I’m so excited to share this, this piece alone has drawn me out of my pre-winter depression and I am Living! I’ve been obsessed with washi-tape for months but I haevn’t had the time/patience/inspiration to do anything with it but today that all fuckin changed!
TL:DR, This is Finnegan, he’s a sweet angel baby and I love him. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk
GUESS WHO’S BACK. Buuut back with some personal OC stuff. This is an introspective of my character Finnegan, a young kid who has DID. He’s my character for our new RPG campaign SoulFeature. I’m very excited for this story to play out hahaha
He could remember the day he woke as if it were his birthday. In a lot of ways, he supposed it was though the term ‘birth’ was ill fitting. There was no screaming, no crying, no mess on the floor on which he laid. There were, however, hands grasping at him and lights in his face, the muffled sounds of authority calling him quietly, as if he were miles below the surface of the ocean. He blinked his eyes, moved his fingers, shook his head and all of it belonged to him, all of it was his decision though he couldn’t remember ever having made a decision before.
This world was new and yet it was his. He fit, he belonged and they (they he called them for they were inconsequential and needed no other title) loved him.
There were times when he would leave, when he would retire from the world that had been created before him, that had left a place for him. When he returned, there would be bruises on his arms, pain in his ribs. More often than not, he found himself on the floor with blood caked around his nostrils and no recollection of how he got there. It was almost like being born again and again, always somewhere new, always in pain, but always fitting perfectly into place.
The pain didn’t bother him. It wasn’t his pain, after all. Rather than let it stop him, he developed the skills necessary to cope with it. Talking, acting, covering up the lies with more lies and as time passed, he realized this was his true purpose. He was born into this world, foreign as he was and it was now his world.
He was unstoppable. He was dynamic. He was a river, constantly flowing downhill and pushing past the obstacles this life gave him. He shaped the Earth, moved with the whims of the wind. He was Elliot Price.
*******
He remembered the day he woke up as if it were his birthday. Technically it was, in all the ways that counted. He opened his eyes to the sounds of screaming, to bright lights and blood clogging his nose and a floor hard and unforgiving at his back. Hands pulled at his clothes, tugged him to his feet and tossed him around and the stars that danced behind his eyes were blinding. There was pain in his jaw, blood on his tongue and the dull thud of fists hitting too soft flesh. A tooth punctured his cheek, something in his wrist snapped but the pain didn’t keep him down. The fear didn’t deter him. He wasn’t here, he hadn’t been born into this world to be steamrolled by the inconsequential existences of the ants that surrounded him.
He loved it; the pain, the adrenaline, the uncertainty of every day. And there was uncertainty. Sometimes he would leave, kick back and let the world move on without him but always he would return and always there was blood. He was born of blood, rising from the dust and taking charge of this life he claimed. He knew when to smile, when to laugh, what to smoke and who to fuck to get what he wanted. He rolled with the punches this life dealt him, both the physical and the proverbial and at the end of the day, he always came out on top.
He was the one who slept when the sun rose and woke when the sky darkened. He claimed whatever space he occupied, expanded his horizons. He owned this life and bared his teeth at anyone that threatened it. No. He didn’t own anything. He was life. He was the heartbeat, the breath, the exhilaration.
He was the fucking ocean, larger than life. He was Cole Price.
********
He could remember the first time he broke as if it were yesterday and for all he knew, it was.
There had been a tiled ceiling miles above him, faces leering and voices too loud and the hand that had pressed between his shoulder blades was hot as it shoved him forward. The ceiling spun, the floor rolled beneath him in waves and the crunch of his nose was deafening when he finally came to a halt at the foot of the stairs. Books flew from his arms, pain exploded across his face and it was then that he felt the first crack.
He woke up days later, tucked into bed with the ceiling of his bedroom looming over him. His nose was only a dull ache and the cast around his wrist was covered in bubbly handwriting. He was missing so much time. He could feel it in the creak of his bones and the jetlagged sluggishness of his mind. The light of a setting sun filtered in through his window, cast long shadows on a room that was his but no longer belonged to him.
The room was spotless, cleaner than any eight-year old’s room had any right to be. Books were stacked neatly on his desk, homework piled in straight lines with his pencil placed delicately along the margins. His clothing was hung neatly, toys sorted and straightened. No, it was no longer his room. All of his things but not his room, not his space.
You’re welcome, Elliot said sweetly.
The tension in his shoulders eased. Yes, of course it had been Elliot. Elliot who had come to save him, to protect him, a piece of himself that had not always existed but fit against him perfectly. Elliot gave him strength, assured him that he was not broken.
He was merely fractured.
He could remember the second time he broke as if it were yesterday and honestly, he was terrified it was. He couldn’t tell anymore. There was always so much screaming, always so much pain, more pain than a ten year old had any right to feel. A hard surface at his back, the fish-eye-lens view of his father’s face and the slow motion descent of his mother’s fist. Bruises on his face, on his arms, fear gripping him like the fist gripping the front of his shirt and he was too young, too scared. He was desperate for Elliot but not even Elliot could save him now.
He really did break then. His body crumpled, stained the carpet with too much blood and the fracture split him in two.
He came back in a dark alley, tucked between a set of trashcans that smelled of cat urine and old cigarettes. Pain buffeted him, the wrist tucked against his chest tender and bent. Pale knuckles were splashed with blood and he felt it sticking to his face and neck, oozing slowly from his nose. His eyes squinted against the darkness, settled on clothes he didn’t recognize, a pipe laying dirty and abandoned by his foot. He didn’t know where he was, when he was, and he closed his eyes against the wave of nausea, trying to listen for Elliot to thank him for saving him.
Acid filled his throat at the thought. You’re welcome, Cole spat.
Oh. No, of course it hadn’t been Elliot.
Cole, another crack in the fractured mirror. The only one of them (Them, yes. He had not been split in two but three) who could stand up to the too-white grin of his mother and the hot, stale breath of his father. He was terrified but Cole was fearless. He was weak but Cole was strong. Cole was impatient but he had also saved him and he welcomed the fracture of Cole’s existence with open arms.
Until he realized he was lost. Until he realized he was tired. Until he realized that there were voices in his head, voices falling from his lips that weren’t his but theirs and he was so scared. He was scared he was broken after all. His mirror had been cracked but now it was broken and even Elliot couldn’t reassure him otherwise.
He was a shattered tea-cup that no one wanted to spend the time to fix.
He was young and impressionable and surrounded by too many evils.
He was weak and useless and unable to stand his ground.
He was drowning in the voices in his head (oh God, he was crazy).
....I was definetly drunk ahahah this is my grilfriend’s character Colin from Soulfeature!...as both a doctor and a ...werewolf?? sweet christ I’m also pretty sure I was trying to draw him from memory so there’s that ahahah
So there was a time when I used to LOVE drawing shit like this...Can anyone say ZombieAxel? Ohgod, throwback...This is probably my favorite one from this month, not gonna lie.
