Post by Dark on Nov 11, 2007 16:36:27 GMT -5
Some of you expressed a desire to read the winning entries, and considering I'm going to be expanding on this story with several additional installments, I thought I would post this for ya'll.
Enjoy~
Awareness is a slow, upward struggle. A life defined by angry words and confinement and hunger. Pale, bony, fleshy appendages an eternal torment. Is he dreaming? Awake, asleep. No difference. Except—
Pale light, filtering in through a cracked bit of mortar—it only shone in the morning, and then only in the summer. Vague notions—light and warmth and green—summer was just a word. The rest of the year is differing shades of darkness—velvet, creamy, absolute—punctuated occasionally by slim beams of moonlight on cloudless nights. Always wet, always cold; curled up in the dark where the only thing that changes is that soft puddle of light.
Time means nothing—he has nothing but time.
--
His first memory is of hunger: a creature all of its own, gnawing incessantly at his innards. Constantly empty, craving something more than the thick, rough gruel that was fed through the slot once every eternity. Like clock-work.
When he was smaller he’d curl up by the wooden slate, just to listen to the distorted murmur of voices. Comforting, like the sound of rain. Clutching the book his mother had given him when she shut the door on him. Hoping she would come back.
He spent most of his days now stretched out on his back contemplating the ceiling he couldn’t see—just another expanse of grainy oblivion—letting the cold seep into his old bones and drag him down. Away.
He was everything. He was nothing.
The door would never open.
But it did.
Old hinges protest, alerting of intruders. Foreign footsteps, drawing him back from infinity. It’s not malice that guides his hand, but hunger. It’s heady, the smell of fresh blood as rock collapses bone; metallic ambrosia, exploding in his mouth as he bites into yielding flesh. Instinct propels him forward; frightening need.
Recognition comes later, starring into dead eyes. Mother. Vague disquiet having nothing to do with his deed, and everything to do with this room. He picks up her book and climbs the stairs, stolen life fueling ungainly limbs.
The cellar opens to the kitchen. Cook is making dinner; back turned. He slides the knife from the counter, testing its balance the same way he weighs her sin. He can’t make it out the door without her seeing.
When he leaves the kitchen, he keeps the knife.
Brother is the next to cross his path, singing a bawdy ballad of which mother would disapprove. Shock, fear, revulsion don’t befit such a handsome face. Shout easily silenced by a cold kiss. Blade caressing bobbing throat and like an apology parting flesh. Lapping at the softly pulsing wound until it stops.
Father is long dead. Shame, mother said.
A shame indeed.
Still hungry he returns to the kitchen, to the icebox where he smells fresh fruit—sweet, cool, tang—he gorges himself, fingers sticky. Sedate now. Purpose fled, he sits on the cold flagstone in contemplation of the knife. Cleans the blood stains with a rasping tongue. His strength is as quick to leave as his motivation.
Crooked fingers trace the cracked binding of her book, feeling the recess of the four emblazed symbols on its cover. Nonsensical things, meaningless without knowledge. She never taught him how to read.
Time to take it back.
The house is smaller than he remembers; gaudy where he’d once seen impressive; pristine in its futile mockery of life. Alien. He wondered how he’d upset this delicate balance of seemly perfection. Why his mother had finally opened the door of the cellar.
He raids brother’s room for clothes. Only one pair of pants fit decently, cinched tight with a belt, cuffs rolled thrice. The heavy shirt swallows him whole, but he has socks. He’s warm.
The mirror startles him; heart pounding as he takes in the ornamental twist of vines and engraved flowers that cut into the image of a phantasm. Fragile; paper thin: he doesn’t touch out of fear the image will splinter. He looks displaced in brother’s clothing—tiny and gaunt; an ungainly skeleton. Dank, too-long hair hangs distractingly into bloodied eyes.
Sullied fingers trace the symbol stamped over his chest. Unexpected rage; glass shatters. Image all the worst reflecting back at him a dozen times over.
He needs answers, but he won’t find them here.
--
He finds a travel pack in the entryway, durable and practical—which he stows her book and the rest of the fruit in—and a cap—fashionably frayed, he supposed—which he pulls low to shade his eyes.
The knife is fit in snug against the small of his back.
When he leaves, the house is in much the same condition he found it—paper dolls and all.
-----------------------------
Minh was ambling her way home from Warehouse 14, satchel brimming with second-hand, stolen glass vials—and that minor distinction would become very important if someone in law enforcement just happened to pass her by—when her twitching ears latched onto the sound of a scuffle.
Curious, she stowed her precious cargo behind some old crates and slunk around the corner to investigate.
Two against one—and a humanoid kid at that, curled up in a pathetic, skinny ball to try and avoid the blows—and while Minh had little to no moral fiber to speak of, the odds just didn’t sit right with her. (Her intervention had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that she’d been itching for another fight since the brawl at the bar had ended prematurely. Nope.)
And, like in all similar situations, Minh did what she did best in a fight—she went for the ankles.
--
Even for petty thugs the fight was ridiculously easy—the stork went down in a flailing mass of feathers, long limbs getting tangled as he fell. While he was straightening out his wings, she went for his partner, a rather thick-muscled weasel. Slamming him into the wall knocked whatever little bit of sense he’d had to begin with clear gone, and he stood there for a moment with a rather befuddled expression on his face before he sunk to the ally floor dazed.
Regardless, they seemed a little too well groomed to not be in affiliation with a gang of some sort and these kinds of lowlifes tended to travel in packs. She might have been able to deal with only the two, but even she would have a problem dealing with a pack.
She regarded their target, lying prone on the hard cement. It would be interesting to ask him why they’d attacked him—once he regained consciousness, anyway. A little bit of latent decency tugged at her nonexistent heart, and with a pained sigh she gathered his scattered possessions and levered him up over her shoulders.
It was going to be a long trek home.
Enjoy~
Awareness is a slow, upward struggle. A life defined by angry words and confinement and hunger. Pale, bony, fleshy appendages an eternal torment. Is he dreaming? Awake, asleep. No difference. Except—
Pale light, filtering in through a cracked bit of mortar—it only shone in the morning, and then only in the summer. Vague notions—light and warmth and green—summer was just a word. The rest of the year is differing shades of darkness—velvet, creamy, absolute—punctuated occasionally by slim beams of moonlight on cloudless nights. Always wet, always cold; curled up in the dark where the only thing that changes is that soft puddle of light.
Time means nothing—he has nothing but time.
--
His first memory is of hunger: a creature all of its own, gnawing incessantly at his innards. Constantly empty, craving something more than the thick, rough gruel that was fed through the slot once every eternity. Like clock-work.
When he was smaller he’d curl up by the wooden slate, just to listen to the distorted murmur of voices. Comforting, like the sound of rain. Clutching the book his mother had given him when she shut the door on him. Hoping she would come back.
He spent most of his days now stretched out on his back contemplating the ceiling he couldn’t see—just another expanse of grainy oblivion—letting the cold seep into his old bones and drag him down. Away.
He was everything. He was nothing.
The door would never open.
But it did.
Old hinges protest, alerting of intruders. Foreign footsteps, drawing him back from infinity. It’s not malice that guides his hand, but hunger. It’s heady, the smell of fresh blood as rock collapses bone; metallic ambrosia, exploding in his mouth as he bites into yielding flesh. Instinct propels him forward; frightening need.
Recognition comes later, starring into dead eyes. Mother. Vague disquiet having nothing to do with his deed, and everything to do with this room. He picks up her book and climbs the stairs, stolen life fueling ungainly limbs.
The cellar opens to the kitchen. Cook is making dinner; back turned. He slides the knife from the counter, testing its balance the same way he weighs her sin. He can’t make it out the door without her seeing.
When he leaves the kitchen, he keeps the knife.
Brother is the next to cross his path, singing a bawdy ballad of which mother would disapprove. Shock, fear, revulsion don’t befit such a handsome face. Shout easily silenced by a cold kiss. Blade caressing bobbing throat and like an apology parting flesh. Lapping at the softly pulsing wound until it stops.
Father is long dead. Shame, mother said.
A shame indeed.
Still hungry he returns to the kitchen, to the icebox where he smells fresh fruit—sweet, cool, tang—he gorges himself, fingers sticky. Sedate now. Purpose fled, he sits on the cold flagstone in contemplation of the knife. Cleans the blood stains with a rasping tongue. His strength is as quick to leave as his motivation.
Crooked fingers trace the cracked binding of her book, feeling the recess of the four emblazed symbols on its cover. Nonsensical things, meaningless without knowledge. She never taught him how to read.
Time to take it back.
The house is smaller than he remembers; gaudy where he’d once seen impressive; pristine in its futile mockery of life. Alien. He wondered how he’d upset this delicate balance of seemly perfection. Why his mother had finally opened the door of the cellar.
He raids brother’s room for clothes. Only one pair of pants fit decently, cinched tight with a belt, cuffs rolled thrice. The heavy shirt swallows him whole, but he has socks. He’s warm.
The mirror startles him; heart pounding as he takes in the ornamental twist of vines and engraved flowers that cut into the image of a phantasm. Fragile; paper thin: he doesn’t touch out of fear the image will splinter. He looks displaced in brother’s clothing—tiny and gaunt; an ungainly skeleton. Dank, too-long hair hangs distractingly into bloodied eyes.
Sullied fingers trace the symbol stamped over his chest. Unexpected rage; glass shatters. Image all the worst reflecting back at him a dozen times over.
He needs answers, but he won’t find them here.
--
He finds a travel pack in the entryway, durable and practical—which he stows her book and the rest of the fruit in—and a cap—fashionably frayed, he supposed—which he pulls low to shade his eyes.
The knife is fit in snug against the small of his back.
When he leaves, the house is in much the same condition he found it—paper dolls and all.
-----------------------------
Minh was ambling her way home from Warehouse 14, satchel brimming with second-hand, stolen glass vials—and that minor distinction would become very important if someone in law enforcement just happened to pass her by—when her twitching ears latched onto the sound of a scuffle.
Curious, she stowed her precious cargo behind some old crates and slunk around the corner to investigate.
Two against one—and a humanoid kid at that, curled up in a pathetic, skinny ball to try and avoid the blows—and while Minh had little to no moral fiber to speak of, the odds just didn’t sit right with her. (Her intervention had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that she’d been itching for another fight since the brawl at the bar had ended prematurely. Nope.)
And, like in all similar situations, Minh did what she did best in a fight—she went for the ankles.
--
Even for petty thugs the fight was ridiculously easy—the stork went down in a flailing mass of feathers, long limbs getting tangled as he fell. While he was straightening out his wings, she went for his partner, a rather thick-muscled weasel. Slamming him into the wall knocked whatever little bit of sense he’d had to begin with clear gone, and he stood there for a moment with a rather befuddled expression on his face before he sunk to the ally floor dazed.
Regardless, they seemed a little too well groomed to not be in affiliation with a gang of some sort and these kinds of lowlifes tended to travel in packs. She might have been able to deal with only the two, but even she would have a problem dealing with a pack.
She regarded their target, lying prone on the hard cement. It would be interesting to ask him why they’d attacked him—once he regained consciousness, anyway. A little bit of latent decency tugged at her nonexistent heart, and with a pained sigh she gathered his scattered possessions and levered him up over her shoulders.
It was going to be a long trek home.
