Decided to keep with the mini tradition of Daphne and Elijah in Daphne's weekend age up post. I have a mod where anyone can do the "best hug ever" and these two did it autonomously. That was the moment when I realized these two had a really sweet and close relationship because, mind you, this picture was probably taken a few days after Elijah's birthday. S if you ever wonder why I focused so much on just the two of them and their relationship.
Between The Lines, Episode 7 PART 2 of: “So help you god…you're set free”
Enjoy
🔞NFW: MDNI🔞 :
⚠️Rated-R: (Mature themes TW)⚠️ *mentions death and dead bodies, bugs, gore and frontier diseases and graphic violence, guns, religious interpretation of trauma, consumption of body and blood, allusions to murder/self and description macabre, and ghosts of the espooky kind.
Jumpscares.
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” KJV- Mathew 25:37-40
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That Night plays:
“These are all names and dates, think it’s a list of some kind?” Miasma said, almost rhetorically though with the uncanny feeling he had, it didn't take Jim long to take a wary breath, “I’ve seen things like that. Old family bibles in the day was how they kept genealogy. When people were born, when they died.” the cloud behind his eyes thinned and it only appeared that the powers within were vague at best. The thrum of the threads connected to the preacher man dulled, like miniscule strands of “touch nothing” silkworms… Jim’s face hardened. There was a change in the air. While miasma seemed more shaken now, Jim felt something almost familiar touch his mind. A feather-light breath that made his breathing more shallow.
Perhaps it was seeing the bible laid out like he had seen others before, the familiarity a comfort, or perhaps it was something else entirely… something pretending to b e safe, and eagerly waiting to come forward like a confession of a madman, a wagging tongue whos voice tells not lies, but the horrible truths of man’s behavior to deconstruct themselves, and yet preserve the carnage in time…
“I’ve seen that before too but not like this… all these names have single dates, and the last names don’t match one another.. Doesn’t genealogy in that time usually utilize family bibles?” Miasma asked, holding the book towards Jim.
“Hm…that is odd.” Jim muttered, leaning in to look at the Bible in Miasma’s hands. “I see it. All from December to February… 20 names” Jim said, counting the lines of writing. The ink had long been dried but in the strange gathered darkness around them, he could have sworn the ink was still, *wet*.
Miasma swallowed, chuffing the air a moment before he read the first name.
“Jeremy Bridger, 7 December 1835…Diego Rivera, 12 December…”
The air was heavier, every name seeming to bear down on them as if figures were just out of sight in the darkened peripheral view of the pairs of eyes reading the list in the room.
“I don’t know that these people are haunting that stone. But there is something strange about it.
December 16…Armand Avalo
December 21…Mathias Jones
December 26…”Andrew Washington” “A day after Christmas…as if…”
January 1st…Ezekiel Smith “The bad luck of someone to have died on New year’s day, the year 1836”
January 6… Thomas Spencer, “and another on Epiphany, something…something…”
January 12…Peter Shaw ”Half a dozen on the twelfth, and look, another multiple of three”
January 15… Edward Greene
January 18…Joseph Oswald
Then January 21…Ethan Clearwater, ”three days apart, twice, three dead yet again.”
January 23…Samuel Owens, “and then a 6 once more”, “and so close together”
January 27…Peter Halloway
January31… Cornelius Lovett
March 3…”Morgan Webster and Jesse Burkhalter. “
[Approaching the House Plays: musical jumpscare warning,
perhaps turn down the headphones]
Jim moved to take the book, Miasma handing it to him carefully, when a creak behind the pair made them whirl to see the door slamming shut behind them with a bang, plunging the room into the dim light of something darker, the clawing sounds all around them and banging on the walls bade the boards shift and shake. Jim jumped and held onto Miasmas arm, Miasma turning his head, his eye straining, darting around him around him. Then from ahead of them they heard what sounded like heavy boots rushing at them head on, and though they gasped and spun round, nothing was staring back. As the windows rattled and the smell of smoke permeated the air, though it grew impossibly colder.
Jim clutched at the bible, his voice tense, praying aloud in fear
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
Bang, Bang, BANG!
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
The walls trembled and an acrid smell, like death and hate flared in their nostrils
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Pounding all around! Scratching sounds all around them like animals, no, like people, clawing at the floorboards, vibrating like teeth grinding screeches, shuddering under their knees
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
BANG BANG, CRASH
A window shattered. Then another. object were flying around, gunsmoke and flashes blinded the vision of the space
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Ice frosted around them, making their lungs burn and their eyes clench shut, death invading their mouths, a sickeningly sweet taste like maggot spoiled fruit
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
The desk flew across the room, skidding across the floorboards, catching on a lift and flipping over
CRASH
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Hellish wailing and crying surrounded them as the cacophony reached its pinnacle
Miasma felt the voices rage in his head, kneeling he clutched at his horns his screams mirroring the agony around them as the stampede of feet seemed to rush from every direction, bearing down on them!
“Miasma!” Jim called out, dropping beside him, throwing his arms over him, barely able to hear his own voice above the hellish brigade surrounding them,
“Fight it, Fight it!” Miasma Shook as the foul smell of rotten flesh rose from the floorboards around them, and from the corner a rattling splinter blasted from the ground, a rotten hand clawing from the infernal green fire below, glowing through the cracks in the boards below.
“Stop! Make it Stop! Please God, make it stop!” Miasma screeched his head feeling like it would explode like a rotted watermelon, spewing. Jim’s eyes widened as the bloated corpse rose from hell itself it seemed, its eyes cold and dead, a murderous glare in its face, followed by two more skeletal figures.
The Door slammed over and over like a hurricane on a screen. Blasting up from the cold hearth two more skeletons groaned and crawled towards them, the bone jangles rattling like that of infected breath, the unmistakable sweet putrescence of something beyond what evil could be.
“Miasma fight it, please!” Jim panted, feeling the bone chilling clasp of bony fingers wrapping around his ankle!
Jim kicked the severed hand away, the figures still shambling toward them, with no mistake that they wanted the living that had invaded their prison of malice and content, dead as doornails.
If it bleeds it can be killed, but what would one make of the threat looming, death literally all around them, closing in, the walls spattering black blood at their faces.
Jim knew, it was the end. Surely… Jim looked at Miasma, whos eye met his pleading in fear and absolute wretchedness, the torture of brokeness and the sins of Judas like blood on his hands. Jim felt tears well in his eyes. He dropped the bible between them and pulled Miasma closer, wrapping his hand around the cold metal of the crucifix hanging on Miasma’s neck.
*Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.*
The figures were closing in
*Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.*
The room shook and the desk rattled, the door slamming and the wailing around them rising like a chorus
Jim’s eyes pleaded. Miasma looked back and shivered, as he too realized, this was the end.
*Give us this day our daily bread.*
They both said together. Miasma’s hand wrapping around Jim's, claws digging deep, drawing blood that Jim didn’t feel as he pressed his forehead into Miasma’s
*And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.*
Hands Grabbed them, blood soaked them, splinters pierced them
* And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: *
They said, clutching the cross, holding each other, bracing for the ultimate, for The End
*For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.
Amen.*
And suddenly it was quiet…
the only sound, the panting between them…
Miasma trembled, afraid to open his eyes.
[Go Tomorrow plays:]
Jim Looked down, the bible between them, flecked with the blood from his hand. And then around him. The broken windows were miraculously, whole.
The floorboards as they had been left near 200 years before no hellfire in sight.
The figures as if they never were.
The door, still open as they had left it, the impossibly cold air still blowing gently through it..
Like nothing had happened except…the desk remained on its side across from them, the glasses on it on the floor, cracked.
A strange light from the window cast over the fractured lenses, a hole in the center of one, like an eye forever looking beyond into that valley of death. The glasses suddenly with a soft skip, flew towards them, upending on the same lift in the floorboard the desk had tripped on.
Jim squeezed Miasma’s hand.
Miasma let go, gasping at the damage his claws had done, he wanted to apologize profusely but before he could, Jim had crawled towards the glasses. Following the gaze of its broken eye, to that floorboard. With a grunt he pulled at it. “Help me” He whispered. Miasma started, and crawled forward quickly, and together they lifted the plank. Beneath it. A red leather-bound book. Untouched by time, though it smelled like kerosene.
Jim gingerly lifted the book, and opened it. “A Diary?” he said curiously.
Miasma backed away, still horrified at the events and the hurt he had caused as he watched the blood trickle down Jim's arm, though Jim didn’t notice. He panted and grabbed the bible from the floor, holding it to his chest like a lifeline, trembling.
Jim knelt on the ground and opened to a page, the milky white cloud in his eyes thin, yet, still there.
Inside was a photograph. Old and yellowed with time. Jim held it out for Miasma to take. A little braver now that the bible was in his arms, Miasma reached gingerly for the piece, his claws gently this time.
“There's thirty people in this photo…why only fifteen names?” Miasma said, opening the bible to the page with names and dates. The ink looked wet and he looked at the photograph, trying to guess what name belonged to what face? The older man? The young boy, barely 15 he would say, even what looked like a leader, his first and second, a physician… and a priest…
the names in the bible making him wonder the mystery. Jim pulled the diary open from the beginning skimming the pages for something.. Something familiar he had seen when he had examined the bible…
Take Her Down plays:
* “Collin Fortworth was a boy too young to be on this trip, it's nothing I've seen to allow a boy, not even twelve, to accompany a band of rugged men like we. but providence placed him in our laps and in our company. A runaway from a mother and father who could be dead for all we knew, the boy was so slight of frame he coulda been used as a hat rack…I had him doing some wood chop. Damn snake didn’t even rattle his direction… The hand swole the size of a lemon and Dr. Anderson didn’t say much other than to get Father Vanhassel to the bunks. Poor lad passed at 11:30 that night. Had I not sent him on something else. Of course there would be snakes cooling in the wood piles. Fucking June. I could have brought him with me back to the fort but my pride wouldn't let a boy that age on my horse. I thought him a young man now. Strapping, earning his keep like decent folk should. Time for him to ride his own damned horse. Well, all I can say is, sorry kid. I shoulda just let you climb on.”*
Jim looked up at Miasma who tilted his head. The young boy on the side, a serious face despite his youthful features. “Poison at the Wood Pile” Miasma said, as if naming the title of a tale. And it seemed that way as Jim looked farther through, flipping a few pages,
*“Benjamin Smith was a mean, damned, drunk and has been sent to the stockade on more than one occasion for his ill affected manners. He damn well knows, and he leant over that side-rail yonder… and under the logs he goes… floating down that river.
It had been two days, maybe more, who knows how water distorts the features, when eh was found. My what the nipping of fish and birds had done, little pieces plucked away, as if shy, and wont be missed. He was lucky those were all that got to him, else he wouldn't have a Christian burial. Imagine the missing limbs thrown around by the wild animals of the hunting variety. Hunter or not, the end was the same really. Someone lived. And someone died. It just so happened the man had accidentally crushed himself tween the logs and the river. Well, adios Benny boy, you always were a shit worker.”*
Jim blinked, almost shocked. Miasma covered his mouth, clearly seeing the face of a man, who wasn't even looking at the camera, eyes off to the side looking somewhere else, leaning slightly out of frame. Yes. a drunk man…
“Drinking on the job, for work like they were doin’, Christ that is so dangerous.” Jim said, shaking his head. His own experience with addiction differed, but it was enough in common that he could almost imagine himself, high as a kite somewhere, falling to some death. It could have been him…and it made him change the page all the faster.
*“Bryan Taylor, Isaac Allen…black measles…the strongest of men, though what they did on watch, when they were assigned the vantage point together, alone… It wasn’t coyotes, wolves, birds, or anything else having a high falooting fuck up on the ridge. Of course it does seem fitting, they died the same day. I’ve never known two men to be closer, more brave. And hard working. Putting them together is like putting the apple in apple pie. It just fits. They just fit. Was no business of any man or mine, I was heartbroken to see those good men go softly into the night.”*
Jim furrowed his brow.
Miasma glanced at Jim before looking away, a blush in his cheeks.
He looked at the photograph.
Two men noticeably similar in the style of their hats, a bit jauntily set for a photo, despite everyone appearing worn and weathered as if they just came from the job for the company photo. And yet, the two men had distinguished themselves in appearance. And in the photo, one had an arm around the other's shoulder, leaning inward. And the other man’s hand sneaked around his lover’s waist. It could have been a speck on the photo but Miasma knew… and he felt his heart twinge, seeing the lives of such fine people, brought to an end too soon. It wasn’t fair was it…
And he couldn't help but then feel the guilt and shame…for what he had done to the Emeritus brothers. How unfairly they had been cast to the ground. Dethroned. Even beheaded…
He clutched the crucifix at his neck tighter, as if the pain of the metal digging into his palm would punish him, an outward penance of paying for his deeds.
Jim skimmed a long time through the pages, looking for names or dates correlating to the bible Miasma let fall from his lap.
I Want to Wake up So Badly plays:
Jim tilted his head,
*“Hans Olsen… shot once…quick and easy. Easier than he woulda had it had we left him to suffer. It was right. Even though he wasn't’; being weak in the head, delirium setting in. I've seen this suffering on an old blue tick I had as a boy, varmit it chased and bit his face and it took too long for that miserable dog to die. I vowed I'd never let no creature suffer such a fate. I never would let any man suffer it. Not even my enemies. Hell is enough. Hell on earth, well, ain’t no need for it when the reaper comes rapping on your door. Lord have mercy on me. It was the right thing to do. By God and country.”*
Jim shook his head. He knew rabies as one of the evilest things to come from pain and disease for something so simple. He had never seen it himself. But Miasma had. He had been the one always picked to put the animals down. At first it felt wrong. Eventually it felt normal, and tender is the flesh of creatures so simple…..like humans…
The itch between his horns made him twitch and feel a shiver pulse through him…
It was, even as a mercy killing, murder. Could a Merciful God really be content to sit back and watch his supposed children slaughter one another and his creations… Some God…
Jim continued some pages down,
*“Marshall Wright… antlers to the belly, gored onto a tree. He shot the buck though. He got to have a taste of it before he died. One of the boys went to get the preacher. Thomas Spencer had been hunting with him. As he bled slowly from his belly wounds, Thomas, sure as fire, cooked up a piece of that venison and fed it to his fellow friend before he eventually gave up the ghost… all too soon… and all too late the companion arrived with Father Vanhassel. Thomas was never the same after that. And he insisted he go hunting alone after that. He pulled the barrel of his gun on the next poor soul who tried to come along. Something happened or at least, something shoulda happened, out there in those woods. Even I had to come just to get him to get up from that red snow… it was like the angels were crying, their snowflakes almost stinging. I sent men to retrieve the body and the carcass… Funny how both dead things could be equal in death. Hunter is no hunter when he's not hunting, because he’s dead. And well, A buck is just venison after all. And food is food. Death makes equals of us all.”*
“Jesus that’s Morbid” Jim huffed. Miasma tilted his head, tail flicking, “Depending on the food chain, anything dead is up for grabs isnt it… to the scavengers, I mean... But even hunting creatures prey on the dead. It’s just the natural order of things isn’t it…”
Jim looked at Miasma warily who was examining the photo to wonder what man had died sot terribly as to be gored to death by the very animal he was probably hunting. And his hunting companion seemed to feel guilty. Did he fall asleep? Did he miss his shot? Did he even pull the trigger?...
Jim kept reading, all the while feeling the creepy energy oozing from Miasma now, his hand still clutching that crucifix, the blood diamond in it a reminder of why they were here… Jim re-imagined that horrifying scene from his dreams… and how Miasma seemed to be parroting the words in this book in a way that was twisted and at the very least, seriously sinful. Consuming human flesh, god that was different from drinking blood as a vampire. To consume actual flesh. Digest it. And defecate. “Saints above” Jim shivered.
[The End plays:]
“December 2nd, Saints above”,
the diary read,
“Why now does God take what little comforts we have…Father Evight Vanhassel has joined the holy choir. I swear you can still hear his voice running across these dark mountains. As if a hymn to the lord. But why does it sound like an omen, a harbinger of death.. The death of one good man can become the death of the world. Hell, Jesus Christ was such a man. How many used his name for ill and got their gains. Father Evight was a man of caliber that was so wholly unselfish. He would have made a wonderful father. But as god gave his only begotten, it seemed we had unwittingly sacrificed the purest lamb of this wretched flock. The cold brings the cold hearts of man to live like revenants above the earth, clutching their robes, like blankets against the chill. God…it’s so cold…You know, the same world in which death waits in the shadows, so too is that fear. Father Evight had taken his last watch. But by morning, he was stiff, and cold. Indistinguishable from the snow that had piled around him. He met the Lord on virgin snow. For his sake, I hope his passing was as they say it is when one expires from exposure to the frosts like this. Like falling asleep, and feeling warm at last. I pray that was the manner of his passing. As his watch was third, the witching hour or the hour that god hears, it seems Evight Vanhassel now knows if his faith was worth it. If his songs to his God ever fell on imagined ears, or maybe he really is a true watcher now, an angel in the sky, wearing one of those halos and playing harps on the clouds… Then why does his voice, carried on the wind, make these dark mountains seem darker… why does the cracking snow above the pass sound like the stampede of horses. Why does his death loom over us so…”
Miasmas eyes shot up to Jim, who looked sadly at the book. Miasma felt a strange sensation behind his eyes, squeezing and wet. The preacher had died. The moral compass of the company. And what sounded like a good man. And he couldn’t help but feel a certain sadness about it… knowing that…
That…
“Wait” Miasma said, dropping the crucifix to his chest and pulling the bible that had slipped to the floor from his lap, to the first page.
“December 2, Evight Von Hassel…” Miasma said, a claw scraping gently at the page, smearing a droplet of wet ink on his hand. He looked up at Jim and Jim nodded back, a look of bewilderment. This was it. This was the beginning of the end. From this point on, they would know the secrets hidden in this place.
They would learn of those who haunt these grounds. Who haunts this blood stone. Who seemed to be everywhere and nowhere around them,, as if this whole area now was swallowed up in the belly of a great whale. And the darkest of days were now upon them. And with the weight returning to their shoulders, Jim swallowed and crawled from his seat on the floor back towards miasma and held the diary open, while Miasma pointed out the people in the photograph. And as their bated breath halted in their chests, it seemed the air was slowly being sucked out of the room out the open door, that seemed to hang ever so slightly as if perhaps, it might creak shut, and close it’s maw on the Preacher Man, and the Traitorous Ghoul, who sat together, much the same way another certain preacher had sat with the whores, the tax collectors, the poor, the sick, the leperous lame and blind. A support to his friend. And soon, they would know the fate of those who lived and died here. And they hoped they would use the choice words in their precious books to find the answers to just, make it out of this bleak world alive… and really.. That’s what should've happened… Had Jim shut the book and left it there… but he didn't. And upon turning the next page. The true hell on earth began, and it wasn’t the hell of the fire and the flames…it was a hell on earth. And it was ice cold, and far from any god’s grace…
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As this tumblr-thing is a brand new project for me, I'm planning on doing my first real update on what I want to do with this blog this weekend!
The idea was to make it a space where I could share my, you guessed it, Frozen observations. I will share memories and experiences I've had with this franchise and the fandom and maybe I can get some of my fandom friends to share theirs as well 😁
And a short hint about what's coming later:
As I'm a bit of a Frozen nerd and someone who takes everything about Arendelle very seriously, I've made quite a few fandom/analysis projects in the past years. I want this to be a space to promote and share them, together with arts and edits that I occasionally make. As for other things, I've made a list of possible upcoming stuff that can hopefully become recurring topics. There is a lot to unpack and I know there is a lot of exciting work ahead. I hope I'll create some new memories along the way!
three pm. the color yellow. walks everywhere barefoot. oversized t-shirts. can make anyone laugh. a bit crazy.
five pm. warm smiles. classy. aesthetic instagram feed. anklets. soft music. yoga. face masks.
eight pm. netflix. cuddles warm sheets. indoors life. loves singing but can’t. sweats. never sleeps.
midnight. driving at night. flirty. neon lights. wears a lot of read. neon lights. big sunglasses. karaoke.
three am. tired eyes. small sketchbooks. pressed flowers. stargazing from the window.
Definitely ten am, I probably have a caffeine addiction by now, and will forget your brithday but I wont forget that you like frogs and your favourite colour. I don't really have a favourite movie if I'm honest, though my comfort movie is Pride and Prejudice (2006) if that counts for anything
Happy Saturday, hope y'all can make the most out of your weekend!
