I'm Lee, and I have OCs that I like to torture. This is my blog for original whump content, other whump things, and writing in general! Please send me requests and prompts, I have no life and will respond to ALL of them.
Itâs not exactly a crack, what Kuwee hears. No, when the boot presses down on his hollow-boned leg, itâs a quiet snap, made loud by his scream. The boot lifts, and he tries to scramble away, but his stupid claws canât find purchase on the cobblestone right away. He drags himself up, broken leg hanging behind him and twitching as he remembers not to move it. He has to get away, he has to flyâ
But heâs barely even a few feet away when the boot comes down onto his back. Not hard, not sudden, but the vampireâs weight is enough to press him down anyway. He feels his bones bend and creak as heâs pushed into the dirt.
âStrahd sends his greetings,â the vampire says, before something else gives way with another quiet snap.
It was early summer in the fourth year of Marwin Grayling's self-imposed exile, and the grass of the foothills was warm under his bare feet. He walked towards no particular destination, trending northeast, keeping above and away from the dirt road that paralleled the mountains in this wild country. A solitary hawk passed over his head, its cries swallowed by the wide emptiness, and he smiled as he watched it fade into the distance.
He heard the river from a distance, a low growl of water. Cresting a ridge, he saw it, snaking its way down from the mountains, swelled by the previous day's rainfall into a churning grey monster. It certainly wasn't usually this fast, not with such a wide meander. He sat down and pondered it for a while until movement caught his eye.
A man was walking along the other side of the river, head down, dangerously close to the rushing water. At the distance, Marwin could make out only broad details: green headwear, long dark hair, a generally ragged appearance. As he watched, the man paused and crouched down by the water.
What could he be doing? Marwin watched intently as he pulled out a waterskin and started to hold it in the current. Unbelievable. Did he have a death wish, or was he really that ignorant? Marwin leapt to his feet suddenly, struck by a thrill of fear, certain he was about to watch a man die. I have to warn him-
But before he could say so much as a single word, the current tore the waterskin from the man's grasp. He leaned forward instinctively, trying to catch it, and overbalanced.
"No!" Marwin cried, skidding down the slope, as the stranger disappeared beneath the water.
He would like to believe that he acted on pure impulse, without a thought behind it, to explain why he'd do something so rash for a stranger. But there was enough thought behind his actions for him to channel the magic through his body instead of setting it free, and the result was better-controlled than his magic had been in months. A metre-wide dam of ice exploded across the river with a sound like a crack of thunder, and the gray water crashed against it.
Marwin was already running when the exhaustion hit him, and he stumbled and gasped a curse as the world wavered around him. But he had to keep going, to be there at the dam to pull the stranger from the water.
Or maybe he didn't have to. A hand suddenly emerged from the water, reaching for purchase on the ice, and then another, and then a ragged, soaking wet figure pulled itself out of the rapids. Marwin stared dumbly as the man climbed up onto the shore, rubbing his hands together, breathing hard.
"You... you did that?" he asked, pointing to the ice dam, punctuating the question with a loud cough. He had a pleasant voice, even so, and although his face was blurry Marwin got an impression of striking pale blue eyes and a curious smile.
Yeah, he tried to reply, but his mouth had forgotten how to talk and his feet weren't on solid ground anymore. He grimaced, shook his head, and collapsed.
***
A cool breeze ruffled Marwin's hair, and the familiar warmth of a small campfire brought him slowly back to reality. He groaned and tried to sit up, taking in the heaviness in his bones, the ache in his muscles, the pounding in his head. The sky above was dark and full of stars.
"I hope you're not cold," said a familiar voice. "I didn't want to go digging through your pack, and I didn't think you'd want my blanket after it'd been in the river."
Marwin found that he wasn't cold, although the grass under his back was cool. The fire was enough. He tilted his head and looked at the stranger's face, lit by dancing flames. Pale blue eyes, ringed by dark circles; mouse-brown hair tied back from his face with a green bandana; a four-day beard and a melancholy smile. "Um... I'm okay." His own voice was strange to his ears. He so rarely had any reason to use it.
"I'm glad. I'm guessing it was you who made that ice dam, eh?"
"Um... yeah."
"Well, thank you. You definitely saved my life; I would've drowned if you hadn't been there. I owe you a great debt."
Hearing it spoken so plainly gave Marwin a start, but he found that he didn't want to think of why he'd done what he'd done at that moment. Because he was happy he'd done it, and he knew happiness couldn't last, and any moment he spent questioning it was one less moment he could spend feeling it. "It was nothing."
"No, it was amazing! I've never seen magic like that before. So fast! And I know that it hurt you, and you still did that for me, a stranger to you. I owe you my life. How can I repay you?" He paused suddenly and smacked himself in the forehead with a laugh. "I forgot to introduce myself. My name's Orion. Orion Wolfson."
"Oh. Orion," Marwin echoed, a smile spreading slowly over his face. "I'm Marwin. Uh, Grayling. And you, you don't have to repay-"
"Just think about it, okay?" Orion's expression was earnest. "I'll still be here in the morning, I don't have anywhere to be. I can be useful."
"O-okay." What else could he say to that?
Orion smiled at this acceptance of his terms, then laid down on his back, crossing his arms behind his head. Marwin mimicked him, dragging his pack over to serve for a pillow, but found himself unable to go back to sleep. An unfamiliar sort of nervousness had his heart racing. I should tell him. Tell him I'm dangerous, that he shouldn't stay until morning. Tell him!
His body made no move to obey his brain's command. He turned away from the fire, away from the sleeping figure beyond it, and with its warmth against his back sleep eventually found him.
This is not exactly how I'd been hoping to end my long ass silence, but sometimes life happens. And by life happens, I mean I somehow managed to lose all of my textbooks and now need to buy new ones asap. So I'm trying to raise $200, and to that end I would love the chance to draw your characters! I'm currently charging $15 for a full body, inked and coloured traditional drawing, which is a pretty sweet deal, I think. If you don't want it to be coloured, it's $10; any other modifications can be worked out! Just message me!
All my most recent art is HERE. I'm happy to draw fantasy characters, furries, humans, some very basic armour, and in a semi-realistic or more animated style.
My ko-fi is also HERE, and if you don't feel like paying $10 even the puniest donation will be appreciated! I'll make a little doodle for everyone who donates, and that is a promise.
(What a great prompt and a perfect excuse to bring an old universe out of mothballs! This is an alternate reality in which Canada is good at soccer and has its own, pretty decent professional league; Kathy Fox is the first woman ever to sign for a Canadian professional menâs team, and Patrick Hatley is her childhood friend and rival)
(There should be a picture of my bingo card here, but tumblr wonât let me do that right now, so Iâll have to add it in later)
"You all right, Fox? You're walking kinda funny."
Nothing brings Katherine Fox down to earth quicker than having someone worry about her. She straightens her back and nods, adjusting her gait. "I'm fine. I think I slept funny." Her teammate gives her a dubious look.
"You slept funny on your ankle? Are you a flamingo?"
Laughter ripples through the Royal Windsor side of the tunnel- on the opposite side, the Quebec City players remain studiously silent, all but Patrick Hatley, who snickers. "It's called nerves, Fox!" he calls across the gap.
He looks just as relaxed as always, grinning that same dumb grin with his canine teeth sticking out, rocking on the balls of his feet with his hands on his hips like he's king of the world.
"Whatever helps you feel better about yourself, Hatley," she replies blandly, and he smiles and nods like that was exactly his intention. Not nerves, that much she's sure of. Kathy Fox doesn't get nerves. Her left ankle may be hurting, and it may have been hurting ever since she woke up this morning, but it's definitely got nothing to do with nerves.
After all, she's been looking forward to this game for months.
The atmosphere is already hot as they walk out onto the field. The chants are in French, of course, and therefore unintelligible to Kathy, but the venom behind the words is a universal language. Forty-eight thousand people (the attendance hasn't been announced yet, but this game could never be anything but a sellout) bounce in unison, rattling the old stadium's metal bones right down to the field. The away support is impossible to miss, sequestered as they are in the north corner with three rows of empty seats between them and the home fans, and they're doing their best to be heard above the chaos.Â
The perfect atmosphere, in other words, for a late-season battle for first place. Kathy soaks it in, smiling, as the rituals get underway. She shakes hands with Quebec City's captain, calls the coin toss, and kicks off under a hail of boos.
"We're gonna psyche them out," Coach Leo had said in the locker room. "Start strong and fast. If we can dominate possession for a spell, keep them on the back foot, the crowd will get antsy. Score first, and they might just turn on their own team."
This was a well-documented phenomenon with Quebec City's supporters.
"We are not playing for a draw here. A draw will be the same as a loss, got that? They'll still be ahead of us, and their run-in is easier than ours. We're attacking."
Kathy doesn't mind that he was looking right at her for most of that speech. She's the captain, after all.
And she gets Coach's gameplan off to a good start less than five minutes in, sending number seven down the wing with a daring through ball. The crowd goes nearly silent until he blasts into the side netting, then express their relief with a shower of sarcastic applause.
Then suddenly they're cheering again, louder than ever, as a series of impressive one-time passes split the Windsor midfield all the way to Kathy. Her sore ankle almost lets her down, but she puts on a burst of speed to dispossess her Quebec counterpart.
He looks surprised, as they so often do. Sometimes it's nice to be a woman in a man's world.
"Don't wear out your stumpy little legs, Fox," says Hatley as he positions himself for the throw-in. He'd had a good run on goal, but he doesn't look too fazed by the lost chance.
"Don't waste your breath, Hatley," she replies.
He runs for the ball when it's thrown in and bounces a pass off his number ten. Dragging the ball through a wall of defenders isn't exactly his strong suit, so Kathy is somewhat taken aback to see him dodge past three of her teammates and suddenly find himself one-on-one with the keeper. The roar of the crowd builds to a peak; he goes for the bottom right.
It's a brilliant dive, and it just barely deflects the shot around the post.
The roar diminishes only a little.
"That was sloppy," she admonishes the defenders as they arrange themselves for the corner. They're all young, and the youngest is only nineteen- Akela Donovan from Toronto. He looks sheepish.
"Forgot he was fast."
"Don't forget again."
He nods earnestly.
The corner comes in high, with a dramatic curve. Patrick "Hat Trick" Hatley jumps for it, Windsor's goalie leaps to catch it, and three bodies collide in midair. The ball trickles away from the goal line, and Kathy lunges for it, clearing it away downfield.
"Fucker! That was a foul!"
Not Hatley's voice; he was never the type.
"Penalty!"
She backs away, not wanting to be associated in any way with the knot of Quebec players crowding into the referee or the knot of Windsor players trying to drag them away. Instead she glances towards the jumbotron, trying to get a sense for what just happened. Did Windsor's number four drag Hatley down? Was it the goalie? There's no good view, and the ref is unimpressed.
Play resumes. The crowd is livid; the curses thrown by the spectators in the fieldside seats can easily be made out through the roar. Hard to say if the gameplan is working yet; they're definitely provoking a reaction, at the very least.
The pain in her ankle is getting worse- now it's a deep, biting ache, and it's getting distracting, which is dangerous. One absolutely egregious pass to no one makes her suddenly wonder whether she should ask to be subbed off.
*Give it five minutes*, she decides, gritting her teeth.
It's an end-to-end game, much more so than Coach Leo wanted- he's getting red-faced on the touchline, and Kathy knows that at the next stoppage he's going to ask her what the hell is going on.
Hatley, on the other hand, is having one of his best games of the season, splitting their defense open with ease, and the frustration on her teammates' faces is starting to get to Kathy as well. It just figures, that he's playing like this while she's flailing.
She should really see it coming, what's about to happen. But she doesn't.
It's the thirty-sixth minute, four minutes into the five she's allowed herself. Her ankle doesn't want to bear her weight; she forces it to, exploding forward to beat her Quebec counterpart to a high ball, and makes what must be her best pass of the night to her number six. But his touch is poor, and the ball is gone from in front of him before he has a chance to recover.
Everything happens very quickly. Windsor's right fullback is backing up, trying to anticipate the Quebec winger's run, but the opposition player suddenly stops in his tracks and delivers a superb cross.
To fucking Patrick Hatley.
With a clear run at goal.
Akela Donovan is the only one near. "Go! Go!" Kathy screams, uselessly, sprinting after them. The crowd is on its feet- the stadium is vibrating- Donovan is three feet behind, he's not gonna make it, and Hatley is turning for the shot.
Donovan lunges in with both feet. Patrick goes down like a sack of potatoes, all six feet five inches of him, and Kathy stumbles in her tracks. The pain in her ankle is gone.
Her heart drops. She runs.
In the silence that's descended over the stadium, two sounds can suddenly be heard with terrible clarity. One of them is Akela Donovan, babbling in incoherent horror, and the other is Patrick Hatley, screaming.
She gets there first, falling to her knees beside him. "Patrick!"
"Hh... Kath..." His body is twisted, his fingers digging into the grass, but he opens his eyes to look at her. His gaze flicks downward.
"No, don't look at it," she gasps, grabbing his hand. "Look at me."
It's hard enough for her to see it, to see that brilliant right foot twisted to the side, looking so defiled, so wrong. And the blood... it's a testament to the amount of pain he's in that he obeys her immediately. She holds his gaze, and his hand, which clutches hers in a vise grip.
There are people all around them now. A voice is yelling for a stretcher. Kathy tries to smile. She wants to punch someone. "It's fine. It's not that bad. You... you should be ashamed of yourself, diving like that."
He tries to smile back. "You're... the one who... fell for it," he manages between breaths.
For a second she can almost believe that he'd fake this just to mess with her. Then the physios are there, and she's pushed aside, and Patrick just barely manages not to scream again as they lift him onto the stretcher.
The sound that comes out instead is almost as bad.
There's no faking that.
It takes Kathy a moment after she stands up to realize that Akela Donovan is already gone. She wonders if anyone spoke to him. She wonders if she can trust herself to do it.
All the spirit has been sucked out of the stadium; the game finishes dismally, with a 0-0 draw. As bitter a point as any Kathy's had in her career. She goes through the motions of sportsmanship afterwards, feeling aimlessly angry and very much like she shouldn't talk to Akela Donovan.
But there's no getting around it; he approaches her in the locker room once everyone else has left.
"Fuck, Fox, I'm sorry," he says, and the misery in his voice and on his face seems genuine. "I fucked everything up. I-"
"Don't apologize to me, Donovan. I'm not the one whose career might be over."
His face goes gray. "Over...?"
"Yeah. Or shortened. Missing a large chunk, at the very least. You-" She can hear the venom starting to seep into her words, and she cuts them off, waving her hand. "Now's not a good time to be talking to me. I know you didn't do it on purpose. Go on, get moving."
He does, quickly, and she follows.
The verdict comes through only a day later; Akela Donovan is suspended the rest of the season. Four games. They'll miss him, but Quebec will miss Hatley more.
She calls Patrick in the morning.
"Apparently it's pretty gnarly," he tells her with forced nonchalance. "The bone went right through the skin. Just popped right... ugh, fuck."
"You can't even describe it," she teases, grinning.
"Take off."
"How are you, though?" This is the loudest that she'll ever voice her concern. Patrick clears his throat.
"Well, uh, it hurts." He pauses, as if to let this sink in, before continuing. "I'm just trying not to think about it too much, because I won't know if I'm out for six months or forever until after the surgery. So until then, why worry?"
It's clear from his voice that he is worrying. "Shit."
"It's the fucking worst."
A commiserative silence fills the air for a few moments.
"I'll come and visit tomorrow," Kathy says.
"While the rest of your team flies home to Windsor? Don't be stupid, you'll miss training. You're the captain."
"We've got a bye week anyway. I'll get another hotel."
"Well, okay," he concedes quickly. She almost laughs, but it occurs to her that he might not even be aware of what just happened. She lets it go.
"I'm gonna eat breakfast now. I'll see you soon."
"Yeah, see you soon, Kathy."
No more than a minute after she ends the call, her phone is ringing again. Donovan, says the call display. She has to admire the kid's guts, at least.
She answers it. "Donovan. What's going on?"
"I'm doing what you told me to."
"Oh yeah?" She can't remember what she told him to do. Fuck off, maybe?
"Yeah. I'm going to apologize. I just thought you would want to know." There's a note of uncertainty in his voice; this is definitely new territory for him. She almost feels sorry for the kid.
"That's good. Good luck." It's tempting to tell him not to expect too much, but she knows he's not stupid; he must have come to that conclusion already.
However, she does take one precaution; once he has hung up, she texts Patrick.
F: Expect a possibly unwelcome visitor at some point today
H: What, you're arriving early?
F: Donovan wants to come say sorry
H: Oh
H: All right
She sighs as she puts the phone down. She's scared- on her childhood friend's behalf, and in general, a sort of all-encompassing dread. Was it wrong for her to put on a cheerful face, to banter with him like nothing was wrong, when she's this afraid? And if she's this afraid, what must he be feeling?
She slips the phone into her pocket and reaches for her shoes.
Hello, internet friends, internet acquaintances, and anyone else who might be reading this! Iâm Lee, and Iâm a university student. I take the bus to school every day, and this costs me 26 dollars a day. Today, my card got declined at the ticket machine: I am officially out of money. My bank account is a big fat ZERO. I wonât be getting paid from my job until this weekend, which means that I have 4 days in which I have no way to get to school. On one of those days, tomorrow, I have a midterm exam. So Iâm sending out a message in a bottle here! My ko-fi is here and even the smallest donation will help- right now, all I care about is getting to school tomorrow for that exam. As for the rest of the week, Iâll cross that bridge when I get to it. $40 is my goal.
And, if you donât want to donate, please consider letting me draw your character! $10 will get you an inked, coloured and shaded drawing with traditional media- you can see some examples of my style here. I draw humans, animals, weird fantasy races, you name it. If youâre interested, send me a message so we can work out the details!
WELL, looks like I'm bringing this back, because as things stand I'm living from paycheck to paycheck, and it's not even coming close to getting me through the week with bus tickets, phone bills and food. If nothing changes in this department my entire life is gonna become unsustainable sometime next week. I'm looking for a new/second job but until I find one I'd love to be able to support myself doing something I love and not have to live off cereal and trail mix/the energy of the universe!
So, a fully inked, coloured and shaded drawing of your OC is still just $10! Good deal, right? There's a link up there to examples of my art, as well as one to my ko-fi; any donations would be greatly appreciated. And while I'm on the subject, THANKS A MILLION to everyone who donated or bought a commission last time! All because of you, I was able to get to my midterm exam (I got 83%). Seriously, you guys saved my ass. I can't thank you enough.
(First one! Whoo! Hereâs yet another new character who isnât actually new: Lauren Felix Henningsen, Arctic bush pilot!)
Itâs a bright, cold fall morning in Yellowknife when Lauren sets off on an ill-fated supply flight to the Mackenzie delta. The cold has come on quick this year; the temperature sensor on his watch reads 15 degrees below zero even with the moderating influence of the still-open Great Slave Lake. It started less than a week ago, making this that precarious time of year when it might as well be winter, but the ice isnât strong enough for the trucks yet.
And thatâs where he comes in. This time, heâs carrying essentials- several hundred pounds of canned food, fresh food, bottled water, bread and meat, all packaged neatly from wholesale suppliers. And three special deliveries as well, mysteries hidden in wrapped cardboard boxes. Small online stores canât afford to deliver so far up north, but they can afford to pay Lauren handsomely to do it for them.
Itâs not a get-rich-quick scheme, but for a lover of adventure, it doesnât get much better.
And, despite the circumstances being a little more urgent than usual, this shouldnât be any more than routine adventure. Heâs expecting a few of those turbulent moments that might frighten a less experienced pilot, but certainly no real danger.
Laurenâs already behind on that, because he hasnât actually managed to get warm yet. He rubs his arms fiercely as he paces around the perimeter of the wreck, leaving a trail of breath-clouds behind him. The sun is already sinking low, and the silent trees around him are casting long shadows.
If he doesnât figure something out before nightfall, heâs in trouble.
But itâs irritatingly difficult to think.
Start with the basics. The body of the plane is a shelter, and itâs got food in it. He can stay there and wait for someone to find him, but not as it is now- heâd freeze to death. Warm, gotta get warm.
Feathery spruce branches, smashed and scattered over the forest floor, cover up the smashed windows. Over these, snow. He works as fast as he can, and the sun watches him from between the trees, hovering mockingly at the horizon. As heâs starting to pack snow around the flattened nose of the plane, he realizes with a jolt that itâs dark. Well and truly dark.
A wolf howls somewhere far away.
âSh-shit,â he whispers, feeling for the door handle in the gloom.
The inside of the plane is as dry and cold as an industrial freezer. He shuts the door behind him with a bang thatâs swallowed immediately in the wintry stillness.
Did he pack enough snow for it to act as insulation? He doesnât think so.
Thereâs a wool blanket under the seat. He drags it out with leaden arms and wraps it tightly around himself, the shuffles back into the seat and sticks out one hand to give the radio one last try. This time, when he turns it on, heâs not even greeted by chaotic white noise, just a distant staticky drone.
âTuk⊠Tuktoyaktuk R-Radio, th-this is Viking Delta F-Foxtrot Lima, acknowledge.â
The worst-case scenario- because the human mind canât help planning for it- is that his flight plan change request wasnât understood, and theyâre still waiting for him in Tuk. And if thatâs the case, if they start looking tomorrow, theyâll have thousands of square kilometres of ground to cover looking for one small blue airplane.
Thatâs a bad thought. He tries to chase it away with distractions. His stomach is growling, so he turns his attention to the pile of food boxes, knocked free by the crash.
He picks one- too dark to see what might be in it- and tries to tear it open with his nails, but his fingers are half-frozen, and the cardboard seems to be made of knives. âF-fuck,â he growls.
The pocketknife is where itâs supposed to be, in his pocket. He has to unwrap the blanket just a bit to get to it, and the cold seizes its chance and leaps straight through his parka and into his skin. Shivering, muttering incoherent curses, he flicks the small blade open and positions it shakily over the tape.
It takes all his concentration to keep the cut straight for half the length of the box.
Then his concentration slips, and so does the knife.
He yelps and pulls his hand away, overbalancing and falling backwards in the process. It doesnât hurt, thereâs no pain at all, but heâd felt the tip of the knife tear into the skin between his thumb and forefinger, and he can feel the blood running hot down his palm, so he couldnât have imagined it.
He makes a fist, tentatively, and hisses. So much for no pain at all.
âShitâŠâ he whispers. Thereâs no force behind the profanity this time, though, just an underlying groan of helpless frustration.
One-handed, he bends the flaps of the box open and pulls out a small plastic jar of peanut butter.
It makes a good supper.
The night passes agonizingly slowly, even considering the fact that itâs fourteen hours long. Lauren fights the cold as best he can, pacing the narrow space, rubbing his arms and legs under the blanket. Heâs afraid to lay down, afraid to relax for even a minute. Heâs heard enough times that dying of hypothermia is pleasant, seductive. The idea of death stealing over him in his sleep before he even knows whatâs happening, that he might give up without any fight at all, is terrifying.
If heâs going to die, he wants to know about it.
Heâs not planning for the end just yet, of course, not with the energy of a bellyful of peanut butter and the pain in his hand keeping him centred. He sings to fill the silence, the folk songs that kept him entertained in the air now keeping him from going crazy.
âAh, for just o-one time⊠I would take the Northwest Passage⊠to f-find the hand of Franklin⊠r-reaching f-for the Beaufort SeaâŠâ
From outside, in the dark, a wolf joins in with a howl.
The hours drag on, and the fight starts to lose its appeal.
He sits down.
By the time the sunlight starts to peek through the trees and filter through the windows, Lauren is curled up against the pile of food boxes. His breath pools in front of him in lazy clouds, and he shivers only periodically.
Heâs got to leave.
He doesnât know why this is the case, but he knows it with as much certainty as heâs ever known anything. He canât stay here any longer. Itâs not because itâs cold; the cold has lost its vicious edge. And heâs too hot now, anyway.
He frees himself from the blanket with clumsy, flapping motions and stands up, leaning on the wall. Slow. Nothing wants to work right. His head is full of ice fog. If the voice of sanity is in there yelling for him to stop, itâs weak and growing weaker.
It takes several tries to get the door open. Touching the handle hurts distantly, and his hand wonât close around it.
When he finally steps out into the cold, clear daylight, he doesnât know where he is. But thatâs okay. Thereâs a road just ahead, he can see it through the trees; heâll follow it to civilization. How did he never notice it before? There it is, as clear as day.
He walks.
Thereâs no chance of fighting the cold now; itâs made its home in his marrow and is part of him. And he wouldnât have tried if he could. His mind is as lost as he is.
The road isnât getting any closer. After an eternity of walking, he takes off his parka and leaves it in the snow behind him; another eternity and he does the same with his sweater. Sweat freezes to his back almost instantly. He doesnât notice.
An eon later, a roar like thunder splits the clear blue sky- but unlike thunder, it doesnât stop. Wind tears through the trees around him, whipping snow and dry pine needles up into a flurry. He stumbles and falls, scraping his elbows raw on the hard ground, and the sudden pain cuts through the fog for a blinding split second.
Iâm dying! he realizes with a shock of horror. Itâs too late! The voice in his mind screams, and in his mind, he thrashes, trying to fight off the deathly emptiness that creeps over him like a black sheet. But his strength is gone, and all he can manage to do is turn over to look at the bright blue sky and cold white sun.
His consciousness fades just as the shadow falls over him.
Itâs afternoon. Lauren sits cross-legged on a warm hospital bed; outside, the Aurora Borealis dance across the dark sky. There are six stitches in his forehead and eight in his left hand; both his hands are wrapped. Heâs been told that his left pinky finger was a write-off; he would miss it a lot less if it would stop itching and tingling and insisting quite loudly that itâs still there. The top half of his left ring finger, as well as his four smallest toes, are no quieter.
His feet are wrapped as well.
The woman sitting in the chair in front of him is a frequent contact from Inuvik; a friend. Emily Kilalurak. She smiles, which Lauren thinks is rather insensitive, as she tells him the news.
âThey probably wouldâve called it an at-fault accident,â she says brightly, âif it wasnât for the fact that two other experienced pilots crashed within a few hours of you. So, theyâre blaming it on the weather, and you know, that ice fog was really something. Your insurance shouldnât go up too much at all, and nobodyâs gonna think of you as a liability.â
Two other crashes. Laurenâs heard about them already- tame affairs compared to his, barely even crashes at all- certainly closer to âemergency landingsâ than his own had been. Neither of them came anywhere near as close to dying as he did. If the SAR helicopter hadnât happened by at that exact moment, he would have died- as it was, he wasnât breathing when they picked him up, and he spent three days in a black fog before awareness started to return.
The knowledge that this was exceptionally common among cases like his didnât reassure him much.
âLauren! Arenât you glad? Your nameâs been cleared!â
âEmily, I donât have a plane anymore. What does it matter if I can get a good insurance rate?â Sheâs fooling herself if she thinks he can afford a new one. Can that really be what sheâs so cheerful about? Even if he starts small again, itâll take him years to get back to where he was.
She gives him a sly smile and reaches into her pocket.
He watches as she pulls out a long white envelope and tears it open. âHere.â
He takes the card in his bandaged hands and sets it on his lap. Itâs a simple cardboard affair, with a cartoon kitten on the front holding a sign that says GET WELL SOON!. He stares at it for a couple of seconds, then looks back at Emily, wide-eyed.
âGo on, open it.â
He opens it. A slip of green paper slides out; he forces himself to ignore it long enough to read the message inside.
We depend on you up here. We thought it was about time we gave back. I canât imagine this will be enough for a new Otter, but it should go a ways towards it. Thanks for everything youâve done for us, and everything youâll do in the future.
He picks up the cheque, blinking away tears. The number is mind-boggling; when combined with his savingsâŠ
âHow?â he asks thickly.
âWe took up a collection, me and the others. Tuktoyaktuk, Kittigazuit, Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk⊠just about everywhere youâve ever flown. Youâd be surprised how many people care about you up there. Or at least, appreciate you enough to donate ten or twenty bucks. Or fifty.â
âI⊠I canâtâŠâ Heâs crying now; he brings his left hand up to his face and looks away. He would never have imagined anything like this. Not in a million years.
âYeah, you can. I know as well as you do that you wonât be happy unless youâre flying, and I want to see you back up there as soon as possible.â
She scooches the chair closer to the bed and wraps her arms around him, and he hugs her back, grinning through tears. The future, which had seemed murky and uncertain mere moments ago, is suddenly clear and bright. âThank you, Em.â
âThank me now, and you can thank everyone else when you see them again. Theyâre expecting you back before too long.â
(First one! Whoo! Hereâs yet another new character who isnât actually new: Lauren Felix Henningsen, Arctic bush pilot!)
Itâs a bright, cold fall morning in Yellowknife when Lauren sets off on an ill-fated supply flight to the Mackenzie delta. The cold has come on quick this year; the temperature sensor on his watch reads 15 degrees below zero even with the moderating influence of the still-open Great Slave Lake. It started less than a week ago, making this that precarious time of year when it might as well be winter, but the ice isnât strong enough for the trucks yet.
And thatâs where he comes in. This time, heâs carrying essentials- several hundred pounds of canned food, fresh food, bottled water, bread and meat, all packaged neatly from wholesale suppliers. And three special deliveries as well, mysteries hidden in wrapped cardboard boxes. Small online stores canât afford to deliver so far up north, but they can afford to pay Lauren handsomely to do it for them.
Itâs not a get-rich-quick scheme, but for a lover of adventure, it doesnât get much better.
And, despite the circumstances being a little more urgent than usual, this shouldnât be any more than routine adventure. Heâs expecting a few of those turbulent moments that might frighten a less experienced pilot, but certainly no real danger.
He kicks the wheel of his plane for good luck as he climbs in. Itâs a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, painted in the colours of the Northwest Territoriesâ flag, by far the single most valuable thing he owns and the culmination of almost a decade of upgrading. Heâs never been able to carry as much cargo and as many passengers as he can with this- it took him from a nobody to one of the most respected bush pilots in the North.
The motions are well-worn by now, but going through them still puts a smile on his face. âYellowknife Tower, Viking Delta Foxtrot Lima, holding short runway zero two, ready for departure.â
The voice that returns to him is conversational as always. âViking Delta Foxtrot Lima, cleared for takeoff runway zero two.â
A dark green expanse of boreal forest spreads out before him as he ascends, seemingly infinite.
Some pilots are chatterboxes, updating anyone whoâll listen on their bearing and progress every ten minutes, asking for ground speed or wind updates just to talk to someone. Lauren prefers to maintain the pretense of being alone whenever possible; just like on every other trip heâs ever done, he makes his reports at the longest possible intervals. In between, he hums folk songs and enjoys the view.
Not very bad, mind you, not bad enough to make him worry yet. But the endless sea of green is obscured by icy fog, a visual reminder of how fantastically cold it must be outside the Otterâs heated cabin.
Twenty minutes later, the airspeed reading drops to zero.
The sudden change catches Laurenâs attention immediately. âOh, come on now,â he chirps in the high voice he reserves for talking to his plane when no one else is around to hear. âDonât be silly. You know as well as I do that youâre still flying.â He taps the dial with his index finger. Nothing.
Ten minutes into that plan, the altitude reading spikes, then drops.
âSeriously?â Still not worried, but now thoroughly annoyed- his gut tells him that his altitude hasnât changed at all. Thereâs no getting around it, heâll definitely have to land in Colville Lake, and this isnât looking like an easy fix anymore. Some kind of electronic fault? Could the cold be behind it? Either way, he'd better radio in now.
He opens up the frequency. âTuktoyaktuk Radio, this is Viking Delta Foxtrot Lima.â
The reply is fuzzy and obscured by heavy gray noise. âViking Delta Foxtrot Lima, Tuktoyaktuk Radio.â
âViking Delta Foxtrot Lima on VFR flight plan from Yellowknife to Tuktoyaktuk, request to change flight plan.â
âViking Delta Foxtrot Lima, roger.â The gray noise is getting worse. Lauren speaks quickly.
âDivert to Colville Lake for minor repair stopover, then continue from Colville Lake to Tuktoyaktuk. ETA at Tuktoyaktuk unknown.â
The radio spits out an unintelligible garble. ââŠ.nature of⊠new ETA?â
âTuktoyaktuk Radio, say again.â Has the ice fog gotten higher, or has he lost altitude? The trees below are completely obscured. More garble- Lauren thinks he might hear his call sign somewhere in there, but itâs impossible to tell for sure.
Then any semblance of words is lost in the crunch of static.
âOh, come on!â He fiddles with the controls, but none of the other frequencies are any better. What a pain. And that ice fog is worrying him; it definitely looks like heâs losing altitude, and without any way to tell for sure, it might be a good idea to climb a bit. He pulls back on the control column, feeling a slight nervous excitement- trying to judge this without an altimeter is definitely not something he thought heâd be doing today. At least itâs a change from the ordinary.
The Otter suddenly lurches violently to the side.
âShit!â Lauren yelps, wrestling with the control column; its position suddenly seems to have no relation at all to where the plane is going. The ground- or, rather, the blurry white blanket covering it- is whirling, the horizon is looping past his window, and the plane is trying its best to tear the controls from his hands. Heâs getting nowhere with this. He doesnât have time to try all his tricks.
And heâs not climbing, heâs falling. He can feel it in the pit of his stomach.
Gritting his teeth, Lauren turns the radio back to the frequency heâd used to contact Tuktoyaktuk Radio. Who knows? Maybe they were reading him just fine. Heâll have to hope.
âMayday, mayday, mayday,â he says for the first time, returning both hands to the control column, for all the good itâs doing. âViking Delta Foxtrot Lima, mechanical failure, making emergency landing in forest uh, approximately eight zero kilometres south-southeast of Colville Lake, one person on board- shit!â The final word is gasped more than spoken, because what was once a decaying spiral has abruptly turned into a spiraling dive.
A colossal effort, with perhaps a bit of help from luck, brings the Otter horizontal just as the ice fog swallows them.
In its place is a view that takes him several seconds to understand: a wall of soft white nothing shrouding a tangle of black lines. His vision clears slowly, and the black tangle resolves itself into branches. Thatâs when it all starts to come back.
âShit,â he whispers hoarsely.
His voice isnât working properly. As he raises his hand to rub his eyes, he realizes that that isnât working properly either. His movements are slow, clumsy, and his thoughts are sluggish as he tries to piece two and two together.
What finally clues him in is the view in front of him- clear, unobscured by dust or fingerprints, and framed by broken glass.
âShit!â he gasps again, fumbling with the seatbelt release button. His fingers are numb, his skin is numb- how long was he unconscious for? If his watch and his eyes are telling him the truth, and it really is 30 degrees below zero out here, it could have taken no more than a few minutes to get to this state. Another minute or two could have been it.
The seatbelt comes undone with a click. Lauren tries to stand up and falls to the floor between the seats. His body finally seems to have realized the urgency of the situation and is shivering violently, which is good, but also irritating when heâs trying to move. Where the hell is his parka? A fleece, sweatshirt and jeans arenât gonna cut it.
Where did he put it?
When did he even take it off?
He has to crawl behind the seat to reach it when he finally spots it, and it takes him almost five minutes to put it on- his arms feel as though theyâre being controlled by someone else. Someone whoâs not very good at it.
Another two minutes to pull a toque over his head and wrap a scarf around his face. This is when he notices the blood- it drips onto the thick wool, but heâs too distracted for it to make much of an impression on him. Right now, the only thought in his mind is getting outside.
The door doesnât want to work. Lauren throws his weight against it, and it opens with a metallic shriek and sends him tumbling out into the snow.
He grabs hold of the nearest splintered tree branch and drags himself upright. His heart suddenly leaps into his throat as he turns, shaking.
His plane- his baby, his livelihood, his childhood dream- is in pieces. One broken wing trails forlornly behind the battered body- the other is a hint, a flash of colour somewhere off in the fog. Splinters and branches outline the furrow that the Otterâs descent carved through the snowy forest.
He sits down heavily on the cold ground.
How could everything have gone so wrong, so quickly?
His eyes are burning. He squeezes them shut, feels hot tears turn cold and freeze against his skin, and lets them stay there. He sits unmoving for long enough that it his survival instinct takes over to force him to his feet. Whatâs done is done. Time to focus on staying alive.
âHi, uh, Iâm on Elm Street? That intersection with the nothing street with, like, no name and the fucked-up light? And thereâs this guy here?â
âWhat is the nature of your emergency, miss?â
âHe, uh, heâs bleeding REALLY bad, thereâs a lot of, uh, stab wounds? I think?â
âAn ambulance is en-route. Are you safe? Do you know if someone did this and if theyâre still nearby?â
âUh, I dunno, Iâll check?â
âNo, miss. I know the street, stay in the light and wait for the ambulance and patrol car to arrive.â
âI think-â the phone switched off with a sad boop. The young woman, whoâd been circling aimlessly around the intersection - a ghost-town now, in the dead of night - reached the supine carcass on the ground, and knelt.
âUgh⊠youâŠ.â the man barely looked at her, eyes glazed with pain and blood.
âHelp is on the way, okay? Just hold on. Youâre doing great.â
âFffffuck you,â the man hissed, so he at least recognized who he was still with.
âHey, pal, itâs just business,â Sickle said, straightening up, her perennial grin in place. She wiped the rest of the blood off of her signature weapon and tossed the tissue into the flaming garbage barrel nearby. It, and the throwaway clothes sheâd donned for this mission, would be ash long before anyone made the scene.
âWell!â She propped her hands on her hips, regarding the near-corpse with satisfaction. âThis has been great, but I think the time has come to part ways. Donât worry, though, Iâm on the case,â she said, smirking, swinging the briefcase - with the markâs left hand still cuffed to it - in his line of sight.
She waited until he was at the end of his chain, more air leaving his lungs than pulling in, bloodflow slowing, eyes dimming, waiting until she heard the sirens in the far distance. Then she snapped a left-handed salute at the dying man and hopped the fence.
Sickle wasnât in the business of questioning her clientsâ choices, and she frankly didnât care about the WHY of letting the dude die like this, but- honestly?
Hello, internet friends, internet acquaintances, and anyone else who might be reading this! I'm Lee, and I'm a university student. I take the bus to school every day, and this costs me 26 dollars a day. Today, my card got declined at the ticket machine: I am officially out of money. My bank account is a big fat ZERO. I won't be getting paid from my job until this weekend, which means that I have 4 days in which I have no way to get to school. On one of those days, tomorrow, I have a midterm exam. So I'm sending out a message in a bottle here! My ko-fi is here and even the smallest donation will help- right now, all I care about is getting to school tomorrow for that exam. As for the rest of the week, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. $40 is my goal.
And, if you don't want to donate, please consider letting me draw your character! $10 will get you an inked, coloured and shaded drawing with traditional media- you can see some examples of my style here. I draw humans, animals, weird fantasy races, you name it. If you're interested, send me a message so we can work out the details!
Clover canât believe his earsâPhoenix? The manâs too brave to die, tooâtoo important. His friend canât have just⊠just left this world like this. He sits down heavily, hands in his lap, eyes downcast and wide in shock.
Time blurs again, and Phantom wakes up in his own bed. For one glorious second all the previous daysâ suffering is just a fading nightmare, and Sickle nothing but the unpleasant invention of his dreaming mind. Then he shifts his weight over his right arm and his shoulder seizes up, muscles screaming in protest, and that brings it all back.
He grits his teeth so hard his jaw hurts. Heâs starting to get very tired of this.
Pushing the covers back with his left hand, he slowly sits up. His stomach feels like it might be starting to digest itself, but some of the fog in his head is gone, and his limbs almost feel like limbs instead of half-cooked noodles. The clock beside the bed reads 7:30 am. Light filters under the door from the main room of the three-room apartment.
Just looking at that light, and thinking of the kitchen, makes his stomach growl. Breakfast⊠three soft-boiled eggs with toast⊠maybe some chocolate milkâŠ
He turns gingerly, moving like a very old man, and plants his feet on the cold linoleum floor. Then, gripping the edge of the bedside table, he rises. Slowly. Ever so slowly, taking stock of himself as he does so. The pain in his hips is still there, and doesnât seem to have diminished at all, nor does that of the long slice down his thigh or the one in his right shoulder and collarbone. But it might have changed, just a little, from a sharp tearing pain to a deep, almost itching pain. Heâs healing. And Alexâs makeshift patch job is holding.
He leans on the wall as he hobbles over to the door and opens it.
The first thing he notices- hard to miss- is Alex, curled up on the couch, asleep. A piece of paper and a pencil lie on the floor next to him. Phantom picks them up, curious.
Iâm sorry, I donât want to overstay my welcome or eat any of your food so Iâm leaving. Thanks for trusting me. If I made the wrong call or you need me Iâll be close just call m
The neat handwriting devolves into chicken scratch by the third sentence. Phantom looks from the paper to the kid, heart sinking.
Apparently Iâve been making people nervous with my âhanging aroundââŠ
How long has it been?
Oh, thirty-six hoursâŠ
He hadnât slept for thirty-six hours.
âFor fuckâs sake,â Phantom whispers, half-annoyed. Walking more carefully now, he backs away from the couch and makes a wide circle to the kitchen, taking the pot from the stove and placing it in the sink. Four eggs, then. If Alex doesnât want any when he wakes up, Phantom will have no problem eating all four by himself.
His right arm stays at his side as he fills it up with water, drops in four eggs from the fridge, and turns the stove burner up to maximum. Just these small acts, done despite the pain, make him feel a bit more human. Progress. Then grey spots suddenly dance into his field of vision, and he sits down in the folding plastic kitchen chair, much more heavily than he intended to. Twin spikes of pain shoot from his injured hips up his back, but an unfamiliar instinct turns what would have been a shouted Fuck! into a low groan.
He sits there for a while, breathing hard, wondering why he did that, until the pot starts to boil over. Then he starts to stand up. Heâs ready for it to hurt, but heâs not ready for his legs to simply lock up. Hissing curses at his body the way one might curse at a recalcitrant car on a cold winter morning, he reaches over and pulls the pot off the heat. Hunger, pain and irritation are making for a venomous combination in his mind.
âI can make some fucking eggs, canât I?â he growls softly, leaning on the counter and pulling himself upright with his left arm.
He pours the water down the drain, awkwardly with one hand, then grabs an egg and cracks it on the edge of the pot. No time to make toast, or eat this like a normal person- heâs too hungry for that. He peels the shell off with clumsy motions and eats the whole thing in two bites. Two more eggs meet the same fate in quick succession. He glances longingly at the final egg, shakes his head, and opens the fridge instead.
A sleepy voice interrupts him as heâs drinking chocolate milk straight from the carton.
âAh⊠damn itâŠâ
A shuffling sound, and Alexâs face appears above the back of the sofa. His hair is comically messy, one side sticking almost straight up in the air. He looks over at Phantom, grimaces, and rubs at his eyes with the palm of his hand. âI fell asleep⊠I meant to leave. Iâm s-â
âDonât say youâre sorry,â says Phantom, perversely pleased to be able to get one over on the kid for once. âYou saved my life. I donât think sleeping on my couch for one night is enough to turn that around and put you in my debt.â He bites his tongue before that goes any further ands quickly adds, âI made you an egg.â
âAn egg?â
He walks over and looks in the pot, narrowing his eyes, then relaxes. âUh, thanks.â
Phantom sits back down in the chair, trying to make the movement seem natural, graceful, not stiff and awkward. âItâs nothing,â he says, because it really is. Itâs absolutely nothing at all. Â
