S C O R C H E D E A R T H .
Below the cut is a moment in the life of ASA HOLLAND, in his 4th floor apartment in Manhattan.
Please be aware of all trigger warnings before proceeding.
tw // murder, blood, gore, torture mention, medical malpractice
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Scorched earth.
His ribs are a burning church and the devil's set it on fire.
But the same hands pouring the kerosene are the ones that chase away the fumes. Tug his heart free and out just in time. Crisped by the lick of the flame, but alive.
Very much alive.
Too alive.
He feels everything too much.
It's a burden, now.
He yearns and aches and the pangs are now bullets. He staggers from each shot, but he stands. Leaning and frail, dripping black ichor onto a ceaseless floor.
Still stands.
There is blackness behind his eyes now. The shine of light, the reflection of sweetness, has faded like a candle burnt for too long.
The wick's been doused out in its own hot wax.
Consumed and encased.
Consumed is a good word for it - the way he’s trapped in mania. The enticing fingers of long shadows, the snapshot of puddles of blood. It's scorched into retinas.
Red likes to filter over his vision like he’s sitting in that darkroom. The photos hung in the darkness are unintelligible- just as black as everything else. Maybe bodies, maybe parts, but disembodied.
Every face is blotted into smudges like charcoal.
An illustrator sees art in the slaughtered and mangled. In the gnarled scab across his chest, the twisted fingers beneath ink and bandage.
And absolutely in the demon who kisses and cleans him.
A lover who brings him to fever, then wipes his sweat-stained brow. Drains the bad blood from his body in his sickbed.
Medicinal, the comfort it brings.
Depraved, the thoughts it tugs through.
It's chiaroscuro; the shadows deep within the planes of his lover's face - dark, bold blots, no light until suddenly there's plenty. Whereas in his own, the cross-hatching of fine ink across Asa's nose, mouth, cheeks. Thin lines in meticulous detail. The building up of shade.
Forms of black and white, so different but a similar medium. fit for a gallery, perhaps a museum.
Meant to be studied, really.
It’s in this creativity that his mania sits and holds out its hands. As the scratchy lines come in a fervor from charcoals and pastels, as blood drips from a lip bitten too hard and for too long in concentration.
The mania smiles, and collects his pieces into an embrace.
It’s not too hard to connect the twisted body of his father scrawled on drafting paper to the ink blot that grows around him.
Abysm, after abysm, after abysm.
But with its arms it becomes...
Still. So still.
There’s no buzzing and pounding in his head. The oil spill has coated everything and muted it all in molasses.
It's floating. No pain.
No pleasure, either. It just... is.
A finger finally traces the blood that’s streaked into graphite and chalky dust, realizing it’s there for the first time.
Thick, sap-like on his fingers as he traces another drop and watches it peter out into nothing. A streak of alizarin crimson - an artist's palette. Acrylics. Oils.
Such material is easy enough to find, if he wants it. If he searches for it. The texture is far better than most paints.
It's so still.
Has the clock stopped ticking on the wall, or is he deep in a state again? Is it the batteries, or is he... batty?
....he didn't used to be, did he?
It's his father's fault. In his hopes of avoiding his son's insanity, he ensured it and came face to face with it.
Conor Holland died for his crimes against his son. As he should have.
Dr. Hartley. Torture. Medical malpractice. Defunct equipment. Killed. As he should have been.
Romeo Valtori. Apartment manager... rude. Misogynistic. Disgusting. Killed as well. Goodbye.
Maybe it's not so difficult to find people who deserve it. Just squint and there they are.
Laid out in funny little rows.
More red for a palette. More bodies for the ink blot on the kaleidoscope. More peace, more stillness.
A win win.
The church's charred remains fall. Debris everywhere. An explosion of fire and brimstone.
Yet his heart beats, thrums in the hands of a killer. A lover. He holds it so carefully for someone so cruel.
A ribcage can be rebuilt - the church can be reconstructed.
And the burning just smells like winter, and hydroquinone, and a night wrapped in silk sheets.
Peace. Stillness.
