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voidwhump · 3 months ago

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Shrike III

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hiiii anon thank you for believing in me. i love new stories i feel like theres so much more freedom. well this is part 3 of shrike. pretty short. more to come maybe :)

(Content: female whumpee, nonhuman whumpee, shapeshifter whumpee, lab whump, implied military whump, captivity, broken bone, electrocution, fever, blood, language barrier)

Meanwhile, she — the other she, the one they’d bound up in rope and tree fibers, the one spasmodic in the sleeper — curled and twisted and mewled and bit through dark dreams. She was half-blinded, all feelers and wires returning their blank signals against a fever-pitched brain. Click claws pierce stupid and mean against an alien flesh. Against the back of her eyes, from inside of the monster, she had one last vision of her mother flash blurry against her mind before all the world rendered itself cold and dead.

Mineralized. Carbon steel. Cold and unnatural. Man-made. All arms raised up against the enemy now, but she couldn’t raise up her arms at all.

He could. The fleshy, fragile thing behind the bulky tarp fabric pressed his own arms to feel for moving organs. He pressed cold hands by her temple and too close to her eyes. It seemed to scrape.

All that came was meaningless noise. His mouth moved jumbled sounds and harsh, bitter notes — then it picked up a tune like birdsong, like cooing, like chimes.

These weren’t words she knew, no language she could speak in. She bounced hard up against the edges of her knowledge; she tried to scoop out the core of it. She tried to feel the contours of the syllables, the accents, the cadence. But for all the effort she gave to it, it might as well have been gurgling.

Fear bloomed in her like a flower. It pierced through the fever’s delirium, like a message that had been delayed. She cooed back. She growled. In her own language, she spoke out soft syllables: Stop.

A thick and heavy boot found its way to her temple, pressing down hard at the place where the skin transitioned into bone. She understood, too late, the hands wrapped tight on the ivory of her antlers.

The thing writhed as her bone was wrenched nearly straight from her socket, the pressure unyielding and terrific as they showed no signs of stopping, of realizing that a body does not break that way.

Unbelievably, it came as a relief when the bone snapped at the base. Far from painless, but at least when it fractured, it did not pull away flesh and nerves with it. Blood poured anyway, hot and thick against her face, and she thought to buck and to kick again. She thought to shift and she tried to, but all the angles came up wrong again, and what she turned into next did not make sense.

It didn’t matter. Her body locked up before it could do anything else, each muscle locked into a spasm as the electricity cut straight through her. An awful burning, like the fever was eating her whole, like she’d never stop burning, like she’d feel this way forever. It stopped the shift dead in its tracks. The ropes bound tighter. Then tighter. Her blood moved in angry paces.

The gloved hand pet her now, like it wanted to soak up more blood. She decided that she hated them. She had decided it before then, when the war was young. But now the anger crystallized inside her. There was something pure about it. Tucked within the fur and bone and viscera, one bright purple heart beat viciously with passion.

She nursed her hatred. In the few precious seconds before she slipped back into the dark dream, she was at peace.

~~~

tags: @floral-comet-whump @somanyquestions-featuringanxiety @yet-another-heathen @catnykit @skyfireflight

@cecropiathemoth @i-eat-worlds @yassifiedinformation @sulnusoup13 @deluxewhump

@whump-queen @horrible-on-main @pigeonwhumps @doumidas-whumps @half-duck @micechomper

please lmk if you want to be added or removed !!!

#could I be tagged in future posts?

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voidwhump · 3 months ago

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Shrike II

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(Content: female whumpee, lab whump, implied military whump, solitary confinement, drugging, invasion of privacy, captivity)

But the next time she woke up, she was already inside of it. She’d woken up beneath the fluorescence a handful of times, but never on purpose. The mirror was new. And the injury, at the time, felt novel.

The dull pain at her shoulder only came to life as she dug her fingers into it — even then, it struggled to wake. The more immediate sensation was a stickiness, the feeling of being held down. Electrodes clung to her scalp and chest. The floor was a mess of wires. She rose carefully so as not to disturb them.

Four white walls and one observation windows that presented itself as a plain mirror. Soft blue bedding in the dead center of the room, haloed by the host of information detectors wired up to her body. A small curtain in the corner for four square feet of privacy.

The gown that covered her was the same color of the bed, too easy to tear, and tied in the back. She moved to adjust the straps of it, but found her hands mostly unwilling, slightly numbed, and ceased her efforts.

She crossed the room to the mirror, staring into her own reflection, knowing someone on the other side of it would be unnerved by the sudden eye contact. She leaned forward into the small microphone they positioned at the edge of the mirror. There were no controls for it. It was already on and always would be.

“I’m awake,” she spoke into the microphone, in case there was any ambiguity.

Three long seconds without reply before the intercom crackled to life, loud enough to be painful. Less than an inch of glass separated the two of them, but it sounded like the other was calling in from Antartica.

“Good morning, agent.”

“Have we been compromised?” she asked. Softer, she added: “Have I?”

The question was a formality. She knew what this room was for. Still, the silence that followed compounded the dread. For a moment it seemed like they would not answer at all.

“Hard to say.”

Yes.

Her breath caught in her throat for a second, but she knew the microphone had not caught it, and nothing in her expression changed. She enunciated the next words very carefully.

“I notice there is a large section of my shoulder missing.”

It was not an accusation necessarily, but for a moment she worried it was too direct a confrontation. The silence that followed from the other end felt weighted and guilty.

“That is correct. You’ve been placed under quarantine to monitor its development.”

“Clarity: Is this a permanent arrangement?”

“Hard to say.”

They could probably read her heartbeat from where they were and would not have missed the way it quickened. The muscles of her jaw tightened uncomfortably even as she willed her heart to slow.

“May I speak to Kennedy?”

“He isn’t here right now.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He isn’t available.”

“Tell him I asked for him by name.”

An enduring silence. She did not move from her position. It was a soundproof room, but she listened intently, as though she might be able to hear the sound of a chair scraping on the other side or an argument from one room over.

There was a different voice when the intercom returned. Silken and sympathetic, like the harsh analog was not made to receive it.

“Oh, my darling. We weren’t expecting you up so quickly. Are you feeling better?”

In spite of the circumstances, to hear him on the other end was immediately reassuring to her. It was enough to know that she had not been completely abandoned.

A soft blush still rose to her cheeks to hear him say darling. She knew how unlikely it was that they were the only two people on the call, could guess how many people were surrounding him now.

“I would appreciate some clarity about my situation, if that is agreeable to you.”

“Shoot.”

“Why am I being treated as if I came from over the border?”

“Because you did. You got cut within the Violet Country and there’s a significant risk of infection. We agreed it would be best to quarantine you until we can verify there’s been no contagion.”

“I don’t think I would have consented to this.”

“You did, though. You don’t remember because we gave you a very potent amnesiac, plus a mix of other sedatives to help with the process.”

“I feel perfectly lucid.”

“You are not. It is unlikely you will even remember this conversation.”

“It seems pointless to continue then, as I’ll likely have all the same questions the next time I wake up, but as I recall it infiltration is not in my job description.”

This was the angriest she ever allowed herself to be. Even then, it could just as easily be mistaken for confusion. She tried to keep her tone neutral, but the way he groveled in response told her the message had gotten across.

“It was my order. I am so, so sorry. If I had any idea there was going to be activity at this point in the cycle, I never would have sent you.”

“I forgive you,” she responded immediately. She could not imagine withholding it from him. “May I know the details of the incident which landed me here?”

“The memories are going to come back to you as soon as the drugs wear off and you will understand them better than I can relay to you.”

“I ask again: Is this meant to be a permanent arrangement?”

“Quarantine, angel. Sound it out.”

“Forty days?”

“Approximately.”

That was bad, but it was better than forever. She didn’t ask just how approximate that estimate was. She wondered if the lights would turn out each night or whether she would be left to guess each passing second. There was no clock in the room by design.

“Would it be possible for you to get my belongings from my apartment?”

“Possible, yes. But we would need to destroy them upon release.”

“I see.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“I would like real clothes if I am going to be under continuous observation.”

“Understood. I’ll take care of it. Is there anything else?”

Are you really going to leave me alone in here for a month? What happened to me? What will happen to me? What are you looking for? Am I going to die?

“No.”

~~~

tags: @floral-comet-whump @somanyquestions-featuringanxiety @yet-another-heathen @catnykit @skyfireflight

@cecropiathemoth @i-eat-worlds @yassifiedinformation @sulnusoup13

@whump-queen @horrible-on-main @pigeonwhumps @doumidas-whumps @half-duck

just tagging people who expressed interested in the premise!!! please lmk if you want to be added or removed :)

#solitary confinement #drugging #lab whump

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voidwhump · 3 months ago

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Shrike

hiiiiii. this is the pilot to the series i teased at in this post. sorry im so bad at describing my ideas lmfao.

i promised id get this done by the end of october! just barely!

also read the southern reach trilogy if you havent!!! its so great and such a huge inspiration behind this that i almost want to call this fandom whump. its my own take though :)

happy halloween lololol

(Content: guns, death mention, animal? attack, blood, restraints)

When the truck finally rolled across the only smooth stretch of road on the entire journey, just as it had gained enough speed to make the terrain blur together, Hazel could’ve sworn she saw a large shape shambling through the maze of the trees.

“I thought I saw the movement of a large animal,” she noted to the driver, “But it went by too quick to tell.”

“I acknowledge you think you saw movement. I am increasing my awareness of our surroundings. I will inform you if I see anything to corroborate your observation,” said the driver.

Hazel stared out of the glass pane. They were going too fast now for her to see anything else. They could go as fast as they wanted, this far out in the country.

“I thought it was important,” she said quietly.

“I’m just fucking with you, Haze. You’re probably right.”

Finn readjusted his mirror slightly, as if he hoped to find something in the rearview. Of course, there was nothing. It never came when you expected it to.

She reclined in the passenger’s seat, a bit sullen. It wouldn’t have gotten to her on any other day. She enjoyed working with Finn, about as much as she could enjoy working with anybody. She did not like being sent out with him on what was clearly punishment detail.

Finn was twenty-five, and would be considered a genius by any metric that bothered to count it. Not that he needed it for the job he was given. She supposed she was lucky, in that sense. They only sent her out into the sticks when they were mad at her. They sent him out just about every time a fuse broke.

The difference showed in their attire. He dressed himself up like a cowboy these days, down to the pistol on his hip. She was clad in the same undone suit jacket she always wore over the white button-down. Utilitarian. Governmental.

He’d mocked her for that too. She’d have dressed differently if she’d known where she was heading that morning. She thought they’d only send her down to the lab to get samples, an hour out of her way, which would’ve been punishment enough. She’d only learned they’d be driving hours into Violet Country a few minutes before they were scheduled to.

If she’d have asked Kennedy if he was mad at her, she knew he would say no. He’d say no, but he’d still send her out here, and that would be her answer.

The truck pulled into what used to be a campsite.

Some idiots had snuck past the border. Their trash lay in piles around the old cabin. There were no other vehicles visible in the clearing, which registered as an immediate relief. The both of them had been well prepared to chase any campers out — and though she was good at it, she did not enjoy it. She would have enjoyed it even less if they had pulled into the site and found the cars still there, right next to the shredded remains of their owners. They’d been spared this time.

She supposed there was always the chance they hadn’t escaped at all — that they’d only driven further out into the country. Then there’d be no saving them. It wouldn’t even be her concern anymore.

Hazel took the North side, while Finn took the South. She was cautious, always, but not truly afraid. They were still close enough to the border that activity should’ve been at a minimum — and besides, it was daytime. She dragged her own length of rope dutifully, keeping track of just how much territory they had spoiled, anything they may have taken with them. But the earth was charting normally. Besides all the litter, the site was more or less undisturbed. She worried about the gasoline seeping into the soil, but that was something the EXE was just as guilty of — and had been for years.

She’d just begun rewinding the rope in a loop around her arm when all the noise of the forest died at once.

Her own heart nearly stopped as she felt the eyes on her back.

Slow, cautious steps. All her own. It was watching, yes, but it was not yet moving. The truck wasn’t far at all.

Warm air rolled down onto her shoulder — and she knew it stood taller than the truck. It was so much closer than she’d thought it was. She knew it was massive — she pictured its long, thin legs, ample and able. She did not understand how something so large could have crept up on her.

There came the unmistakable sound of a hoof step, just inches from her ankle. She took off at a sprint.

It wasn’t for long — and it was not in one direction. Just as soon as she heard the hoofbeats pick up in earnest, she let herself pivot, dashing sideways along the tree line. She was rewarded for it. It charged past her — its form cervine, like she knew it would be. It was unquestionably larger than the truck. Though it couldn’t make quick turns, the truck couldn’t either. Not while it was parked in the loose dirt.

She tied the rope around the nearest tree as quickly as she could. There was no way she would ever be able to hold it down, but the tree might’ve stood a chance. Or it might’ve been uprooted. She didn’t have a lot of options either way.

The ungulate rounded back on her. She could see so little of it through the trees. What she did see, she could make no sense of. The paleness of bone stood out against the shaggy fur — and the fur stood out against nothing, almost invisible among the brambles.

Again it charged. She dodged left, pulling the rope taut as she did. It hung at her waist level and at what might have been the thing’s knees. It’d have been a better tripwire if she could’ve held onto it. Instead the rope pulled her to the forest floor as the creature crashed into it.

It had tripped, though. The angles of its legs did not make sense to her, but there were more angles there than there had been, and the thick part of its body was lowered. She tied a frantic loop at the other end of the rope. She had no faith, even as she did it. Bad throw. She had a bad throw.

But miraculously, the lasso sailed through the air, just barely snagging one of the pale white appendages she took to be antlers.

It screamed.

She scrambled around the tree she’d fallen into, winding the rope around it. The creature reared up at the same time, thrashed around too much. Just as she went to tie the knot, the rope went unexpectedly taught, crushing her fingers into the bark. She yelped in pain.

Oh, it was furious.

She had just barely managed to free her hand when the thing charged her again. The single rope around its antler was not tight enough to keep it anywhere. It still had a range of fifty feet — fifty feet she fit squarely inside.

Something sharp carved right into her shoulder. In shock, in the haze of pain, she could not make out what it was. But it had drawn blood, and lots of it. It had been heavy. She was knocked back into the dirt.

When the first gunshot rang over her head, she knew to drop lower. She enjoyed working with Finn, about as much as she could enjoy working with anybody, but he played with that pistol like it was a fucking toy. She scrambled back, listening to the thing’s awful screeching as one of its legs was shot out from underneath it.

This time, she got the knot right.

It was still only bound by its antler, but the length it’d been given was reduced to only ten feet.

Finn still had his rope. She stumbled towards him, outside of the creature’s range. Though her hands were shaking, she tied the next lasso herself. When it reared up again, they tossed the rope around its kicking front legs and bound them together tight. It fell heavily onto the forest floor, howling the whole time.

He wrapped the bandages around her torn shoulder — and his flannel around those, for good measure. She leaned her head back against the bark of the tree, too worn out to even stand. The creature lay bound in the dirt not a few meters in front of her.

“Bring it back or leave it. Your call.” The operator had said over the radio.

She couldn’t see its eyes. There were no soft organs of its face. It seemed to be skull — and only skull. How could it see her, if it didn’t have eyes? She knew she had felt it watching her.

“Damn. God damn!” Finn said, throwing his hands onto his hips. “Well, what do you suppose we do?”

Hazel sighed, squeezing her eyes shut.

Bring it back or leave it. We’ll come get it later. But it would disappear if they left it there. She didn’t know how she knew this, but she was sure of it. The ground itself would free it. The trees would reach down their limbs to untangle the knots. She knew this more than anything.

“What’s the load limit on your truck?” She asked.

She was sure it had been at least the size of the truck when it had attacked. But now she was equally sure it could fit within the truck bed. She crawled forward and she pulled the rope tighter, because they seemed to be loosening around it. It brayed again. She didn’t like it.

She had to watch it in the rear window the entire ride back. They’d managed to drag it up into the truck bed, having fashioned a ramp out of the splintered remains of the wooden cabin. Somehow, they dragged all one thousand pounds of it up into the vehicle.

They’d had to stop five times on the way back to re-tie the ropes. Each time, they bound it as tightly as they could, excessively, leaving no room to even thrash. Then soon enough, it’d change its shape again, and they would have to start over.

There was no single point where Violet Country ended and the rest of the world began. Though that would’ve been easier. She did not know just how close they’d gotten to civilization until she saw the black top of the first laboratory appeared on the horizon. It was slowly turning invisible against the darkening sky.

~~~

tags: @floral-comet-whump @somanyquestions-featuringanxiety @yet-another-heathen @catnykit @skyfireflight

@thewhumpcaretaker @cecropiathemoth @i-eat-worlds @yassifiedinformation @sulnusoup13

@whump-queen @horrible-on-main @pigeonwhumps @doumidas-whumps @half-duck

just tagging people who expressed interested in the premise!!! please lmk if you want to be added removed :)

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