hello. fellow writer under the name of @maelodove. likes and follows come from there, though this is the blog i am most active under.
i've been in a mood for explicit whump lately, which is where the creation of this side blog begins. i'm always excited to get more story recs and discover new authors on here :) i made this blog out of desire to comment and reblog and spread some love for whump stories, as i feel there isn’t a lot of that anymore!! i wish for more interaction within the community, and to discover new friends. always feel free to send me an ask, give me a prompt, or send me a dm.
fav tropes: living weapon whump, hypnosis, intimate/creepy whumpers, carewhumper, sleep deprivation, captivity whump, pet whump, betrayal, covert whump, multiple whumpees
mutuals can dm me for my 18+ blog
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i have three projects i'm working on right now, but my main one that i focus on the most i'm currently co-writing with my best friend, ohagi. it's being updated at chrysalis-thestateofchange, and you can check it out if it seems of interest!! find ohagi here: @ohagany.
➳ CHRYSALIS : hurt/comfort web novel. read more @chrysalis-thestateofchange.
➳ PARALLELS : fantasy whump story that takes place in the aftermath of an apocalypse. it follows Ryouhi, a girl who has found herself in the custody of royalty after a long series of personal tragedies; and kageko, the malevolent ghost of her twin sister. -> check out the pitch post.
➳ SAUDADE : personal passion project of mine. siblings Felix and Reagan find themselves back in their home town of which they fled so many years ago. a job opportunity has presented itself and neither of them can find it in their hearts to say no. the past has a strange way of coming to light. largely hurt/comfort.
Who is Sonny attracted to? I’m interested now after the post you made abt the boys’ possible sexualities. Port is an enigma even to Port, so it makes sense that there’s no canon sexuality.
Also luv your work :) Solitaire is one of the best whump stories ever written.
if you mean Sonny's sexuality in general, he is bisexual and aware of it! if you mean in terms of people he's attracted to, he had a thing for Alice Han (briefly referenced in the night he died and this comic) and he's working through some complicated feelings for Port (most explicitly referenced in the night he died as well)
it's true Port doesn't even understand himself! maybe he'll make discoveries eventually 🤫
(Content: ex-whumper, whumper turned whumpee, physical violence, addiction, past abuse, fainting, minor insects/insect bites, minor ableist language, homophobia mention)
The old irritation was back and biting. Throwing his phone into the creek had helped a little bit. Being away from the throne had helped a little bit. The drugs only ever made it worse and the drugs were all he had. He twitched endlessly. He hadn’t realize how badly he needed it until the urge was right on top of him.
He couldn’t break anything around Lorelai. The only time he’d tried that, she’d starting packing her bags, and they’d had to pay the hotel staff off for the damages. It was the closest she’d come to leaving him, right then and there. Nonstarter.
She noticed it this time, but she mistook it for withdrawal. He was seldom down long enough for the lapse to start really hurting, but she could still see the signs when they came. She ran her fingers over his temple in an attempt to be soothing. It only made the burning worse. He bit into his own hand just to feel the pressure.
Another club. Better maintained on the inside than the others had been. It was a pity they had set it out in the middle of the swamp like that. The whole city was built on top of the wetland. The air burned with heat even at the darkest time of night. Lorelai had bought a pointy pair of pink sunglasses and a snapback that said LIFE’S A BEACH. She lost both of them an hour after they had entered the club and soon after he lost sight of her all together.
Thank god.
He knew so intuitively what he had to do. His knocked his shoulder straight into the boy’s side as he passed. The drink spilled and his hands didn’t leave his pockets. The club was crowded and his movement was subtle enough for the whole thing to look accidental, if you weren’t paying close attention.
“Say excuse me, asshole.” He heard the boy hiss out from behind him. Paris had to wipe the smirk off his face before he turned around.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” It melted into a glare. He didn’t need to force the irritation into his voice; it was right beneath the surface. He only needed to reshape it. It did not de-escalate from there.
The kid swung on him. Paris slipped to his right. He knew it was unfair. He was — for once — the more sober one in the exchange. His reflexes were overtrained. It didn’t matter. He’d been given an opening. He swung back.
He pulled the punch, the same way he would have if it had been Delta. Not trying to kill him. Not even enough to seriously injure him. Just to do it. He got a few hits in just like that. There wasn’t any adrenaline in his body. All that existed was release.
It was a very funny feeling when the other party fought back.
The fight had to be mutual; he knew that ahead of time. He wasn’t crazy enough to just beat a stranger unprovoked. Still, the resistance he received came as a surprise. He wasn’t used to encountering it while in this headspace. In spite of what he’d planned, it caught him a bit off guard. Not enough to change the outcome, just kind of diminishing what he could get out of it. It shifted back into a normal fight just as soon as the kid had recovered. He was so fucking sick of those. The way they were matched up was decent, though. He gave more than he got, enough that he was momentarily sated.
The bouncers got in the way before he could finish, though. They dragged both of them outside, practically throwing them onto the pavement. Paris landed on his feet, twisting out of their grasp. The other boy landed roughly on his side. All too familiar. The boy sat up, trying to struggle to his feet. The only reason Paris didn’t immediately kick him back down was because he was aware on some level how hard the concrete must be. No broken bones. That was a rule.
He shook his wrists out, ready to draw even more out of the encounter if he could afford it. He rolled his eyes as the club’s doors opened again and the boys’ friends came to the rescue. God fucking dammit.
He was right — the concrete was hard. They were all so fucking drunk and uncoordinated, but there were a lot of them. It was like fighting a moving wall. He wasn’t ready to be on the defensive. Not while he was like this. The most Delta had ever given him in return were cat scratches — sometimes electric shocks, if he was really freaking out. He’d barely even feel them until afterwards. Here, the sharpness of the pain took him out of the mood instantly. The one it forced him into was even stranger. For some reason, he started laughing. One of their fists caught the side of his face. Another half dragged him backwards, making him lose his balance even from a sitting position. He got the preternatural instinct to protect his skull. He felt the hard edge of someone’s boot collide with his interlaced knuckles just as soon as he did so. He’d just barely spared himself the head trauma.
“Not the head, dumbass,” One of them slurred.
“Yeah, dumbass.” Paris was still laughing hysterically. Someone kicked him in the stomach, cutting him off mid-breath.
“He’s fucking insane. Like, mental sickness.” The boy he’d initially started the fight with had started to walk away. “Leave him alone.”
“Pussy.” Paris coughed. He flinched as one of the shapes above him moved, but another hit didn’t come. They withdrew.
He sat up slowly. His knuckles were bloodied, though he did not know if it was his or not. He glanced back at the club doors. The bouncers had been watching the whole thing. They shook their head. No re-entry. As if.
When he was back on his feet, his vision immediately got spotty. He thought it was another insect hallucination, but the movement was much more rapid. Like ink blots. The only reason he bothered to distinguish was because the hallucinations did not usually take up his entire field of vision. They didn’t threaten to take him down again. He blinked in and out of wakefulness and somehow did not stop walking until he heard the sound of waves crashing. Nobody could see the ocean at this time of night, only the darkness that held it. The beachgrass was right off the road. He took about five steps into the sand before he collapsed.
==========
It was the that heat first woke him up. The sun had only just risen over the ocean and already it was unbearable. All his skin felt dry and course. He rose his head up slowly from the dune and immediately regretted it. He hadn’t felt the soreness until he moved; it did not go away again once he stilled.
He blinked. A small caiman laid within the reeds a few feet from his face. They watched each other for some time. Little insects crawled rapid and clumsy throughout the pale grass and into the sand. There was an itch in his arms and his calves. He knew he’d spent the better part of the night getting eaten alive.
He crawled up through the sand. The pavement was too hot to touch; he forced himself to rise. He shook the sand out from his shirt and hair. The sweat that was forming on his skin moistened it, coating him in a gross, muddy substance. The gnats buzzed incessantly. His mouth felt like cotton. Hell on fucking earth.
He trudged the path back to the motel room. He was lucky the spatial memory was still holding up, foggy as all his other facilities had become. Otherwise he’d have been totally lost. Lorelai…wasn’t as good with directions. Hopefully she’d made it back okay.
When he entered into the room, Lorelai was sitting up in the bed in just her camisole. The blanket was crumpled up around her. She looked up expectantly as he walked in. She wasn’t alone.
“Oh my god, you’re still alive.” Lorelai gawked. “Did you get kicked out of the club?”
“No,” he lied.
“So you just left me there alone for no reason?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“Very cool of you. I was worried.”
“Clearly not that fucking worried.” His eyes traced over the girl sitting cross-legged on the bed beside her. She was wearing Lorelai’s hoodie, which was technically his hoodie. She was also hitting his vape. She didn’t take any visible offense.
“I should probably head out, anyway.” The girl unfolded her legs and stepped into her slides. She gave Paris a quick once-over as she stood up. “You’d better take some Nexgard. The sand fleas burrow.”
He could immediately feel the itch, even knowing it was psychosomatic. She slipped the door open.
“You’ll call me?” Lorelai called after her hopefully. The girl winked without smiling and disappeared behind the closing door.
Paris held one open hand up in the direction she had left in. The universal — one-handed — what-the-fuck? gesture.
“What?” Lorelai’s tone was defensive. “You’re not my boyfriend.”
“We are on the damn lam and you’re inviting people back to our room?”
“Relax. She’s rebel. She was at Occupy.”
He could’ve guessed. Any breed of deviant sexuality typically signaled rebel allegiance. God knew Empire wouldn’t have them. That didn’t necessarily put his mind at ease, but he’d have preferred to be caught by one of the rebel groups over Nezu if it really came down to it. Lorelai held up a large envelope from the nightstand.
“She asked if I could drop this off for her at Coda since we’re already headed North.” She smiled a little.
“Fuck no.”
“Well, it’s my ship and I’m driving, so we’re probably gonna. But we can talk about it.”
There was definitely an edge to her voice. He didn’t answer, knowing there was nothing he could do but irritate her further. He moved past her.
cw: whumper-turned-whumpee, god whumper, living weapon whumpee, manhandling, restraints, beatdown
---
After the tears dried, they lay flat on their back and watched the sky change. Clem was tired of counting, so they didn’t. It could have been seconds or weeks, that still and silent reverie. Once they realised what was happening, their earlier panic seemed stupid. The stars go away when the sun rises. Obviously.
Except the sun didn’t rise. A Goddess did.
Not that any of this was communicated to them, of course. It was all instinct. They’d known about K’s deity, and realised as dawn broke that they were about to meet them. Whether they had been allowed to collect themselves on purpose or by sheer coincidence, Clem did not know, but they were grateful either way.
They dragged themselves to a kneel, hoping that they would not be ambushed. Presumably, the god would be on K’s side. Nothing to do about that now. They wouldn’t fight if it was deemed pertinent to destroy them — but they would ask for their fair reward. Safety for their friends. And then Clem could meet their mother. Either way, they’d be going home.
Each deity had its own sort of signature. Followers were attuned to it more than most, but Clem was in one’s domain. Some felt like rushing water, others like an enveloping sense of awe. They shifted on their knees uncomfortably, swallowing stress as they felt heat build on their skin. This felt like the unfiltered blaze of the rising sun.
Mercifully, it stayed just rising. It seemed that the sun - or the Goddess, stopped at dawn. Clem’s eyes were trained to the ground, deferent, respectful. They had something to ask, and wanted to have the best chances of being granted it.
The voice spoke with no warning, no crack of thunder or sky splitting apart to mark the occasion. Still, each of their atoms snapped to attention.
Clemency.
A full-body shiver rushed through them. They did not look to the source of the voice or to the sound of a body thudding to the floor. Unmistakeably and shockingly, they heard chains too. They were very aware of the side of them that faced her, but they did not look. It had been nice to be rid of K’s presence for a while.
Look up.
It was common knowledge that deities were beautiful. Still. There was nothing like seeing one.
She was magnificent. He aura covered the entire span of the horizon, like an unencumbered strip of dawn. Her dress was a swirling mass of light and solar flare, and her face was unwatchable, a sun in its own right. Everything was bright, and after what felt like an eternity of night, it would have been blinding anyway. Clem looked down almost instantly, flushing. They felt winded from just two seconds witness to a goddess’s visage.
“Don’t be shy,” she teased. Her voice held the kind of light and airy tone usually expected from young teenagers. “I’m not very important.”
Clem had no idea what to say. That wasn’t what they thought she’d say at all. They started to stammer out an introduction, despite the fact that she clearly knew who they were already. “Your eminence, I -”
K made a sound so bizarre that Clem could not finish what they were saying. They thought they knew her as well as they knew themselves, but it seemed she still had surprises. They looked over in shock. “Did you just laugh?”
“Your eminence,” she mocked, unfazed by the heavy cuffs weighing her wrists down. She was not kneeling, which had to be on purpose. “She exists because of me,” K snarled, clearly seething.
Clem met her fury with a cool gaze, refusing to give her any more fuel. They were not afraid of her, not anymore. But they shuddered at the sudden burst of tangible anger that rippled through the air. It was hot, so fucking hot. And Clem was in their dragon form, scales and toughened skin and all. Their wings wrapped around themselves instinctively, protective. God, they had missed those. K had been the reason they locked them away in the first place, they remembered with a start. It felt like a lifetime ago. Well, more like fifty.
Clem’s panic had been short-lived, aware that the anger was not directed at them. But now they had to reckon with the fact that K bore it all. To hear a laugh from her was one thing, but a genuine scream of pain was something completely different. Instinct told them to help, but they stayed kneeling.
Serves you right, Clem thought, instantly feeling nauseous. That was not a thought they would ever have entertained before. Who were they to pass judgement?
“Stand,” the goddess ordered when the scream gave way to laboured breathing. Clem knew she was talking to them but could not explain how. The teasing tone was gone. Where K’s voice had echoed, the goddess’s simply dripped with raw unfiltered power. K had a taste, this was the source. Her voice did not need to echo. It filled the space and then some.
Clem stood, preternaturally aware of K still on the ground a little ways away from them. Her breathing still bordered on agonal, but despite their nausea Clem felt no pity. You could not hurt people with impunity and expect no justice to be served. By a God.
The deity in question seemed to be diminishing herself, presumably for their benefit. Her dress stayed wild and unwieldy, its train spread across the ground for what looked like miles. It was solid and liquid and gas all at once. Her physical form shrunk to a height a little taller than them, and her face became less like the sun itself, though the completely white, star-like eyes were still impossible to look at directly.
“Are you afraid? You need not be. You beat my champion.” Her voice demanded authority. She did not sound angry, but Clem did not feel reassured. They felt immensely young, suddenly. It was unsettling to remember that they were so much younger than both other people in the space.
They lowered their head in a nod. “She fought well,” they said quietly, thinking instantly of all the times she had played unfair. If all of them had been fair, who would have won?
The goddess laughed, a single short bark. “She fought dirty. That’s why I like her. And you beat her still. Impressive.”
Clem had nothing to say. “Thank you,” they managed.
“Would you like a prize?”
Clem’s eyes widened. It seemed, bizarrely, like a completely genuine question. But they were no gladiator. They fought for one reason and one reason alone. Their voice came out as a whisper. “I seek no reward, your eminence. That was never my intention.” They didn’t want to reject a kindness, but could not fathom accepting any sort of reward.
“Oh.” There was silence for a while, then something almost bored and faux-grandiose entered her tone. “You are aware that this is my domain?”
They were still looking down, but they imagined that the statement was accompanied with a gesture at the world. They couldn’t ascertain if she was proud of it.
Clem nodded anyway. “I realise that it could not belong to -” They gestured with a hand to K on the ground, then quickly resumed clasping them behind their back. Their fingers gripped their wrist and they could feel their own heart racing.
“Hm. Clever,” she praised. “You are clever.” They felt the sensation of their hair being ruffled. It felt gentle, yet also as if their skin was being burned off. Unprecedented.
“Thank you,” they mouthed, blushing furiously.
“I should think you would be a far better follower than my current delinquent.” The last word was laced with something worse than venom. Clem was surprised that K had not already completely withered away.
“I would try my best,” Clem replied. They wanted to go home. They were getting impatient. They pinched their hand behind their back. Focus.
She sighed. “Not ‘you will’? You don’t want to stay with me?”
Clem reeled. Her tone had shifted from the judge presiding over the court to a friend asking them to play at recess. They did not feel smart enough for this. Ruth would know exactly what to say. They had never been taught how to advocate for themselves - quite possibly anyone would be better.
“I always intended to return home, your eminence.” They knew this was not right and felt a bone-deep terror at the prospect of outright denying a deity, but they couldn’t stay.
“So you hate me.”
Clem’s eyes widened. The goddess didn’t give them time to correct the assumption.
“You’ve seen how she talks to me! And that was only for a moment, imagine that for thousands of fucking years, that whining voice in my head constantly complaining about literally fucking anything. ‘Oh, Rory, it’s so cold out here.’ ‘Rory, I hate the short nights.’ ‘Rory, are you even listening to me?’ No! No, I’m not listening, because I don’t have to, if she had done her fucking job then I would have plenty of other voices to listen to, but she’s -”
She - Rory - suddenly moved over to K’s side and kicked, hard. “- so fucking useless, and I’m just stuck with her!” She let out a scream, then kicked again. And again, and again, moving from the stomach to the head. K took it stoically at first but she was worn down already, and struggled in vain to shift away from the kicks. Clem had no idea what to do, witness to a relationship clearly a lot bigger and older than themselves.
Then, as suddenly as the outburst had begun, Rory was in front of them again, and older. They hadn’t realised she had ever aged her form down. She seemed incredibly fluid, ever-changing based on nothing but whim. She let out a short, sharp breath. She was no longer wearing a dress, but a remarkably casual outfit instead. She was still clearly deific. Her skin glowed. Everything glowed. Her eyes stayed burning white.
“Sometimes I lose my temper with her.”
Clem said nothing, had nothing to say. She did not have to explain herself to them.
Rory took a step back, ageing down to teenager again. This was exhausting. Was she trying to make herself more personable? Did that ever work? Was she aware that her eyes glowed and her hair was on fire?
“So you won’t stay?”
Clem felt horrible rejecting her outright. “I - I would remember you. At home, if you wanted me to. Can I not do both?”
She made a noise of vague disapproval and moved on without replying. “You had a condition. For your war.” The last word was spoken with derision, and Clem thought with dismay of how juvenile it must have seemed to her.
Clem swallowed. They took a deep breath. “Yes. She was hurting one of my friends. The condition - if I won - was that she would stop. And not hurt any of the rest of them.”
“Mm.”
There was a long silence. Then she was younger than she’d ever been before, somewhere close to six or eight. She sat on a chair of her own making, pulling her legs up and examining her nails. She had no clothes that Clem could see, just a vaguely gaseous mist surrounding the image of a young girl. Her hair trailed out long behind her, looking in places like lava flows and molten glass. No wonder the world had to be made of marble.
Or - was it? For the first time, Clem considered the idea that the world was more of a prison than a palace.
A big sigh attracted their attention again. “Well,” she began, undeniably petulant. “You don’t have to deal with her, and I’m telling you that she behaves better when I let her play with something.”
Clem blinked. Blinked again, simply processing. Trying to process, though it felt impossible. They couldn't fathom it, the casual referring of weeks of torture as ‘play.’ People are not toys, Clem thought vehemently. They thought of Calyx, of Arthur, of everyone else who they could not protect if they asked simply for their family to be left alone.
“Okay,” they ground out, instead of the slew of swear words that they thought. This is a God, they reminded themselves. Like it or not, you can't fight this one. “Can - can she stop? Can you stop her doing that?”
It was bizarre to talk about K as if she was not there, but they preferred this version of the conversation. It was impossible to imagine having a civil or productive one with her involved.
“If I may offer a suggestion, your eminence.” Head bowed, hands clasped behind their back. The picture of subservience. They could stay like this for hours.
“You may,” came the slightly bemused answer. As if through revelation, Clem realised that their deference itself may be the cause of her amusement. From the way K had been acting, it was clear that she was never obedient of her own accord.
“I think - K - needs another hobby.” Clem stumbled over the name, only because they knew that they were the only one out of the three who did not know the true name. It was their only disadvantage. There was a kind of cosmic unfairness in it, like they were on a stair below the both of them, playing with things that they did not understand. But they did understand. "It's not fair to just use people like that."
Rory looked at them straight-on. “I think it's fair. She does good work. Sometimes. But when she’s good, she’s so good. Don’t tell her I said that.”
Clem couldn't help their blank stare. You said she was a delinquent. You said that she was useless. If you weren’t a God, you’d have kicked her to death minutes ago.
“My prize," they remembered, saying it with effort. “My prize would be to force her to stop playing God with people.”
Everything was still.
“Ah,” she hummed, turning to stalk over to the mute K still on the ground. She looked older now, anywhere from a young adult to a woman in her prime. “Is that what you're doing?” Her tone was cutting. When she lowered herself to lift K’s chin, Clem saw sharp nails dig into her skin. They darkened quickly, blood starting to travel down her hand as K struggled in the grasp. Those nails had to be knife-sharp, slicing cleanly through the skin.
“I don’t kno- know why you’re listening to them.”
Rory gave her a sharp backhand, and Clem could swear that they heard skin sizzle.
“Sometimes I want to destroy you, you know.” It was only a whisper, but in the silence Clem still heard it.
K hissed but collapsed once she was no longer being held up. She was more exhausted than they’d ever seen her.
Rory walked to Clem with a hand still dripping with blood. She lifted their chin with a nail, and they held their breath, eyes widening in fear. They’d been held at knifepoint before and this felt no different. Rory appraised them in silence, Clem getting more and more nervous with each passing second.
She sounded unbothered when she spoke again. Bored. “I don’t actually think you should be rewarded for beating her. It’ll just encourage people.”
“Okay,” they said quietly, self-preservation taking over.
“But you are… very polite. And I think it’s funny that you won. So, I can accept this request of yours.”
“Okay,” they repeated, a little lightheaded. “Thank you, your eminence.”
She moved her hand away, and for the first time dimmed her eyes so it did not hurt to look at her. They realised that they were shaking, thoughts stuttering over themselves. The magnitude of their situation and the encounter was starting to take its toll, and it took a long few seconds for them to come back to themselves. By then, Rory had pulled K up to standing, and was supporting her in a gesture so misaligned with their previous interactions that Clem could not at first understand what they were seeing.
They shook off the confusion. Not their problem. They would likely never understand the full extent of it. Clem stood up, holding their elbow and making a half-step towards the pair who had already turned away.
“Um.”
Rory turned her head, head cocked to the side. “Yes?”
“I - forgive me. Is it possible for me to go home?”
“Home? Where is home?” She sounded genuinely confused.
Clem's mouth opened and shut, and they could not stop thinking of Elene. Her face. Her soft golden hair, the way they found strands of it on the pillow, the way she worried at her lip when she was nervous, her voice, her kind eyes -
A giggle. Clem was so distracted, so caught off guard that they did not have the time to thank her. They fell through space itself, wings trying automatically to cocoon themselves against the force of it. Terror came and went, replaced by a light feeling in their chest. ‘Home’ had redefined itself without their knowledge, and Clem was excited to see it.
Espa (they/she/it)'s life as a weapon was mostly filled with pain, obedience and blood—some of it its own—, until it met a kind, generous stranger. The namesake of Espada means "sword", but, unfortunately for the compliant, loyal life they've built for themself through all these rough years, they can't quite bring themself to remain as only that.
(note: please block '#espada spoilers' if you aren't on caught up on arc 1 yet!)
General cws: Human trafficking, child whump, compliant whumpee, living weapon whumpee, multiple whumpees, torture.
-> Espada (Arc 1) is now on Ao3!
-> Drabbles Masterlist
ARC I:
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
(Bonus) 11.5
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17.1
Chapter 17.2
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
ARC II:
Chapter 23
(coming)
--
-> AU Masterlist
-> Art Masterlist (+ picrews and fanart!)
-> Other writing: Liar | Dog | Sniper | Escravos de Jó | Cold | Interrogated | Fingers in the wound | Forced to hurt | Touch aversion | Disposal | Sixteen | Natural | [And more!]
-> Fanfic (!!!): Out of This World by @whumpshaped
-> Misc: #espada wip tag | #espada asks | #espada art | #meta rambles tag | #espa oc tag
idk if this is very prevalent in the text but jeremiah does not really believe in god… i think he prays but it comes from out of habit more than anything else. he’s grown wary of the idea of it!! alastair on the other hand is very much a devout catholic (not catholic because they are part the The Chosen but ykwim) and wears his cruxifix all the time. but jeremiah subscribes to the idea of the congregation of the chosen more than alastair does. does that make any sense.
jeremiah loves his home & his community & his job & his brother but doesn’t really feel a true connection with god and jesus and finds some parts of the church at best boring and at most despicable and corrupt. alastair hates his job & his life & has no community but has a close relationship with god. it provides him comfort.
Heather wrote the basics down on a scrap sheet of paper, if only to organize her thoughts. Fire. Drowning. Acid. Bullets, again. Everything she could think of, anything that might kill him. Stabbing. Starvation? Dehydration. Poison. Holy water. She wasn’t a religious person anymore, but it couldn’t hurt to check. Asphyxiation. Though that was similar to drowning. Hypothermia. Perhaps removing a different vital organ would do it. Perhaps removing the brain?
She clicked the pen closed, set it down. It was incredible. She was on the precipice of a discovery. She held the world’s greatest mystery in the palm of her hand. She had trapped lighting in a jar, an angel in a tin can. It was a brilliant stroke of luck, bringing him home. What had first seemed like a terrible mistake was proving to be very useful, indeed.
She had everything she needed in a large black-leather briefcase: her pistol, Jackie’s lighter, a small container of gasoline, a fire extinguisher, a bottle of bleach, a cloth bag she had acquired from a priest—he was surprisingly easy to bribe—and, finally, the largest kitchen knife she owned. It was a start. Heather wanted to test the limits, find out what she was working with here. Nothing too drastic. Not yet, at least.
The briefcase was heavy, so she dropped it by the basement door before turning the lock. The lights were still out, as she’d left them. It was a petty move, in hindsight, but she hoped it had calmed him down somewhat. He appeared to be asleep in the chair. She switched the lights on.
He jerked to life like a marionette with all its strings gone taut. There was a crash as something tumbled out of his hands. What was he holding? She blinked a few times as he scrambled to pick it up, then pointed it at her like a lance.
“Let me out,” he hissed, “or die.”
“How dramatic.” She leaned farther into the doorway. “Is that my table? Did you break my table?”
“I’ll do more than just break your table.” He pushed his shoulders back in a pathetic imitation of a fighting stance. “Let me go.”
Yes, that was her table, now broken and toppled over beside him. She did hear a crash earlier. The handcuffs still swung off his wrist and glinted in the light, a strange silver bracelet. Nothing else was broken, thank goodness. If he’d taken to cracking the freezer open, she’d have to spend a pretty penny replacing it.
“No,” Heather said. “I thought we went over this already. Put that thing down. You look ridiculous.”
Jackie didn’t reply. He kept his glare steady, a spotlight focused entirely on her. It was almost flattering, how ready he was to tear her to shreds. It was a compliment, somehow. She had power here. She was a threat.
“That was a good table. Shame.” She clicked her tongue. “I’m not getting you a new one, by the way. Not unless you start behaving. So—”
Without so much as a sound, he charged at her.
With a violent jerk, she leaned out of the doorway and slammed the door shut. He didn’t stop, no—he ran forward, up the stairs, grabbed the other end and nearly forced it open. She fumbled with the lock and managed to close it before he broke through.
He kept slamming on the door. A series of short and heavy bangs, coming in quick succession. The frame shuddered with each slam, or Heather’s shock was making her vision blur. Her hands were actually shaking. Her hands never shook. Shaking was for leaves and little girls. She thought, for a lurching moment, that the hinges would snap clean off.
The banging did stop, however, after a minute. She could hear him catching his breath behind the door. “Come on, lady. I wasn’t joking. I’ll kill you. Let me go home.”
She took a deep breath. “No.”
“You’re an idiot, oh my God.”
That small sign of exasperation cut all the tension in her body loose. He was still trapped, table leg or no table leg. Who was he kidding? She could do whatever she wanted here. It was a matter of time. She’d convince him to put his weapons down, one way or another. Hell, she’d get him on his knees. For science, of course. Always for science.
“Look,” Jackie continued on the other side of the door. “You won’t come in here. You can’t. You’re not going to be able to play that little recorder thing and ask me about my maiden name, or whatever it is you want. So.”
“So?” Heather prompted.
“Let me out!” Another bang struck the door. “What other proof do you need?”
“Proof? What are you proving here? I’m not opening that door until you calm down.” She paused, thinking of the best way to twist the words deep under his skin. Searching for the weakness where he’d crack. “You’re helpless, face it.”
“You looked pretty scared,” he growled. “Do you really think this door will last long? Really?”
“Jackie.” She said it softly. “You’re awfully confident for someone locked in my basement. You must be hungry, right? But I don’t think you deserve to eat, not with the way you’ve been acting. I’ll wait until you’re ready to apologize.”
“You’ve been starving me!” Oh. Right. “You haven’t given me anything for a week!”
It was embarrassing, to be honest. There went her impressive speech. Heather had actually forgotten about feeding him. She had meant to give him a granola bar or something, but she had just been so busy, and Heather had been having a lot of fun acquiring all her tools and thinking of new tests. She couldn’t let that show, of course. Mistakes like that were unprofessional to say the least.
“Well, do you want to eat or not?” Heather snapped.
“No, thanks. You’ll drug it anyway.”
“So what if I drug it? Food is food.”
She heard him shift slightly. “I don’t need anything from you.”
Heather pressed the bridge of her nose. She took a moment to wind herself down, breathe that unrelenting irritation out. She left her briefcase by the door as she stepped away. “I’ll be back in an hour. Think it over.”
· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·
During that hour, Heather acquired the food. Pomegranates. Two pomegranates, cut into quarters. Rich, scarlet skin, bright red seeds inside, with chunks of rough white surrounding it all. Something that Jackie couldn’t possibly think was drugged. He would have no reason not to eat.
"Hello. Are you still in there?"
“Go die in a hole.” His voice was loud and clear, though flat. She imagined him sitting sprawled across the stairs, table leg carelessly grasped in his hand.
The door was still closed. It was like sitting in a confessional, doing the whole back-and-forth without ever meeting face to face. Though Heather’s childhood memories of church had never been quite so infuriating.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“No.” There was a sour edge to his voice.
“I brought food. Put your weapon down. I only want to talk.”
He let out a drawn-out, exaggerated sigh. “Did I ask?”
Heather had never wanted to strangle someone more. “You’ll faint, eventually. Or you’ll fall asleep. I’ll get you, sooner or later. The only difference is whether or not I’ll stick your head in a blender afterwards.”
There was a softer, smaller exhale. The noise of rustling clothes filled the silence like static. “What kind of food?”
“Pomegranates.”
“That’s it?”
That little shit. “Do you want your arm in the blender next?”
“That's not a very nice thing to say.”
Heather paused for a few seconds. “What if I throw in a granola bar?”
“Fine. Deal. Oh my God.” She heard him stand up. “I’ll put the table leg—“
“Leave it on the stairs,” she cut him off. “Go stand in the farthest corner you can find. Don’t move an inch, or you can forget about dinner.”
“Dinner?” he echoed. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to do as you’re told, hm? Chop, chop. Clock’s ticking.”
She heard a dull, wooden thump. There were footsteps, receding as he walked across the room. He cleared his throat, a pointed ahem, though the sound was muffled by their distance. After that, it was silent.
She opened the door, just enough to see through. Yes, he’d done as she’d asked. The table leg lay abandoned at the bottom of the stairs. Looking up, she witnessed his impatient expression across the room. He leaned against the wall with a sullen slump in his shoulders. There were bags under his eyes, an almost gray tint to his skin. Then again, the lighting wasn’t the best down there. He was probably fine. Heather would give him the pomegranate and move on with everything.
He crossed his arms. “Where's the food?”
“It couldn't hurt to have some manners.”
He said nothing, just waited.
“Here,” she said, trying to tone back the harshness in her tone. She walked up to him and handed him the plate.
He stared at it blankly. “Where’s the granola bar?”
“I’ll give it to you later.” She nudged the plate a little closer. “I promise. Now, eat. You’re going to faint if you don’t.”
His stare shifted to her. “I said I wasn’t hungry.”
“Eat. That wasn’t a request."
To her relief, he took the plate—and then to her dismay, the food was scattered across the floor a moment later. Spilled across the concrete. There were seeds everywhere, like blisters. Deep red and dark scarlet and white in between. Jackie had thrown it there. His expression wasn’t aggressive, only mildly curious. Bored, perhaps. Tired, definitely. He let the plate topple to the ground. It rolled off, settling into stillness with a quiet shudder.
“I see.” Heather brushed her hair out of the way. “Why did you do that?”
He shrugged.
“You’re going to regret it.”
“I’m sure.”
She thought she could see the hint of a smile playing across his lips. Then again, the lighting wasn’t great. Either way, if there was any sympathy or generosity before, it had shriveled up now. A burning hunger had replaced it, winding in her chest until it was taut as a piano wire about to snap. He was clearly trying to make her angry. What other point was there? He was just digging his own grave.
It didn't matter. She had work to do here. She couldn't waste any more time.
She left the room, then retrieved the briefcase and the tape recorder. She entered the basement again. She turned the recorder on. “Tape two. Experiment one.”
“Really.” It was a dry response, not even sarcastic, more… resigned. Or, again, just bored.
“Really.” She bent down and pushed the briefcase latches open. She picked up the pistol before standing up again. “This is merely to confirm a fact. Hold still.”
The bullet went through his heart, or close to it. He flinched, hitting his head on the wall, but that was about all the damage done. He hadn’t even gone unconscious.
Jackie rubbed his head after a split second’s pause. He turned around and plucked the bullet out of the wall, where it had been embedded inside chipped paint. “Do you want this back?”
“Keep it.” She scowled at the pistol and shoved it back in the briefcase. There was no point in firing another shot, when she had already wasted seven rounds on him. “Subject can survive normally lethal injuries, such as bullet wounds. I'll start the second test now.”
“The second test?” He let out a short, scoffing laugh. “Are you going to ask me about my favorite color?”
“Sure.” She slid the kitchen knife out. “What is it, by the way? Blue? It’s almost always blue.”
“No.” He hesitated, as he regarded the knife with confused hostility. “What's that for?”
“Relax.” She stepped forward. “I’m sure this won’t hurt.”
He stepped farther back. His eyes were fixed on the blade, like a viper in a trance, making no move to run but with a tenseness in his posture. “How do you know?”
She came close enough to touch him with the tip of the blade. He could back up no farther, pressed up against the wall. She leaned in and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I don't. Feel free to correct me.”
In one swift motion, Heather brought the knife down into his throat. She jerked it out, and blood followed in its wake.
She brought it down again, looking to sever an artery. This time, when she slid it out of his cartilage and bone, there was a brief sputtering noise. He attempted to speak. Blood bubbled at the silent, hissing sound. His attempts at breathing came out as dull gasps. He brought a hand to his throat. It lifted and came away covered in deep red.
He grasped at the wound again, with another strangled attempt at speech. He sunk down the wall. Blood poured out, down his neck, to the curve of his collarbone, to the edge of his shirt. It would stain. Heather would need to clean that later.
She knelt down. Her hand took his, gently, and pried his fingers away from the raw flesh. She stabbed it again, deeper, a thorough dragging motion through the cords and twine of muscle and skin. His eyes did not flutter close, or look away in a final gesture of peace. On the contrary, they were wide open. Unblinking, unmoving. Even when his body went still with a final, choking sigh.
It was distracting. She placed her hand over his face and closed them. The blood continued to sputter out.
A glance at her watch proved that the whole affair had taken two minutes. A glance at Jackie proved that he was not moving. Dead, if you will. The silence was uncanny, almost loud in the absence of the bubbling and faint gasping breaths, but with his eyes closed he looked peaceful.
Heather half-wished he would stay dead this time. It would be a scientific disappointment, but his expression was beautiful. Devoid of anything close to rage, or fear, or grief. Beautiful, in a grotesque and terribly morbid way. How sweet. All her anger dissolved at that sight. She was aware that calling a corpse pretty was not socially acceptable. Well aware. But she would have loved to keep him that way. Preserve him like that. Lay him to rest.
Heather walked away. She returned with a few clean rags. As she waited for the wound to congeal, she sat on the chair a couple paces away and wiped the blood off the knife. Over and over, running the rag across the edge. Five minutes would do it. Then, if he never opened his eyes, she’d throw him into a ditch on the side of the road. She would clean her hands and be done with this whole affair.
When she was younger, she would trap insects in bottles and old boxes, watch them run and panic and eventually die. There was no reason to it, not even a sadistic one. Only curiosity and a lack of hindsight. Once, she’d kept a couple of ladybugs in a glass jar, filled it with sticks and leaves.
They had changed after a week, warped, gone through a strange metamorphosis. She remembered seeing these yellow fuzzy things, larger than any ladybug was meant to be, crawling among the stems. Was it all in her wild imagination? Was it a simple mistake, taking some other insect to be a lucky beetle, when they were really some sort of larva or wasp? In any case, it had scared her so badly that she’d thrown them out the second-storey window. Underneath the guilt was a pure, innocent relief.
But she was not a child anymore, and she could handle whatever happened next. If he didn't die, then that was fine. She would be fine. It was just a matter of seeing things through. She wouldn't give this up so quickly.
Speak of the devil. He opened his eyes. A gasp burst through the quiet. It evened out into heaving breaths, then slowly into a soft and regular rhythm.
“Did it hurt?” She didn’t take her eyes off the knife, though it was clean of blood by now.
“Yeah.” His voice was painfully hoarse. “Bit late to ask that.”
Heather glanced up. Jackie had put a still-bloody hand on his throat, once again. The wound had darkened to a deep maroon, almost black in some places. He let out a shuddering exhale.
“Are you sorry now?”
Death had not dampened his spirit. “For what? Go to hell.”
She shrugged and placed the knife back into the briefcase. “On to the next test, then?”
“No?”
“That was rhetorical. Oh, right.” The tape recorder was still running. “Subject can survive almost any injury. I doubt a different weapon changes things, other than recovery time. Now, come here.”
“Why?”
“Stay on the floor, then.” She lifted the gasoline up in one hand, a clean rag in the other. She walked over and dropped the rag on his face. “Clean that up. There's blood all over your hands.”
Jackie staggered to his feet. The rag fell to the floor. “What’s in the bottle?”
“You ask a lot of questions. Don’t move.” She poured it over his head until he was drenched in the substance. A heavy yet familiar scent filled the room, something like a mechanic’s shop or a started car.
He smacked the bottle away with a sputter. “Hey!” Gasoline dripped from his sleeves onto the floor. She had emptied the entire gallon on him.
“How cute. This used to be yours, do you remember?” She brought the lighter out of her pocket. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Good quality.”
“It was a dollar.” His eyes widened. “Wait, wait. No. You’re not putting that thing near me. Absolutely not.”
“Yes, we’ll just light a blunt, then?” She flicked the lid open. “I’m all out of blunts, unfortunately. Come on. It’ll be interesting.”
“You already know what’s going to happen. What’s the point?”
With a snap of her thumb, the lighter sparked to life. “We don’t know for sure. That’s what science is all about. Testing beyond doubt.”
His eyes darted across the room, then glanced back at a cardboard box. There was a broom sticking out of the top. He lunged for the handle, then spun back to face Heather. He waved the bristles at her face in what was probably meant to be a threatening gesture.
Heather looked at him.
Jackie looked at her.
Heather lifted the lighter. It wasn’t much, a sliver of flame barely holding on in the oppressive underground atmosphere.
Jackie shifted on his feet. He raised the broom, only slightly.
Heather tipped the lighter over until it reached a bristle. Within seconds, the smoldering and smoking became a blaze, at first only in small sparks, then into rising tongues of it. The dry and brittle handle caught fire before Jackie had time to let go. With a hiss, he dropped the broom, still clutching his palms where the skin had scorched.
It was too late for him, though. The gasoline on his sleeves and skin burst into flames. The fire consumed him like he was nothing more than a scrap of paper. His entire body lit up the room. Like a candle. Like a very disgusting candle.
As he screamed, Heather stepped over to the fire extinguisher. She propped it up in her arms, ready to go, but didn’t douse him yet. She wanted to see where this went.
The screams faded to a harsh coughing, then into the hissing and cracking sounds of burning flesh and cloth and leather. It was glorious. The smell was ingrained into every corner, every inch of concrete and chipping paint. The stench of smoke and cooking meat. He collapsed onto the floor, still writhing like a fish pierced on a hook. The places where his skin was still visible were red and raw, although charred blackness spread around the edges. He appeared to almost melt into the ground. When Jackie finally did go still, the flickering of the fire did not cease. Violent shades of red-orange-yellow, a stoplight at full warning, a toxic frog or a traffic cone. On and on and on.
At last, Heather let the extinguisher spray out the flames, as she coughed through the smoke. There were a few burns on the walls, but nothing noticeable on the concrete. Jackie was dead. Not even he could go through that unscathed.
Something was off, though. Something was still… moving? Was he going through his death throes? Was this a symptom of rigor mortis, an unconscious spasm of muscles?
Jackie—what was left of him, at least—was no more than a charred shape slumped across the floor. That was not what made Heather’s stomach turn. Not the smell either, terrible though it was. Not the memory of his agonized dying screams. No, that was all fine. That irrevocable sensation of horror and disgust dawned on her because Jackie was still breathing.
Oh. It was painful to watch. His chest—or what used to be his chest—still convulsed as the diaphragm rose and fell. Convulsed was the right word. Those were jerky movements, almost inhuman. Alien, unnatural. Corpses weren’t meant to move. It wasn’t right. She couldn’t even recognize his face, and yet...
And yet. How bizarre. Even something like that couldn’t kill him.
Heather blinked, her heart still stuttering. She turned to the tape recorder with the surprise splattered all over her face. “Subject is still alive. Not awake. I hope. Oh, that would hurt.” She hissed through her teeth. “I suppose I’ll give him a minute—oh sweet baby Jesus—”
His arm—or the deformed and charred remains of his arm—moved. Then his leg, then his head, lifting slowly. Distorted hollows in the place of eyes stared, like blank slates of charcoal. For a ridiculous moment, Heather thought he might speak. That would be impossible. The lower half of his jaw had been left behind on the ground.
Heather stared at Jackie, her eyes wide and unblinking, lips parted in a half-hearted attempt to talk, too afraid to move but too curious to look away. A morbid fascination had gripped her thoughts. Any reasonable scientist would walk up to inspect him, to perhaps put him out of his misery, but this all seemed unreal to Heather. She couldn’t even speak, let alone walk.
With a dull thud, he collapsed back onto the ground. Chips and flakes of blackened skin littered the floor. Was he—was he shedding? Like a snake? Like a fucking snake? What was he? Nothing human, she thought. Nothing reasonable. Nothing within biological limits. And yet...
And yet. And yet! He was alive. That was the fact of the matter. The skeptic in her needed to suck it up or roll over and die. As Jackie continued to shed, for the lack of a better term, his flesh appeared to reshape itself. It was not entirely unlike fast-motion footage of a blooming flower. Rose petals being pushed apart, buds bursting open. Skin bubbled and expanded, smoothing over all that red rawness. The sound of shifting bone and muscle ripped through the silence.
Heather managed to look away and grasp the recorder with a trembling hand. “Subject is, ah, healing? I’ll come back with a change of clothes, I think. Maybe a crucifix.” She cleared her throat. “Yes. I’ll return in an hour. That will be fine.”
