if i look back, i am lost
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YOU ARE THE REASON
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izzy's playlists!
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@curious-cryptids
Masterlist:
Currently, everything I've written is just randomly on my page and buried under reposts, so this should hopefully tidy some things up!
!!WARNING!!
Before interacting with any of my works, please be aware that I mostly write body horror. This means I commonly write about cannibalism, extreme blood and gore, extreme body modifications, and parasites/parasitic themes. Your safety as a reader comes first. Please don't interact if any of these themes are harmful to you!!
Eyes are the Windows to the Soul Masterlist:
A young woman exists in a dead-end life, working at a job that crushes her soul more and more every day, whether she acknowledges it or not. When a new neighbor moves in beside her, she grows steadily more obsessed with her free spirit.
Part 1:
The stars are hiding from us.
The endlessly monotonous days, watching people's eyes grow paler and less defined as she refuses to look in the mirror.
The stairwell is stained with ghosts, yellow and blue afterimages imprinted on the chipping plaster. She traces their last moments with her eyes, fingertips still oily from the last time she dipped into the wet chill buried in the discolouration.
Most of them are in motion, feet permanently searching for the next step, hands glancing off the memory of a metal handrail. But the platforms remain still. They stand in quiet rows, organs failing in the hitches of catching their breaths, tissues eviscerated in the pale blue glow of cracked phone screens.
Some are sitting in the corners. Resignation growing heavier in their chests with every blink that fuzzed the world a little bit paler. Too tired to move, never exhausted enough for the mercy of vanishing in a blink.
And then there's the Woman, blue stain licked red hot at the edges, spilling from the center of the platform down the steps, coveting nearly an entire flight.
She steps along its edges gingerly, tamping down a grimace as half-coagulated blood slinks into her veins. The remnants cling and coddle the residents they exist beside, hooking into their lower lids, weaving themselves into braids between their ribs, replacing atrophied muscles with the faint iridescent sheen of memories layered over top one another until they collapse under their own weight.
Very few people take the stairs anymore.
When she steps outside, the sunlight glares down with a vengeance. It scorches rather than warms, stewing in its own hate. All around, people stubbornly carry themselves forward. Staggering towards cramped desks stained brown from some unidentifiable spill. Limping to open construction sites, counting down the grinds of bone and cartilage until they can finally lie down. Drifting towards stone-box schools, lesson plans dripping behind their eyes, and pooling thick and iron at the backs of throats.
Souls cling to them, faded watercolour wings curling around hunched spines and broken hearts like a good hug could crack the vertebrae back into position.
She smooths her skirt down and steps in beside them, holding her breath for just a minute like the stench of death would fade that quick.
The sky is grey with sullen clouds, and she breathes shallowly, sucking cold damp air through her teeth, even when they start hurting. A murmur tours the crowd, someone sighs and flickers like a dying lightbulb, their neighbor lets out a strangled sob in the vaccum left behind.
The rest of them politely don't notice.
Her desk partner has removed his name tag.
She glances over periodically, working him into her rotation of screen, desk, open notebook, and now, deskmate.
He is holding it - a slim metal clip engraved with who he is, last, then first, and an initial for any middle names - with the pointer and thumb of each hand, close enough to his face for her to go cross-eyed.
She glances at her computer screen again, the words of the document blur in her peripherals as she focuses on the clock.
He has been staring for 30 minutes, probably longer.
The etched name evades her. Its memory is bubblegum pink, burning up the same colour as the suit her boss had been wearing when she introduced him. A 'J' floats through pale ash, formerly the edges, and warbles in her ears with the soft pop of lips smacking.
Wheels catch on the tangled carpet fibers, her wooden desk seeps ice into her hips as she leans over the frosted glass towards him. Her mouth forms a soft 'hello' without any substance, neck craning to peer at his face.
The greeting gets caught in the milky fog obscuring his eyes. Dark lashes flutter in time with the twitch and roll of pale grey irises, pupils the smudge of half-erased graphite. A wrinkle has gouged itself in his brow. It trembles faintly as his lips twist around letters that keep floating off the metal plate and getting lost in rain-laden clouds.
The chair creaks as she settles back down and nudges her computer further in front of him.
She doesn't look at him again.
Lunch has become tedious, the repetitive grind of chewing echoes like her heartbeat through a meat processor, and all her food has slowly but surely decayed into sawdust. Swallowing takes two or three tries to get that wet choking mass of paper shreds down. Still, she opens the small containers, alone at a round table, and dutifully runs a nail over the deep red skin of an apple she doesn't remember cutting.
Conversations float on stale air. Old gossip bubbles under layers of paint and sinks into fresher ears, passes along younger vocal cords, born anew on the same dead audio waves. She tunes out the melted words. There's nothing left in the break room she hasn't already heard, hated, and lost interest in.
The apple smells sharper than it should. It stings like vinegar. She scrapes at the wrinkled skin and tries to push her memory back past the silt that's started to settle into a wall atop her spine. 'I only cut the fruit a few weeks ago, no? How long do apples last?'
The sound of her name shatters her train of thought, and reality hits sideways like cold water as she blinks through the sudden fuzz.
"Hello? Everything okay?"
A coworker stands there, weight resting heavily on her left leg, arms crossed tight across her chest to keep the organs under her skin from falling out. Long manicured nails tap quickly against a cream suit.
"Hello?"
And she has been sitting here too long.
"Hi, sorry?"
Coworker frowns and looks away. Discomfort pulls at her lips as she sneaks glances from underneath lowered lids.
"Do you know where Jacob is? He's not at his desk."
'Oh.' She's forgotten by now that anybody in the office still talked to each other.
"Oh. He died earlier today."
The words hang in the air as her coworker stares blank-eyed. The old gossip descends like vultures, tearing off pieces of the words to smuggle back, each gloating over their spoils with too much glee to make any threat of secrecy real.
"At his desk?"
"Yeah."
"Have you told anyone?"
'Have I?' The spaces between his death and lunch have snuck off somewhere.
"Not yet."
"Okay. Thanks."
"Yeah."
Coworker walks off, none too subtly sneaking pitiful looks over her shoulder. She packs up the old apple, making a mental note to toss it away at home, to avoid listening to the fading footsteps. The break room settles without any drama to gnaw at, drifting into an uncomfortably swollen sleep punctuated periodically with restless dreams of long dead conversations.
Her organs ache in the silence.
Only three hours left until she can leave.
The thought hurts physically, something wet and heavy snaps inside her chest and crushes her ribs into her lungs with its embrace. She bites at her lips to keep inane laughter from bubbling out of the sludge smoldering under her skin. The thought of going home to her empty apartment, falling asleep in thin bedsheets still tangled from her restless nights, makes her want to rip her hair out strand by strand.
She heads back to her desk. She sits in front of the blinding computer screen. She stares at the silly letters traipsing their ways across emails and documents, headed somewhere better she hopes.
She sits there for 3 hours.
She grows more and more annoyed at the stupid little words, singing their foolish songs. She deletes three drafts for an email with no recipient. She feels the urge to cry shift into uncontrollable laughter and back again. She notices how her blinks grow louder as her eyelids begin sticking to the tacky sheen over bloodshot eyeballs.
She stands up and goes home.
She ignores the three people that die on the train beside her, staring blindly at the houses that rot before her eyes as their people vanish silently from the exhausted halls. She lies down on her couch, face growing hot with the rush of blood pooling in her skull. She wonders if she locked her door.
She finds she doesn't really care.
Tropical clouds melt into the palid grey of twilight between shallow breaths, and she re-memorizes her name to the tick of the clock counting down the seconds. The sky is bruised black when she crawls into the bathroom, with its flickering yellow light and wheezing fan that exhales dust like a smoker.
The air sits grimy and thick in her lungs as she squeezes toothpast from a wringed-clean tube, hands shaking only slightly. Mint burns against her tongue, even after she spits and rinses. She straightens carefully, head tilting up to the buzzing yellow light before her body uncurls itself into the view of the mirror.
The mirror is cracked. Dark pit boring out from the center, far-flung tendrils slowly pulling whatever beast lies within there to the surface. The shards of glass that used to keep it sealed sit in an otherwise empty cupboard in her kitchen. They chime cheerfully, mockingly, every time she accidentally opens and immediately slams it shut. What's left on the wall likes to show her images of a familiar woman, her eyes obscured by a thick grey smoke.
She fumbles around for her phone, clumsy against the slick porcelain, and flicks the bathroom light off before leaving.
Her apartment is quiet, the faint buzz of traffic seems so far away, muffled by the heavy dark she tiptoes through. Dry hands map the familiar scratches in the plaster walls until she stands in front of the yawning mouth that is her bedroom door.
Her bed is familiar. The scent of illness clings to it like it does her. The faint but persistent twinge of sweat mixes with a sickly sweet thickness. Its mattress sags where she curls, and her body aches even in the comfort. The thin sheets are clammy no matter how she washes them, sticking to her skin like misplaced grafts growing where they're not welcomed.
She closes her eyes, tension relocating itself from her shoulders to a place that will make her hurt the most tomorrow, her hips maybe.
Ouside, the world drags by in smears of watercolour. People blend into one another, features interchangeable between those carrying the same exhausted anger on the verge of burning out.
The stars are murky behind smog-laden clouds and the layers of broken dreams from those who no longer pray to them. She lets herself be pitiful in the pitch black, too thick to see through, and cries until her eyes are swollen and her pillow case is soaked through.
Something in her apartment rots. She hopes it's not her.
A new series has begun!! I'm really excited for this one, I've been thinking about its concepts a lot.
I hope you enjoyed!! - Ghost
New REBLOG Game
Just fucking lie about the previous poster
Prev hates Italian food with a burning passion
@rzkx @rockbtmbasement @bookwyrm-42 @lunathetunaaa @sunshine-snake +open tags idk
prev hands out cards to people on holidays that have a mini versions of the periodic table on them
open tags! (who i’m tagging below the cut) :) /nf
Prev is a male
Tags
@willowxweirdoxthexdayxdreamer @elijahcries2 @tabbykai @thatglitchfan @yourlocalavian @yourl0calqueer @ur-bestie57 @unablebagel @illumiphosauce @itsbeeugaymers @imacanofsprite @phoenixrainsfire413 @p3skybirdd @purrrrplecats @firestar1998 @littlebeanantenthusiast @coppperrrcoinnnn @violetrosiecookiesleepydragon @beanzdabean @nevergonnagiveyaup @notkiramoon505 @maedaeeee @saigesays @sage0clock @selenegoldsmith @mimsicalmidnight + open tags
Prev hates me and wants me to die
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Prev knows my favourite spaghetti
@cartoonenby @wynndexandformaldyhyde @infinitelypurple @tabbykai
prev ate my pen
@cartoonenby @faetoday @morallyambiguousfrog @amfrogg @flowgeeksout @albite1 @seafoam-octopus
i would NEVER watch something prev recommended me because they have AWFUL BAD taste U-U
@amfrogg @flowgeeksout @nanaloveshachialot @justalilolfrog @massivegaynerd
Prev is so unfunny and uncultured. Ugh. I hate them🙄🙄🙄
Also they hate green
Uh tags ig idk bro💔💔
@preen2085 @chasescookieboo @imobsessed123 +anyine else uhhhh hopen tags!!!!! Yeyyyyttt im sleeoy
prev despises, absolutely loathes pjsk. hates it. with a passion. hates it
@sandstorm-or-smth @buddy-hollow @nathaniel-needs-to-die @soaradaclown @sskatmar @m41thart @le-worm @levi561
prev is the SCARIEST AND TOUGHEST PERSON YOU’LL EVER MEET
@zeta-finnish @breadcrumb-offical @iamchaosandanarchy @average-lazy-writer @sunflowerpastels @chaotic-cotton-candy @nocontextsock @informal-cabbage @colourcodedloveerboy
Prev is single and straight
Tags:
@tr1xzyy @natborlos @average-lazy-writers-wife
Previous is uncultured, un-manly, has no aura, and is not one of my best friends that love plantonically sm
Tags!!: @rheas-sweets @x-xdragonfly @sandie-pjsk @tylerhaterx3 @diabolicalworldwriter @half-deadmagicperson
Prev is an absolutely terrible artist
@tr4ins @stopped-caring-a-while-ago @the-oaken-muse @jollyhauntings @tyloves @chaotic-cotton-candy
PREV TOTALLY DIDNT MAKE ME CRY MY EYES OUT OVER ONE OF THEIR FICS WAAAAAAAA
@rainbows-studio @deadxgonedigital @sangrinya @acecookiesap @stadar @lolabp7 @schrodingers-dan-named-critter @nova-alien @cringezskull430 @zannaaaaaaahh @zatannasarmrest
Prev absolutely hates Chase Hollow (like and follow) from the hit webcomic Cinderella boy
@laturtle @shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii @normalradioname @freezeriaaa @cookieboojar @doubl3thetr0uble @chocolate-consumer @buddy-hollow
Prev has terrible art that I never go feral over ever it sucks fr
Tags!(tag?)(new here and only knows one person who me??): @its-a-me-chaosthedragon
prev is like the worst person ever and an awful friend and and and I hate her and we have never divorced before.
Tags :D @etonzolo, @paradextwo-is-reconnecntng, @nylah-doesart, @nebulafire-art, @mugfulis
prev is leaving the fandom and is a boundary warrior and hates joy and whimsy and never likes making characters suffer and is a boring bland block of vaguely beige wood
tags :) @astronautbeans, @di-diwata, @wrennby-is-an-enby, @novacore18, @justabirb512, @yeahpangian478, @snekluvsbread, @mimicunderscoreunderscoreoctopus
Prev definitely doesn’t like Lifesteal or the Sticklers.
Tag: @curious-cryptids
Prev doesn't know that I write at all, complete mystery to them
Tag: @justalittlemoonbeam
A sigh echoes too loud in this quiet house. It bounces off the tile flooring and prods pathetically at the metal grates. The air turns stale and bitter the longer it circles, chasing itself into wisps of water vapour that will inevitably crystallize mid-air into a fossilized cloud.
Perhaps it would be different if the house were still full. Tiny feet pattering grooves into the carpet and wearing the patterns out of stair banisters. Old wizened hands tracing the scratch marks littering the bottoms of plastic tubs filled with water just hot enough to steam the air, greeting the familiar marks of age with near melancholic joy.
Back then, the sigh may have sharpened itself into a scream. It could have burst from their chest with a vengeance, anger honing its edges, agony tempering its blade. It would have torn through the house, shredding curtains and tapestries, shattering glass, painting smooth skin red with curling ferns.
But back then, people would have come.
Calloused palms would have cradled their crushed head, tenderly working the bone shards out of muscle fibers to puzzle a skull back together on the bloody bathroom floor.
Nimble fingers would ease bloodless fingers from porcelain and untangle the knots buried in their intestines. Someone would have brushed their hair back, smoothing crusted strands from their face, rinsing and massaging until the water ran clear.
They would not be dragged to the forest in an unmarked car 6 hours after a nondescript text. Just an hour in military time, sent from fingers clumsy with exhaustion, needing to be rewritten an embarrassing amount of times.
There would be no hazmat suits, thick gloves squeezing their malleable flesh into a kind of puree. Rasping gas masks filling the air with labored breaths their ghosts ignore, welcoming the cold unreality in that carbon dioxide like a friend returned from sea.
There would be no shovels, blades still dulled with mud, dug into soft earth tilled almost regularly, wild strawberries poking their heads from the warm soil.
But the house has been empty for a long time. Somewhere between their fifth death and sixth life, their last sister slipped out that splintering front door and took her memories along.
So now they text the burner phone and watch through fog layers meant to be comforting as the people in their sterile suits drag bodies from their home.
They float above the black car, running their hands through the pale headlights, turning in tandem with the relaxed hands guiding the wheels.
They watch the figures hesitate above the grave, searching for some place to dig that won't crush the fledgling sprouts. They linger a few steps away, knowing they needed to find a new place months ago, still ignoring the reminder on their phone that sends static-shocks every time they click into that contact.
They drift into the thin gap carved between root systems. Peering into the dark, never quite able to bring themselves to hope for a better sight, never able to stay at home.
They cradle the disembodied pain that sparkles up their spine when their body crashes down, holding it against their ribs until it fizzles out into the acrid burn of cigarette smoke.
Tracing the interlocked joints and woven limbs. Stepping gingerly through the sludge that clings to the dirt but never ends up soaking in, some combination of overhydrated soil and too-solid skin scraps. They say hello to the people sharing their face, wondering quietly if they shared a soul too.
They lie down at some point, ears straining for a heartbeat or desperate gasp. Flimsy excuses not to go home laid over the carrion like tulle, making the pile a heroes journey, a determined last stand, another attempt of delusional hope.
They stay there as the car starts up, engine purring softly, successfully soothing nobody but putting in a valiant effort anyway.
Everyone prefers a quiet drive back.
In the morning, they'll wake up in another body. Limbs bent only at the joints, skin smooth and unblemished, eyes blinking in sync.
In the morning, they'll ignore the persistent discomfort that they should have woken up in dirt. They'll stretch and attribute it to sleeping in the bathtub overnight, willing the aches in their joints to align with the awkward position their neck should've been in.
In the morning, they'll pretend they were here all night. Shivering behind a door with a broken lock as ghosts wailed and scratched, pleading for just one moment together.
In the morning, they'll pretend this house is full.
Dear @mimicunderscoreunderscoreoctopus, please consider this piece dedicated to you!!
Can we tell I've been existential recently? I fear I'm not exactly hiding it, and somebody needs to be my guinea pig. Sorry, Max!!
I do actually like how this piece came out. It can be read in tandem with 'This body doesn't fit me' since it is exactly what happens after the events in that piece.
I hope you enjoyed!! - Ghost
This body doesn't fit me.
Separate link because I can't link it above for some reason :(
What were you made for, August?
You were designed to be an artist, you know. You were to spend your life molding metal into delicate doves and casting sheets of bronze that flow like water, silk smooth when your hand passed through the indistinguishable strips.
But if not, they could have made you an architect. You could have built castles of shifting spiral staircases and gardens of silver birds chirping sweet melodies at sunset.
You could have been brilliant.
What have you done, August?
Why are they scared of you?
Don't lie.
You're the weak link here. Can't you see?
The way their hands shake when you glance over. How they move automatically for their weapons when you move to stand, blades pressed between trembling bloodless fingers, crossbows set at your neck.
Are you not scared?
Do you not feel.. unsteady?
They can see the fracture lines that spiderweb across your skull. They can see the hollow places where you've dropped your humanity without realizing it. They can see the blood-soaked bones that stick out from your skin, still pulsing faintly with your fading heartbeat.
They want you back.
The real you.
The one who promised her a better life back in reality. The one who promised them "through sickness and health." The one who promised to end her suffering.
The real August, the good August, would never be standing here with blood on his hands.
Do you remember who it's from?
It is masking your face from the gash you dug into her neck? Drying thickly across your teeth, tasting of rotten meat and cold iron. Dripping into the gaping mouths her nails scraped into your cheeks, poisoning your blood.
Is it splattered across your chest from cleaving her in two? Words dried like electrical burns across your skin, guilt lashed in whip-strokes. Staining everything you touch with tenderized meat and broken dreams.
Is it crawling up your arm from his spine still held limply in one hand? Digging a hole to your heart, teeth gnashing for a bite of the bloated muscles. Making a home for itself atop the fire that keeps you from shivering.
Is it clinging to the neon pink intestines you tore from his body? Squirming back under the tissues, searching for a home that doesn't exist. Still pumping through dead arteries, working to save someone they love, someone you gave a life to.
Is it pooling from your split knuckles where his glass tore open fragile skin? Staining the grass rusty and carcinogenic. Toxins dripping into the soil from your empty soul.
Or, is it running hot under your skin? Flushing your face red and heavy. Hands sweat-slicked and aching.
Are you still panting from crushing her windpipe?
Are you still gasping from holding her underwater until her skin melted away?
Are you still coughing out shards of metal after you crushed his skull?
No wonder they're scared of you.
Now all that's left is to die, August.
Permanently.
To show them how sorry you are.
To show them you'll do anything for them.
To show them you love them more than anything.
To prove you can still be beautiful in some way.
This is a concept I'll probably be exploring more in the future because it's so interesting to write about.
I wonder how August will cope with murdering the people he loves most in the world.. I wonder if he knows how much of this is fake?
I hope you enjoyed!! - Ghost
"if we just keep fighting for it, we will win back and restore it. theres no place like home!" ... 🌈💫☁️
This isn't right.
This doesn't feel right.
What happened? What changed?
What went wrong?
They know coming back is messy business. New bones have to be dug out of the ground from the skeletons of beings long past. Calcium has to go molten from the crushed ribs of field mice, and marrow must be melted out of the vulture-cleaned legs of coyotes.
Flesh is even worse. The painstaking undoing and restructuring of each row of cells. Each one's DNA tested, unwoven, and made anew from the broken up pieces floating aimlessly in the nucleoplasm. Tissues formed in microscopic lines, built like tower walls, layer after layer after layer.
They ease up with the ghost of a low groan.
That sounds off, too.
It dies before it can even crawl out of the empty cavern of their chest. Caught and strangled by the braided muscles woven into intricate tapestries over their ribs to hide the jagged edges, symptoms of their poor casting job.
All that passes their lips is a soft sigh, maybe their own last breath from the last life cycle.
Déjà vu.
They stand carefully, hunched painfully at the waist. Pressure consolidates in their spine, sticky and thick like half-cooled rubber, forming fine acrid meshes between the vertebra. Rolling their shoulders back rips lightning bolts through their nerves, tiny explosions mottle the skin red and purple from dead blood and white with Lichtenberg figures.
Tar crawls towards their sternum, sinking its teeth in and pulling. They can hear a quiet creaking start as the thin bone strains and hairline fractures spiderweb from the center.
This isn't right.
It happens like this on occasion. A malformed skeleton growing into their organs as it runs rampant. Dermis without collagen hardening into drip formations that shatter in their blind fumbling. Organ cells mixed up but still growing, leaving bulging livers sprouting from eye sockets and brain tissues melting in stomach acid.
Their hands roam the expanse of their aching chest, carefully prodding at the hot skin, trying to find the problem.
Some things can be fixed.
Too loose eyeballs can be reset with a bit more muscle growth. Thick ribs can be shaved down cautiously. Even torn skin can be held together with strategic grafts.
But this hurts too bad. Their ribs burn with every scraped-by breath. Their sternum is cracking apart, fingernail-wide fractures creeping ever wider. Their spine can't move, every shift grinds cartilage and bone into dust.
They crawl forward, struggling towards the edge of a heavy hammer.
The head lies warm in their lap, comfortable weight rolling against their palms. The teeth are crusted over, they rub off the thickest edge.
I gotta clean this soon.
After this time, assuming I come back okay.
This'll feel good.
The teeth bite deep, and their weak sternum cleaves apart. Helped along by the newly released muscles, voiding their tensions in a brilliant supernova of bone shards and clusters of bloody stars.
I guess I'll try again next round.
I've been having some problems with my spine/chest recently, which inspired this fic!! My back has been really stiff, and it's managed to transfer to my ribs, so I haven't been able to breathe deeply without feeling like I'm going to snap something. (T^T)
Also, I guess Post Apocalyptic Immortal is now an oc because I have a third fic about them in progress. Which means it's naming time.. if anyone has ideas, feel free to drop them!!
I hope you enjoyed!! - Ghost
Dungeons and Dragons Pieces Masterlist:
August's Adventures:
Head in the Clouds.
A short fic about my most recent dnd oc and his very, very bad day that will, in fact, only be getting worse from here.
Unhealing Wounds.
August keeps losing friends, at least this one isn't forever! Nothing in this world is forever, no matter how badly he wants it to be.
The Walls Smile Only in Pity.
Abandonment by some good friends after another good friend dies! Gigi (not my oc) is having a very, very bad day.
A world without you me.
A bad dream shakes August up and he begins to wonder what the others think of him.
NPC's:
He's never really been warm. His metal side has no chance, of course, bronze plates that seem to not only resist warmth but reject its concept entirely. But even his human side, even when it still had flesh, was cold. Enough to chill her the first time their skin brushed, plenty enough for her to wonder how he was still alive. She was nearly convinced he should have dropped into the stiffness of a power-down mode by now, the chill a byproduct of low energy.
Now, she can nearly convince herself he has.
It's easier to accept, the simple idea that he clearly could not run on the fake sunlight and flourescents down here and his already under-filled battery has finally fallen to zero. She waits, in the tense silence of cruel red eyes boring holes into her, for him to ease up with a groan and the quiet trill of a rebooting system.
Nevermind that he doesn't have a system from what she can tell, nor a battery level.
She blinks, sweat beads on her hands, clenched tight to prevent any spill of yellow-green light.
'Any moment now..'
It will not be any moment. But admitting he's dead is submission to the wet crunch of bone that still echoes in her ears. And she doesn't want to have to relisten to that. She won't allow it to circle endlessly like the drone of flies comes to pick apart the scraped-clean carcass of something now indistinguishable and unnamed.
The beast still looms, red eyes glowing hazy in the darkness, two buoys marking the split between danger and safety.
Minutes pass slowly, seconds ease along grudgingly, dragging their feet a fraction of a centimeter forwards. Gigi waits, heartbeat rattling her ribcage so roughly the world shakes from it, sending the headlight eyes into a flurry.
The beast waits, posture neither aggressive nor fearful, simply complacent watching her unravel in its crimson spotlight.
The sudden thought that its toying with her fizzles in lightning bolts up her spine. Some sadistic glee flows through its valves at her trembling form and her refusal to look at the crumbled body beside her.
A scream burns inside her ribcage next to her raging heart as it slams itself into the bones hard enough to bruise, desperate in its fury to be heard. She glances sideways in delusional desperation. Tears make his form blur together, a mishmash of odd angles and crumpled green-flecked bronze and silence.
"August please.. we have to get back to the elevator."
Silence hangs in the air and she let's out a quiet hopeless sob.
August is never silent. He can't be. His machinery is constantly moving and clicking, and his fans are constantly whirring. And he talks, about nothing, about everything, for no purpose but to let his thoughts run free in a world more likely to crush them underfoot than bother to take a look.
His silence, which is not his, and will never be his. Digs a hole in her chest, it rips out ribs and lungs and punctures her heart with a crudely formed stake. It watches as her blood drips uselessly onto the ground and then it settles back into the room, leaving her to shakily shove mangled flesh back into the empty cavity and clutch at the torn skin that couldn't keep her whole again if it tried.
"Gigi!? August!?"
Evie's voice is almost sickly sweet with relief. It carries easily over the beast, now turned to her in annoyance or confusion, and wraps around Gigi's shaking hands like a campfire. Soothing and sleepy.
"Are you two okay?"
Are they?
Is she?
The thought to lie comes first, keep them calm and focused. But then the image of Evie running back into the beast for a dead body pollutes her mind with the crack of twisted bone and the sticky wave of blood.
"August is dead."
Her voice shakes and more tears blur him mercifully back into an unrecognizable mass. But the confession hangs in the air, thick with grief, bitter with pain, and weak with shock.
A strangled sob comes from behind the beast and she peeks over it to see Cornelius, the whites of their eyes a ghoulish ring around their irises, now nearly black from dilated pupils.
She feels, simultaneously, like she is floating and being buried alive.
Half of her is airborne, untethered to the cold burn of shock and the tremors of a body shutting down. It exists in her emotions, hollow grey grief and golden orange hope colliding awkwardly with each other, both wanting more room and neither being capable of shoving the other one out for it. In that misty half-formed existence, her hollow places match theirs, forming an empty pulsing void that calls constantly to be fed. They'll fill it with aching bones and teary eyes and shredded hearts until the void has eaten itself sick and sinks slowly back into a place they don't acknowledge, leaving only thin surgical scars on their bodies in its wake.
Her other half is being crushed beneath tons of dirt. It keeps falling in her mouth every time she pants desperately for a snatch of oxygen, piling in her throat after it's filled her stomach. She claws for a surface that doesn't exist until her fingers are raw and bloody and her face is a featureless mask of mud made from her own tears.
Evie and Cornelius are still talking, now in too low of voices for her to hear. The beast still stares at them, rewatching a favourite TV show where it already knows the twist.
They both meet her eyes, faces twisted in agony.
"We're sorry Gigi."
They leave.
And she watches.
Dumbfounded.
At their retreating backs, soft footsteps echoing off the shiny wood flooring, their eyes forever locked on the beast that watches them back.
Not her.
Reality doesn't set in until they've vanished from view and even then, it feels like a joke.
A delirous laugh bubbles in her chest but never quite gathers the courage to crawl up her throat and out of her mouth.
Instead, more tears fall.
Hot.
Blinding.
Heavy.
They sting like acid, they burn like dry ice. Every streak is a punishment for some sin she doesn't know, some moral failing she can't remember, some flaw that leaves her alone.
She sprints past the beast, shocked now, or simply enjoying the show before it's hunt.
The art gallery is straight but it seems to drag on forever, each footstep adds another three until the horizon is a myth she remembers hearing as a child.
The air flows like molasses, dragging her back, sticking her in place, whining at her childishly. She moves through it clumsily, feet unsure.
'Just reach the elevator.'
'Just reach the elevator.'
'Just reach the elevator.'
'Just reach the elevator.'
It may be a fools chant but the art gallery has no defense against hope. It's grip loosens, grudgingly, until her sprints start feeling fast again.
In her mind she can see the elevator, it's cold steel doors held open for her, a dozen hands reaching through the gap for her to grab, overlapping voices calling her success like a physical ward against the beast.
The image flickers once, then collapses like rotting fruit.
Where the elevator once was, now stands blank grey wall.
The art gallery laughs around her.
"No defense against hope but we can still crush it."
She walks reverently to the wall, as though solemnity will materialize the elevator from thin air. She presses against the grey plaster, imagining her hands slipping through.
The wall remains stubbornly normal.
Gigi sinks against it, knees drawn to her chest.
'They wouldn't abandon me..'
"They did."
She tuckes her head close to her chest, shoulders shaking.
'I wish August was here.'
It's a selfish wish. They'd both just end up dying here after running themselves ragged against the beast.
She shouldn't wish it, she should be happy that at least he'll be okay in the elevator.
He wouldn't even be that helpful.
But he would try until they both ran out of ideas ten times over.
And he would be here.
Beside her.
Refusing to let her fall into the yawning grey pit with its silver-sharp teeth that croon for 'Just one bite.'
Refusing to leave her behind no matter the risk.
Her heart breaks again, losing yet another piece to the hungry void and its endless depths.
She curls tighter against the wall, pleading in desperation for her mother to save her.
The world gazes impassively at her as the metallic click of the beast begins to grow louder.
She turns to see it's headlamp eyes bore into her.
The rest of the world turns to her, ready to watch her die yet again.
Oh Gigi.. I love you, you sweet girl.
Gigi and August have been having a rough few days, hopefully it'll get better soon! (It probably won't)
I hope I did her justice!! I may go back and edit this because I'm not fully happy with everything I wrote.
I hope you enjoyed!! - Ghost
Rebirth feels more normal than he thought. The imperceptible shift from 'asleep' to 'awake' happens without his knowledge, bringing only the quiet whir of fan blades and the low rhythmic pump of his valves before his eyes open and the world is there to greet him. The world, and them. The elevator is packed again, shuffling bodies twisting around each other to make room, a slice of chaos that soothes the worries that spring up every time his memory lapses. He crawls to his feet without grace and struggles to his friends. They turn with smiles for him, real smiles, ones of relief, and joy.
He hugs them, the last of his fears soothed by the familiar thrum of heartbeats. All is well.
All..
"Where's Gigi?"
The question brings silence, the heavy kind, that pulls off limbs and yanks out teeth.
"She's still on the last floor."
The answer sits sullen and hot in the air, and he smiles without meaning, lips pulling up to show her he understood the joke, no matter how poor taste it was.
"I'm sorry, August, we couldn't get her out."
His mind flails, refusing to accept his name or her invocation. His chest goes cold and hot as he stares, tearing itself apart with the rejection.
His hands tremble slightly. Ignorance settles like wool over his eyes, itchy and rough as he shoves his face into it, inhaling what he hopes is the bitter scent of a lie.
He looks behind him, at the dark-wood panel she's tumbled from before. Desperately, he searches for her shape in the empty air. He blinks hard enough to hurt, expecting to see her scowl when his lids rise, and the dark glare in her eyes when the light-spots clear.
The air remains cruelly empty, and something in his chest is irreversibly bent.
The absence of her is a physical pain, a hole carved messily into his flesh side. With a cleaver, or a saw, raw edges left gasping, fluttering around his skeleton like moth-bitten curtains.
His eyes still move down automatically, the twin lights of her antennae burned into the backs of his eyelids, leaving only hollow darkness in their vanishing act.
He tries to contain the twisted snarl of anger tangling his wires. He tries to unpick it slowly, one superheated thread at a time until he can breathe without a low ominous creak crawling out of the gaps in the metal plating. He would have done the same, right?
Anger pulses behind his eyes. Needles force his pupils to widen until the word 'no' fills his vision.
Screams press against the seams of his skull.
'I would have gone back.'
'I would have fought it.
'I would have tried.'
'But you didn't, did you?'
'You could have told her to run. She was right there.'
'Instead, you abandoned her.'
'Like a coward.'
The thought soothes some of the rage into guilt, tempers the worst of his fury into shame.
'Would you sacrifice them?'
'Would she have sacrificed them?'
He wants to protest that that isn't the question. That they could have tried to save her. But.. could they?
He certainly couldn't. He had been useless. He'd left her in the dark, alone, with nothing.
'Not nothing.'
No, not nothing.
He'd left her with the promise of safety, of protection. He swore that he would give her a better life.
Guilt threatens tears at his lashline. It slinks, oily and rough, down his throat, curling like a cat in the hollow of his throat. It whispers demented little jabs at him, giggling at every hitched-breath and blinked-back sob it can intive. It spreads like a virus, rotting his brain to unusable filth, branding his skin with ever-burning mementos.
It peels him apart and flips him inside out, showcasing the putrefying slush of his former organs to the world. Forcing the elevator to gaze upon the physical symptoms of his deception.
And still, there beside guilt, anger smolders. It splutters and sighs, fanning choking smoke into his eyes. He tries to peer through it to find a last ember that he can clutch desperately as it seeps endless heat up his arm. He wants fury over the sickening twist of shame, he wants the sort of desperate unfocused rage that blocks out the rest of his mind.
'Would you sacrifice them for her?'
'No!'
No, no, he would never. He couldn't. And he wouldn't ask them to either.
"I'm just glad you're okay."
The words are airy and insubstantial in the air, but he pushes out every last scrap of hope with it. And his chest loosens at the sight of it, shakily warm and hesitantly open, a fledgling acceptance waiting for its completion.
They smile. He smiles back thinly.
He sits down at the back of the elevator and stares at the dark flooring, expensive, classy. He shouldn't be sitting here.
The elevator buzzes with noise, conversations he shuts himself out of.
Secretly, hidden by other trains of thought, August imagines he and Gigi switched places.
He imagines her in the warmth of the elevator, laughing along to a joke that glances off the side of his face.
But most of all, he imagines that death is permanent here.
This is (lore wise) a part two to Head in the clouds, but it's not super directly connected.
I love my sweet boy so much, but I've been treating him rough these last few sessions. He can take it though! Probably.. Maybe..
Anyways, some more DND content will be coming soon!! What do we think about having a 'series' section for them in my Masterlist? They're not really a series per se as they don't have a defined plot line but they're also not miscellaneous soo I'm a bit stuck.. Let me know your thoughts?
I hope you enjoyed!! - Ghost
Y'know what can be the most devastating thing to think about?
Imagining my Soul and my Body are two separate beings.
Like siblings, they grew up together. They struggled and overcame, failed and won, learned and forgot. All the while at each other's side, pushing the other to previously unbelievable heights, attached at the hip.
Somewhere along the way, my Body grew tired and sluggish. It doesn't want to move anymore. It doesn't want to fight. It just wants to lie down and sleep its headache away.
But my Soul never stops moving. Sometimes, it circles quietly in my chest, but other times, it rages against my bones, rattling them in its desperation to be heard.
And I know that when my Body dies, my Soul will never stop mourning its best friend.
It will spend the rest of existence curled up on a silent, unmoving chest, still hearing the echoes of my heartbeat in its loneliness.
And it will never let itself die, because my Soul will always be afraid that if it leaves, my Body will be dead and gone for good. Unremembered by anyone, just another pile of rotting flesh in a hole in the ground.
My Soul will refuse to let that happen.
And I won't be around to tell it that it's too late. They've already forgotten my Body.
I'm scared we'll all be alone forever.
reconformity
tell me— if you hurt like she did if you find a tap in your chest, draining your soul— taking over your heart (it's survival) into a pretty little cup "for your convenience"
and— if you wish you could run in the fields like she does, if you wish you could form a new skin like she does and if you wish that you could start over, turn over a new page—
and if you could scream, I wonder what you would say as the voice drains out of your body, as the sun extracts your soul for consumption and the days become too long— if you could become anew what would you be?
// for @curious-cryptids
How I adore you! 🥹
(Platonically)
Dove wings, silver white, edges glittering with raw-cut quartz. They hover just over your eyes, casting soft shadows like eyelashes down your cheeks.
Shivering in cool breezes scented with sweet oranges and the tingle of mint, their shadows stretch and curl into waltzes across your face.
Light refracts in your white-fogged gems, and sometimes I doubt if I can actually see you.
My mind blurs when I look you head on. Consciousness shivering between realities, yours and mine, disconnected. I see your side profile from across cloud-bridges and from behind feathered edges.
My fault, though.
When I look at you only from the corner of my eye, from my own little island. Floating amiss in the darkening blue sky.
And when I stare up from under half-lids, eyelashes cutting the world into wedges.
I hope you know I wonder about you.
About where your wings take you when you're relaxed.
About how you see the world, is it hidden by your gemstone veil? Or do the facets act like magnifying glasses, bringing everything into bright, near painful, clarity?
About your murmured sentences, drifting on the wind, I'm sorry I didn't catch them all.
One day, I'll show you the silver fog that floats off the grass when I wake up early enough, and I'll point to the way the stars chase each other across the galaxy when they think we aren't looking.
Soon, I promise.
When I'm able to read the curling cursive letters the fog paints across my chest, and the stars allow me into their game.
For now, I'll listen.
// for @insidethecube :>
Where did the world go?
When did it slip away?
To hide behind the thick mist curling wetly in his throat like mercury, playing a sick game of hide and seek as it ducked behind signs with airy giggles.
He flinches as a laugh rattles in his ear. It's too loud, echoing off his bronze plates and getting trapped in the bony ridges to circle endlessly behind his eyes.
One tentative step forwards, knee close to buckling when he leans on it to drag his other foot up. He feels so heavy now, bones thick with lead. The legs - his legs, don't forget that - don't stand straight when he looks down at them. Angled, set too far apart, he kicks one lightly, and it responds after a tense heartbeat.
His mind swims with a thicker fog, like the mercury evaporated, and got itself trapped with the laughter still ringing in his ears. The world flips over and sideways as he smacks at his temple.
Well, tries to smack his temple, the arm is slow and sleepy, and he just ends up smacking himself in the face, dislodging nothing of the delirium bubbling in his brain.
It feels like poison.
Like when he ate manganese and collapsed in the street, watching imaginary birds spiral into themselves and eat up the sky. The same sky had tried to hide in him back then, slide between the raw edges of his newly formed body and nestle into the empty cavern of his chest. He likes to hope it would work, but he started shaking when the sky fell on him, and the birds came down with their black-hole beaks and ate him too.
He blinks down at his (his?) hands. Are they trembling? He thinks so.
But isn't all of him trembling?
I'm cold.
He waits for confirmation, for a familiar shiver to crawl up his arms. The world stays silent. Still hiding behind the signs, probably, muffling its laughter into soft-dirt arms that spill with every barely-constrained snicker.
He waits, wishing for something distant and unreadable now. Already flitting away with the last dregs of his dreams.
Must not be important.
(No?)
Gaze cast around, skipping over the flat green plains, the grass bluring into one long blade laid like a bed with its recipient nowhere to be seen. The signs glint coldly in the harsh light, too blue.
He looks up at the burning sky.
The sun doesn't hurt when you look at it.
Or, wait.
No, it does. The sun hurts. It hurts bad.
(This bad?)
He squints as the sun smiles at him, pearly teeth stretching longer until its jaw very nearly rips apart.
He smiles back, but his muscles feel cold and stiff, and they don't want to move. The sun still grins, it doesn't mind his failures.
It glances towards something blue and winding. Not as blue as the sky but still pretty. The sun presses him towards it, hand burning like a brand, 'we're for each other now.'
He isn't scared by that. He isn't scared of the pain either. It's not quite here yet, but it'll come. He just has to be patient.
The blue ribbon comes into focus, water running peacefully over the smooth stones of its bed.
A bed.
He's tired.
He glances over one shoulder, but the world is still missing. He doesn't want to play games with it anymore.
"It's not fun."
The river agrees, bubbling softly at him in sympathy.
He wants to lie down in it. That would be nice
(Would it?)
Very nice. Very, very nice. Very, very, very, very...
"August?"
Oh.
No, no no. No, no please.
He doesn't like that voice.
Scraping the inside of his skull, drilling holes into his brain.
No no no. No thank you.
"August, I'm sorry for running off.."
No, please. No, thank you. He's asked nicely.
(Has he?)
The voice is still going. It won't shut up.
It's just being cruel now.
His eyes glide away to find the face of a sign smiling down at him, like the sun, like the river. He pulls it out of the world, finally back from hiding by itself - he'll play hide and seek with it again after he handles the voice, as a thank-you.
The sign feels heavy and warm, and maybe a bit scared. That might be him.
He raises the sign, and the voice stutters, falters.
Too late.
The voice cracks like breaking bone, splatters like blood. He didn't realize voices could do that.
Oh.
Well done, August! We're so proud of you.
I'm running out of colours so this is kind of ugly.. T-T
I need to find out how other people do gradients and stuff soon!!
In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed! - Ghost
"Smells like rain."
"Sure."
Silence, and the sidelong glances of thoughts unspoken, choking, as they grew like mold inside her throat.
"You still going out?"
"Planning on it."
"Mm."
Shoelaces that didn't tie right, perpetually slipping from between my sweat-slicked fingertips. Breaths that came in short half-gasps pressed to the bottom of my chest where the pressure would ache. Carbon dioxide crawling from my lungs like slugs, vomited onto my lap to writhe in sickly yellowed intestines.
"How long is your walk gonna be?"
"I don't know."
"Well, make it short, yeah? And come right back if you notice the clouds getting ugly."
"Okay."
The sky did smell of rain, and a heavy cold that sank through my skin and grew along my arms. 10 inch tumors, bones splitting through my skin to wave hello at a world hiding behind the sheen of blood.
I thought they caught the air as I walked. The additions still in their infancy and flexible before the cartilage ossified. I imagined they looked like feathers, just waiting for their plumage to come in and speckle my arms with deep blues and jeweled greens.
They felt heavy on my skin. Dragged down and threatening to take me along. They wanted to be buried in the dirt, feel the smooth cold of soil after a downpour, and the playful brush of plant roots seeking protection.
I can't protect any plants.
They don't believe me. They threatened to leave and find someone better. Someone who could grow.
I don't remember now if I was scared by that. I can't recall if I liked them at all.
There was a field of sunflowers on my walk. Their yellow heads nodded hello as I paused at their fence, highlighted like searchlights against the gloom. The clouds had gone ugly. They bruised the sky in veins of grey and black like rot pumped through the veins of a body that kept forgetting it had already died.
I should have gone back.
I can't, for the life of me, remember why I didn't go back.
I want to go back, is it too late for that now?
I walked into the sunflowers. I climbed their rickety fence and felt the whiny insistence of splinters rake over my palms.
I ghosted my fingers over their burn-bright petals, greeting them back with waves and quiet murmured hellos. I sat down in a cluster of them as the sky ripped itself apart with thunder, hiding from the fury of a self-loathing world. I lay down on their dirt and let their peering golden faces hide me from the angry sky. Frigid air needled my skin, pulling on my body like a petulant child. The sky wanted too much of me, or the sunflowers wanted all the good parts, and I felt my flesh rip.
My chest ached with something akin to sympathy. Harder and with rougher edges, corroded and rusted to the touch. I think maybe the sky was lonely, I would have given it something to quell the ache.
I should have given it something.
Just a limb, or an organ. Something all to itself.
But its icy wind hurt, and its lightning made my body tingle numbly, and its thunder scared me.
So I let the sunflowers have me instead, and they promised they would be nice. I noticed my fake feathers were gone as they tucked me back into the packed ground. I imagined, maybe deliriously, that they had become real and were now soaring through the turbulent air, buffeted by gnashing winds to a calmer sky. But no, I saw them in a small pile as the sunflowers tucked me in.
They were stacked on my chest, like canines from a dozen people, brighter white than I remembered.
The sunflowers didn't want to leave me. They thought it was unfair they couldn't have me. I had chosen them after all, walked into their field, lay under their protection, chosen them over they sky.
I don't remember what the teeth said.
I was so tired, the ground was warm and heavy, and there were leaves affectionately brushing through my hair.
She used to play with my hair like that when I couldn't sleep.
Do I remember what she looks like?
I remember the fuzzy warmth of the last sun rays glancing off her skin. I remember the soft pulse of her heart, beating steadily against mine, through both of our bodies. I remember the fizzy feeling in my chest when she laughed. I remember..
I remember the way her features fractured in the harsh flourescents. Eyes gone one way, mouth another, nose dropped in randomly with no real place. I remember the unsteady tempo of her chest late at night. The way sobs curled her shoulders when she thought I was finally asleep. I remember the angry red veins around her eyes as they glanced away from me. Never lingering for more than a few moments like there was something contagious sticking to my skin.
The teeth dug deeper, clawing easily through my muscles. They burned with joy as memories buzzed behind my eyes; her locking her door at night, me walking for hours in circles until night fell, her glaring at the kitchen table with a half empty wine glass loosely held, me running down the footpaths until my head spun and I couldn't remember the way home.
They found their home. Ten bloody drill holes in my chest, angry chips in my ribs, ten entrances into my lungs that would never have matching exits.
And then they grew.
Vines slid between my alveoli, flowers crushed each other in my throat, roots tore into my veins and followed them to other organs.
My vision spotted with panic, sunbursts of red and yellow exploding as I clawed at them.
They only burrowed deeper, shying away from my intrusive fingers poking into their holes. Flattened against the backs of my lungs, they waited fearfully as I ripped myself apart, splitting cells as I clumsily felt about inside my chest.
The minutes ticked by sadistically slow, waiting me out as my limbs filled with lead. It only took me a few moments to collapse, hands still buried in my lungs, too exhausted to move.
The sunflowers rearranged me, letting the clouds' angry tears wash the blood from my fingers.
The vines were quiet, anger simmering under their stems at my petty violence.
Flower petals drifted from my lips when I opened them. Their blossoms had climbed into the back of my throat. My head ached with cell death, unable to sustain itself on the trickling oxygen I could manage to bully past the plants.
"I want to go home."
It came out garbled and incorrect, sounds strung together with no memory of what they meant.
"Sh, shh."
My lips formed letters that were never born. Pleading to something beyond the mourning sky that wasn't even listening.
"Shhh. You're okay. We'll fix you, don't worry."
"Don't.. no fixing."
The flowers grew further, pressing past my lips. Weighing my tongue down to the bottom of my mouth firmly.
"No more talking for now. We'll tell you how to be better when you wake up."
The world was collapsing slowly, rotting into black soot that swayed fluidly over the ground. I blinked once, and the shadows eased closer. A rain drop hit my temple. Not harshly, but still cold, and I fell into the darkness.
Dead kids don't get dreams.
I know I used the same colours as the two characters in Heartmelting, but there's only so many colours on mobile T-T I hope you enjoyed this despite that! - Ghost
