So I made a few…dozen…posts on twitter about my experiences being neurodivergent. They’re a roughly 60/40 split between being autistic and having adhd with heavy overlap. They take the form of a parent in denial saying “My child is neurotypical” and the response of “Your child is X” where X is a common neurodivergent experience phrased as if coming from a teacher.
(I’ll be updating these as I make more)
Classroom
Your child was a pleasure to have in class
Your child can’t focus unless they’re playing with something
Your child has awful handwriting
Your child is tapping their foot through class
Your child just needs to apply themselves. They can clearly do the work but keep making silly mistakes
Your child had a breakdown over not getting all their homework done
Your child is quiet and struggling to stay on task
Your child thinks school was indistinguishable from torture but struggles without the structure
Your child needs outside structure or they can’t figure out what to do first
Sensory - Sound
Your child hears the CRT TV noise (double this if they hate it)
Your child needs to cover their ears any time you use a blender
Your child wants to know where that buzzing is coming from
Your child can tell if the fridge has been opened recently from the other room
Sensory - Touch
Your child can’t wear rough or slippery fabrics
Your child hates any texture beyond flannel (any other distinctive texture works too)
Your child hates tags on clothing
Your child overheats in thick socks
Your child wears sportswear but hates sports (@checkerfired1 on twitter)
Your child thinks water has a strange texture
Your child finds showering exhausting but also doesn’t want to get out at the end
Your child can’t stand the feeling of oil on their skin
Sensory - Light
Your child sat in the dark from noon til sunset before starting their day
Your child thinks sunlight is ‘too much’
Memory
Your child forgot they were hungry halfway through making dinner
Your child has had midnight new years pass by because they forgot to wait for it
Your child can’t keep a grasp on time
Your child is confused about how it’s already evening
Your child has over 50 tabs open in chrome
Your child can only ‘wing it’ because they always forget what they planned to say
Your child made a list of what they needed to do and forgot to check it
Your child came up with a ‘my child is neurotypical’ post but forgot
Stimulation
Your child can’t focus without background music
Your child thinks everybody is exhausted after conversations
Your child drinking caffeine is like a roulette wheel in its effects
Your child struggles thinking while seated
Your child likes to constantly be chewing on something
Your child finds crowds overwhelming
Your child finds existing at night less exhausting
Sleep
Your child is reading this in the middle of the night
All of your child’s friends live on the opposite side of the world because they can’t maintain a traditional sleep schedule
Your child had midnight new years pass by because they’re normally awake well past then even as an adult
Your child has trouble quieting their brain to sleep
Dyspraxia
Your child is extremely klutzy
Your child’s phone typing is riddled with typos
Empathy
Your child felt guilty for bumping into the table
Your child is painfully uncomfortable watching shows with awkward situations
Your child cries even thinking about somebody being in pain
Your child is extremely trusting with new people they just met
Emotions
Your child has lots of mood swings
Your child hates compliments because they’re sure they’ll disappoint and alienate anyone who thinks anything good about them (from @MaebyIsSweet on twitter)
Sharing
Your child shares extremely personal experiences with people they just met
Your child can talk for hours about the same subject without getting tired
Communication
Your child learned nonverbal communication from the family dog/cat
Your child gets frustrated because people can’t understand them
Your child has been discussing the same topic for 30 minutes without taking a break to breath
Your child tends to speak repetitively - they may feel somewhat scripted
Your child feels like an alien sent to observe humans
Your child cries when instructions aren’t clear enough
Your child communes with animals because they make more sense than people
Your child doesn’t see the point of small talk
Your child finds comfort in the scriptedness of small talk
Your child is anxious about misreading people’s intentions
Your child is anxious about contacting somebody because they think it’s too last second
Your child gets frustrated when instruction manuals skip steps
Your child is constantly anxious about misunderstanding
Your child needs subtitles to hear anything
Your child has times they struggle to make words
Consistency (Anxiety)
Your child asks for the same meal every time they come home
Your child watched a single movie more than 3 times in one day
Your child feels anxious watching new movies or tv shows
Your child nearly has a stress breakdown if plans change last second
Your child’s anxiety spikes every time you ask them a question
Your child has a favourite song they’ve listened to for a week straight
Your child finds split second decision making stressful
Your child gets anxious if they don’t exactly follow their daily routine
Masking
Your child can pick up accents easily
Your child grew up wishing they could just go live in the forest away from people
Your child gets anxious when you ask aabout their day
Your child emotionally relates to fictional characters more than real people
Your child has said ‘I just don’t have the energy to act human right now’
Your child has described people as ‘just too much’
Your child was so ashamed of being different they tried to reshape their personality so people would like them
Misc ones I haven’t really sorted yet
Your child is protective and doesn’t like anybody new coming into their room
Your child wishes it was easier to get up and do what they need to
Your child is confused by how other people relate to their gender
Your child thinks their functioning is an inconvenience to people
Your child is either ‘on’ or ‘off’ and there is no in between
Your child gets stuck in excitement feedback loops with their friends
Your child is convinced they just aren’t working hard enough
Your child is on their third hobby this week
Your child spaces out randomly during the day
Your child considers every step of getting dressed an individual task they have to do (from @sisi7304 on twitter)
Your child differentiates between food they like and food they think is good (@sweetmoonpigeon on twitter)
Your child has severe imposter syndrome about whether they’re neurodivergent ‘enough’
Your child isn’t sure what they’re supposed to do to be a man or a woman
Your child’s fingers and toes change colour in the cold
A Genie offers you one wish, and you modestly wish to have a very productive 2017. The genie misunderstands, and for the rest of your life, every 20:17 you become impossibly productive for just 60 seconds.
“Well, it was a nice day.” You kiss your sweetheart gently on the forehead and sigh as the last remaining seconds of 20:16 tick away. “See you at 8:18,” you say.
Then it happens. Every ounce of fatigue or hunger leaves your body. The face of your beloved is perfectly still, their expression exactly the same. The ticking of the clock on the wall has stopped. Once again, it’s 20:17.
You stretch your arms and walk to the table with the homework for the three doctorates you’re working on. The work is mentally stimulating and enjoyable, but it’s finished far too quickly. You check your pocket watch and see that not even one hundredth of a second has passed.
You knew it was too soon to be able to see any movement on the watch, but you can never quite help yourself from looking early on every 20:17. Time to move on.
You clean your home, do your budget, then go outside and fix a noise that your car was making earlier that afternoon. (Oh how you already miss afternoons.) Then you go back inside, boot up your computer (which magically speeds up to keep pace with you as long as you’re in contact with it) and check for any new orders.
You’ve set up a website for the small business you started called “Magic Elf Services.” People in your area can pay a modest fee on your site to have different tasks and odd jobs done by “The Magic Elf” at 8:17pm every day. It was a little slow to get started, but word has spread and these days you have a steady stream of clients.
The money that comes in from the business is nice, but you’re mostly grateful that it gives you a clear list of things to do. You print off your updated list of clients, step outside, and start making your way through the neighborhood with your to-do list.
There’s the apartments down your street where several neighbors have hired you to tidy up, do the dishes, and mop the floors. You do the windows too, just to see if they notice. There’s the large house across town that paid the “Magic Elf” to clean out the gutters. After the first dozen jobs are done, you manage to stop looking at your pocket watch.
As near as you’ve been able to determine in the past, 20:17 seems to last for approximately one normal year. But it’s not exact. For one thing, it’s hard to keep track of “time” when everything but you has crawled to an almost total standstill. For another thing, time seems to move differently depending on how “productive” your behavior is. One time you tried to spend all of 20:17 sitting at home in your pajamas, but that was getting you nowhere, so you eventually gave up and got busy. (Though you defiantly stayed in your pajamas the whole time.)
During 20:17 your body doesn’t get tired, hungry, sick, or injured. You’re essentially tireless and immortal for the duration of the “minute.” So sleeping or eating away your boredom has never really worked for you.
One of the houses on your list forgot to follow the instructions and leave a key for you to get in. At first you figure you’ll just send them an email telling them to pay more attention and that you’ll do the job tomorrow. Then you decide to go home, get your locksmith tools, and come back.
After finishing up all the jobs on your list, you go into several other homes and small businesses in the area, performing tasks you hope they’ll find helpful, and leaving a hand-painted business card at each one. (The business cards don’t contain your real name just in case somebody thinks “The Magic Elf” should be subject to breaking and entering laws.)
Speaking of laws, you head down to the local police station to pick up your case file. You’ve been in contact with a detective who’s been investigating corruption within their department, and your ability to investigate unseen and get in almost anywhere between the ticks of the clock has proven invaluable. You see that they’ve also added five missing person cases to your file this evening, which certainly raises your interest in the job.
You make your way through town gathering evidence, and start making your way to the outskirts of town. Since you happen to be out that way (and you’ve already solved three of the five missing person cases) you decide to swing by the stone castle you’re building and do some more work there.
The castle walls stand about 20 feet right now, but you know they’ll be much higher when you’re done. You’re far from any roads and pretty safely tucked away, so for now it’s your little secret. You’ve been excavating and moving all the rock yourself, which has been much easier than you first expected since your body doesn’t get tired or sore. You’ve also got a nice system of tunnels going underneath the castle, and you dig and build more of that network for a while.
All that time spent underground has left you feeling rather lonely, so you walk back home to see the face of your sweetheart. Their facial expression has moved ever so slightly since you last saw them, which is a comfort to you. Looking at them gets your imagination going and makes you dream up a story you’d like to tell, so you sit on your couch, plug in your laptop, and write a book.
After you finish editing the last chapter for the third time, you finally allow yourself to look at your pocket watch again. Three seconds have officially passed so far.
pretty sure I first read this shortly after it was posted. I still think about it occasionally in my day-to-day life. I hadn’t realized it was already eight years old.
Sam “held a burning hot coal until it nearly took the skin off his hand while maintaining perfect calm and eye contact with the asshole in need of intimidation Just Because” Vimes? Sam “sitting on the stoop with a mug of cocoa and a cigar, cautiously aware of every inch of the scene he’s building” Vimes? Sam “could just tear his sleeve to show the mark of the Summoning Dark but instead tears off his whole goddamn shirt” Vimes? A drama queen? Reaching a bit don’t you think
Yep, certainly doesn’t seem to describe Sam “pretends to eat poison as a power move” Vimes. Not Sam “buries an axe in the table in the Rats Chamber” Vimes.
I mean are we really talking about Sam “yes a whole room full of candles with wicks dipped in holy water is the best way to beat this vampire” Vimes, here? Sam “has fought bad guys on top of a speeding train AND a riverboat during a flood” Vimes, really? Definitely Sam “nearly gets shot in the head by a crossbow bolt that shatters his shaving mirror and then uses the bolt to prop up a shard of said mirror to finish shaving” Vimes we’re discussing here?
vimes did not resign from his post in protest, observe the rest of the watch resign from their posts in protest, recruit them into a militia, sail to the country they were at war with, and attempt to arrest two different armies for disturbing the peace so you could sit here and call him a drama queen, as though drama was some myffic quality bestowed by an accident of birth and not the inherent right of every creatively petty and histrionic citizen of ankh-morpork
In A Study in Scarlet, Watson mentions that when he served in Afghanistan he had an orderly named Murray who rescued him after he was shot in the Battle of Maiwan.
And I really do like the idea that this Murray could be somehow related to Mina Murray, that would be a very fun way to connect Dracula and Sherlock that I don’t think I’ve seen before. Unfortunately I don’t know how well it fits timeline-wise to either story, and also Mina having a family would make some scenes in Dracula really weird.
Like she says, “I never knew either father or mother,” so it’s possible that she had an older sibling/cousin/aunt/uncle that could be Watson’s Murray, but if you were going monster hunting and you had an older sibling/cousin/aunt/uncle who was a military trained medical professional, I assume you’d tell them
So, Dracula is set in 1895. Watson was wounded in the Battle of Maiwand in 1880. It would not be inconsistent for Mina to have an older brother who served and was present at this battle.
One might suppose this relative died in subsequent action in that war. The loss of their beloved son then so devastated Mina's parents, that they departed to Afghanistan to recover his body, leaving behind their very young daughter. They never returned, and Mina was then an orphan. At that age - perhaps as young as 3, or 6 at the oldest (guessing she was between 18 and 21 at the start of Dracula) she'd have little if any memory of her parents.
of course, like anybody else would, the first thing i did upon getting my time machine was go back in time and kill hitler when he was just a child. but when i came back a cursory google search revealed that there was some other charismatic guy called jan krupp who staged a coup and took control of germany leading to ww2. so naturally i went back in time and killed him before he could grow up and commit genocide. but i soon discovered that he'd been replaced by another guy. so i continued on this path of killing and tbh i'm not sure how many german babies i've killed at this point and it's a little hard to find old german newspaper clippings from the ww2 period anymore because they underwent a population collapse around the turn of the 20th century. best i can tell it's this weird german serial killer they called "jack-of-the-cradle" who kept killing newborns. but googling "world war 2" doesn't come up with any results so really i think all i need to do is stop this jack guy and then that'll be mission accomplished
The worst part of the Apostates’ Curse is that you have to do it to yourself.
Oh, the Coven of Covens won't make you go through it alone. They'll gather round, their eyes full of poisonous sadness and even more poisonous love. They'll murmur soft encouragement and funeral compassion.
But they'll still put the bowl of ashes in front of you and hand you a spoon and tell you to eat.
They'll take turns to hold your hand and squeeze it and tell you how brave you are, while your other hand shovels hearth-dust into your mouth.
They'll tell you how necessary this is, and how proud they are, and how this road is long and shadow-pocked… but they will walk it with you as far as they can.
All this they said to Niks. And all the while, the witch-turned-anathema felt the ashes coat their throat and curdle back into embers in their stomach.
And all the while, Niks' former coven-mates dipped needles into iron ink and made Niks’ skin a thread-work of nevers.
Never again to be part of their family.
Never again to stitch the torn edges of the world into something beautiful.
Never again to tend magic, except inside their own body.
Never again to be anything but a coven and a hearth of one.
Niks felt sick and not just from the meal of yesterday's fires.
The Apostates’ Coven was vital. Those solitary siblings guarded the farthest thresholds. They were a horseshoe over the lintel to Nowere. They gave those who had crossed the most sacred lines a way to still be of service to the patchwork of yesterdays and the pattern of tomorrow.
But in that moment, Niks could not shake the perversity of it. Was there not a better way – a kinder way – to gird siblings for that path? Was it not a horror to say “for your sins, we will take your joy and give you hardship, and we will call it grace”?
Niks’ vision blurred. The spoon fell from their grey-stained lips. Their mouth was so dry. They coughed and gasped, choking on what they had been assured was medicine.
A gentle hand stroked their face. A soft voice whispered solace. The other witches looked at each other with twisted grief. Not all survived the first steps down the Apostates' road. And when a witch did not make it, the departed’s coven-mates would whisper that to leave a hard road unwalked could sometimes be a blessing.
Niks saw the grief on the faces of the gathered covens, and saw it cut with relief.
Spite rose acidic in their throat, and spite had always been a great motivator for Niks. The fireplace of soot in their stomach began to splutter and burn.
Niks let the snarl spread across their face. They waved off the crowd of pre-emptive mourners. They picked up the spoon. They gobbled down the next mouthful. They gorged themselves on bitterness.
The internal hearth in their guts blazed. The needles scoured their skin. Niks was transformed in agony and they let themself stop pretending that it did not feel amazing.
The witch holding their hand tensed like she was holding a snake. Their former coven hurried about their needlework as if Niks’ blood was crude oil and they all held matches.
Niks laughed and did not care.
They only became faintly aware, once the bowl was empty and their throat was raw from cackling, that they were alone.
They took the night bus home, taking in nothing around them, trembling and chuckling the whole way home.
It was only as they got off the bus that they remembered a faint touch that had stayed slow and tender through the whole ordeal.
They sat on their sofa with the lights off. They held a cup of tea that they could not remember making. It was weak and had too much milk, but it was hot in their hands and smelled like something normal.
Niks stared down at their mug, and saw for the first time with almost-clear eyes the iron-stitched tattoos. They were surprised to find words there, running all the way from the elbow down to the fingertips.
Usually, coven-mates would ink memory wards upon the Apostates. These were protective workings wound up in shared experience and expressed as an image or in abstract.
Niks moved to the bathroom and stood in front of the tall mirror. The ink on the rest of their body was what they expected; it was only their arms that were different.
They felt, again, the ghost of that one pair of hands that had stayed gentle throughout the whole working.
Curio. Curio (whose name had once been Precious) had not been the closest of Niks’ coven-mates, but he had always looked at them with clarity. Curio had always seen the broken glass in Niks’ history and had never worried it might cut him.
The two had almost gone to bed a couple of times, but had always found a reason to put it off to another day. Niks supposed that Curio would now remain always a “maybe one day”. But, well, there was a kind of power in potential (even unfulfilled).
Here are the words that Curio had written in shifting ferrous toxins across Niks’ body:
“Step by step. Sibling, this is how we go. Though I do not walk with you, know that the echo of my soles cries out to yours. Though you walk in the gloaming, know that there are photons lighting your way that have kissed my skin in days gone by.
“Step by step, sibling. This is how we go. Though your body is a gaol, know that there is a stitchwork to blood and bile and bone. Though you are illuminated by cold metal prison bars, know that others before you have unlocked the alchemy of biology. Though my becoming is not your transmogrification, know that our stories have in common both some language and some lessons.
“Step by step, sibling, this is how. We go forward knowing there is joy on the horizon. We go forwards and though some play leprechaun and move the rainbow goalposts beyond our reach, know that they cannot move the sunset. Though they bury the gold and lie and say it never did exist, know that it did and it does and the dusk is always gilded. Though you may ask me how to grasp it… how is this, sibling? Step by step.
“There are many things beyond our grasp, beyond our ken, beyond the doorway. Yet it is a lie to say that simply because you cannot touch a thing today that you must accept it cannot be changed. There is a distance between you and every thing in existence that can be measured in footsteps. A day will come, perhaps, when those things hear you coming and begin walking – in turn – towards you. As I will.
“Step by step. Sibling: this is how.
“We go.”
Niks read those words again and again and again. And they wept. And they cackled.
And they drank their tea.
---
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Basking Sharks are harmless! They filter feed they have no big teeth and wouldn't do anything else than bump into you, of you deliberately got in their way
Just since I haven’t seen John Green post about this yet I figured I would tell everybody on…*Forgets name of this website*… This wonderful website, that crash course has put out their 2026 learner coins that you can use to support crash course now that they are a nonprofit.
it is very interesting to see the language of contemporary book criticism co-opted by Christian Nationalists to remove books from classrooms and libraries.
One recent example: My novel Turtles All the Way Down was banned from being taught in English classes because one school board member claimed it "romanticizes mental illness."
(It does no such thing, of course. TAtWD makes mental illness seem really unpleasant and not at all either lowercase-r or capital-r romantic. To acknowledge something's existence is not to romanticize that thing. But part of co-opting this language is misusing it for the end of removing books thematically centered on mental illness, or physical illness, or sex, or anything else that might be deemed insufficiently inocuous for Educational Literature.)
But the question of when writing about something veers into romanticizing it IS actually a very important question for contemporary literary criticism, and one that's been explored a lot (sometimes with generosity and care, sometimes not) in book discourse online. So the Christian Nationalist Right is using the language of analysis that we are using in ways that are at best misguided and at worst disingenuous.
It's really discouraging--I mean, on a personal level obviously but also just as an American who believes teachers should be allowed to teach--to see such widespread book bans in American high schools and libraries. But it's not surprising, really. Books retain a lot of power--to deepen our empathy with those who are suffering, to connect us to ourselves and to others, and to see the full humanity of those who might be dehumanized or marginalized by the social order.
On that front, the Christian Nationalists are right to worry. Books can be a path into loving one's neighbor as one's self, and seeing the full light of the sacred in the experiences of the marginalized. God forbid.
Decades-long campaign powered by patient perspectives results in switch from PCOS – a name that caused confusion and undue suffering – to PM
a health policy paper has been published saying the name is officially updated to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS)
polyendocrine= multiple endocrine factors
metabolic = affecting/affected by metabolism
ovarian = from the ovaries
essentially, instead of using the symptomatic term (many people with PMOS do not develop cysts) the new term widens the diagnostic area and makes it easier to diagnose, treat, and do research on people with PMOS (even atypical types, such as no cysts).
it may seem like a waste of time to change a name instead of focusing on research, but for a lot of medical professionals a name can be associated with a hard set collection of symptoms, so the name needs to change to acknowledge that the disorder is not well understood and has a broader, subtler, and often missed set of symptoms. for example ADD is considered an antiquated/unused term, and now comes under the ADHD umbrella. in healthcare names and terminology changes all the time, and this is a positive change. your local healthcare professional may not know about this unless theyre really up on the news though!
in case you want to read about the name change process that was published in the Lancet (one of the most impactful and well respected medical journals):
Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), previously named polycystic ovary
syndrome (PCOS), affects one in eight women. However, the
Something to take a moment today and remember: As a collective, imperfect, often-divided human species, there is one disease--one--that we have ever managed to hunt to extinction. Because after thousands of years of watching it torture our children to death? Saving SOME people, saving MOST people, wasn't fucking good enough.
We have never hated anything more than we hated smallpox.
We have never loved anything as much as we love each other.
I know what I'm getting myself into. As if the hundreds of signs warning off the public, the remote location, and all the online horror stories about these things weren't enough, there's a clearcut surrounding the ravine. Cameras and flood lights. Regular patrols. Barbed wire fences.
But I'm an expert. I waltzed right through the clearcut, got a nod from the soldiers, and brushed aside the signs like they're nothing. That's what almost a decade of work will get you. Years of sleepless nights, putting the work above everything else. This place is all rumor from the outside, but I get to learn the truth. Right here. Staring at this thing that looks like a woman wearing a bad Halloween costume: a tight black dress that stops at mid thigh; full, lightly purple lips with spider web eyeliner; strappy black boots with a nice heel. She looks lost, ready for a house party, not a hike deep into the forest. A wide brimmed black hat, pointed towards the sun, makes for an effusive protrusion almost as distracting as her its tits.
Its false eyes crinkle and 'watch' me. Smiling with no teeth. I know it's really seeing me from up near the apex of the hat. Compound eyes. Nearly invisible if you don't know what you're looking at. It cocks a hip, rests a hand. Opens its mouth. So many little teeth inside, and a too wide tongue. Like it never bothered to get a good look at us from the inside. A human would choke on a tongue that big. A shiver runs through me. It licks its lips. Someone touches the small of my back.
"The older ones are further back, if you're interested, Dr. Fanu." My research assistant guides me to look past the goth and deeper into the shadows of the ravine. "Styles adapt to the times. One of the biggest mysteries, honestly, who's styling them. The oldest living specimen is in a cave along the red catwalk. You'll find her under reports labeled 'Lili.' She's totally nude except for tattoos. Little marks all over her. Like Otzi."
"Thank you, Carmen." She rubs my back, little static shocks jolting between us. The goth witch rolls her head and shifts her weight to her other foot. "Shouldn't they be in cages?" Loose predatory animals were not what I was expecting. They might mimic human shapes (right down to its perfect ass) but they're closer to insects than us.
"They're ambush predators, Dr. Fanu. Smart ones at that. As long as no one gets too close, they won't strike. Don't show any fear or interest, and they won't even approach you. Conservation of energy is the name of the game."
Somewhere under the brim of that hat, waiting feelers grow heavy, coating themselves with acid.
Late at night, I wake in my bed and look out the plexiglass window of the semi-permanent cabin that Carmen has set me up in. The floodlights in the distance were obscured by something. I pull out my phone, ready to record it for the security team. My phone's camera tries to adjust to the dark, and I see what's blocking my window. Static and still. Face pressed to the glass. Expression mournful, yet full of hope. Movie perfect tears streak through its makeup. The goth witch. The facility's logging system calls it 14-3. It's watching me, like a lover come calling in the night. Makes my skin crawl. Makes me want to let it in. They can sense my weakness, can't they? I'm weak to the allure of something so dangerous and so beautiful. Always have been, even when it ends up hurting me.
If Carmen, or any of the guards see her there, they'll know. There's a reason they don't staff men at this facility. Too many embarrassing accidents for the government to cover up. And I never made my dating history public. Kept it under wraps, good ole' don't ask don't tell. I can not afford to lose this job. I don't have anything to go back to.
The manual on safe handling is very clear: do not touch the witches unless you absolutely have to. Only in very fine print do they say how: Above the brim, or below the knees. Anything else is asking for trouble. It's taller than me by a good six inches, and the brim is higher than that. So I'm stuck crawling around in the dirt, trying not to look up its skirt, slowly, painfully moving it away from my cabin. This thing is strong, and it does not want me to move it, but it doesn't step forward again when I do manage to gain a few inches. This is so embarrassing. Got to stay out of the light, away from cameras. I'm covered in dirt and sap and to anyone who saw us it'd look like I was throwing myself at its feet. They'd think I'm some kind of pervert.
It's not wearing panties, and unlike the mouth, it seems to have a perfect grasp of what should be there. Goddammit.
Someone screams. Metal rending sounds echo through the ravine. Except it isn't metal. It's witch on flesh and bone. The sound of breaking. I scramble away from my stalker and run towards the sound. Security's beat me to it. Three armed guards stand, rifles pointed at the writhing thing. Wide brim brought down over the witch and the victim alike, like smothering, ribbed latex. I know from the reports that the writhing isn't the victim. It's the witch. Whoever was stupid enough to get too close has already had their neck snapped, probably dead.
"Jesus," says the head of security, half out of uniform. Perri Fontaine, I think her name is. "We have the footage yet?"
"I have it, one second," Carmen says, appearing suddenly, tapping furiously at her tablet. She's in shark print pajamas. I pretend like I can't see her nipples through the top.
"What happened to you?" asks Perri, looking me up and down. Looking like shit.
"I slipped running over." Keep my head high.
"Here." Carmen turns the tablet out to face us. In grainy security camera footage, I see a woman in a guard uniform walk up to one of the witches. "Is this one of ours?" Perri shakes her head. An imitator. The woman approaches the witch, one in a classical witchy dress, all black ankle length skirts and flowing sleeves. She reaches out to it, tentative hand an inch away from the witch's face. It's… talking to her? Moving its lips certainly, and she's responding like it's talking. She takes a hesitant step forward, hand making contact with its face. I'm expecting it to snap shut then, but instead she's able to pull back, breathing heavy.
Perri clicks her tongue. "There it is. Too late now." On the video, the woman is nodding along at whatever the witch is saying. She looks wobbly, like she's drunk.
"What's happening?" I ask.
"The mimicry skin is coated in an intoxicant." Perri answers, quick like I'm quizzing her. "A single touch and you're flying higher than a kite. Susceptible, aroused, and uninhibited. That is half the reason we're here, right? Why so much money's pouring in. Any number of agencies wants us to synthesize that. Now she's probably going to… yep." The woman is kissing the witch now. Grinding her self against it. A single touch. I look at my hands. Pulling and touching and yanking the goth one for minutes. Probably a hundred touches and I don't feel anything. I think. Certainly not like her, shoving that thing's tongue as far down her throat as she can get.
Fuck it's hot. Desperate for touch, for pressure. All higher thought, just, gone. Need replacing it. Need. Need. Need. But I'm not feeling it. Finally, the witch wraps its arms around the woman, and the hat snaps shut, too quick for the camera to capture the movement. I remember the sound. Sweet death.
Carmen flips the tablet back to herself in a blur. She's muttering something, low and sweet, out of place at a death, but comforting. I don't know how to feel. Scared, relieved, angry, humiliated. I should have died right alongside the not-security guard. It should have been me tasting it, I wouldn't have been so tame. A little grinding for her life? I'd have made it really count. But instead, I'm alive and unaffected. Okay, maybe not completely unaffected, I can admit it, but nowhere near the amount that the woman in the video was. I'm not stupid enough to actually try anything.
"Starvation rations for this one. For… one month, Dr. Fanu?" Carmen's looking at me.
"Uh," I gulp. Mouth's dry.
"I can send everyone the files we have on their movement, since when they feed they get so much more adventurous. We keep them sedate through a rigorously maintained feeding schedule."
"Will one of you go put on some fucking coffee?" Perri snaps. A guard salutes her and runs off to the office building. "Gonna be up all night figuring out how she snuck in."
The witch has stopped squirming. Carmen tugs on my arm, eyes glued to the blood spilling down the exposed pairs of legs. "Come on, Lauren. It's about to release. You really don't want to see or smell that up close." I let her lead me back to my cabin. Her touch feels electric, whatever effect the toxin is or isn't having on me makes Carmen radiate warmth. I want to scoop her into my arms and tear off her shirt. Jesus. I'm supposed to be a doctor, here for research. This isn't summer camp. Cool down.
Carman puts her hand on my cheek, like the woman to the witch, and says, "are you alright? You seem a bit flush." Her gaze is intense, quizzical and focused. She locks the door to my cabin. I can still see the goth witch from the window, a dozen yards away. There's dirt on her legs, hand prints. Carmen looks too. I think I see a smile break through her scowl. Just for a moment. "Doctor, I saw you. With that witch."
"What?" I say, like playing dumb is going to work.
"Don't worry. I deleted the footage, but it was visible on the camera feed. You touched her, and you're still standing here. Like it was nothing. How do you think that is? How are you alright?"
There has to be a way out of this. "I'm not into women."
"Bullshit. Doesn't matter besides, you'll hump a log after a dose of that stuff." She's looking at me so intensely. "We've lost the last four biologists in your position, have you heard that? All dead or 'missing.'"
"Maybe I'm immune. It's not impossible, we know so little about them." I'm sweating.
"How do you feel?" She's too close. I can smell her. Sleep and lingering perfume, sweat and metal.
"I feel," like I want to bite down hard on her neck just to hear her squeal, "fine. A little woozy, I suppose."
"Not like you want to… go to them? That was an uncontrolled dose."
"I don't want to die," I scoff. How long will this stuff last? Carmen nods, slow and considered. She asks if I need anything from her. I say that I do not. It takes all my willpower. She leaves. I am alone.
It's maybe four A.M. Perri is still in her office, scrubbing footage and making reports. Carmen's off… wherever she sleeps. I can't make it through the night like this. The cold air on my skin is too stimulating. I need release. And none of the humans here will give it to me. But I'm smart. An expert. I can do this, I'm not an idiot. I'll feel so much better after a good fuck. At the least, I wont soak my panties so much. God. This is so stupid.
There's rope in the supply sheds. Good sturdy rope. And the roof of my cabin is suspended by beams that are made of aluminum, or steel, or something metal. Something I can use to my advantage. There's gloves in with the supplies too. So I can set things up with a clear head. The goth is where I left her. Maybe it's just my imagination but her dress looks even more sheer. Might as well not be there at all.
Lasso her by the hat, lead her like cattle back to my cabin. Stay in the shadows. The moon's dipped below the trees. It's darker now than before. I'm not seen.
Get her inside. Stand her in a circle of rope attached to the ceiling. Pull it tighter and tighter, higher and higher. It hangs around her eyes. I wet my lips. Moment of success, or failure?
"In, in the video," I whisper to her. "You were talking. Not you, you. The other one. Can you speak?" I'm not even looking her in the eyes when I say it. "Can you actually feel any of it? Does it feel good? Do you want this?"
She looks at me. Opens her mouth. Her tongue rolls out. Too big. Just big enough. Made for this. I pull the rope tight. it catches on her forehead, then slips up over the hat. The brim lifts. It looks painful. I pull tighter. She whines, takes a step back, so I yank. The brim snaps up, tight to the hat. I put on the gloves. Secure the brim. Secure her to the ceiling. My prisoner, my would be killer. She's really squirming now, trying to get free. Can't see. These eyes aren't her eyes. Then I touch her. The brim flaps uselessly. She stills, like she knows what I need.
Something so like us, nearly identical to the touch, the look, even the fashion. It can't be stupid. None of them are animals. She's beautiful, she's not of this world, and she knows what I want. She knows she can give it to me. Her hand reaches out for mine. Guides me to the neckline of her shitty paper dress. It oozes when I rip it apart. Perfect tits. Perfect body. All fucking mine. Yeah, I'm feeling it again. Harder this time. When did I take off the gloves? Or start straddling her? Who cares, she's still securely tied up.
Shit, if I'm already up here I might as well put her to work. Get the drug inside of me. Everywhere she touches is on fire. The feeling doubles, triples, roils and blanks my mind with ecstasy. Crawl up her body until her head's between my thighs. Don't remember when we got on my bed. Too impatient to wait I grind on her face 'til she figures out what I want. And she does. She might not want to talk but she knows how to use that tongue.
I'm so close. I'm so close. I'm so close. I—
Morning. I shudder awake, every muscle tensing. My heart's racing, I can still feel its tongue inside of me, hands on my ass, nails digging in.
Carmen's in my bed. She turns to face me, smiling sweetly.
"Hey, you're up. Feeling any better?" When did she get here? Where's the goth? Shit, did she catch me again? Fix my mistake? I don't remember. Why is it so hard to keep my head on straight? Was it a dream? What if I was higher than I thought, and started hallucinating? Yeah, that had to be it. There's no way that just tying up the hat would work. That'd be too easy, anyone could do that. Carmen bites her lip. "Thank you for letting me stay here last night. I hate it, when people die. It's stupid, I know. Shouldn't work here if I can't handle it." She squirms up to a sitting position, blanket falling around her. The morning sun's bright through the windows.
"Um…"
"Oh, right. Your camera. We equip each room with a microphone and camera for security purposes, ever since we had a guy camp out in one last year and we didn't know for a month. Don't worry though, since this is your room, you have complete control over the footage. No one can even see it unless there's an incident. What I mean is, if you could erase the evidence that I slept in here, I would really, really appreciate it. With how strict they are about… you know, lesbians and all that, it wouldn't look good. If you know what I mean." She's blushing. Part of me feels like it's an act, teasing me.
"Right." Camera. In my room. "I can do that."
"Thank you, thanks so much, Dr. Fanu, uh, Lauren. Really." She hugs me. "I just, I come from such a touchy family, and I used to be so close to my sister, but obviously she can't be here, and I understand the rules about intimacy, but that doesn't make it not hard, you know?"
She clears out with only a few dozen more thank you's. I sit in my bed, staring at my tablet, sore like I did get fucked last night, head still reeling from the toxin, and open the playback app. There's only one file, last night.
I leave the room to go shove the goth around at 12:34. The commotion with the imposter guard starts at 12:51, I can hear the sounds of people shouting in the distance. At 1:11, Carmen enters, me in tow.
"Are you alright? You seem a bit flush."
"I'm fine."
"Doctor, I, uhm, I saw you with that witch."
"What?" I even look high, swaying a little.
"Don't worry. I deleted the footage, but it was visible on the camera feed. You… you touched her, but you're still standing here. Like it was nothing. How? How are you alright?"
"I don't know."
"You're really feeling alright?"
"Yeah, I feel pretty normal." Is this how it went? "How are you doing, Carmen?"
"Me? Oh, I'm fine. It happens. The… dying."
"Are you used to it?" I didn't say that.
"I wouldn't say that. Exactly. No. I don't want to be. That'd be terrible, I think."
"Are you going to be okay tonight?" Have I ever sounded that caring? Why don't I remember this?
"…Yep. I'll be… I'll be fine."
"You can stay here tonight, if you need to."
"I couldn't." So bashful.
"I don't bite."
She laughs at me. I change into a clean pair of pajamas. She politely turns the other way. Doesn't even peek. We climb into bed, chaste. Don't think we even touch. I thought she did, though? Touched my cheek. No, it's not there. I fall asleep first. She stays sitting for a few minutes, then goes to sleep herself. Nothing happens until 6:57, when I startle awake and she asks me to delete this footage.
I save a local copy, then delete it from the server. It was a dream. I did not fuck the witch. It didn't happen. The weakness I feel in my legs is because of the adrenaline, from watching someone die last night. That's a good explanation. It's a new job, a new shitty bed, which I shared with a stranger. That's why my hips hurt.
One of the security guards stops me on my way to get breakfast. It's Perri's second in command. I've forgotten her name. She's tapping a pen against a clipboard in agitation. "Hey, doc," she barks. "Did you take forty feet of rope, and a pair of gloves? They're missing, and no one's checked them out. We have a system for a reason, you know."
"I didn't take them." I did. I didn't. The video proves I didn't. Even if I remember it. Something's wrong.
"Not what I was hoping to hear." Me neither.
I'm making morning rounds, counting all the witches, noting any oddities, when Perri joins me. She looks worse than I feel. There's dirt under her fingernails, and bags under her eyes. "Just finished with the body." I don't envy her job. "No I.D. Again. Whatever whacko freak on YouTube is telling these people to come without any form of identification is going to fucking get it one of these days." Niko-W1tch-Supremecist. That's the youtuber. Too annoying and political for me. Tells people to use protest tactics like they're applicable in every scenario. Wonder if she knows her work has a body count. I don't tell Perri about any of that. There's something else on my mind.
"Did the last four biologists really all die?" I remember Carmen saying that. It's not in the video.
"You hear about about that too? Damn. Yeah, they did, apparently. Well, it wasn't the witches. Don't worry. They just… couldn't deal. Two killed themselves. Two disappeared. Never found their bodies. Carmen, I heard, was the optimist, and she believed that they just ran off and were living happy lives somewhere. Guess not." She sighs. Points at my checklist. "Who's next."
"18-7. 'Classy.'" All of the witches have nicknames. Even the goth, 14-3, is called Lydia. I checked her first. She was fine. Almost exactly where I left her.
"Oh. You met her last night. She'll be moving around after her meal. Lemme see." She whips out a radio. "Fontaine for all. Eyes on Classy?"
"South Duck Pond," the radio squawks. Perri grunts and starts walking. "Follow me." We find 18-7 waist deep in the pond, stooped to look down at the stony bottom. It looks almost like she's fishing. The guards watching it look annoyed. "Yeah, we can come back to this one. Likes to stare at her own reflection. Snapped at it once." She leads me back onto the trails. "You done Lili yet?" I haven't. "Let's see her next. She doesn't go nowhere."
The deepest part of the ravine hides caves. Shallow, wet ones, but caves nonetheless. One of these has been fenced off and lit up. A dozen cameras watch every conceivable angle. 01-1 waits inside. Lilith. It's squatted against the far wall of the cave, completely naked, fatter than the other witches. Criss-cross marks cover its joints and neck. Wild hair falls to blunt ends. Her hat is more rounded than any of the others. The brim is wider. Long teeth hang from the very edge. Its eyes are huge. Truly bug like bulges on the hat. The mimic eyes follow me as I approach.
"Morning, Lili," Perri says when she's finished checking the cameras.
Lili licks its lips and speaks. "Good morning, commander." It shocks me, such an old voice coming from this beautiful thing. "Two more days until I'm fed, and yet you bring me a feast?"
"They can talk?" I blubber. Wish I'd read the reports. Why haven't I? Or…
"Just Lili. We're not sure if it's age or-"
"or just that I am special," Lili says. "This is pretty meat commander, well worth a closer inspection." It stands. Takes a step. "You seem so delicious, I can smell—oh. Oh." It sniffs the air Returns to its spot. "Never mind."
Perri sighs. "As you can see, she's smart, mobile, and dangerous. A guard is always stationed close by, let them know when you're going to interact with Lili."
"I've no interest in other's things, commander."
"What does it mean by that?"
"You can't expect coherence. It's still an animal, doctor."
I'm having trouble focusing. Details slide off the page, ink spills into my lap. What was I even doing? Some report for… some agency. I'll come back to it later. Carmen's resting her head on my shoulder, e-reader bouncing in her hand, forgotten page foretelling an apocalypse of elves. Lucky her, she finished her reports an hour ago. Her spare hand is touching my thigh. The intimacy makes me feel like a creep. She's getting such obvious relief from this, but it's only riling me up.
"What'd you think?" Of what? I couldn't listen. "Of Lili," Carmen finishes.
"She talks. I didn't know that they could talk." No one ever said so. Oh, plenty of people think that they're intelligent, but they all seem to agree—if the internet and rumors in a biology lab can be said to agree on anything—that the witches are incapable of speech. But I spoke to one. It was cogent. Mostly. Hell, for how old it must be, speaking modern english like that is a miracle.
The paper screen of the e-reader goes dark. No wonder I can't see what I'm working on, the sun's gone down and the only light is now sitting inert Carmen's lap. Too distracted. My eyes are slow to adjust. Everything gets shuffled off my bed. Guess she's staying the night again. I fall back, but she's adamant I get changed. "At least out of your dirty work clothes, please." I'm stripped down to my underwear before Carmen's satisfied. Hanging branches scrape against the roof.
I'm trying to sleep, really, but it's warm. The sheets are sticking to me, and my mostly bare skin against Carmen's is panic-inducing hot. Two minutes ago, she rolled to face me. Buried her head in my chest, murmuring something sweet. Heavy sleeper. My arms are around her. Are we the same height? She feels smaller than me. She won't wake up if I pull her a little closer, shift my weight under her, cradle her in my arms. On top of me, in my embrace, slow, hot breathes curl up my neck. Her shirt's pulled up, exposing more skin. I want to reach up, I want to touch her, I want her.
Suddenly, it's late, the quietest, darkest part of night. Carmen's gone. I didn't feel her slip away. The door opens. My keys jingle in the lock. It's her, still half dressed, hand in hand with the goth. Lydia. Carmen leads her to the bed, sits her delicately on the edge of it. Lydia smells like sex and almonds. I want to reach out to her, to feel her again. Never got to bite at those perfect tits.
"Nuh uh," Carmen breathes. "Be patient." Her fingers push into Lydia's mouth, explore her teeth. She giggles, and smears the saliva on my face. She says, "to tide you over, since your tolerance is so high these days," then pulls my bag out from under the bed. My things spill out onto the floor. Doesn't matter. This must be a dream.
Next bag. My clothes scatter round the room. Something heavy falls out last. A machete. My machete. A stupid going-away present from… a friend. Some kind of amicable gesture. Carmen picks it up. Hefts the weight. "I'd have preferred shears, but this will do."
Lydia's slammed onto the ground. Her brim folds at painful angles. "There's only so much you can do with rope, Dr. Fanu." She points the knife down, at Lydia's face.
I'm reminded of a video. Didn't last long before it got taken down from all the usual sites. Even pornhub.
A witch, not one I recognize, bruised and twitching on the ground. The camera's shaky, but kitchen scissors come into view. The cameraperson cuts into the brim. Meat on metal. The witch writhes. It moans. (Evidence of a fake, they can't speak.) The brim's in pieces, flapping and spilling black blood. Forceful snips around the skull, and the brim is gone. The scissors fall away. A hand, a hand I now recognize, shoves itself onto the witch's face. Fingers round its neck. Pitch like blood smeared over its face, her hand. Then it cuts. The end.
I didn't think it was real.
It's happening right in front of me.
My body is stuck. Rooted in place. My mouth is watering. Part of me wants to know, does her blood intoxicate too? Carmen makes the last cut, awkward with such a large knife. Rough job. Lydia's no danger now. Carmen comes to me, gets behind me, sits me up. Her legs wrap around me, her mouth is on my ear. Something sticky and dark rubs off wherever she touches me. Fingers explore my mouth, too. The world is spinning. Lydia lifts herself off the floor like a marionette. Gangly limbs that have never taken a step before. This is a dream. This is fine. Lydia climbs on top of me, straddling me. Her skin on mine. Without the brim, she's safe, but less human than ever. Blinking blood out of her eyes. She kisses me. Rubs herself against me. Carmen's hands grope at me. I'm beyond myself. A mess of nerves, each one lit like a firework. I never want this dream to end. It feels too real. Carmen bites down on my neck. Scrapes her teeth against me, pulls my head around to kiss her while Lydia replaces her at my neck. I taste blood. Mine. Lydia's. Carmen's? This is barely more than dry-humping, but I feel tension start to build in my stomach. Everything's red. Lydia's dress come off. I rip at her fishnets. Curl my fingers inside of her. "Lauren," she moans, impossible. Bite at her breasts. Try to leave my mark on her skin. I'm getting closer. Carmen's sucking on my neck, her hand is crawling across my torso. Playing with the band of my panties. She dips beneath and—
The door slams open, lock broken, flashlights blinding. The world goes sideways. People are shouting. Plastic snaps. I hit my head. Cold metal. Hot blood. Lydia's still with me. Her fearful eyes are all I can focus on. Until she's gone too. Gloved hands press into my shoulders. Perri's voice. It calls me back to reality. I'm against the far side of the cabin. There's a hole torn into the wall.
I've been thrown across the room. "Where would she go?" Perri keeps asking, but they already took her. She's not dangerous anymore, not without the brim. "Where is Carmen?"
Carmen?
"This is a dream." We're walking the ravine, my boots aren't tied. "This isn't real." They gave me a gun. I half-assed all my weapons training. "Carmen isn't…"
"She is. I should have figured it out weeks ago. You've been so out of it." Perri is with me, searching for Carmen.
"Have I?" The toxin doesn't effect me like other people. I can shake it off.
"Ever since you had the flu, sure." Where's Lydia?
"I had the flu?"
"You were bedridden for a week. You don't remember?" No, I don't. I just got here. Its been… days. At most. "No, Lauren, you've been here for two months. Same as me. We were even on the same bus. You really don't remember?"
"18-7. She ate someone."
"That was a month ago. I think she's been dosing you. Who knows how long. Maybe the whole time."
Carmen's on top of me, sitting on my chest. We're both naked. I can feel how wet she is. She's got something in an oral syringe. She's telling me to try it.
"They give us all kinds of access to fun drugs, you know, for research purposes. And this is a boring job, really. Just checking on docile animals. Looking but not touching. I know how hard that is. I've been doing the same thing." she squeezes out the syringe into my mouth. Doesn't leave any for herself.
"You've only been here two months?" Perri seemed like such a permanent fixture.
"Same as you, like I said. Most of the staff is new, they get rotated out. Only… only Carmen stays. She's been here since the facility was created. Actually," she pulls out her radio. "Check Dr. Spielsdorf's old cave maps. I remember the target saying something about her wanting to build stations down there." Carmen. A target.
The radio clicks. We walk in silence. I'm trying to clear my head. Lydia. There she is. With two of Perri's guards, walking towards us. One of them gave her their jacket. It's big enough to cover her. She looks odd, pointed hat and military jacket. The remaining hat looks shriveled. She's been crying. Her fishnets hang loose. The spiderwebs around her eyes are streaked. Her lipstick is gone. Wasn't that permanent? Perri confers with her girls, and Lydia hugs me. She's careful not to make skin contact. She removes a pair of gloves from the pockets of the jacket and slips them on to take my free hand.
"Only caught her because of Lydia. Carmen's been using her, extracting the toxin, running little tests." Lydia squeezes my hand. "She's been coming to my cabin, at night while everyone's asleep. She spoke to me. Just a few words." Perri rubs at her eyes. "You never figured out why some of them can talk, did you? No? Whatever. She warned me, but I didn't listen. Thought it was nonsense. That's what Carmen's always saying. It's what you said too. Like a parrot. It doesn't mean anything. I dismissed it, but it stuck in my head. Started watching her, everywhere she went. And the footage from last month? The impersonators? Someone deleted the footage, but I got one of the girls to recover it. Carmen let them in. Them, plural. She… took one somewhere, the cameras didn't follow."
The witches have gathered. They stand like the trees, before Lilith's cave. The guards go first into the throng, Lydia and I bring up the rear. None of the witches move. We're surrounded.
"Probably the old caves," Perri opens a map on her tablet. Drawings map out a series of tunnels, deep underground. I go to lean over and look, but someone shouts.
"WATCH YOURSELVES!" Lili yells from inside.
A guard goes flying, something too quick to understand whipping around her, throwing her. Then it's gone.
She hits a witch. Its hat snaps shut.
"YOU UPSET THE MONSTER!"
"Keep moving," Perri hisses.
The gate to Lili's enclosure has been blasted open. She's standing just inside. Her body's tense. A coiled spring.
"Out at last to scour the parasite? Good luck. The predecessor of your predecessor could not do the same."
"I'll bring the whole force of the military down on her if I have to." Perri starts bashing the butt of her gun against the cave wall, looking for a cover-up.
"They will refuse. Do you believe the force of power lies with you? The parasite knows it lies with her. Value. Value drives this new world. The things your Value Hungry systems want from me and my sisters, it wants more than it cares for you. Any of you. The parasite is smart, understands these things. Make progress, and she can feed freely. Shame I had not the wherewithal to do so myself. The parasite uses us to disguise the danger she poses. Things of a kind, we are. Hers psychological. Mine psychoactive. Hers blood. Mine body."
Lydia squeezes my hand.
Perri breaks through the stone facade.
Carmen is there behind it. Face a contorted horror. She sweeps an arm, and Perri goes flying into Lili. Lili's brim flexes but does not shut. Centuries of control. The last guard, Carmen beheads. Bare handed, one to brace against her shoulder, the other to pull. Her sharp teeth glisten while she holds the severed head above her, drinking like wine the viscera she's created.
"Inside. The heart of her. Run it through," says Lili, moving fast. She grapples Carmen, brim slamming over them both. Carmen yowls, inhuman, and pushes back.
Perri's on the ground. She's well covered, but did she touch Lili? Yes, she's clutching at her cheek. I can't leave her, not with so many witches outside. Lydia lets go of my hand and drops to her knees. Places a gloved hand on Perri's shaking body. Looks at me.
"You won't… um?" I ask, like I have any claim to her. Lydia looks at me like it was offensive to even ask. Something's different in her, that wasn't there before. What has Carmen done to her, too? Mobile, emotive, intelligent. Like everything I've lost. There's no time to figure it out. I run for the cave.
Memory has been trickling back into my head. Sharing a cigarette with Perri at a rest stop, still hours away from the ravine. How did I forget that I smoked? Carmen… she doesn't like it. Always went the other direction whenever Perri had one lit. I spent my first month here mostly in the lab, working with enzymes. I don't know which of the plain prefab buildings is the lab, but I remember the work. All I've done for the last several weeks, besides lie in bed, is wander through the ravine, counting and recounting the witches.
I had a wife. I have her face, but not her name. The divorce is there, mostly in impressions. Terrible looming loneliness. Desperate need for physical contact. Aimless libido. The things Carmen could toy with. That's right. The divorce finalized. Didn't think they'd send the notice here, thought my past was safe, that my lesbianism could be a secret. The papers were at my door first thing in the morning, and I spent the whole day terrified. My new job, a new start at a better life. A chance to be an expert in my field, all on the precipice of destruction. After sundown Carmen finally pinned me. All that's left of that conversation is her body. The normally reserved assistant, with her turtlenecks and ankle length skirts, in a too tight, too sheer white blouse and shorts that couldn't quite cover her ass. Eyes that burned into me. Should have known right there that something was off. She looked so hungry.
When did she start to feed on me? That same night? Couldn't have taken her long. Sharp like needles, teeth in my flesh. Breasts, thighs, neck. No one noticed the marks? How much longer would I have lived? I don't remember it, but it had to have been happening. I'm scratching at my throat and my wrists, looking for scars that aren't there. Just the fresh bite, still bleeding.
The cave walls are coated in a film of meat. Mucus drips down into my hair, blinds my eyes, then sloughs back to the floor; I'm being incorporated into the system, a proving ground for viscosity. Veins thicker than my wrists pulse a heartbeat. I can feel the rhythm in my feet, counting my steps deeper into the dark. Towards the nexus of blood. Muscle to break.
Sweetness, sick like bile, drifts through the air. It's building pressure. Compounding like I'm underwater. Deeper and Deeper.
I feel it before I see it.
Atop a pedestal of fat, drenched eternally by fountains of serous fluid, beating in time with the soul that's entrapped me, is the heart.
Carmen's heart.
Around it are skeletons. Most human, one still rotting: the intruder that Perri saw her secret away. The rest are nearly human, but for the spindly protrusions on the skull; the wide, toothy jaws. Witches, a dozen of them. Maybe the one in that video, cut apart to lure idiots like me in. No wonder Lilith wants her gone.
The heart.
It's warm as a body, like I've seriously reached my hand inside her chest and wrapped my fingers around her heart. I'm supposed to kill her. Why? Everything's twisted. This place is fucking with me. This job. What does Carmen want with me? What's the point in keeping me alive?
I take her heart in my hand, living muscle.
And then she's there, in my head, whispering into my ear. Breathing hard on my neck. She's struggling. Lili's been allowed to live because she'd be too hard for Carmen to kill. But the witch can't hold her back forever. Carmen whispers my name.
"Lauren. Don't."
I have no reason not to.
"You don't remember. That first night. How much I wanted to taste you. Your cunt or your neck, I didn't care. Easy enough to have both, around here. But then I dosed you and you didn't go under. It took all my willpower, leaving you that night. I thought I was getting stupid, being sentimental. Then you found Lydia. You dragged her back to your cabin and tied her to the ceiling and fucked her all night. Rode her fucking face, inches away from acid that'd kill you. I saw how hungry you were for it. How bad you needed it. I know that feeling. My whole life is that feeling. You were so fixated on her, I couldn't help being jealous. So I did some prodding, a little science. The classical kind. Find out what happens kind. And she got smarter. You got more obsessed. It was too much. I was going to kill her, but then I realized. You were just like me."
I'm an oddity to her. A glassy surface she can see herself in. There'd be nothing between us if not for that.
"We have the same desires, you felt what every idiot who's died to a witch has felt, but you used it. Made the hunger a tool. Found a long term solution. I'm the same. Lauren, I am what I am, but I never tasted you until tonight. This isn't about keeping quiet. Lilith was right, as long as I get results, I can do whatever I want. I wanted to wait. I didn't kill you."
And doesn't that mean something? That she hasn't killed me signals some kind of loyalty? Like I owe her something for that? Like she owns me?
"You're already more like me than like them."
I squeeze. Dig my fingernails in. Carmen moans. Blood oozes out around my fingers. Deepest Crimson.
"You are. You are. You are. We can be the same. You've already gotten so close. Just drink from me. Stay with me."
I could do it. I believe her, she's telling the truth about this. I could be like her. "I can't stop you. I'm at you mercy. We're equal already but I need you to save me. Perri's up. She's coming. She'll kill us both to play hero." Something loud echoes down the cave walls. Footsteps.
"Lauren! Now! She's coming!"
Perri sweeps into view. Eyes crazed. Handgun drawn. She's looking for her target. I raise the heart.
“On December 9, 1979, the disease was confirmed to have been eradicated, with the World Health Assembly making the declaration official five months later.”
“On May 8, 1980, more than two years after the last known case, the World Health Assembly formally declared the world free of smallpox.”
Also celebrate Ali Maow Maalin, the last known case of naturally acquired smallpox in the world - a man who got smallpox because he was afraid of being vaccinated, survived, and went on to do incredibly valuable work getting vaccinating people in Somalia against polio.
He died of malaria in 2013 at the age of 58 while doing this volunteer work. (There are presently, at long last, potentially viable vaccines for malaria being developed - this will be the next big one for disease eradication, if we can make it happen)
While it was omitted from the documentary, my brush with the demon Shax wasn’t my only encounter on the way home from Edinburgh...
It would have been difficult to recreate it here without the aid of a member of the Scottish police but, thanks to the generosity and hard work of a group of wonderful artists, you can see how events unfolded in this ‘animatical’ cinematography.
Please enjoy it, and do take time to go back and admire all the drawings, as some appear only briefly, and all are worth your attention.
For the curious, the music on the radio is Waltz II, from Shostakovich’s ‘Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1’. It might be relatively modern, compared to my usual listening fare, but it is most certainly not ‘bebop’.
