bumped against a board, and held my breath, right before it hit the other side of the floor above a thin black hole. Then, vanished into the dark abyss. I reached for it. I could still feel it in my hands, solid and comforting. This couldn’t be happening. It was in one piece but it was gone. Fuck! Why didn’t I secure it? Why didn’t I remember to protect the damn thing? It was gone forever and I was the one to blame. Fucking idiot, Miles! Your life is over! The damn camera was the only thing keeping you— The floor whined as the boards gave out, and a piece clattered hollowly in the open room. I shifted, dragging myself up just as I saw the door to a room below swing open and a dark figure creep into view. Shit! Another panel snapped away before I had latched onto the next, and I was hanging by my hands snarling as hot needles pulsed through my fingertips. GET UP THERE MILES! I clawed my way up as the floor crumbled out from under me. I dug my fingers into what I could reach and braced myself, launching forward as everything under my feet snapped free. I was running on literal open air as the ground dissolved under me, I dove into the awaiting doorway and locked my hands on the frame as I spun about, to witness the last of the floor break away. I took a few deep breaths, and gazed at the open door with light pouring through. No evidence of the prowler below, I’m not sure if it was a twin or someone else hunting me. I was still shaking when I turned to the dark corridor awaiting my trespass. I had become so dependent on the camera, the total blackness was like a wall I could never pierce with my conviction. Memories of those inexperienced cavers returned to my thoughts, how they had been lost for days before they succumb to hunger and thirst. How do you get lost in a cave? The darkness is disorienting, and even when you feel you must be turned in the right direction, it is impossible to be sure. You can run in circles for days before you realize you’ve been in a room of nine by nine. I didn’t stand a chance navigating the dark totally blind, while the patients strolled about, conditioned to the dark halls that was their world. Aside from all the evidence I could not afford to lose. It would be better if I died trying to find it, rather die getting beaten to death by something I couldn’t identify. The ruined floor echoed a strange sound as the wood settled, almost like the shriek of a dying man. I pondered it, as I pondered how to go about locating my camera. I reviewed my recent progress through the asylum, deducing if I returned the way I came I would not be able to access the floor below where the camera should be. That was not considering the twins, I didn’t doubt they were still hoping to stumble upon me in that section of the hall. I wiped some sweat from my eyes, and recoiled at the blood soaking my palm. Oh god! After scrapping some of the fresh blood from my hands, I picked my way down what remained of the floor. At least ‘if’ I returned, I could still climb up easily. Small miracles. There was no sign of the creeper, this made me uneasy. He could as easily have been a spy for Father Martin, as he could have been one of the violent lunatics that’s only purpose was to shatter skulls. He had to have come from somewhere, I doubt he came from the floor above or had a way up there. This was all speculation, I had no reason to believe there was a way to access the lower floor through here. I planned to turn back if it became too dangerous, or if there was no visible way to progress. I don’t know which way I preferred more. The room was dim, light pouring through broken windows offered miniscule guidance, cutting dark lines over the beds and furniture that looked jammed into the space. I heard no sound, nothing to indicate a living body present. The path on my left was packed high with bed frames, to my right was a space I could slip through. I didn’t want to attempt climbing over anything unless I absolutely had to, my hands were shaking against my sides. They felt hollow and light without my camera. A flash of lightening pulsed from the windows, I crouched down when I though there was a shape peering over the shelves on my right, but it was already gone before my eyes adjusted. It felt like the ringing was getting louder, maybe my heart thudding harder in my chest. I crept along listening to the sound, trying to blot it out with thoughts of the mountains. How calm the night had seen before the storm. I climbed over a bed and scanned the front of the room as it brightened with a blaze from the windows. Shadows raced back into place as the light died, I thought eyes were staring back at me but I didn’t have the NV of the camera. Couldn’t be anything there. Just the noise in my head making me feel like there was something that should be there, but couldn’t be. My camera. Think about that for a bit. Where would it be? Fell through the floorboards, would be on the floor below here if it didn’t shatter into a million pieces. My quest seemed lost, everything I had been through, everything that I had witnessed was on that camera. I would go completely insane, and they’d find my body with my last words scrawled into the notebook and they’ll scratch their heads, no clue of what the hell happened here. What horrors were witnessed. The camera will be there, in one piece, because I will it to be so. With my fuckin mind! Bed frames and shelves. They filled the gaps on either side of me as I moved towards another set of open doors. It amazed me how comforting furniture could be in a place like this. It looked like the doors had been blown apart, I couldn’t find where the other had fallen. A sound startled me, the clatter of timber as something came down hard on the floor above. I knelt down and listened to the noises of footfalls overhead, silt trickled down getting into my eye. I blinked it out then checked beyond the doorframe, a soft whimper wheezed out of me at the black veil that greeted me. I would get lost forever and die of hunger, or get beaten to death by someone in the dark. By a shape in the dark. My spirits were lifted when the frail light spilled from a crack in the wall. I crawled to it, on my hands and knees, and peered inside hearing water running from somewhere. Another shower room. Lockers had been torn from the walls and stacked in odd areas, some were left along the floor. I tested the stability of the plaster that blocked me, and found I could tear the chunks out. Enough that I could easily slip myself under. I entered and stood up and made my way along the side of the room that was open, and into the shadows that devoured my form. I used my less torn up left hand and set my fingers on the wall feeling where I was going and tried not to get turned around, but my fears were unfounded, the wall gave way to the other side of the washroom and a light blazed from the ceiling. I checked a few of the stalls that would open, confirming there was no one hiding, nothing to surprise me. The drum of the water intermingled with the buzzing in my head, my body quivered despite how dry the top layer of my coat had become. It was bone quaking trembles, stemming from my muscles. I needed to shut the water off, stop the insistent white noise. I tried to figure out how to work the faucet, but the valve was snapped and spun uselessly in my grip. Beneath the spout was a tear in the floor, the wood exposed under the tile and something under that. I went to the next stall over, the door taken somewhere left the access open for full view. Inside was a large hole to the level below, and where my camera must be. I dropped down onto a plank of wood, and felt the hollow vibrations of lockers through my feet. For a moment I listened and waited, that had been loud. The drum of water above enveloped my senses, I few droplets of icy water splattered my neck. Along the ceiling the thick pipes transporting the water crossed, thick calcite had formed along edges where water seeped. Rather wait and confirm my isolation I crawled down onto the next floor. It was a sizable closet to store supplies and some furniture. Everything had been dragged out into halls and used to board up doors, it was empty but for the lockers gathered into the center of the room. I walked around it before I located the door, it was a relief to escape the consistent sound rattling my mind. I gave no consideration to someone waiting outside, how reckless I was being. I didn’t care. I peeked out into the dark hall. The edges of a broken bed came into focus, the light from the closet didn’t tread far but the glow of another lamp did reach around a corner some distance away. It was impossible to tell with the wall of black. I opted to follow the light for now, until I needed to get lost in the dark. I’d save that as last option if I could. The hall that cut right was too bright for comfort, I lingered by the wall briefly, the light didn’t extended far. Beyond the shadows bars were stacked, or bed frames, silhouetted against soft light a large window. I really wanted to know that lights origins. I climbed over a broken bed frame and listened, as the crackle of thunder and the flash of static illuminated a figure darting across the room far ahead. It looked like he had some destination in mind, but I wouldn’t just stand at the edge of the shadows and wait for him to come this way. Couldn’t be certain of what I saw, I wasn’t confident in the stability of my mental faculty. A door boarded up on my left thudded as something hit it, or fought to get through. I picked up the pace before they could get through while I was there. Those boards had held all through the shit storm, there was no reason for them to give now. Light pulsed through the bars of the beds stacked at the end of a hall, cutting me off from the room. But I was certain the figure I’d seen had been there as well. A hall was to my left with light spilling like cold silver between the bars of a gate. It was too far up out of sight, I couldn’t see where the light filtered down from. I hesitate when I thought there was a voice, or someone mumbling. I listened, trying to get past the ringing in my own head. The silence without the constant drum of rain on windows to drown out my thoughts, made the walls vibrate with a resonance of silence that was almost as thunderous as the sound of clatter. No longer could I hear the voice, but it was probably my paranoia diluting my senses. I was on high alert and couldn’t shut myself out. As I neared the corner, leaning forward— A man lunged out at me snaring my neck and bad shoulder. I gave half a yelp as the air was cut off in my throat, the man yelled in my face and shook me. My vision buzzed with static as he applied pressure, I couldn’t decide which was hurting worse. The blood flow had been severely hindered by his grip on my neck and my ears started ringing. I slapped my hands down over his elbows and struggled to pull his arms off, get them unlocked as he pushed forward nearly causing me to topple. When I fell it would be all over, I wouldn’t have the leverage to throw him off. I didn’t have it now. When I reached my limit, I knew I couldn’t take much more of this, I dropped to my back on the hard tile and somersault backwards. The patient, placing all his weight against me fell forward. I jammed my foot into his stomach and propelled him along as he tumbled over me. Weak and stunned, I rolled aside not prepared for what would come next. I only heard the man climb to his feet and dart off screaming about the coming and Billy. That went well… I coughed into the floor until my throat reformed, the cold and dusty air of the Asylum a welcomed return. I was still rubbing the soreness out of my neck as I CAUTIOUSLY ventured into the next room. I felt the walls as I went, making sure I wasn’t missing any doors that could lead to the room my camera was in. I had no idea where it might have fallen, I would just go through the rooms I could find and then go into more detailed search once I was comfortable with the layout. The patients spent all of their time in this place, skulking through the dark, hiding in the shadows. No wonder they could track me in the dead black. With no other option, they had adapted to this way of life. A scary thought. A wild blaze burned through the room, and for a brief moment I could see figures, men shaped. One crouched on a table holding bars, fully focused on the world outside, a far away world. I slunk forward, the second one seemed to be staring across the room directly at me but made no action. I kept along the side of a bar, or some sort of countertop on the opposite side of the room. I lost track of the other figure that had been in here, but as the windows pulsed with storm I located a door to the side of the room. I lurched back and dropped to my side when something flashed in my vision, what exactly I couldn’t be sure. But I felt nothing, no punishing blow and heard no sound of feet. I couldn’t even be certain I had seen anything to frighten me, only that I had fallen on my side and felt the warm spot on my back. I just wanted my camera. It didn’t matter if I made it out alive, I just wanted my camera back. I crawled pathetically through the double doors that awaited, there was one tall window at the end of corridor, but the oppressive shadows huddled at the very breath of its light. It appeared to be the connecting hall, where I saw the figure dart through. I lifted to my feet and held my arms out, unable to see an inch in front of me. I kept on my toes ready to run at the sound of movement, anything that indicated I was not alone. I didn’t feel alone, but I couldn’t believe I would miss another living presence in the small space I now occupied. The concept that this was an error of my thought, terrified me. I was probably not alone, just kidding myself again. I took a shallow breath as I felt around the edges of another door, a lamp from outside glistened off the metal bars of shelves. I blinked, and saw red, blood vessels in my eyes as the storm blazed. My breath was labored and dots evaporated at my vision, contrasting with the shadows. I blinked but I still couldn’t see. I moved around the shelves trying not to linger long in the light. Another doorway opened in my path, on the other side windows cut long shapes on the tiled floor. I crouched down and put my face just far enough past the opening to see what lay ahead, but was met with the invading veil of black. I thought I heard movement, a voice, but as I bided my time and listened trying to perceive what my eyes failed to, it felt like my mind was playing tricks on me again. Something glint in the corner of my eye, and I drew back to spin on it but saw nothing. Just the beads of the metal shelves as the light hit their sides. I took a deep breath, I was shaking badly and my head pounded with the soft prattle of rain. Or was that the humming in my bones? Why’d I keep thinking of these things? I forced myself to leave the doorway and scoot away from the wall, into the indiscriminate shadows. It was some sort of commune room with tables bolted to the floor. Maybe the patients cafeteria, or some sort of indoor recreational area? Being in this room right now unsettled me, like being in an orphanage after some sort of catastrophe killed all the children there. Almost the same difference, if you considered the less violent patients. Just mentally wrong, and locked away from their families that might’ve been trying to do the right thing for them. The cold seeped through my coat, I had not nearly dried out yet, even so it just seemed to burrow into everything. It was getting darker as I moved from the windows, into areas of boarded up doors and the suppressive veil tightening over my shoulders. I slipped over a broken counter, a frame with glittering glass sat before metal slats for trays. This might’ve been the patients cafeteria, or where medicines was dispensed. It was the same thing, wasn’t it? I saw something in the furthest distance flicker against the black wall. I paused to stare and barely believed my eyes. I blinked. Was it possible? On that table beside a large cooking pot? I let out a small whine, it was! My camera! Right there, not no more than a few feet away. Okay Miles, keep it together. There’s the camera, don’t go running over there and tripping and tearing your fingers open again. But…My camera! I edged towards it, pushing my senses into the wall of black, working to determine if there was anything I could stumble over, anything left lying in my path. Something clattered to the floor, echoing off the walls in the next room. I had no idea what that was from. Might have been the floor above, the broken room my camera fell from still settling in my absence. I could sense movement. I couldn’t be sure if this was my paranoia or the unnatural state this room was in, where I was accompanied by a threat. The big fucker? I wouldn’t know until I picked up the camera, and by then it might be too late. It sounded like something was being smashed on hollow metal, or someone was trying to flush something out. I dithered for a moment, debating what I should do. It was getting me nowhere, so I continued forward trying not to imagine what was beyond the black lurking at the edges of my senses. I was distracted in my elation, finally the comfort of the camera back in my hands. But I had not reached it yet, I was still vulnerable. Too vulnerable. Keep calm, deep breaths. I was shaking, the nerves in my muscles buzzing into my mind. Get the camera, it’d clear things up for me. I began to pick up on something else as well. The typical rot of the asylum, of old bodies left to decompose into the carpet and wood, which was constant in the back of my mind. But I was sure I smelt the patients. Don’t think I’m being weird, you can go fuck yourself – but, it was that musty smell they had. The baked on sweat, filthy clothing and the disregard for hygiene they shared, with this place going to hell. It was the smell of something alive, and it was getting stronger. I put my hands on the pale light of the desk, where the NV poured out of the visor. I couldn’t quiet my breathing, I had to get the camera and turn it, locate what it was in the dark. My hands quaked on the cool wood, and I shuffled around to the backside and set my hands over my camera. It was like reuniting with an old friend that I thought was lost forever. Such a strong feeling for an inanimate object, but it still brought tears to my eyes. I gently picked it up and fitted my ruined finger under the strap, then fixed the visor; it had been jarred before it dropped through the floor. Slowly, I brought it to my eyes, reveling in the familiarity of seeing the distorted green hue of my surroundings. The buzzing in my head was thunderous now, and I slowly turned from a solid wall on my right, to the large room revealed through the visor.

#miles upshure #outlast #outlast fanfiction #outlast novelized

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hotchupacabrasinmyarea · 4 years

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@dcilayton said: GAME OVER

“I took a look around your head. And I discovered something.”

Date sits opposite Boss in the dimly lit interrogation room. The room has always had a cold and impersonal feel, hastily placed because, well, ABIS was part of the police after all. But when they were six stories below ground? It just made the cramped feeling that much worse. Though Date had never been interrogated here, it felt...suffocating. Like there was nowhere to run. And nowhere to hide.

But there never was anywhere to hide when it came to ABIS, was there? No one was exempt. Not even the person sitting so casually across from him, a somewhat amused look on her face.

Yes, the person calling herself “Boss.”

“Something about the New Cyclops Serial Killings...” Date continues, gauging her reaction, but all she does is casually run a hand through her hair, not saying a word. “Apart from Ota, there are four victims. Shoko Nadami... Renju Okiura... Iris Sagan... And So Sejima. Who was responsible for these murders?”

Though it’s a rhetorical question, “Boss” still says nothing. She simply flexes her hand and continues giving him that cold, unfeeling gaze. So Date continues.

“Shoko was stabbed by Renju with an ice pick. Renju was strangled to death by Iris. So cut open Iris’s body. But who shot So?”

Still nothing.

“It was you. In other words, all of these murders were committed by different people. There wasn’t just one killer. That’s how it looks on the surface, anyway. But...”

“...”

“That’s not the truth, is it? There’s only one culprit. One person. And that person is...” Date pauses for a moment, but “Boss” continues giving him the silent treatment. “You. Yes, you. The person in front of me right now.”

“You’re blaming the commander of ABIS for this?” she asks, and it’s unsettling how similar she sounds to Boss. It’s enough to get Date to lose his cool momentarily.

“No, not Boss!” Date nearly yells. At least she was talking again, but he wasn’t going to play along. Not even for a moment. “The person inside Boss’s head!”

That gets a reaction out of her. She throws her head back, rolling her neck before sitting very still in her seat.

“Can you at least try to make sense?” she demands.

“All right, I’ll explain,” Date says, at least not letting hearing Boss’s voice throw him off this time. “You know about the abandoned chemical plant in Kabasaki? There’s a prototype Psync machine there. You used that device to swap around bodies, one by one.”

“In other words, the entire ‘egg’ ends up being replaced.” a voice echoes in his mind. “Mind, consciousness, memory... They are traded. Switched.”

...

“I don’t know where it started,” Date says, pushing aside that voice for the moment. “But at some point you got into Shoko’s brain. Then, you got into Renju’s. And got rid of Shoko’s body. After Renju was Iris. You strangled Renju using Iris. After that, into So... Who you used to kill Iris and Ota at the cold storage warehouse. ...”

Aiba is silent in his mind as the memory of that video--of “Boss” shooting So Sejima in the head--plays in his mind. Just the thought of it is enough to make him feel sick to his stomach. That someone would use her like that...

“Now, you’re in Boss’s body,” Date manages to continue. “Inside her head.”

“...”

Finally, “Boss” responds. She uncrosses her legs, leaning back further in her chair as she breaks the silence.

“I see. If you know that much, then I have nothing left to hide.” She sits up straight again, and gives him a smile that just doesn’t look quite right on Boss’s face. “Yes, I am the culprit behind the New Cyclops Serial Killings. I guess you can call me the New Cyclops Killer.”

Date feels his gut clench. It was one thing to accuse her, but to have her sitting across from him--in Boss’s body--one of his best friends for the past six years... He hates that he’s given the confession that confirms his suspicions. Her eyes are clouded and dark, but still she gives him that smile...

He supposes it’s time to begin the interrogation.

“Who the hell are you?” he asks.

“Saito. Saito Sejima,” says the person in Boss’s body. “Congressman Sejima’s son.”

“What?” Date gasps. He’d heard the name, but--

“I researched Saito thoroughly. But I cannot find any images of him on the internet,” Aiba says in his mind. “He is listed on the family register, but I cannot find any photographs.”

Date grimaces. Sejima certainly was a piece of work, but what the hell could have happened between him and his son to make things get this far? That question would have to wait, though. He had something else on his mind.

“Who was inside Iris during the interrogation Sunday?” he asks.

“That was me,” Saito says, a smirk on his face. He sounds so confident...self-assured. It makes Date’s skin crawl.

“You imitate her well,” Date says quietly. “From the way you talked and your body language, it was like the real Iris. Earlier too, you almost had me fooled. Your imitation of Boss was...perfect.”

“Yes, there’s a reason for that. Let me define some terms first,” Saito says casually, almost...proud? “A person’s memory and sense of self. Let’s call that ‘personality.’ It isn’t quite the right word, but...it’ll suffice. Now, transferring that personality into someone else’s brain... Let’s call that ‘parasitism.’ The one transferring is the parasite, the one being transferred into is the host. Are you with me so far?”

Date doesn’t say anything, but it sounds...familiar. The egg metaphor...It’s practically the same thing.

“Moving on... Even after the personality exchange is complete, the host’s memory isn’t completely lost. About one percent remains in the brain. So a parasite could use that one percent to imitate the language and behavior of the host. That’s how I knew about the warehouse and Sunfish Pocket, by the way. Thanks to Renju and Iris’s remaining memories.”

The whole thing...still... Date frowns, and gives Saito a piercing look. Just for absolute clarification--

“Who was inside Iris during the interrogation Sunday?”

Suddenly, Saito leans across the table, looking much less composed than before, his face now very close to Date’s.

“I’m telling you, it was me. Why are you making me repeat myself?”

“That means the Somnium I entered on Sunday...” Date says.

“That’s right,” Saito smirks. “It was me.”

How...? How does he know about the Original Cyclops Killer? And something else was troubling him...

His own image, reflected in the shattered mirror. Blood splattered across his face, grinning maniacally as he stabbed the victim over and over again at the end of that Somnium.

...

“...”

What’s going on here...? he thinks, and he knows Aiba is remembering the scene as well.

“Give me the details of each crime,” Date says.

“Before I do, there’s something I want to hear from you. How did you know about the prototype Psync machine? And not only that... You also seemed to know what the Psync machine is truly capable of. Why is that?” Saito asks.

“That’s...”

“...”

Date...doesn’t have an answer. Why did he know that?

“Regaining your memories, are you?”

“...”

Was he? Before he can dwell on it much further, Saito continues.

“Human memory is fractal. If you retain even a single piece of it, it’s possible to recreate the whole thing. Pieces of memories are like roots that grow into every corner of the brain. Gradually, slowly, taking its time...” Saito gives him a very pointed look, and Date tries very hard to not be visibly affected. “I imagine the same thing is happening in your brain right now...”

“...”

“A fractal is a figure with self-similarity,” Aiba says in his head. “Allow me to explain. See this?”

Aiba shows him images of the Koch Curve and Sierpinski Triangle.

“Whichever fragment you cut, you will see a similar shape. The whole is made up of its similar parts. This is called a ‘fractal figure,’” Aiba continues. “Memories in the brain are similar. That is what he is explaining. He is claiming that from a few pieces, you can rebuild the memory.”

I learned about the prototype from regaining my memory... Is that...right? No...that’s not it...

“Parallel worlds exist!” a new voice echoes through his mind.

“Continue,” Date says, trying to set aside the uneasy feeling he has.

“Fine. I still have time,” Saito says nonchalantly.

“Time?” Date asks.

“You’ll see.”

“...”

“So, where do you want me to start?”

It’s just past midnight on Tuesday. Shoko was killed on Friday... If we think about that as “Day 1,” today is “Day 5.” What was Saito doing those days?

Date decides he might as well ask.

“What were you doing Friday?”

“Like you guessed, my personality was in Shoko, Renju’s ex-wife. That made calling Renju easy. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’” It’s unsettling how similar Saito sounds to Shoko, but he’s still talking, so Date can’t think on it for long. “He came over without question. I think it was around 4:00pm? I had him meet me at the chemical plant. I made Renju go to sleep... Psynced, switched personalities... And then stabbed Shoko’s discarded body with an ice pick.”

“...”

“I took Shoko to Bloom Park by car,” Saito continues, “Using the old, abandoned subway line. Must have been around 8:00pm by the time I was finished. I tied up Shoko to one of the merry-go-round horses. After that, I used Renju’s phone to send a NILE message to Mizuki.”

Date remembers the message.

“Mizuki, Daddy got caught up in something serious.”

It was enough to spur Mizuki into action, drawing her exactly where Saito wanted her.

“Then, I just waited for Mizuki to arrive.”

Date knows the rest. Mizuki asked Ota to go with her to Bloom Park, and found her mother’s body with her left eye removed an ice pick lodged there instead. She pulled the ice pick out...saw a mysterious figure...which was apparently Saito...and remained in the central column of the merry-go-round until Date found her the next morning.

“...What about Saturday?” he asks.

“Until Saturday evening, my personality was inside Renju. My next target was Iris. I knew she would be suspicious if I asked her to come to Kabasaki, so I asked her to come to Sunfish Pocket first. I called her a liiittle before 5:00pm and she arrived just after 6:00,” Saito says. “I greeted her, then convinced her to come with me.”

It certainly lines up with Ota and “Iris”’s accounts...

“That’s when Ota saw us,” Saito says, and he sounds...oddly angry? “Anyway, I put her in the car, then headed to the chemical plant. On the way, I made her take a sleeping pill. I knew she might run once she saw where we were going. It was around 7:00pm when I got there, and I wasted no time switching bodies. After getting Iris’s body, I used a rolled-up apron to strangle Renju to death. Then I put his body in an empty oil drum I had prepared earlier. I put that in the trunk of the car, then headed to Sunfish Pocket. But then, something I didn’t anticipate happened...”

...Date knows where this is going, but this time he remains silent. He’ll let Saito continue talking, just to make sure he fully understands everything by the end...

“Waiting for the signal in Akiba, someone knocked on the window of the car. It was Ota. He asked me something about being able to drive. He was surprised, to say the least. I didn’t have time to waste on him,” Saito says, sounding once again angrier than before. “But...I couldn’t risk him finding the oil drum in the trunk. Plus, if word got around that Renju’s car was spotted driving around Akiba... That would foil my plans. So I came up with a lie. I told him that I didn’t have a license, so he had to keep it a secret.”

Things are certainly becoming clearer, as Saito confirms something else for him.

“That’s what ‘that thing’ referred to in Ota’s NILE messages, by the way.”

Date knows he shouldn’t be angry--but he is. If Ota had just told him-- If he hadn’t been so damn insistent on protecting Iris--neither of them would be dead right now. ...Well...maybe it wouldn’t have saved Iris. But at the very least...Ota would be alive. And Mayumi...Mayumi wouldn’t be...

“And just like that, I managed to escape a bad situation and headed to Sunfish Pocket as planned,” Saito continues, either not noticing or caring about the pained expression on Date’s face. “The rest went exactly as you already figured out.”

Unbidden, Date remembers the state of Renju’s body when they found it. Hanging from the ceiling, a hook embedded in his upper jaw. He’s never been so angry to be right before. That Iris...or rather, Saito...did it. He swallows hard, and he can almost hear Aiba keeping quiet in his mind, though she wants to say something.

“And Sunday?” he manages to ask.

“Sunday morning, I had a recording or some such thing scheduled. Oh, I am of course referring to ‘Iris.’ I didn’t want to draw suspicion, so I decided to attend, as planned. I went to Lemniscate and performed my job.” Saito rolls his eyes before continuing. “And when I left, I ran into you, Date. To be honest, I was a little surprised. Just the previous night, I was a parasite in the body of Renju. I didn’t think Ota had seen me. So of course I didn’t expect to see you there so soon.”

Saito shrugs, even as Date remembers his encounter with Iris that day. She had seemed surprised by seeing him, hadn’t she? ...If only he’d known sooner...

“You were onto me, but there was nothing I could do about that. If I ran, it would only increase your suspicion. So I decided to play my role. The interrogation began around 8:20pm, is that right?” Saito asks, which Date already knows is true. He remembers Aiba being suspicious of “Iris” because of how precise her times were...but it seems that was something Saito had a talent for. “Then, you Psynced into my mind...”

Date recalls the Psync all too well. Witnessing the Original Cyclops Serial Killings...which also brings him back to what was bothering him before about those scenes. Aiba says nothing, even as he once again recalls his face in the shattered mirror.

“But you didn’t get what you were looking for, did you? As a result, you had no choice but to release me. I didn’t want to go home right way. I knew there might be police waiting for me. That would make it difficult to sneak out at night. And that would put my plan in jeopardy. So I asked you to take me to Marble. I tried to find an opportunity to run... But then, another unexpected event occurred.”

Date thinks he knows where this is going, but yet again...the frustration he feels towards Ota is building. He wishes he could just yell at him--tell him that if he just trusted Date for once, he wouldn’t be...dead.

“I got a NILE message from Ota,” Saito says. “I knew I could use him. So I told him I needed his help and to meet me at Marble. He did as I instructed him to do.”

Yeah, fucking tasering me, Date thinks bitterly. Dammit!

“After that, I got into the van with Ota,” Saito continues. “But because his presence was unnecessary, I asked him to stop at a convenience store to buy me something to drink. When he was gone, I took his car and drove to my parents’ house, where I used to live. Yes, the Sejima residence.”

It certainly explained how So Sejima got involved in all of this.

“Hm, of course, I knew I couldn’t just walk up and ring the doorbell.” Saito once again leans across the table, a mocking smile on his face. “‘Hello, Father. It’s been a long time!’ I was also in Iris’s body at the time. But I thought I could use that to my advantage.”

Saito leans back in his seat again, and Date can’t help but wonder what the hell he means by that. What possible connection could Sejima have to Iris? Apparently, though, it was enough.

“So I pushed on the intercom and sure enough, my dad invited me inside. I told him this: ‘I want you to come with me. There’s something I need to show you.’ He was quiet for a while, but eventually agreed and got into the van with me,” Saito says, which still leaves Date wondering why the hell Sejima would even agree to see Iris. “We arrived at the prototype Psync machine around 11:50pm. By the time I was in the body of So Sejima, it was a new day.”

A new day, huh...but still...

“Continue,” Date says.

“This was yesterday. Early Monday morning. Past midnight. In my new body, I drugged Iris, put her in the van, and drove to a new location. Okiura Fishery Cold Storage Warehouse. I arrived around 1:00, then prepared for the show for a couple hours. Of course, when I say ‘show,’ I mean dismembering Iris.”

Yes, Date knew. It disgusts him, how calmly Saito can talk about that...but he’s still talking, so Date lets him continue.

“Because of the temperature in the warehouse, it took longer than I expected to prepare, but... Well, you saw it in the video,” Saito says with a smirk. “Of course, I didn’t anticipate Ota would show up. What does that make it? Three times that brat has shown up unexpectedly? That annoyed me to no end, and I took that out on him. Dressing him up in the polar bear was an impromptu plan on my part. I didn’t mean to make you think he was the killer. I just wanted to throw a wrench in the investigation. Didn’t matter if you found out or not. This all happened Monday morning. I left the warehouse around 3:30am.”

“And what about the rest of Monday?”

“There isn’t much to talk about on Monday. Before noon, I used my old man’s body to call this one. Boss. You might not know this, but she and my father go back about six years. The two shared a terrible secret. Hinting at that was enough to get the Boss to come running to me immediately.”

The fact that Boss and Sejima shared a secret so “terrible” that Boss would drop everything she was doing to deal with him... It wasn’t comforting. And neither was the fact it was six years ago.

“I injected her with a sedative... Then brought her body to the chemical plant. I Psynced with her, exchanged our bodies... And after blowing my father’s brains out, I cut his body into pieces. I stuffed the meat into a vase I had brought earlier, then drove back to my house.”

For Saito to just...so casually speak of killing and dismembering his own father... Date’s not sure how much more of this he can take. But he has to hear the whole story. He has to understand.

Saito spoke with grace and no sign of remorse. Date was trying to keep his anger from boiling over and kept asking him questions.

“Why did you take out your victims’ eyes?” Date asks.

“You know all about the prototype Psync machine, don’t you? That should explain it.”

He knew. The prototype Psync machine differed from the one at ABIS in a few key ways. The machine at ABIS is more sophisticated. Nanocables from the Psync gear enter through the gap between the eyeball and socket. They then travel down the optic nerve canal to the brain. But the prototype Psync machine isn’t so advanced. To perform a Psync... You need to remove the left eye. Manually.

The subject and the Psyncer have to remove their eye from the socket. Otherwise the cables cannot enter the brain. Of course, even with the eye removed, severing the connection to the brain isn’t necessary. The extracted eyeball still has the optic nerve and blood vessels connected. After a Psync, the eye is supposed to be replaced back in the socket. It’s supposed to be safe. Side effects are rare. Unless the nerve or blood vessels are damaged somehow, replacing the eyeball isn’t too difficult.

“Of course, I don’t really care about eyes. I don’t need them. All I cared about was exchanging bodies with the Psync. And for that, I needed to remove the left eye,” Saito says.

“Why didn’t you just put the eyes back when you were done?” Date asks.

“That’s obvious. Once I was finished transferring into a new body, the old one was of no concern to me. Why would I bother replacing the eye? I was just going to get rid of it anyway.”

Date gets the feeling he’s going to regret this next question.

“Where are the eyeballs that you removed?”

Saito throws his head back again briefly at the moment before looking back at Date.

“Shoko’s is in Renju. Renju’s is in Iris. Iris’s is in Dad. Dad’s is in Boss.” Saito pauses briefly. “Their stomachs, I mean.”

“You sick bastard...” Date whispers.

Saito doesn’t seem to care about the insult, but he leans across the table again.

“Yes, I ate them. Immediately after exchanging personalities.”

“How horrible...” Aiba says as Saito leans back again.

Date agrees, but he can’t do anything...yet. So all he can do is keep asking questions.

“Why didn’t the Psync victims resist after waking?” Date asks.

“Ah, the prototype Psync machine has a special feature. It administers a strong dose of sedatives to the original body and a stimulant to the host after a Psync. That kept them docile,” Saito explains.

“Why did you display the bodies the way you did?”

Saito leans forward, getting uncomfortably close.

“To harass you,” he says, an unnerving look on his face. “I wanted to bring out the hatred in you. That’s why I called Mizuki to Bloom Park. That’s why I streamed Iris’s murder. Because they were important to you, weren’t they? I wanted you to feel cornered. Trapped. I wanted to punish you, Kaname Date.”

Saito sits back in his chair once more, and though Date is truly pissed as all hell, he has one more question.

“What’s your motive?”

“Homicide is my hobby,” Saito says simply. “I have a tenacity for it, what can I say? Of course, it was also necessary to make sure people kept their mouths shut. If I took over someone’s body, they would know about my crimes. I couldn’t risk them reporting me, so I killed them.”

“...”

“It was also a matter of revenge. Against you. It’s personal. That’s why I chose people close to you as targets. Well, except for my father, of course. That was personal to me. But don’t ask. It’s embarrassing,” Saito says with a smirk.

“Revenge against me?” Date asks, absolutely bewildered. He, as far as he can recall (which admittedly isn’t very far), has never met Saito once before these events. He can’t fathom what the hell he could’ve done to make a man who claims “homicide” to be a hobby hate him this much.

“This series of murders was like a journey for me, you know? Traveling through bodies to finally reach the end. That’s the thing about traveling. You always wind up in the same place, don’t you? Where do you think that is?”

“...”

“Your home.” Saito gives Date an unsettling smile. “A trip is only complete once you return home. The same goes for me. When I return home, my travels will come to an end.”

“...”

“So I’ll be needing it back. My body.”

“What?”

“You stole my body!” Saito hisses. “You took it from me six years ago! That’s why I want revenge!”

“What are you talking about...?” Date asks. It still--it can’t--it doesn’t make sense.

“You have no idea what it was like inside my own head! I miss it... I miss my brain, Date!” Saito is beginning to sound extremely agitated. “No matter how many people I killed, it never worked! I never felt happy! I feel miserable!”

“You... You mean...?” It’s unimaginable. It can’t be true. He’s not...

“He was born with a brain dysfunction. Due to damage to the posterior pituitary gland, he was unable to properly secrete oxytocin,” Pewter’s explanation surfaces in his mind.

“Oh, that’s right... My old body. How are you finding it, Date?”

...Aiba was remaining peculiarly silent.

“This body is yours?” Date asks.

“THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN TELLING YOU!” Saito screams.

“But I don’t have the same oxytocin deficiency you did...” Date protests.

“That is because I regularly supplement it,” Aiba says hesitantly.

Things begin to click into place. Offhanded comments of hers.

“They must have increased your dosage too much...”

No, but... The person who had this disorder was #89, the Original Cyclops Killer, Date thinks.

“That is what I believed as well,” Aiba says. “But we must have misunderstood. Pewter did not specify who exactly was imprisoned. Only that one of the original culprits responsible was currently in prison.”

That’s strange... That would mean...#89 is the previous chairman, Rohan.

“That must be it. Rohan is a parasite inside #89′s brain. Pewter must have known that.”

No way...

He’s confused... He doesn’t understand any of it.

“Let us determine the specifics using Saito as our starting point. Whose brain was he in before Boss?” Aiba says.

So Sejima.

“And before So?”

Iris. And before that, Renju. And before that, Shoko.

“And before Shoko...?”

That’s an answer Date’s not sure he has... He looks to Saito.

“Whose body were you in before Shoko?”

“I was a parasite inside Rohan’s brain six years ago until last year. I’d lost most of my memories. I was a shell of a man. They housed me in a special hospital. But I still had those fragments of my mind left... Just as I explained earlier. From a single piece, you can recreate the whole. I took my time, slowly regaining my memories... One year ago, I remembered everything. I left the hospital and immediately sought out Shoko Nadami. I got her body. And she was in Rohan’s. When she saw herself in the mirror, she lost her mind.” Saito sounds...amused. “She was confused, panicking, running up the emergency staircase, and then...”

Date knows the rest.

“That’s why Rohan committed suicide...” Aiba says softly.

“After that, I spent a year perfecting my plan. Using Shoko’s body. I spied on you all this time. That’s why I know everything about you.”

“Who were you before Rohan?” Date asks, expecting, but not hoping for the answer.

“In there...” Saito says, looking at him with utter loathing. “In that body you are operating right now. In that skull... My personality...lived there.”

“Wait, hold on...” This is still leaving a burning question, and he needs it to be addressed. “If what you’re saying is true, what about my personality?”

“It was in Rohan,” Aiba answers.

I’m not Rohan! Date insists.

“Correct,” Aiba agrees. “It is just as he explained earlier. #89 was in Rohan’s body. In other words...”

That’s... My real...

Memories come flooding back. An unarmed suspect, down at the harbor--gloating about his next victims. Date losing his composure and shooting him...repeatedly. Being abducted by the yakuza. Blackmailed into working for them. A police officer by day and assassin by night. A near fatal injury, and meeting her.

“Keep talking,” Date demands.

“Sorry, but time’s up,” Saito says. “I want my body back. It’s quite simple. Psync with me, and stay inside my mind for more than six minutes.”

“And if I refuse?” Date asks. Because there’s no way he’s just giving in like that. He’s...he can’t.

Saito laughs, and Date feels an uneasy feeling crawl over him.

“I know that you won’t. I know it.”

“Huh?”

They’re interrupted as the interrogation room door swings open. Pewter rushes in, a frantic look on his face as he all but slams a laptop onto the table.

“Date, look! This is streaming live!”

The laptop shows his worst nightmare. The uneasiness from before becomes dread, cold and heavy. He thinks his heart stops beating momentarily.

Being a police officer was a dangerous occupation, which is why he truly did everything in his power to keep himself safe. Sometimes he was a little bit stupid. And sometimes Aiba had to save him. But it was all to keep her safe. He was the only stability she had. And now, after Renju and Shoko were gone, Date was all she had left.

Fear paralyzes him as he looks at the livestreamed image of Mizuki tied to a chair, with explosives surrounding her.

No!

“Damn you!”

“If you give me back my body, I will give you the location.” Saito laughs before adding, “Oh, and of course, it isn’t the chemical plant in the Kabasaki District.”

Aiba, where’s the source? Date asks frantically.

“It is being routed through numerous IPs! I cannot identify the source!”

“Pewter, contact headquarters, now!”

“Got it!” Pewter says, and immediately runs back out of the interrogation room, leaving Date and Saito alone yet again.

“Now...what will you do?” Saito asks. “Will you agree to my request?”

Date wants to say no. He wants to--so badly. He can’t just give Saito his body back--! If it were anyone, anyone at all aside from Mizuki...maybe Date would consider it. But he can’t. She’s his family. The only family he ever had. And she was waiting on him to save her. He... Mizuki...

“I’ll do it,” he says solemnly.

“Date!” Aiba protests.

“See?” Saito says. “I knew you wouldn’t refuse. I know you well, don’t I, Date?”

He thinks about every moment he’s spent with her. Getting her to open up after Renju and Shoko’s divorce. Taking her to school. Attending her events. Making her all of her favorite dishes. He can’t...he can’t lose that.

Saito’s right...Date can’t refuse.

The two go back to the Psync room, Date anxiously keeping an eye on the laptop streaming Mizuki. He thinks maybe--just maybe--if there was a clue of some kind-- But the room she’s in is dark. Nothing is visible aside from her, the chair she’s sitting on, and her certain death.

The Psync feels like it takes a painfully long time. Six minutes in Somnium usually feels like too little time. But now, with Mizuki’s life on the line...Date wants it over with as soon as possible.

He wakes up in Boss’s body, and stumbles out of the Psync chair even as Saito laughs triumphantly.

“I did it! I did it! I’m back! I got it all back!”

It’s so unsettling to hear his own voice--to see his own face acting so unfamiliarly. But they’re not really his, now are they? That was something he could worry about later. Now, he needed to know where the hell Mizuki was.

He’s in so much pain, and he puts a hand to his shoulder. How the hell had Saito used this body with such ease after the explosion?

“Hey, where’s Mizuki?!” Date demands.

Saito pauses, turning slowly to face him.

“All right, I’ll tell you as promised. Boss’s house.” Saito smiles, and Date hates seeing that look on his own face. “However, it might be too late by now...”

“What?!” Date blinks in confusion and panic, turning his attention to the laptop still on the floor of the Psync room.

On the screen, he sees Mizuki, tears in her eyes. She’s looking at the camera, and she whispers two words. Date, help.

And then the footage cuts out as an explosion blooms forth, taking his only family with it.

“Why... Why?!”

“Return my body and I’ll tell you the location. That’s what I said. I didn’t lie. I kept my promise,” Saito smirks.

“You bastard!” Date growls, and is about to kill Saito with his bare hands if necessary, but instead he falls painfully to the floor. The injuries Boss’s body had sustained in the explosion earlier were too much.

“You’re the one who injured that body,” Saito laughs. “It’s your own fault, really.”

“Damn it!” Date whispers.

Saito turns his back and raises one hand in farewell.

“Be seeing you.”

After everything...everything...how could Date lose everyone he loved in the course of less than a week? How? He can do nothing as Saito leaves, he’s not strong enough to even get off the floor. He looks back at the laptop, which showed him Mizuki’s last moments, and he knows...if she’d never gotten involved with him, she’d still be alive.

His eyesight is hazy, a heap of broken images. Sweat building on his palms. It feels like his throat is closing up, and he was struggling for breath. In his ears, the rushing blood of his heartbeat is the only sound.

Everyone’s dead.

Shoko, Renju, Iris, Ota, Mizuki... Boss. The flesh remains, the mind is lost.

I couldn’t do anything... Saito had me right where he wanted me... Nothing... Nothing...

Saito was right. It really was his fault.

BAD END. GAME OVER.

#dcilayton #ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍs ᴀʀᴇ ɴᴏᴛ ʙᴏᴜɴᴅ ʙʏ ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ [MEMES]#ᴀ ʙʀɪʟʟɪᴀɴᴛ ɢʟɪᴍᴍᴇʀɪɴɢ ғʀᴀɢᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ [DRABBLE]#aitsf spoilers #somnium files spoilers #in this house we replay the ending just bc we want to get dialogue and details right #help #do you want to read all of the annihilation ending but with a sexy twist?#'define sexy' i'm crying fam #the first...idk 4000 words of this are just canon dialogue and me adding other stuff.#so...tents hands #this is rlly the last part of annihilation route transcribed and then i changed the actual ending and y'know what!#bc of the way that route ends i unfortunately needed all of this explanation #so basically this spoils basically the whole ass game do not read it if you don't want spoilers--

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goddamnitdazai · 5 years

Text

intersect. || TachiChuu

Rarepair week Day 3 - Carrying Home || Contains Manga Spoilers || canon typical violence || Death is a texture. Thick like sludge that clings to everything. Death is a consistency of cold, eerie thoughts that rupture in the forefront of a mind succumbing to pain. To sickness. Death is both stagnate and ever changing. It contorts itself in to the life of others who witness it while simultaneously diminishing the light of a soul once burning as forceful as the sun. Death is prudent and strong--but there are cracks and flaws. Immeasurable circumstances that can change with one movement, one different action where death is pushed off for a time being. Chuuya, for most of his life, has been the unstoppable force. Or at least has tried.

In the last year the movements he’d constructed within seconds have strung death up by its heels. It had been coming after those he cared for time and time again and it had the young man grinding his teeth in the throws of war. Endless, it seemed. The madness of it all drew heavy ink-hued bags beneath once bright azure and where he once saw home now laid a reminder of all those he lost. Five towers knocked down to three. Smoke and ash curling among ruins. Memories wrapped in crumpled steel and concrete.

The Port Mafia and Yokohama were running short on time. People fled, as they did during the last great war, and people remained to fight off the ones who turned their city into a battle zone. Neighboring gangs teaming up under the leadership of one powerful, and rather obnoxious as Chuuya saw him, man with dark eyes and and even darker soul. There were days Chuuya did not rest more than an hour or two before being called on to team up with the city’s strongest ability users currently able to withstand the siege. The hunting dogs. Among their ranks, a man formerly part of what he considered his family and a man he respected, though their interaction remained in situational delegations. Now and again Chuuya had gone on shorter missions accompanied by Tachihara before he betrayed the Port Mafia. He was good with a gun, and Chuuya was good with his legs. Missions that required reconnaissance as much as brute power were done well by the two of them. At first the subordinate seemed nervous around Chuuya and he was unsure if it was his demeanor or his position. Both, Chuuya had assumed but with the events that had unfolded months ago it was heard to decipher what was true. At least that is what Chuuya told himself. Truthfully, he knew the kid wasn’t that great of an actor nor was he that cold. There was sincerity in who Tachihara was while hidden in the Black Lizard. He supposes it doesn’t matter at this point. Tachihara was doing his job to protect the city, and for the time being Chuuya could forget his transgressions for the sake of Yokohama. Hirtosu and Gin were breathing, and truth be told Chuuya related to both the feeling of betrayal and betraying what he could consider...family. A literal knife in Chuuya’s back based on fear and manipulation. Mirrored actions. Parallel paths intersecting on a different timeline. Chuuya huffs at the thought. Understanding Tachihara’s reasoning didn’t excuse his actions, but it made it more difficult at times to hold blame. Chuuya was angry; but could he be? A bullet whizzes past his head directing his attention to the forefront. He smirks. Twisting the bullet back to its original owner with a soft hum. Concrete falling to dust beneath this weighted footsteps red aura glowing through his body. Scent of blood thick in the air, but he’d been around it so long it’d become a familiar perfume. Gunshots ring out. His smirk rises knees bending to shoot him up on top of a pile of bricks next to a decaying parking garage. Bits of what used to be a bookstore and second floor coffee shop leaning down from bombs blowing out the walls. Glass shards rise up coated in fluid garnit piercing the air with a quick whistle that silences the gunfire. He was looking for the leader’s supply route, and from the look of all the semi trucks he’d found it. A second explosion rattles Chuuya’s skeleton before he jumps from rock to rock brought up by the gravitational pull at his fingertips. Avoiding the attempted assassination and only feeling faint warmth from the glowing fire until it buries itself in grey smoke. Chuuya smirks and waits for the second round of gunfire. Heart pumping blood quickly through his veins as bullets surround him, middle finger out and directing the now-ruby glowing bullets in a swirl just to send them right back. In his peripheral he notices metal beams moving quickly past the semi trucks that had been idling suspiciously quiet. Where were the drivers? Apparently, not the men he just killed with their own bullets. He could really use a fucking cigarette right now.

More metal rattles from a pile of wreckage flinging bits into dust covered shadows. Chuuya side steps one with a grunt hands shoved deep in his pockets as he walks towards the four trucks lined in a row trying to place what used to be here. He didn’t spend much time on this side of town unless he was driving by on his bike. A car dealership? Something useless to him. His eyes bounce around the environment taking in each strip of detail, where every particle of dust falls, and the faint sound of labored breathing. Chuuya stops mid-step peering down beneath his foot. Thick crimson pooling near a pile of sharpened metal fragments dug deep into a man’s body. Hunter green and pale blue--the color scheme was tacky and easy to spot. The enemy, despite their destruction, weren’t exactly in the business of protecting their own. Chuuya steps on the man’s chest ending it quickly. Traitor couldn’t even end a life before he moved on to the next, he thinks, jaw locking as he continues forward dust caking his shoe in mottled grey and brown. Mangled framework of a half-finished building peeks through the billowing smoke and dust. Night sky keeping a majority of the street clouded in deep navy, but the dark was nothing out of the ordinary for Chuuya. This much destruction in one swoop was something of a rare occasion and it left a sour taste in his mouth. He shakes the memory from his head; later. When he was alone with a bottle of wine and the job was completed. He could unravel for a moment before picking himself up again. His posture straightens as he kicks a boulder in to a hidden guard aiming for his head. “Oi, you fuckers going to play hide and seek all night or are we going to have a real fight?” He calls into the darkness, smirk rising higher than the sliver of moonlight above. More gunfire, scattered. Thin pops of gold against murky black encapsulating the broken down building making it easier for them to hide. Chuuya didn’t care. He was used to fighting in the dark. He follows the sound, humming. Bullets bouncing off him, cement cracking beneath his feet into a dozen sharp comets careening forward. Blood splatters. Metal shakes. A curled beam split in thin strips begins to vibrate at his ankle and shoots forward completing the end of a few stragglers his rocks didn’t take out completely. At least Tachihara was doing his fucking job. Chuuya ducks beneath one of the tilted beams leaning against a half-crumpled wall of bricks like the entrance to a tent. Smoke thick enough to make him pull his forearm up to block it from entering his lungs. Quietly he steps over rubble and glass shards, bullet casings rolling into the obscurity around him sound echoing louder the deeper he walks. Strips of moonlight casting white over bruised and battered bodies atop a pool of crimson painting the floor. Metal shards sticking out of a few further in. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up--something hits the floor near him hidden in the shadow barely caught by his quick-shifting gaze. Three seconds more and Chuuya would have kicked a crater in Tachihara’s head. “Oi, warn me next time you’re going to sneak up on me!” He grates out, pivoting with his hands shoved back down in his pockets. Blue eyes growing wide at the sight of his former subordinate. Tachihara looked a bit buffer, maybe from training again with the hunting dogs, maybe Chuuya never really paid attention. Blood had begun to streak down his side soaking the white t-shirt and familiar jacket. Strange how he’d changed from his outfit. Confuse the enemy, keep his secret identity hidden from foreign organizations..it didn’t matter. Chuuya’s jaw locks as he kneels down on the balls of his feet to asses. “You okay?” He asks voice a touch softer than before. Tachihara looks up at him blood caked on the right side of his head cascading down in thick dribbles over his cheek and chin. Shoulder speckled with the same deep red. “Yeah boss, asshole clipped my side and I fell.” He half-smiles and tries to push himself up to his knees only to fall again hand barely catching his weight. Chuuya’s brow arches. Boss? “Is Hirotsu okay?” Tachihara asks through gritted teeth. “Old man hasn’t been here all night. Shouldn’t he be helping or is it his bed time?” Despite the apparent pain Tachihara’s voice remains teasing, the way Chuuya remembered. Gruff, deep, a street tone Chuuya recognized in himself but airy in a way when he was around those he trusted. “Hirotsu…” shit, his head. Chuuya stares at him for a few moments running through different scenarios that could play out. Mori would want the information, but if he didn’t remember he was fucking useless as a captive. He wouldn’t even know he was captive. Chuuya rubs his palm down his face. “He’s fine. Hanging back letting us young ones do all the fuckin’ work.” Chuuya couldn’t let him die. For a myriad of reasons that would send the mafia in hot water, and..he couldn’t let him fucking die. Traitor or not. Traitor. That fucking word made Chuuya’s mouth feel dirty. And yet here they both were, perfectly described with that adjective. The only difference being time. Which meant what? It didn’t lessen the levels, the dishonesty and lies for personal gain. What happened because of his inability to lead. Tachihara showed himself as he was, there was little doubt in Chuuya’s mind the smoke and mirrors were just enough to infiltrate. Personal gain. Only reason to join a brigade like that; he wasn’t a mastermind like Jouno or a diehard believer...--but what drove him? Chuuya swears he feels something press into his back, the scar left long ago. Cold. His spine tingles. Tachihara’s face pales, sweat beginning to bead beneath his forehead and soak the front of his shirt. “C-c-chuuya-san...think..we can save the rest for the old man? Should pull his damn weight yeah?” That fucking half-smile, the one that tries to hide how deep his wounds were. His pain. “I suppose it’s only fair.” Chuuya states, extending his arms to scoop Tachihara up with ease. Kid was light as hell. “Oi, how do you weigh so little with all that muscle?” “I---you’re strong” He half bows to Chuuya in embarrassment, but the angle merely leads to Tachihara bumping the good side of his head against Chuuya’s chin. The older man grunts, eyes focused on what was in front of him. Feet moving fluidly through the wreckage; drop off point. The government had made one and he didn’t really give a fuck about being told to stay off the perimeter. Tachihara slumps against Chuuya’s chest causing Chuuya’s eyes to flit down in a panic that sends his heart to his throat. “Stay awake, Tachihara. It’s an order.” Chuuya commands in a tone the younger should recognize, and the reply of a simple nod is enough. The walk wouldn’t be too long, and from the quiet ahead there wouldn’t be much to stop them. Shadows pave their way winding through buildings and alleys. Yokohama drifting in to the one of the very few tranquil moments. Out of habit Chuuya begins to hum to himself. Filling the silence, and from what a few of them had said long ago… the reminder of someone else being there was comforting when everything else was uncertain and death loomed close. Chuuya tightens his grip on Tachihara, humming a bit louder as night begins to fall away to dawn.

#bsdrarepairweek #bsd rarepairweek #tachichuu #chuuya #tachihara #bsd #my writing #my writing tachichuu #day 3 #sliding in at midnight lmao

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ombreecha · 5 years

Text

The Uchiha's Wife: Palimpsest of Semblance

FF.NET Fandom: Naruto Pairing: SasuSaku Rating: M Summary: This is a collection of content that was intended for The Uchiha's Wife but was either removed, improved, or didn't make the final cut. None of the content here will be in any particular order so it'll be posted with no real rhyme or reason. There will be a mountain of errors, and some twists and turns that originally were meant to occur but didn't. If I can remember what exactly I intended or what the thought was behind it's removal, etc I'll add notes to that. These will also be in varied length since they're sections of content not a full piece.A lot of you seemed interest in my original plans as I wrote this story out and I figure this would be a fun little thing for you guys to see and how much it's changed. None of this work is considered "canon" to the actual The Uchiha's Wife at this stage so everything you see here will probably never be referenced, used, or continued upon.

ORIGINALLY MEANT FOR CHAPTER 14 So originally we got the name of the OC Senju way early. I was originally intending to make this where he got a name, and he had a face to face with Sakura. This was also intended to be her first battle I guess you could say? I also thought to have her cut her long hair but after going back and forth decided not to cut her hair. Far too often I feel we run for the iconic moment in the Forest of Death, and this also didn't work for something I have on hold for way later in the story. While I do a lot of parallels I also try really hard not to do what's expected or obvious, and a lot of my friends such as beatoneheart, closetpoet7, etc. all agreed it was to cliche to go this way. I felt extremely dissatisfied with this outcome and scrapped this entire section. From the hair cut to the proverbial damsel in distress moment it just seemed too ridiculous honestly. Although at the time I was pretty excited about this, and really proud of it I found later when I took a step back this just wasn't the route I wanted to go haha.

This also started what I considered the possessive Sasuke moment I had for a while. I ran into a situation where mentally I had him in two completely different mind sets between chapters and sections considering this takes place after the trip to Konoha. At that time it became increasingly obvious I was writing two completely different Sauces and was another reason I went a head and scrapped this. I needed it to flow evenly and to come from a moment in which he's proud of her and wanting to understand her more to making him freakishly possessive out of left field just couldn't happen because I hadn't developed him in that way nor was it something I wanted. You'll notice it abruptly ends because I literally passed out in the middle of writing it and when I was able to come back I couldn't remember what the hell I was about to do next OTL

I replaced the OC Senju's name with random x's since he hasn't had his name thrown down yet in the main story but once we hit that I'll probably adjust it here.

The medic camp is infected with influenza. The symptoms are obvious—fever, aching bodies, chills, headache, cough, fatigue, congestion, and scratchy throats. The influenza has hit their camp hard, and progressed through all it touches. The season had not been kind with the down pour it had brought. The thunder that had only been but days before brought with it the coldest of rain. The drops soaked through all it touched chilling the air. Her best efforts to keep herself from falling prone to it’s grasp is but that of a cloth mask upon her nose, and mouth. The virus has already made its way into her system though—the rawness of her throat, dull headache, and ache that throbs within her every movement. She’s not as far gone as the injured shinobi who had come for healing after their last battle. The cries of the children as they shook within the blankets, and the choked breaths between coughs remind all around them that they are just that—children. The fingers that grab for those treating them ache and the fever that’s touched them brings tears down their face as the illness runs through their small bodies. The adults who have captured it let the groan fall from their mouths with the headache that pounds within their head. For every mixture of medicine she makes she reminds herself to drink two—she never does as there’s never enough to go around. There’s only the hope that she can pour a little more of her chakra into them after the medics have done their best to mend the physical wounds. Fingers grasp the ladle with care as she continues to stir yet another mixture of medicine.

Shisui had been kept from the camp with his task of continuing to gather the herbs she had listed. It had only taken a description, and what should grow around it. He continued to bring her what she needed. There’s concern for her own health as he too adorns the mask meant to keep the virus at bay. The headache dull within her head increases, and with it she can feel the continued throb within her ears.

Her teacher had made it clear when she had taken in medical ninjutsu—she would be the last to fall. The medic would always been the last to fall. They were meant to keep the front line moving, and they would not stop until treatment was complete. The medics throughout the camp followed her lead. All of them had gotten the virus but even within their ache, and even within their fever they worked to mend the broken bone, they worked to heal over the severed limb, they worked to disinfect the torn skin, and they worked to bring the sick comfort as they drank their medicine. They held the hand of the child that cried out within their fever, and they held the bucket as the adults let the contents of their stomach rise from their throats.

The heat from fire that heats her mixture is soothing and one that she praises mentally among her aches. Her fingers shake, and the stiffness of her neck is increasing. She’s going to lose the ability to turn her head soon—no, it’s best to think of what comes next. She cannot allow herself to think of her own aches, and pain. The shinobi in tent thirteen needed his next dose. These motions are habit she does not need to think into them as she seeks to bring the first dose from this mixture to the one in need. Entering the tent this male greets her with a groan and the mutter of pain.

His hand grasps her own gloved one as he struggles to sit up allowing the blanket to pool upon his lap. Battle had taken this man’s right eye, and broken his arm. His breathing is high within his fever, and the sweat that coats his hair and clothes is in the air. Her fingers press upon his arm and the exchange of the cup is given. She wants to utter encouragement. She wants to tell him his body will fight through the virus, and that it will get better. She cannot find it in her to do it though. He does not need her encouragement right now. He needs rest, and his body would continue to do all it could even within his weakened state.

The shift of the tents flap is barely heard—the pounding of her head within her ears is coming harsher, and more often.

“Shisui?” she’s calling her voice raspy.

The pause of the shinobi in front of her comes and the choke of his air follows—it’s all the warning she needs. Viridian widen, and her heart beats to a new rhythm. None within her care would come to harm—None. Sore muscles send spasms of pain as she grips the hand far closer than she had realized. There is nothing gentle about the way she twists their arm slamming their body upon the ground making the muddy earth shake and her patient shuffle off the bed in an effort to assist. Viridian glow dangerously as she lets out the sound of distress leave her lips. The pain shoots through her body but she’s far from done. She will protect this shinobi. He had fought hard, and he had sought safety within her—

Blood splatters the ground. Iron in the wind. Heat upon their skin. Sound fails to enter her ears.

There’s the scream she knows is coming from her mouth as she clambers to her feet. Mud cakes her and fingers gloved in dirty pull with far more force than necessary upon the mask to give her better oxygen flow. She’s charging forward with aches and pain abandoned within the destroyed tent dancing within the flames. A lift of her leg and down upon the earth it comes sending it shattering the ground before them.

Soundless. All of these things are soundless.

The high pitched noise that continues within her ear drums is all she can hear as she stumbles out of the way of a fist that had not taken her earth shattering display as a warning.

Senju, and Uzumaki alike are in every direction viridian dare to shift. The medics hardly a threat are being slain as they seek to protect their injured, and the injured are taken by their heads, and those capable fight back. They only needed to put distance between them. They could make a getaway with enough push.

The fist to her nose connects slamming her head back, and twisting her feet—they intend to kill her.

She would no longer be a victim of circumstance. War would not take her from the world of the living. Medics would not be the first to fall.

Her fists are slamming back and her viridian keep themselves upon every twitch of their body as blood spills from her nose. It only seeks to make her far less dainty—it seeks to make her all the more dangerous.

She had told her husband she had put her support in him. She would defend his men. She would defend his men’s children. She would defend them in all in her support. She will keep going, and going to see to their safety.

The crush of her knuckles comes and this enemy shinobi’s jaw cracks with the force. His body scrapes across the muddy crumbled earth skidding into the two who seek to assist in her death. Fingers curl—she will not be taken lightly. They will have to drag her to King Yan’s gates. They will have to make sure she cannot raise her head before the god of the underworld. The forceful whip of her neck sends the surge of pain through her head bringing sound once more to her ears. It’s terror, and it’s chaos. It is war.

The scream that echos in the chaos scratches against her throat as she goes to meet them half way. The fist that connects with her chest is harsh but the fist to their shoulder is even harsher. Viridian do not dare to leave them even within their strikes.

Evasion is top priority for a medic when in combat. The medical ninja should never be hit.

Blood flies from her mouth—sickness has made her sluggish. The second hit to her temple sends her sideways but the glow of her viridian will not be stopped. The Senju and Uzumaki spoke of the terror that came with eyes deep in rich reds. They spoke of the stilled heart beat that came from the eyes her husband wore. They would fear her viridian this time.

Her upon the ground is the leverage she needs to push her legs forward in an attempt to connect. The muscle within the hand that grabs it is enough warning to slam herself upon the ground. She cannot suffer a broken ankle. She cannot suffer damage to this degree. The crush of her body against the earth sends a tremor throughout the battlefield. The desperate air she seeks to taken in burns her lungs as she breaks into a fever from the increased strain on her body.

Rolling within the mud she’s managed to evade the attack meant for her heart. Hands come behind her allowing her to arch upon her back and flip to her feet. The shooting pain throughout her back, legs, and arms is just the influenza she reminds herself as she slams her fist upon their back crushing them within the mud and breaking a few ribs.

Oh—no, no, no—

Her rose colored strands are pulled sending her backward upon her bottom. The blood that paints her teeth come out within the pained lividity that decorates her face.

“Sakura-san, don’t fight. You will be fine.” this is a voice she had not heard in years, “The Uchiha dared to use you in such a manner.”

The footsteps that make their way before her send her viridian scaling upon this male that speaks so gentle with her. Every inch of him that she trails only seeks to make her viridian widen in their gaze. She knows this male well—she had healed him well before her marriage. He had been caring, and he had always been gentle. He had come to see her on more than one occasion between battles. He had tried to overawe her with flowers, and he had court her. She had turned him down every time.

“xxxxxx-san?” she response with a touch of uncertainty.

He’s bending before her brushing the pale rose-colored strands that stick to her face within her sweat away, “They will no longer force you to aid them—I’ll make sure your safe.” his malice for the Uchiha pours within the mention of them, but the smile upon his face remains gentle in speaking to her.

Viridian widen realizing the intended meaning and it’s before her words can make their way from her throat that her head feels lighter than before. The sound within her ears is the drag of a blade through strands of hair, and the scream of anguish from that who wrapped his fingers within her pale rose. No sooner she is removed from the ground she had been forced to sit upon. Her face is pressed within the chest of the one who sought to free her. Fingers curl within the cloth feeling her heartbeat against her chest.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” his voice is calm but there’s no missing the erratic heart that beats within his chest.

The feel of his fingers within her hair torn carelessly is calming as she pulls her face from him. She’s pulling from him and there’s no missing the red so deep and rich across his face, “Shisui.” she coughs from within her illness. He’s left her side within her call as she shakes within her need to bring herself from the earth. The ring of his blade clashing with another rings within her ears as she struggles to focus. The cough turns violent as she raises within shakes to her knees. Fingers curl upon her mouth staining her muddy gloved fingers in the coppery liquid that seeks to find its way from her chest. The swelling of her eye seeks to remind her of her aches and pains.

The violent cough has her spitting the blood upon the ground as tears sting within her eyes. There’s no stopping her gaze upon the strands of pale rose caked in mud, blood, and fingers of that who had dared to grasp them.

My hair has become far too long—I keep forgetting to cut it. Don’t. That which pounds in her ears is no longer the headache that beats within her temple. It’s heart that pounds within her ears sinks within her chest. There is no listening to the anguished cries of the male who had taken hold of her.

Sasuke-kun, it’s so long though. I like long hair on you.

He had liked long hair on her. He had asked her not to cut it.

Viridian shake as they come to the Uchiha who had come to protect her. There’s no telling what her husband will do when he sees her in shortened locks of hair. There’s no telling what her husband will do if he dares to see her so bloody, and bruised. This Senju had thought they had forced her to mend their injured, and heal their wounded. He had desired to take them from her husband and her acquired family in marriage.

She would go no where.

The Uchiha meant to protect her in her husband’s absence is thrown to her and her reaction time is still slowed as she seeks to dig her heels within the earth to steady them. Her fingers are glowing and their healing the wound across his chest that dares to bleed within her hands. She will heel the scar further when she has more time—right now she must move forward.

She’s none to gentle within her drop of her guard as she’s rushing forward to play the one who protects. The scream of her name comes and then it’s cut off within a choke. There’s no looking back. There’s no stopping what she’s doing as this male of chocolate locks, and tanned honey skin seeks to cut down the Uchiha. Feet skid within the earth as she brings her hands down upon one of the large broken pieces of earth. A forceful shove is what sends it heading for him, and she’s running straight behind as she forces her legs to move faster. The fever that had dared to come over her is only beaten by the blood that pumps through her veins as she keeps herself moving among the rubble that seeks to trip her.

A bend of her knees followed by hand signs come—she’s gone. Fingers curl as she pulls her fist back intending lethal harm to come to this man. There’s hope he hasn’t realized she’s coming from above him, and it’s as he shatters the earth she had shoved his way that the oxygen is lost from her lungs. The rope infused with metal has wrapped itself around her throat dragging her back upon the ground and knocking the air from her lungs. There’s the realization as she gazes upon the sky with viridian wide and tears fall down the sides of her face into her ear that her fingers that managed to make their way between her throat and the rope are broken. The blood that forces its way from her throat spills upon her face. Blurred vision over takes her but she refuses to fall within unconsciousness. Her neck is done—she’s pushed her body to far. She cannot turn to see what has become of Shisui. They’ve grabbed her by the cheongsam no longer recognizable in color between the blood, and mud that stains it.

They are harsh as they remove the rope from her throat and bind her hands behind her. There is suchc a lack of care as they throw her among those they have taken by force. Her air flow is but strangled puffs of air.

“Sakura-san, why would you fight us when we only seek to assist you from these monsters.” her vision is far to blurred to allow her the ability to see his face.

She does not need to see it to know his brows have risen in discomfort by her actions. She cannot even open her eyes as the pain, and ache fills her being, “They are. . .not monsters. I will stand—I will. . . stand. . . beside my family.”

“What have the done to you?” there’s no missing his heightened tone, and the anger that’s threatening to fall from him at her words.

“Don’t—hurt them.” she’s pleading as she’s desperate to open at least one of her eyes, “They’re. . . sick. . . They’re injured.” the cough that wracks her body is harsh spending spasms sharp, and jolting pain, “Please xxxxxx-san.” she’s begging within the tears that fall between her closed lids.

“I will fix what they’ve done to you. This is not you—You would never follow Uchiha. It’s his fault. This is his fault. We’ll. . . we’ll cure you of whatever that vile man has done to you.” he’s quick within his steps to press his hand upon her head running his thumb across her swollen eye with care.

“Don’t touch Sakura-sama.” the hiss of a child comes lunging forward within his restrains at who would dare touch this woman wed to one of their greatest shinobi.

“Remove your filthy hands from Sakura-sama.” another venomous tone fills the air barely caught within her declining consciousness.

“We said remove them—now!” Shisui’s voice is a raspy threat filled with lividity as he slams his head against this Senju who dare to touch that one he is meant to protect. It’s no sooner his head is slammed into the ground.

“Please don’t hurt them. I’m begging you!” she’s crying out upon hearing the Uchiha smashed within the earth, “Let me heal them—let me—”

The press of a body—it’s so small against her own, and so obviously one of the children shinobi—is against her side, and then the following of another—more adult—as they seek to keep her from this Senju so intent on obtaining her. They seek to comfort her within her fever and battle driven exhausted state.

“If you are to follow them then you are to be treated as they are.” there is nothing soft and gentle from him this time—it’s malicious and it’s holds absolute disdain. There is the forceful push of the child from her side, and then the hate filled shove of the adult that sought to protect her with their body. Fingers yank her by her pale rose-colored fringe pulling her head back against its wishes, “Tell me what they’ve done to you?”

A resounding hiss. A curse fills the air. The drip upon her skin. The forceful toss.

“You dare to bite me—” the cry of a child, and then there is the warmth that comes over her leg, “You nasty, vile, inhuman pest.”

Every word spoken in malice brings the sound of a choked cry, and every choked cry brings more of the warm liquid onto her leg—vomit is rising within her throat. The weight of the body that has been dropped upon her lap she is sure is a child. They’re small, and they’re warm—their blood is what’s covering her leg. The slow drag of her left eyelid comes to confirm her thoughts. Viridian drink in what what she can trying her best to fight through the blurred vision. It’s enough to make her entire being quake at seeing this child wide eyed and dead upon her lap.

This shinobi so small and so fragile had sought to protect her—they were all protecting her.

xxxxxx had called the Uchiha monsters. The Senju were no different.

No, none of them are monsters—this is war. Never forget this is war.

This man had been kind once. This man had smile so softly, and spoke in such gentle tones. This man had attempted to awe her with brightly colored flowers, and he had praised her with such wonder within his features. This man had spoken to her of his fears as she mended his flesh, and gave way to tears when his father had fallen in battle. She had seen him battered and broken, and she had gazed upon him within loss, and anquish. He had absolutely been kind—once upon a time.

This man was still possibly kind underneath what war had molded him into. He is no different then her husband, and yet it is so much easier to feel such hatred for what he’s done.

She does not know if she could forgive what she’s seen today. She does not know if she will ever see him the same way again. She does not know if she can ever accept what he’s done to them all.

He may be no different than her husband, but she knows she is blinded within her love.

She knows that her husband sits upon rules far different from what she applies to this man.

His heart sinks, and the beat it had held stops as he walks within the deserted battlefield once medical camp. The swallow he produces seeks to suffocating him, and the panic that washes through him has his eyes looking upon the rubble of tents and land. Fire long since put out still wafers through the air. There’s no missing the blood that paints every place his ebony seek. There’s no missing the dead bodies that litter the ground—Senju, Uzumaki, and Uchiha a like.

Heavyhearted doesn’t begin to explain was overwhelms him as he dares to step through this camp meant for healing, and mending. His team is right behind him following with slow even steps awaiting what he does next. The female of vibrant red shows the most hesitation as they pass a child who’s eyes remain wide with blood spilled from what he swears are finger holes within the small throat—the bruise that wraps around his throat is deep within blacks, and purples and makes it far to clear this child had been strangled as the enemy sank their fingers deep within their esophagus.

His feet feel weight down as he feels as though he can hear the screams of his brothers-in-arm fight until their last breath. These men, and children did not defect—they had stood their ground until they could stand no longer. They were overrun, and they were overwhelmed. The thunder within the sky threatens to wash the ground of the blood that soaks within it. The earth so shattered and torn is a sign she had fought—she too had stood her ground in what had come their way.

Pale rose coated in dirt and blood has him kneeling. Fingers reach out taking the weathered, and coarse strands within his fingers. He had held these strands not to long ago. He had found comfort within these strands forever long, and he had pressed them to his lips as he watched her sleep. His fingers dig deep within the dirt long since dried by the sun in the days that had passed this battle. There’s no missing the severed appendages that have made the strands turn brown within their blood loss. Ebony shift and there’s a heat upon him at seeing the Senju who lay dead not far from from where these strands once so exotic lay in such shredded fashion.

Karin can only press her fingers to mouth, and Suigetsu can only attempt to swallow the air threatening to choke him within his throat as they see what he has kneeled to touch.

“Sasuke-sama.” there is startle from the silent members who cannot fathom why their teammate of orange hued locks dares to speak in this moment.

Standing slowly he brings the locks within his hand. The thundering of his heart brings oxygen once more within his lungs. It burns and there’s the tightening of his jaw as he turns to those who follow him.

“Find them.” his command is lethal, and threatens to bring harm to any who dare to utter another word.

This woman had told him she would shoot down the nine suns herself if she so had too for his sake. She would protect the elixir of immortally and allow him to drink all of it. She would be the otherworldly archer, and the divine goddess of the moon. Her body did not lay among those that reek of death. The do not move from him at first. There’s hesitance in leaving his side. It’s not until his ebony leave the soiled pale pink strands and those ebony dye within deep rich red as the glow upon them that there’s the shift of their feet. He will not speak again.

There quick in removing themselves to shuffle among the remains of the fallen, and rubble of the destroyed tents, beds, supplies, and belongings.

The glow of his eyes fall upon the lifeless man who had dared to touch his wife. His fingers curl upon the strands soiled by battle as the force of his grasp makes him shake. This man had bleed out in his death. His death had not been what he deserved—he had deserved far worse.

His steps are strong and the press of his foot comes upon this man who cannot feel what he is about to do. He could only pray that this man would feel this within the depths of hell. The spring nymph had taught him not deep within her culture’s New Year of the gods they held faith within.

She had whispered of this deity who passed judgment upon the dead. His name is upon the tip of his tongue and it’s as he breathes in deep with his foot applying even more pressure to crush this man’s skull in that he recalls it. Yánwáng had been the name of this deity, and he would assist this diety in passing judgment upon this Senju.

He was a god of war—he was the chaos within the battlefield. He was an otherworldly being of destruction.

The pressure of his foot finally breaks through the skull driving into the organ that had seemed to fail him within life—if he had been smart he would have known better than to mess with the Uchiha.

His father’s words ring within the air. Never underestimate the Uchiha.

The choked call of his name has him whipping his head and finally releasing the strands once flowing from his wife’s head. He gazes upon the woman of vibrant red locks, “Juugo—he’s figuring out where they are.” the press of her hangs against her chest are the only thing that stands between him and possible harm.

He’s flashed beside her and walking with power radiating within each step he takes. There will be no stopping what he intends to do next. Her fingers shake in her grasp upon his sleeve, “Whatever happens next we need you out of that splint.” her voice is heightened within her fear.

Deep rich red trail across her face to slide down her throat. There’s no missing the way she twitches within his gaze and her fingers release the small cautious grasp of his sleeve. She’s pulling her sleeve up, and allowing the marks of teeth that mare her skin to show themselves within the daylight. Roughened tips run upon her arm and it’s the sink of his teeth within her skin that follows. He’s not gentle within his actions. His grip is tight upon her wrist, and he is none to gentle as he takes in her chakra.

He is but one of many who have marked her, and it’s as he feels he’s had enough that he removes his mouth from her shoving her arm back within her chest. There is no secondary look as he resumes his steps to the male speaking with a bird perched upon his finger.

“He says Sakura-sama is alive. The Senju have moved north. He will scout ahead as we move.” the nod he gives the bird is all the things he would expect from this gentle giant—his appearance is his most deceiving factor.

“We leave. Now.” he’s still commanding, and still leaving no room for questions.

There off once more. Kagami had asked for him to rest. He had told him that his exhaustion was evidently. He feels refreshed within his lividity at what he’s traveled upon. Once he had acquired those who had been taken—once he had acquired the ethereal being that was his wife—they would send to retrieve the bodies of those who had fallen. They would bury their dead as they always did, and they would silently mourn them as they headed back out onto the battlefield.

The sun that dared to light the sky has begun to seek rest as the moon sets to replace it. The air cools them as they run through the trees. There is no resting—the longer they took the farther they were. He would not allow them the pleasure of taking her farther from his grasp. He would now allow them to hold their people as spoils from the war.

His impatience is growing, and growing, and his frustration is showing, and showing. They keep going, and going, and it feels like forever within the night. He can only wonder if they will ever reach them.

The spark that had ignited within him is what drives him. The spark that had ignited within this new found malice is what make his legs carry him further and his jumps soar him farther. This is the fight he seeks to have.

That Senju had called him a coward.

That same Senju would now be the one to walk upon the rubble of his clan. He would show him what his clan had showed him. He would bring their tents down within flames. He would drop their shinobi down upon the ground as they begged for mercy. He would be merciless as he took their skulls within his hands. He would strangle the life out of the children who dared to fight against the Uchiha. Ebony would remember every injury, and every mark that was upon her milky skin. Ebony would engrave her war torn features within his mind and make sure to repay each of them for every ounce of harm that they had brought upon her.

He would gain vengeance for those that fought for them. He would get revenge for the children who lost their lives far too short within this war of ideologies. There would be no room for failure, and he would strike down any who defected—he would rip their heart from their chest as it still beats for betraying them all. He would remind everyone within this war who he was, and what he could bring down upon them.

They do not stop for rest, and they do not stop to put food within their mouths. The tick of time is all that he sees, and the distance they travel every second, every minute, and every hour is enough to keep him level headed within his impatience.

He had been brought terror in thinking of her as the Senju and Uzumaki towered over her. He had pictured her within his mind crawling away from them in desperation. He had once seen a medic of the Senju begging for mercy—that could have been her deep within the camp as they sought to harm her. Teeth display themselves from his lips as he remembers the way he had ripped the heart of that medic from her body. What was he to do if he came upon her lifeless? He had sought to protect her. He had wanted to keep her safe and away from the war that had already taken so much from her. The glow of those viridian could dull as she stood before her god of judgment within the land of the dead.

Is that not where love begins? The desire to keep one safely protected?

Desperation is within every step he makes—but was this love? Urgency is within his heart that threatens to burst with his overwhelming charge to fight—but was that love? Fear lingered within the corners of his mind—but had love begun?

He does not have the answer. He does not have the strength to solve that puzzle here and now. All he can do within this third day of chasing after them is continue the steps that come. They are tired, and their muscles ache with an entirely new burn. They had traveled farther, and yet they had always rested—they had always taken care as they moved closer to their enemy. He had desired to keep her protected—he had failed, but he would redeem himself here and now.

He would keep her safe beside him. They feared his name, and they would soon learn to fear her. She was more than title. She was more than a wife. She was so much more than that.

It’s as his teammate of orange colored locks stops upon the branch that sought to jump

#sasusaku #ombree:palimpsestofsemblance

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tlbodine · 6 years

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How to Write Gore

I’ve talked before about the emotions of horror. Now, let's take a closer look at another important emotion: Disgust.

If you haven't read it already, or if it's been a while, be sure to read my Visceral Horror post for a more general overview of the topic!

Disgust is a primal emotion. It's a different sort of fear, one deeply rooted in us to drive us away from things that are not necessarily obviously threatening but that still pose some kind of danger to us. We're often disgusted by the types of things that would make us sick: infected wounds, blood, feces, rotting flesh, dead bodies etc. We may also experience a parasympathetic response to the sight of blood and guts -- some people faint at the sight of blood, whether their own or someone else's. (Some scientists postulate that this is a defense mechanism, similar to how an opossum will "play dead.")

So. Why would you want to invoke feelings of disgust in your readers?

One, because a lot of things that are horrifying are, by extension, also disgusting. A grisly murder scene with blood and guts everywhere is gross. Rotting zombies shambling around the neighborhood are gross. It's just the nature of the genre.

Two, because disgust taps into that visceral horror response, and that can be a really powerful tool in making readers uncomfortable (and scared), which is of course your goal.

Which leads to the important question: How do you write gore in a way that is scary?

You Have to Write it Descriptively

Saying "there was blood everywhere" isn't going to cut it. You have to go in-depth with the description, invoking the exact details so the reader can envision it clearly in his or her mind. How does it smell? How does it feel? How is it reacting with its environment? You'll get a lot more mileage out of, "Blood painted the walls in messy strokes, the feathered splatter of arterial spray. It dripped down the walls, pooling darkly into the carpet. As he approached the scene, the floor made a damp squelch noise, like water being pressed from a damp sponge, and viscous crimson liquid welled up warmly between his toes, staining the skin."

Invoke Common, Relatable Imagery Alongside the Gross Part

That thing I did a second ago, comparing the blood-soaked carpet to a sponge -- that was especially cringey, right? Gore seems a whole lot more disgusting when we can imagine it clearly, not just in a faraway context but right here at home. By juxtaposing what we're intimately familiar with and what is alien and horrifying, we literally make it hit closer to home.

You Can't Go Wrong With Food Metaphors

Here's a hack: There is nothing more instantly disgusting than comparing gore to food. There's a scene in the Daniel Kraus novel Scowlers where a character's face has been badly injured; it's described as being similar to strips of lasagna, which is an image that put me off Italian food for weeks. Or, famously, there's a moment in American Psycho where Brett Easton Ellis compares a man's popped-out eyeball to a runny egg. Ugh.

Because so much of disgust is tied up in things that would make us sick, running disgusting stuff parallel to food is the grossest possible thing. It's bad enough to think about somebody with their guts hanging out; but thinking of eating while you look at it is even worse. By bringing up food, you will instantly magnify the reader's gross-out factor.

It also helps that a lot of really disgusting things can be pretty easily compared to food stuffs. Think of a pustule bursting open with a rush of white, thick pus the color and consistency of cottage cheese. Imagine a mess of intestines, pale and glistening like wrapped sausages. Consider bits of brain matter clinging to the walls like fragments of grayish scrambled eggs.

Screaming yet?

Don't Lose the Human Element

Don't get too wrapped up in the gross bits and forget that your characters still need to be front and center. How is your character reacting to whatever it is that they're seeing? What are they feeling? What are they thinking? What do they have to do with this gross thing? Watching someone have to interact with something disgusting is worse than just knowing that a disgusting thing exists. A mess of guts spilling out onto the floor is gross; having to burrow underneath them to hide from the zombie horde is even worse. Similarly: We're going to care 1000% more about bad things happening to a person we care about. Take time to make us like someone (or at least make them interesting!) before you start to torture or kill them.

Choose Your Words Carefully

The words you use for your descriptions are just as important as the level of detail. Certain words just have ickier connotations than others. Some things to try:

- Words with food connotations: Moist, glistening, steaming, smear, chunk, gobbet, ooze, etc. are words that are frequently (and deliciously) used to talk about food, but are positively skin-crawling in other contexts, for the same reason that talking about food and gore together is usually really gross.

- Medical/official terms: Mucus, viscera, bowel, flesh, entrails, brain matter, etc. If you're describing body horror, you can't get cute with it. Broaden your vocabulary of words related to body parts and trauma.

- Onomatopoeia: Squelch, squish, gush, ooze, plop, slither, splatter, thud, etc. These are words that sound like or otherwise invoke the thing that they're describing. That makes them feel more intimate and easy to imagine/envision.

The exact word choices that you use will depend on what it is that you're trying to write. Make friends with your thesaurus, but don't abuse it: Be sure that the word you're using actually means what you think it does, and that it actually fits with the context of what you're writing. Don't be like one person I saw who thought that 'cervix' was the same as 'throat.'

Research Realism (and decide when to abandon it)

If you go too over-the-top with a gory description, you'll venture into laughable instead of scary. It's a good idea to know some basic anatomy, how different wounds work, how much blood you can expect from certain kinds of cuts, what organs look like, etc. etc. etc.

You can do some primary research on this, if you can stomach it. I have been known to look up some supremely gross, haunting imagery before when trying to describe something specific. I don't necessarily recommend this - you can't un-see some of those images - but it can certainly help. A less traumatizing option may be to read medical texts, books by medical examiners, medical blogs, etc. The better you understand whatever it is that you're doing, the more confidently you'll be able to describe it in a way that will make the reader squirm!

On Tumblr, a couple of resources I highly recommend are @scriptmedic and @howtofightwrite

You can read more installments of my guide by following my #how to write horror tag, or read more on Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/story/100810893-how-to-write-horror-telling-stories-that-will

Did you enjoy this? Want to see more advice like this in the future? Buy me a cup of coffee to show your support!

#how to write horror #writing advice #gore #writing #how to write #horror

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jrazillashadowworks · 7 years

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Footsteps into Anarchy Chapter One

Warning: Blood. Gore. Dark themes.

Prologue Chapter: ONE

The skies were twisting clouds of black and red, leaving a nightmarish glow on the war torn city below. Towering skyscraper’s windows were blown out and destroyed, hailing fractals of glass below. The infinitely snaking streets were littered in overturned cars, buses, tanks and all manner of other vehicles. Never ending rivers of blood rushed down the slanted side of the street into the filling sewer grates. Countless corpses created organic carpets that near covered the remaining walkways and overpasses. Mixed in with the civilian population were hundreds of dead soldiers from two opposing sides, torn apart by bullets and blades, heads caved in. The State Watch, who were the government funded military of the entire country and the Anarchist organization, Xenolith.

The two sides fought a war that decimated all within the vast, sixteen-district country states, laying waste to all areas. There was not a place untouched by this madness. However, something about this war was different, unlike any before them. None knew which side created or released it but, a weaponized gas like substance had exploded at the very heart of the country and had spread to all sides of the globe rapidly, enveloping the ozone in a layer of black and red mist that never tapers. What this gas did was nothing short of horrifying. Among the innumerable battles, the dead begun to rise. All who were killed came back with an insatiable hunger for warm flesh. They soon outnumbered both sides, devouring all within their path. This sudden horrific change pushed the world and humanity to the brink of utter annihilation. Are there any survivors? Is humanity over, lost to the scourge of the dead? This is the tale of the fallen country that ruined the world.

MIDWAY (DISTRICT 7)

Broken lamps flickered in the darkness. Aided by the broken, crimson hues in the sky, the streets were awash in a dim, glowing haze. Rain pounded from above, slicking the bloodied streets. A staunch, putrid stench of death surrounded this place, sure to plug up anyone’s nose and cause them to lose whatever food was left in their stomachs. Of course, this was how it smelled everywhere.

Standing against an alley wall, a man adorned in a black leather jacket and helmet rested. His head was turned from the blackness towards the opened, hellish streets ahead. Cracked gurgling that had overcame the sound of the rain had caught his attention. Before long, his curiosity was rewarded, as a group of sodden and soaked zombies came shuffling into view. Their skin was faded and puss ridden, mortal wounds covered their bodies as thick intestines slurped out of their stomachs and eyes hung from their sockets. Their jaws clacked, teeth gnashing at the foul air.

The helmeted one’s grip tightened around something in the dark, a rush of morbid adrenaline pulsing in his veins. Breathing silently behind the helmet, he waited until he was assured of the numbers, scanning over each of them and behind. ‘Five. Just five.’

They continued onwards, finding no sign of the man, hidden in the dark. Though that was to be expected. The undead were utter morons. Once their backs were to him, he watched intently, tightening every muscle in his upper body, preparing to pounce. Feeling that same, powerful surge, he struck out from the corner, arms raised, weapon held high. With a heavy downward swing, one of the heads of the dead were crushed into a flattened mess of skull and grey matter, excreting from the hit in an explosion. The others had no time to react, slowly turning to look back only to be met with the same fate. With speed, the helmeted man took them each out with one blow to the head and neck, leaving them all a crumpled stain on the ground.

Hissing through gritted teeth, he chuckled, staring down at the mess that was his handiwork. Chest heaving, he leaned back, listening to the patter on his visor and rolling his broad shoulders. Trickles of rain had seeped into his jacket and clothing, cooling his burning body, calming him. Suddenly the ear cracking sound of gunfire startled him, stealing away the soothing after-glow of his kill. Ducking down, he scoured the area ahead, pressing a hidden button on the lower side of his helmet. His head turned slowly, looking this way and that at the cluster of sullen buildings and slums that made up the blocks around him. He pressed another, making another scan before shooting upwards.

With a knowing mind, he charged forwards, following the hovering echo of the blasts. Madly turning corners, and dodging random corpses towards the sound. Finally, skidding to a stop, he hugged the corner of a destroyed pharmacy, peeking out with a sinister grin. From the other side of the avenue, two people fumbled out, a spindly man, dressed in the shabby uniform of the Xenolith and behind him, a woman, he forcibly pulled by the hood of her jacket. She nearly tripped and he jerked her upright with a barrage of curses behind the bandanna that covered his mouth.

‘Nothing good in store for her,’ the helmeted man thought to himself. Although he tried to ignore it, he felt a twinge of pity that he immediately suppressed upon realizing. Focusing on the soldier, his eyes froze on the shotgun he carried. With a devilish, invisible smile, he whispered. “Bingo.”

The duo raced, sloppily taking out anything in their way. ‘Maybe he was trying to lure her to some hideout or something. He could have more than what was on him.’ The helmeted man decided to follow. Sticking to parallel paths, he pursued, killing every zombie that was in his path, which lucky enough, was less frequent than he had anticipated. As he went on, it became increasingly obvious that they were indeed headed to some specific location once he saw the anarchist insignia of a giant hand clenched upwards before an explosion, spray painted, in neon red on the corroded brick walls.

With a deft silence, he followed without neither being the wiser, until they entered a playground of tarp covered hovels, made out of tin and aluminum siding. Dead ones, some dressed in the same uniform, albeit ripped as the anarchist spotted the area, staked and chained to the ground, skulking around but powerless to the human’s movements. It was clear that he was the only remaining survivor in his unit.

Peeking out from a few hovels down, the helmeted man watched as the woman fell to her knees, sobbing through sharp inhales. She begged him not to do whatever he was planning to do and he struck her with the back of his hand, the sound echoing out. Clasping her face, she whimpered. “Get up,” he demanded with a booming voice, bucking at her. “You are going to repay me for saving you in any way I deem fit!”

This didn’t fly with the helmeted one, feeling the stinging rage creep up in the back of his mind. He tried to control it, to push it under like all the times before, but then he found himself sprinting forward. Rain whipping at his visor, he caught the man unaware, tackling him harshly to the ground. Sliding in the mud, the helmeted one used his free hand to sock the man in the face over and over, using his elbow at times to pommel him. Underneath, the anarchist screeched in pain, held down by the man’s knees. Blood sputtered through the fabric of the bandanna, red droplets splattering the visor before streaking down, mixing with the rain. He kept up the onslaught until the anarchist, in a burst of adrenaline, kicked him off.

Flipping over and back up, the helmeted one gave little time to the discombobulated soldier to regain his footing. Just as he was about to raise his shotgun, he was cracked against the head with a bat, sending him flailing onto his side. Without losing a moment, the other wrenched the strapped shotgun off of the soldier and looked this way and that as the man convulsed on the ground. Grabbing the soldier’s collar, he dragged the wailing man towards one of the staked zombies who reached out with bone white claws, leaning towards them with grotesque roars and clacking teeth, oozing spittle spewing between the gaps.

“P-pwease,” the anarchist begged, his voice slurred by the brain scrambling hit. “I dun w-want to die.”

Bending down, the helmeted one stood inches away from his face before letting out a soft chuckle. “Join your brothers in arms.”

Lifting up the soldier, he was tossed into the open embrace of his dead comrade. He tried to fight but let out a high pitched squeal as the zombie ripped a chunk of his neck out of him, tearing the stringy tendons away in one quick, clean, snap of the jaw. Gurgling, he cried out, eyes bulging as wide possible as another slab of meat was wrenched free. Finally breaking the hold, the soldier retched and coughed, falling onto his knees, crying. The helmeted one watched as he fell on his chest and crawled away, blood oozing out in thick pools underneath him. A deep appreciation of this man’s suffering was apparent in the helmeted man’s shuddering body as he laughed happily.

“Where are you going to go?” He teased. “Still that interested in getting some? Let me help.” Lifting the metal bat, he slammed down on the back of his knees, the bones shattering immediately from the immense blow, a sound that gave the attacker a slight chill. With a choking cry, the soldier dragged himself through the gritty muck before letting out his final blood curdling breath, rattling off into the wind.

Kneeling down beside him, the helmeted one spun the bat against the ground, grating the dirt. “All I wanted was to give you a little more motivation. Guess you didn’t want it enough, you sick son of a bitch.”

Looking to the zombie whose teeth were still munching on the gored flesh, he nodded. “You better be grateful for that little snack. Now let’s see what else this former paragon of humanity has for me.”

Walking back to the hovel, he ignored the woman who remained trembling on the spot, staring at him with streams of tears rolling down her face. He threw open the aluminum door and peeked inside. ‘Jackpot.’

It was a gold mine. Shoddy, half rotten shelves drilled into the siding held cans of all types of food and bottles of the closest thing to fresh water. A thick military backpack sat out next to a dirty, moth eaten sleeping bag, ridden with holes. Rifling through it, he found boxes of shells for his newly acquired shotgun and some rusted but sharp knives along with some clothes and condoms. Rolling his eyes, he tossed the clothes and prophylactic’s out and filled it with the food and water bottles. Zipping it up tight, he threw it over his free shoulder and took one last look around before exiting back into the dreary rain.

About to walk off, the soft exhale of the woman brought his attention to her. Tilting his head, she immediately threw up her arms, veiling her face defensively. Through her fingers, he could make out big, horrified, blue eyes. Her long, pink bangs clung to her attractive, wet face, marring it in vines across her complexion. Breathing loudly, she looked to be trying to speak but nothing came out but half whimpers. The pity again struck him and he sighed. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said as gently as possible, though it ended up sounding rather emotionless instead.

His tone obviously confused her, but got his point across, for her expression faltered, hands lowering an inch. “Are…are you one with the State?”

Scoffing, the helmeted one shook his head. “I’m not a part of either side. I’m just an opportunist. A shadow of this new world. The names Raz, if you care.”

“My names, Gabbi,” the woman quickly replied, brushing the tresses from her face. She forced a smile. “T-Thank you for saving me.”

“Wasn’t my intention but, you’re welcome.” He cleared his throat. “Do you have any place to get back to? Friends? Family waiting for you?” He knew these questions were stupid after all that had happened and even hearing himself asking them made him regret them but, she answered.

“No. It’s just me. I was simply hiding out in an abandoned art store when that man forced his way in and found me. Looking for some more supplies I guess. He said he was going to take me somewhere safe but I could tell his true motive just by the hungry look in his eyes.”

Crossing his arms, Raz shifted his posture. “Do you want me to take you back? There doesn’t seem to be any more of his kind around here, just those staked dead ones.”

Gabbi fell silent, clearly lost in thought. The rain had let up, leaving a light drizzle behind before she spoke again. “W-where are you headed?”

“Nowhere in particular. Here and there, as it were. Guess you could consider it cross country wandering.”

Blinking, she fidgeted on the spot, her lips tightening into a straight line, hands hard pressed against each other. “I know what I’m about to ask is crazy and I probably shouldn’t but um…C-can I come with you?”

“You trust me that quickly?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” she giggled half-heartedly, keeping a light tone to her voice. “But you d-definitely seem able to take care of yourself.”

“So its protection you want.”

“I’m clearly no fighter,” she said before pausing. “But I can cook for you and stuff like that in return?”

“Tsk, you really think we have the luxury of that?”

An awkward silence overcame them again, her gaze falling to the ground. Head dropping, Raz finally shrugged. “Fine. Whatever. You can come along. At least until we find a safe place you feel comfortable staying in. Don’t want you thinking this is permanent or anything like that.”

Gabbi launched to her feet, grinning from ear to ear, somehow brightening the dank area. It was rather adorable, he couldn’t deny. “Thank you so much, Raz!”

“Shhh,” Raz interrupted sharply, jerking his head towards the zombies she had agitated with her sudden outburst, their pale eyes fixated on them, groaning longingly.

Clasping her hands to her mouth, she apologized repeatedly. “Won’t happen again.”

“For the health of us both I’d suggest it doesn’t. Anyway, before we go on our journey, do you have anything you want to go back for? A bag, items, weapons of your own? You are practically walking naked.”

“Now that you mention it...Could we possibly go back to the art store? I didn’t get a chance to grab my things when I was abducted and I’m soaked to the bone, a change of clothes would be nice.”

“Fine. Lead on.”

Fixing her long brown hair over her right shoulder, she wringed it out. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Gabbi took point but kept very close to the helmeted stranger as they traveled back through the ruined city. At her flank, Raz kept his precious, new shotgun up, appreciating its heft and feel, more so than their surroundings. Secretly, he wanted to come across a zombie or two to test it out, maybe even another Anarchist. This however, was not meant to be. Each time they crossed paths with an undead, it was imprudent to shoot off the gun for it would alarm the many other’s that shuffled about. Would he have been alone, he may very well have gone through with it.

It was quite the miracle they had gotten all the way back to Gabbi’s hideout without being spotted. Raz was rather impressed with the way she handled herself as they snuck around. Though he could make out her trembling form, she kept quiet, and alert, making sure to look every which way before going further.

Reaching their destination, Gabbi pointed towards a cluster of buildings on the other side of the street. The aforementioned art store was small and bunched between two big department stores. Unlike its neighbors, that had their windows smashed in and innards picked clean, this particular shop was miraculously untouched, only a thin coating of grey ash layered over the front, veiling all inside it. Looking both ways, Gabbi hurried across, grasping the handle and pulling it open for them both to enter.

It was a very quaint shop, with rows of high, segmented shelves that held all sorts of art equipment from tubes of every paint imaginable to bundled pens and layered, sketch pads. It was lovingly preserved and perfectly coordinated. Very pleasing to the eyes. Even though the colors were muted, he could gather it was nothing short of a rainbow. That a place could have remained like this even at the end of the world as it were was astonishing to him. Walking by it all, he let his gloved hands glide over each item, remembering the normal days that though not long past, felt ages ago.

“It’s a very pretty isn’t it?” Gabbi asked, moving ahead of him, towards the back. Even in the dull, darkness, she easily found her way. It was clear how known this place was to her.

“Lovely,” he replied stalely. “Don’t figure what good art will do in this new world.”

Her soft laugh echoed from some back room. “Art has been around forever, no matter what horrible thing has happened to the world. I’m sure it will remain relevant even now, onto eternity.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be an artist would you?” He mocked.

“I’ve been found out. Oh no.”

Rolling his eyes, he leaned against one of the shelves. “Are you ready yet?”

As if on cue, Gabbi came out in a dry sweater, a skirt over leggings and a rather stuffed pack on her back. Catching a glimpse of the side pockets filled with brushes and pencils, Raz hunched over, exasperated. “Are you kidding me?”

“What,” she asked, innocently, walking up alongside him.

“Seriously? Is there anything other than art supplies in that bag? Do you have any weapons or anything like that?”

“I have everything I need. And regarding weapons,” she pulled an oblong shaped item seemingly out of nowhere. It took Raz a second to realize what it was.

“An old school Taser…?”

“Yep.” She flipped a switch and the crackling cackle of the electric weapon shot to life, bright, blue sparks lighting the area between them and the amused, silly expression on Gabbi’s face.

“You are astonishing…”

“Thank you!”

He couldn’t tell if she registered his sarcasm but he let it go. It was strangely remarkable how quickly relaxed she was around him. She must have been held up in this place even before the end of the world, he thought to himself. She seemed rather hopeless as a survivor, but he couldn’t ignore the subtle, warm sensation he felt within himself in her presence. Shrugging it off, he tapped his bat against his boot. “This is going to be interesting… Time to go. Unless you want to take the store with you too.”

“Would if I could,” Gabbi replied with a sassy but innocent smile.

Reaching for the handle, Raz waited for the woman to give her final goodbyes to her beloved store before opening the door, leading back into the hell that awaited.

#my writing #original works #zombies #horror

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wildshadowtamer · 5 years

Text

Web of Lies

Word Count:

Characters: 11,013

Words: 1,976

Sentences: 141

Characters:

Fire Chaser (Thomas), Silent Death (Tony), Mirror (Felix) and Missing (Kristin).

Warnings: Blood, Burn Victim

The two killers stood either side of the clearing, both very different from one another: The taller one, on the left, was wearing a black hoodie, sweatpants and had a skull-like mouth guard on. His hair was brown with grey showing on the upper tips, he had black eyes and was either very tired or very old; considering the bags under his eyes.

The shorter one, on the right, was wearing a white grim-reaper like outfit with a pitch-black mask with white glowing eyes. Messy golden hair covered half of his mask's left eye and a near-glowing white substance dripped from the mask's eyes slowly.

Both were covered in blood.

"So, who are you?" The Taller One asked, his voice slow and deep, he took a step forward and tilted his head slightly, gripping his weapon tightly. "Fire Chaser, sir." The presumably younger one answers quietly, his voice muffled and lower by the mask, he held out a white-gloved hand as an introduction, which the older shook gratefully

"Well, Fire Chaser," He began, putting his hand in his hoodie pocket "I'm Missing. I suppose your one of us?" He asked curiously, taking a step closer and letting his cold, black eyes stare into Fire's soul. The boy gulped nervously and nodded "Y-yup, I'm a c-creepypasta too, sir!" His muffled voice shook nervously, hiding his gloved hands behind his back, his scythe falling to the ground silently onto the grass.

It was nearly too dark to see any of Missing's appearance, even the blood on his clothes was darkened further by the shadowy material it splattered on. Fire's outfit was nearly shining in the dark of night, giving off a strangely calming but terrifying aura. Well, terrifying for anyone but a creepypasta.

[Fire Chaser's POV] "Ah," Missing comments "Well, Fire, How about we stay at your house and talk? I'm sure you're getting tired of wearing that mask." He suggested simply, I felt threatened by this stranger but... I feel like I need to respect him. "A-alright sir" I addressed him formerly since I felt like I was going to get killed for a second time if I didn't.

I turned around and gestured for him to follow me, back to the once-abandoned old two-story house me and my small family have been dwelling in for a while now. I had to admit, the mask was getting annoying, but at least he couldn't see my terrified expression...or anything at all, I think. "Uh, Here" I gesture to the house after 20 minutes of carefully navigated walking "Welcome to my house, make yourself at home," I told the pasta as I unlocked the door and let him in, he strolled in like he owned the place with his hands in his hoodie pocket. Weird guy.

"Babe, your home!" I hear a voice chime from the kitchen, Missing glanced at me for a moment and muttered: "You didn't mention you were taken." My lover, Tony, walked out of the kitchen happily and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Missing "...who is this?" His voice dropped to a cold tone, thankfully his mask was on so Missing couldn't see the look of pure judgement I was sure was in his eyes.

[Missing's POV] Oh? He's married now, is he? Interesting. "I'm Missing, a new friend of your..." I stop, holding out my hand "Mate." I address Fire, shooting him a glance. The stranger cautiously takes my hand, and I stay polite, due to the nearly overwhelming fear and judgement, I felt rolling off the two. This one was wearing a mask like Fire's but the opposite colouring: A White mask with dripping black eyes. In fact, his entire outfit was a parallel opposite to his lover's. Copper hair draped over one masked eye like Fire's, I started to notice a trend in this.

"Well, then...Missing, why are you at our home? More importantly, why are you with my hu- love?" He asked in a sour tone, clearly thinking something was going on, Fire audibly realises what his lover thinks is going on and attempts to explain. "No no no! It's nothing like that, I met him out in the forest, he told me to bring him back here so we can talk without our guards up and masks on." Fire explains frantically, I'm nodding to every word, the masked lover sighs and shrugs "Alright then, I just hope you don't mind ferrets." He commented, gesturing to the squeaking noises coming from upstairs.

"Ah, pet owners too? I have some ducks, mostly for the eggs but they do make good companions." I mention absentmindedly, I notice Fire visibly flinched once I brought up a duck "Uhh yeah I have a fear of them" The boy mumbled under his breath, and I pause "Oh, sorry, I didn't know. I apologise" "Aw, it's alright, at least you didn't make fun of them." The mate put an arm around the rather uncomfortable looking Fire. "...Them?" I ask, curious "Oh, it's their pronouns" The man explains simply- shoot, I misgendered him, I'm an idiot.

"...oh" I meekly mumble, feeling my cheeks go red with embarrassment, He laughed and let his lover lean into him "No, it's fine, honestly! It's confusing, especially with the masks. We get it all the time, your not the first!" That didn't help me feel any better about it.

------------------- [Tony's POV] Aww, the poor guy felt bad about it. I gesture for him to sit down on the couch as I escort Thomas, My lover, to the one opposite. "Well, guess we should take our masks off for a start," I suggest, running my fingers through their hair absentmindedly. "Oh- right." The man nods and pulls down his mouth guard to show his face: he looked significantly older than us since we're both in our early to mid-'30s.

"How old-" He cut me off "44." he states bluntly, Thomas looked up in surprised you look 60!" They exclaim out much thought, Missing snickered and nodded. Thomas quickly removed their own mask, revealing their slightly burned up face, golden hair flowing one way as they got a buzz cut on the other side a few months ago. Their left eye was paler than the right, and red burn marks surrounded the pale eye painfully. Despite their looks, I still love him. "Huh, you look older than I thought" Missing commented flatly, not even showing any shock from the burns, "Thought you were a teen, early 20's at most." He continues, Thomas shrugs "Nope, 34, sir." They explain, letting me stroke their soft golden hair. "Well, guess it's my turn" I mention cheerfully, removing my mask to show my pale, blue-eyed face. My Copper hair was a stark difference from my lover's bright golden blonde locks.

"Well, you two certainly match!" Missing joked, gesturing to our matching side-shaved hair "Guess we do s-" I was cut off by the loud, drawn-out whine of: "MOMMY!" "...you have a kid?" Missing asked, now curious "Uh yeah, give me a second, I'll go grab him" I nod and rush upstairs to grab our son ----------------------- [Thomas's POV] I snicker and rub the back of my neck awkwardly "Oops, forgot about him" I joke, Missing raises an eyebrow "Oh- right, our son's name is Felix, he's only 4, but we're hoping to train him into being a creepypasta when he's older." I explain, taking a deep breath when Tony comes back down, holding Felix in his arms.

"H-Hi" Felix mumbled, wiping tears from his eyes "He was missing me, sorry about that" Tony explained, sitting down next to me with him "Little baby boy, aren't you?" He cooed, rocking him a bit "Nice to see Creepypasta's happy, you know?" Missing smiles and ruffles Felix's hair, we both nod and continue talking.

After a few hours... It's been about 2 hours, and it's getting pretty late, Felix fell asleep half an hour ago "Well," I yawn, covering my mouth with one hand "We should probably get to sleep, do you want to stay?" I suggest to Missing, who nods and stands up "Alright then."

"Great, the guest room is just" Tony explains to Missing, I sort of drown it out and try to focus on not passing out "Right, thank you." Missing smiles, heading upstairs but stopping halfway to glance over his shoulder "By the way, I'm Kristin." and runs upstairs "...Oh." Tony shrugs "Well, At least he trusts us" he mentions, dragging me up to our room to sleep.

We got our usual Pj's on, and I stroked his prosthetic leg subconsciously as we laid down, until he turned and cuddled into me, since he's taller. soon, everything went dark, and we fell asleep comfortably -------------- [Missing's POV] "DAMN IT-" I slam my hand on the dresser loudly, feeling worry and fear go through me, I had checked the clock and realised it was 9am and I should have been home by now! "Woah, hey, what's-" Fire rushes in, clearly worried "I'm gonna get caught!" I exclaim angrily, pacing back and forth "Wh-" He tries to speak "Look, I'm a secret creepypasta, ok? I have a wife and kids who have no idea about it, and I'm usually back by 5 or 6 in the morning so they don't get suspicious, but I can't sneak back in now! Look! I'm still in my Creepypasta clothes!" I explain hurridly, gesturing angrily to my clothes, which were covered head to toe in blood.

"Well, just explain that you were round a friend's house and forgot to tell her, There's some spare clothes I can give you." Fire stops my pacing and holds me by my shoulders "I got you, I get it." He tells me reassuringly, I take some deep breaths and nod "Yeah, okay...that's fine." I sigh, he goes off to grab some clothes, and I take the bloody ones off, looking down at my somewhat scarred and stitched up body.

"Here" He passes the clothes through the door, which I gladly accept and put on: a red jumper with black dress pants and shoes. "Nice fashion sense" I comment, actually rather liking it "She won't suspect a thing." I hope, sighing and leaving the bloody folded up clothes on the dresser.

"Now, we'll wash your clothes, and you can come grab them later, but for now you should hurry home, she's probably worried sick." Fire reassures me once more, I nod and hurry out the door, knowing my way through the dark forest even in the daylight. ----------------- Once I got home: "Kristin! Where have you been!? I've been worried, sick!" Abigail, my wife, exclaims upon seeing me come back "Sorry Hunny, I went to a friend's house and lost track of time so I stayed at their place. I should have messaged you, I'm sorry" I explain and apologise, kissing her for a moment "At least you're okay..." She mumbled, stroking my soft hair momentarily "How're the kids?" I ask, holding her close to my chest "Good, their at school so, I'll pick them up at 3." She explains, putting her head in the space between my neck and shoulder. "And how's this one?" I ask, putting a hand on her stomach, smiling weakly, she sighs "Alright, the little one wouldn't stop kicking though, I think she missed daddy." She laughs tiredly, I sigh and mumble into her ear:

"Go rest, hun. You need it, I'll call work, I'm sure they'll let me have a day off." I tell her, already directing her to the stairs, she mumbles something incoherent before nodding "Mmm...alright, just promise you'll pick the kids up at 3?" She asks, opening the bedroom door, I nod and kiss her "I promise." I lay her down, and she falls asleep nearly instantly.

Needless to say, that was an interesting day.

#creepypasta oc #OCs #OC Story #OC Writing #Writing #My characters #MY OCs #my writing #Fire Chaser #Missing #Silent Death #Mirror

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hauntinghilarity · 7 years

Text

The Malicious Maw: An Eye-Opening Excerpt

WARNING: The story snippet below contains intensely graphic situations of a violent and gory nature. Also intense situations and just a generally fucked up situation.

Basically, your nightmares are your own fault should you proceed. I also do not condone this kind of behavior outside of a fictional world. Please ink responsibly.

---------------------

Lickyface is a character that is often on my mind. I always wanted to make a great old one like Lovecraft's greats. Nyarlethotep being my favorite and a constant inspiration, but there are many lovecraftian influences in the character's designs and behavior.

I feverishly wrote this in my notebook one night and have been mulling it over for a while. I figured typing up for this blog would let me have an excuse to unleash Lickypede on the masses! I am planning to expand on this post (and the Inky Blinky Blight snippet) to create a story about this bugger finally.

Thank you for reading! May Lickypede skitter through your hearts and minds. The character below was made by me in the Second Life client. For the bits and ends I used, please consult my flickr.

The Malicious Maw

Hunting Hilarity

The cosmic entity loved to taunt its victim. Haunt its victim with its incessant. Fucking. Laughter.

Be the stifled snickerings from the mouths dotting the creature’s shoulder, like the beast was holding an earth shattering joke from their prey, or the haunting cackling the cracked from its fang encrusted maw. Jittering and chattering like a chucking chorus as the snickering merged with the laughter from the creature’s phonograph-like mouth.

Lickypede’s centipede body coiled itself around its victim’s legs. The appendage’s multitude of legs crawling and tearing at their flesh and skin as it moved.along their body, shoving their legs and arms back in place forcefully, holding them down as the body tightened like a rope around them. Stopping just under their elbows, the open maw stretched across the bissected portion of the millipede half of the massive entity.

As the victim did its best to struggle and push the body away, they would feel layers of the body’s shell flake away. Merely layer after layer of coagulated blood and the entity’s inky, oily tar hardened to make the carapace. It may have been hard as armor, but the outer layers still seemed to be drying. Other areas seemed to being coated from the slobber that dribbled from the mouth eternally stretched open at the body’s front. This meant meaty clumps of gunk clung to their hand like mucus and dyed their skin like ink.

The creature would never stop its damning laughter.

Snickers would sputter into gasping guffaws from the gnarled teeth twitching and oozing oil and tar from the twitching creature’s body. Specks of spittle spattering the victim and environment with the globs of syrupy oil. The stains, like the oils dripping in viscous globs from its oil coated body, would have a strange reflection. Like petrol in water, it spread the light that hit it into the color spectrum. Instead of a beautiful rainbow, something that would stain the victim’s mind like it would the surroundings would show itself.

Instead of bands, the colors of light would spread beyond the plane of the ink splotches would appear to be a chaotically cascading spectrum of dots in a 3d plane beyond the stain. As one moved, the image of ‘dots’ beyond it would appear to move like it was, in reality, a window to another plane. Closer inspection would prove those dots were, in reality, eyes suspended in the inky ocean beyond the reflection. All colored in a sequential rainbow, most staring out into reality, others moving about to focus on this and that.

Every drop of this sinister substance gave the illusion of a single one of these eyes suspended in the black oil as it fell to the ground, spreading into the all-seeing spectrum as it hit the ground. Its laughter slowly ascending in tone. The many mouths adding to the massive mouth’s growling giggling. Adding tension, adding harmony. The threatening snickering almost turning into a song.

Two segments of the coiled body spread, exposing the victim’s stomach, the legs helpful in pushing away the fabric that’d otherwise obscure its target. From the darkness the centipede body’s gaping, teeth framed wound of a segment, the same technicolor spectrum of eyes peering out. The depth and darkness within the carapace became clear as a lumpy, writhing figure appeared from within. At first, it almost looked like a hand groping for something to grab onto, reaching for eyes that were merely obscured by a hand that touched nothing. As the light hit it, it seemed to be merely an illusion. The figure flopping forward to reveal a dripping tongue, spreading a mixture of oil and pus around as it slithered along the carapace teeth. Examining its own teeth it would appear, before snaking its way down towards the victim’s stomach. Tickling and tracing it. Tasting their prey.

The spine that sprouted from the carapace’s mouth angled itself parallel to its victim’s torso. The tar that had coalesced into its upper body creating what passed for the emaciated being’s torso. Hardened as the body went up to the spasming claws and writhing, cackling head of the beast. It had positioned its coiling so it still towered over this, beginning to tilt forward causing the contaminated, concentrated syrup of rancid biological matter to pour over the victim's face. The scent powerful and dizzying, hitting the nose with a powerful sweetness like petrol that evolved into the rancid power of something that had decayed for centuries in an airtight container having never been open until this very moment directly into their nose.

It coated the room, it mader eyes water. It was a lingering stench that seemed to tell a story and every single bit of it made the recipient want to vomit and cry in a synchronized fashion. The victim’s frantically flopping head it roughly grabbed by the massive claw. The ink having hardened and stretched so the palm cupped the entirety of the side of their head like a normal hand could a cheek. Its elongated talons spreading themselves to clench around the entirety of their head. The index and middle talon parallel along their eye. The thumb caressing the chin. The other two did the job of threatening him by pushing the sharp points against the backish side of their neck and head. That hand was far from the victim’s concern.

Suspended above their head, powerless to pull away, the claw’s counterpart crept closer. The index finger pronounced, extended outwards with its target clearly the victim’s tear duct. Inch by inch they would struggle, their eyelid would flutter and twitch. It was to no avail. The claw crept closer at a hauntingly slow speed. Inch by inch the index claw filled their vision.

Octave by octave, that skin grating guffaw grew thunderous.

The index finger hovered closer to the eye, but the lids twitching proved annoying. With the slow and gentle care of a designer with a scalpel, the claw sliced the flesh away. First one lid, then the other. LEaving it lying right on the eye, a shocking feeling. One the victim had never experienced, though that was nothing new in this encounter. It had been absolutely eye-opening. Lickypede was sweet enough to save the victim from the strange experience of a wrinkled petal of flesh resting ever so delicately on the eye, cut so it was held only by being stuck to the wet ocular. With the tactfully tender tone, the tongue-esque tendril tipped towards their eyelid. Plucking it from their face and depositing into one of the mouths of their torso. The bottom lid soon follows.

The victim’s mouth, already fluttering like a flounder spouting screams and sniveling bargains, was forcibly kept open by the thumb dutifully position there. The digit roughly resting against the skin leaving them to gurgle and gasp out their pleas.

Seems Lickyface was sick of this blubbering as well. With an index claw still hovering just centimeters from their now painfully exposed eyeball, the tip centered directly on the pupil, the beast let out a chunky slurry. Most of the pressured stream concentrated to the victim’s open mouth, but it began to hit all around their lips causing a flood to pool everywhere. It was hard to focus on that, as the taste was indescribable, yet their tongue couldn’t escape it. Everywhere it flopped and squirmed in an attempt to evade and escape the taste caused the fleshy tissue that held their tongue down to grow sore. From the new searing pain, like gasoline to a wound, coming from under their tongue, they were certain they might be in danger of it tearing off. Fearing literally swallowing it in order to escape the taste. Suicide by stomach acid.

Their eyes burned as it began to cloud and stain their vision and blinded them completely. The victim would find, as Lickyface graciously began to clean the one eye it seemed fixated on whenever the liquid pooled on it, that this substance continued to blind them after being cleaned. The whites themselves even seemed permanently stained, darkening a shade with each dunk.

The splatter left a clue as to what made up the sludge the creature vomited. Plucked eyeballs laid on the ground, their fleshy tendrils twitching and flopping like they were trying to escape. The tongues seemed to fare better in their attempts. Boney little mandibles having sprouted from the long, spongy mass. The tongues, looking more like centipedes as more and more legs sprouted like the sides, scampered off into the night leaving trails of the pus stained sludge in their wake.

Another of these tonguey centipedes was stuck to the side of the victim’s cheek. Like a trooper, it dug its sharp legs into the victim’s flesh to try and fight the torrent of noxious sludge. Sadly, thanks to Lickypede’s dislike for spilling, it took to using its threatening claw to fix this. A tendril hooks the cheek one after the other from mouth to jaw bone. The poor, stubborn centipede had been spliced right in half spreading a pussy, bloody mess into the sludge. Mouth now able to be forced open far beyond what a human was normally allowed, the torrent continued.

The victim gagged, gurgled, and gasped causing thick bubbles to form along the sides of their mouth. This would be only the beginning of their problems as that talon returned to their eye. Their fears realized as the creature was quick this time, fearing their eye would move. Determined to slice their eye directly along the center of the eye parallel to the horizon should they have been standing straight and able to see.

The pain of the cut mixed with the substance finally invading inside their ocular was a near enlightening experiencing. COming to terms with all their previous pains purely due to the overwhelming magnitude of this long feeling. It made every single broken bone and shattered heart seem like child’s play in comparison to the symphony of sensations they were experiencing now. Their system was similarly shocked, attempting to regurgitate the torrent back. A losing battle, but the attempt was obvious by how the victim spasmed and dry heaved. The wet hurks and gurks escaping through the tar bubbles covering their face.

Lickyface just could NOT have their gift being squandered like this. Luckily, the namesake implied a tongue of its own. Many, really, but the main one was the point at large here. The cosmic boogun thrust its tongue through the torrent of tar and bile, thickening with the target goal being to tamp the toxic transfusion towards their throat. Almost in a mockingly loving fashion the massive tendril would stroke and prod theirs. The eyeball that grew from the collection of crusty oil focused on this, first seemingly being used to play like a piercing. Only for tiny little arms to sprout and grab onto the tongue. Wrestling with it and clamping onto it as the tongue began burrowing towards the back of their mouth.

As the tongue began to force its way down the mark’s throat, the little inkling imp that was ripping their tongue from the bottom of their mouth began to shove the tongue towards their trachea to force the concoction down their trachea, as the massive tongue began to wiggle its way down their esophagus.

The imp, however, would have plucked itself from the tongue in order to lodge itself up towards the victim's nasal cavity. Moving like a sentient blob, it would force the liquid into their nasal cavity. To the victim's horror, the acidic kerosene that seemed to coat their nostrils seemed to be growing something. Correction, it seemed to be causing something to grow from them.

A blemish could be felt in their nostril. One of the few muscle they still had much control over now, every twitch and flair caused them to become acutely aware of the painful lump. Acutely aware of this lump growing with every frantic movement. It was only a matter of seconds before this lump popped, causing a torrent of pus and blood to leak from their nostril like a particularly persistent bloody nose.

From the spot the boil burst, the patsy felt something moving in their skin. Through their pores and the cartilage just behind the wound. Something sprouting in their snot, snaking along the mucus and muscle as it searched for the way out. Something the imp was delighted to direct it towards.

The victims one lone eye could see a tiny tongue sprout from their nose. Just barely as it twisted into view. Growing and sprouting slowly outward.

Worse, they could feel more blemishes bubbling up from their skin.

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anautisticdragon-blog · 7 years

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Game Dev Studies: Violence & Autism

Note: This is going to be very dry. It examines the reaction to violence by autistic and sociopathic minds, and how this could be used to not only recognise both kinds of brain, but also to create games targeted at these demographics. Violence is fascinating! Not in the act itself, you'd have to be a sociopath to appreciate it and we'll get to that, but in how different brains react to it. One of the main differences between autism and sociopathy is emotional versus cognitive empathy, and how that affects how we interact with the world. An autistic person has incredibly high emotional empathy, but impaired cognitive empathy. What does this mean? Effectively, an autistic person is going to absolutely feel the emotions of everyone around them, this can happen even in television shows, films, and other scenarios where strong emotions are on display. Autistic people are very much caught up in the emotional sway and will be deeply bothered if someone seems to be suffering. The problem autistic individuals have -- that I have -- however, is that this is extremely difficult to express. An autistic person will feel your emotions but they won't always be sure how to utilise that information, how to act on it. For example, an autistic person will either be too afraid and will run away out of fear of being reprimanded, or they'll come on too strong and they'll be told angrily that the person just needs space. Our poor ability to deal with expressing empathy teaches us early in life to avoid people who aren't tolerant of this, which is why we can seem cold even when we're not. It's fear. We'll tend to run off and hide from it. Now, a sociopath has high cognitive empathy, certainly. They can understand the emotions they see and the roles they play, they know how to interact socially with those feelings and use them to their advantage. The sociopath, sadly, has a zero sum when it comes to emotional empathy, so they can't understand how emotions would make them feel or how they really affect others. Their understanding of emotion is glib and shallow, surface level, they simply don't feel it in the overwhelming way that autistic people do. Nor do they even feel it on the level that extraverts do, either. This is an interesting sliding scale, you see. The more extraverted a person is, the higher their cognitive empathy and the lower their emotional empathy. On the other end of things, introverted people tend to better emotional empathy than cognitive empathy. As you progress past introversion and extraversion into the extreme states of both (autism and sociopathy, respectively), you'll see this fundamental balance of empathy play out in greater extremes too. What I'm getting at is jut as how there isn't an 'ambivert,' there's no person who has equal levels of both emotional and cognitive empathy. For example, there isn't a human being alive who has the autistic person's level of emotional empathy, and the sociopath's level of cognitive empathy. So an extravert will never be able to experience emotional empathy like an autistic person, and an introvert won't be able to experience cognitive empathy in the same way as a sociopath. So how does this all tie into violence? A sociopath is fascinated by gore, murder, and death. They're intrigued by things like blood splatter analysis, and they find themselves more engaged and thrilled by games and other forms of entertainment if they're more bloody and visceral. The more suffering a character experiences in any form of entertainment, the more sociopathic viewers get out of it. As always, this is a scale, so on the lesser end of sociopathy -- extraversion -- we see schadenfreude and a penchant for violent -- though somewhat less gory -- games. The sociopath is also fascinated and compelled by the competition of violence, survival is an extremely stimulating idea to them, so the sociopath will always love settings that revolve around bloodied survival with the sociopath in control. The Walking Dead, for example, is something that a sociopath will get the most out of, since it deals with excessive violence and social manipulation, which are both certainly in the sociopath's wheelhouse. So to speak. An extravert, on the other hand, may be a little less thrilled by the blood & gore of something like The Walking Dead, but they're still going to get a lot out of the concepts of survival, violence, and social control/manipulation. They just won't get as much out of it as a sociopath does, since they still have a degree of emotional empathy and guilt that the sociopath does not. Are there people who don't enjoy violence in video games? Here's where I raise my hand. In fact, I've found that this is fairly common in the autistic community. If it's silly, funny, meaningless, and it doesn't cause suffering then we can enjoy it. You need to understand that the key word here is suffering, because we'll feel it, sometimes as much as video game characters. It'll hurt us. Furthermore, violence against animals in video games is even harder on us because developers tend to not 'filter' and sanitise animal violence like they do human violence. Have you ever noticed that? Really, think about it, think about the games you've played. This is also true of machines, funnily enough, as well. It's due to the limited capacities for emotional empathy that the extravert has, so they can't emotionally connect with the suffering of animals in the way that autistic people can. as such, this will often get overlooked in game development, creating a scenario that's untenable for people such as myself, my partner, and other autistic gamers. If you're still struggling with this, consider: A human combatant is going to be extremely violent, they're going to be carrying a gun and yelling angrily at the player in order to make their intent to kill you known. When you shoot them, there won't be much blood or splatter, they're unlikely to scream or plead, and they won't lie shuddering no the ground as the life disappears from their eyes. This is why it's easier for extraverts to play violent games involving humans. The violence is sanitised. If it involves humans. This doesn't happen with animals. Animals will whine, try to run, squeal, and often shudder and go stiff as they die. This is because the extraverted developer is quite fascinated with death, and they're able to enjoy the concept where it doesn't apply to humans, since they have at least some emotional empathy. The extravert's emotional empathy, lessened as it is, is focused entirely upon humans, though. So humans will be filtered to show much less suffering, animals will not experience such a filter and will show many more signs of pain and suffering. This is why as bad as games are with violence against people, violence against animals is far, far worse thanks to how extraverts view the world. Often, the way I react to violence against animals due to this very reason annoys extraverts as they can't emotionally connect with the suffering of the animals of the game on-screen in the way that I can. If it's not human, it don't suffer, right? That is a common extraverted perception. Now before you bite my head off for that? Consider the very extraverted belief, held for the longest time: Animals don't have a soul and thus don't experience any pain and/or suffering. Even in those who don't believe that as much, they still believe that animals don't experience it in the same way, or to the same level, as humans. This isn't true. They do. What's happening here, then? Well, the extravert cannot perceive that the animal is suffering and in pain, so they can't properly attribute real pain and suffering to that animal. This is why an extravert can shoot an animal, chase it down, shoot it again, and enjoy its death cries as it whimpers, whines, and goes stiff. They can enjoy that, I'm actually shuddering here just typing about this. And I need to because I feel that this is something that video game developers need to understand when trying to court an autistic (or even an introverted) audience. The more you do this with animals, the less I'm going to be able to play your games. Since you don't know how to sanitise animals in the same way you sanitise humans. And what's worse? They don't want to. I watch extraverts play games and they always seem to get off on doing this to animals, it makes them the 'alpha male' and that's what it's always about, for them. If the animal didn't display signs of 'defeat' then they wouldn't get as much out of it. This is where I see some distinct parallels between extraversion and sociopathy, it's just one of the observations over the course of my life that educated me on how sociopathy is nothing more than extreme extraversion. This came up recently when an extraverted ex-friend (whom I've disowned due to their painfully unintelligent views about human biodiversity, eugh) wanted to stream Far Cry for my partner and I. We weren't interested. They couldn't understand why. They just couldn't get it. They don't. I tried to explain to him that the way they handle animals in that game is painful to me as I don't like seeing anything so viscerally killed, or displaying so much pain and suffering as I feel it. They took this -- as extraverts always do -- as a personal attack designed to undermine them as part of some social game or other. So they started getting aggressive about it, pushing their views on me and trying to manipulate my partner and I through a war of attrition, trying to wear us down so that we'd finally give in and agree. Extraverts really don't understand autistic people at all. Suffice it to say, we didn't back down because neither of us wanted to feel that nauseous, we didn't want to feel sick to our stomachs. And so it went that this piece of work got more and more aggressive and nasty with us until he stormed off in a huff, he'd been 'defeated' because he couldn't 'win.' This is another problem I have with extraverts. When introverts and autistic people talk, we discuss to share and analyse ideas, we consider every possible perspective and try to learn from the experience. When extraverts and sociopaths argue, they do it to win some social game, to look superior to their peers, and to push their viewpoints as reality. It's very different. Arguing with extraverts often leaves both my partner and I feeling ill. They're just so aggressive and hateful. Anyway, you've probably figured out the kind of games we like by now. Splattoon? Fine. Ratchet & Clank? Fine. Even Saints Row IV because it's set in a simulation (no real people), and it's completely ridiculous. So that's also fine. GTA V? Hahahaha... No. Far Cry? No. And so on, and so on, and so on. Okay, think about this: My partner and I passively watched a Let's Play of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. The ship combat could be fun because there was no bloodied combat or violence on display, no pain & suffering, none of that. It wasn't the thing that kept us interested, though. The parkour was pretty nice, too, jumping around buildings and whatnot... This playthrough was one with the least amount of kills possible. We had to tune out, of course, for the 'necessary' kills. The part that really got us, though? Have a guess. Did you guess 'Google Conspiracy?' You were right! Give yourself a pat on the back. There's a reason that story heavy, character-driven, 'walking simulators' like Gone Home have become so popular of late, it's the same reason why pointy clicks were so popular back in the day. They're aimed at us. Yes! Hello, we exist! There's a massive autistic and introverted audience out there that simply loves this stuff, we can even enjoy some playful, cartoony violence so long as it's silly, sans suffering, and not bloody. Tacoma exists because we're that audience. God I love that game. Let's look at some of the kinds of games I love, based on my installed Steam games right now, shall we? And these are in no particular order, just grabbed 'em randomly as to not show preference. Yooka-Laylee; L.A. Noire; Minecraft: Story Mode; Witch-It; 2064: Read Only Memories; Spore; King's Quest; Echoes of Aetheria; Shiness; Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed; Event[0]; Night in the Woods; Ghost of a Tale; The Last Tinker: City of Colours; A Story About my Uncle; OneShot; Starbound; Undertale; Song of the Deep; Final Fantasy IX; Her Story; Tacoma; Aviary Attorney; Grim Fandango: Remastered; Thimbleweed Park; Loom; SEGA Mega Drive Classics (mostly for Shining Force and Landstalker); Megaman Legacy Collection 2; LEGO City Undercover; Submerged; Nimbus; Orion Trail; Speedrunners; Elegy for a Dead World; Anachronox; MacGuffin's Curse; Jolly Rover; The Maw; and Lara Croft & the Guardian of Light (my only Lara Croft game) to name a few... You might see a pattern, here. The strongest preference is for good writing, with a heavy leaning on character driven. The next preference (and a close second) is for non-human characters and unusual settings. The third preference is for gameplay that isn't focused around violence. The final preference is for gameplay that, if it must have violence, is silly, fun, cartoony, and harmless. This is almost a guide for how you can appeal to autistic people. Is anyone out there paying attention? Good. This is, by the way, a big part of why I've lamented games from before a period that I refer to as 'The Shitfall,' when everything good fell and the world went to heck. We've recovered from that largely, but there was a fairly dark period where things like DC's New 52 were allowed to happen, everything got gritty, dark, and incredibly dull. At least, for me. It's something that comic book publishers don't seem to grok at all, even if the writers do. Let me spell something out: You can have something story heavy, character-driven, chirpy, fun, and light-hearted. If it's chirpy, fun, and light-hearted that doesn't mean that it has to have no story. If it's story heavy and character driven, that doesn't mean it has to be grimdark and gritty. This isn't hard to understand, it isn't. Sadly, this kind of thinking seems to be only applied to children. Which is why Minecraft: Story Mode is one of the most enjoyable experiences in months, for me. Japan understands this, too, which is why Xenoblade Chronicles X was such a compelling experience for me. This seems to be even more true of the upcoming Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which is oh so reminiscent of Skies of Arcadia. Skies of Arcadia is another fantastic example! Upbeat, happy, story heavy, character-driven, and just fun! Saints Row IV? Upbeat, happy, story heavy, character-driven, and just fun! I think this is why I miss Japanese development so much, there was so much of this back when they really had an industry. Rebel Galaxy, Grandia, Kingdom Hearts, and so on. I think that we're slowly seeing a return to that, but it's slow going. Anyway, I can handle if something isn't so quirky, happy, and cheery so long as it has a good story, and it's character-driven, it's just that that's a lesser preference for me. The key point here is: I don't enjoy suffering and pain. I know I'm belabouring this but it seems so hard for extraverts to understand, and extraverts often get confused over this stuff, mixing up sociopaths and autistics which bothers me no end. So not only is this a treatise on how to develop games for different audiences, it's also a great way to recognise sociopathic traits. Okay with violence against animals, no matter how graphic? Very extraverted. Okay with violence against humans, no matter how graphic? Sociopath. Uncomfortable with violence against both if it shows pain and/or suffering? Very introverted. Incredibly squeamish and likely to flee if presented with violence that shows pain and/or suffering? Autistic. Another interesting thing about this is the aggressiveness versus neuroticism angle. What I find is that as sociopathic traits become more noticeable (heading into extraversion, then sociopathy, then psychopathy), aggression is more prominent as well. The inverse is true when dealing with introversion, and in far more extreme cases, autism. Introverted and autistic people are very, very uncomfortable around aggression. Usually, the more aggressive a person is, the more extraverted they tend to be. These are global signifiers in my experience, never wrong. Need to know how autistic or sociopathic a person is? Measure their reaction to and appreciation of violence.

#gamedev #game dev #game design #autism #sociopathy

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