a short story in praise of the season of people giving away their pumpkin lattes they thought would be good but they ended up disliking. will update every week night until oct. 24th. ch. ☠ It came in the night, whispering and pleading and shaking your shoulders. Its voice was sharp, detached as if it wasn't really speaking but some horrific god was placing voices in your head. Dark fingers stroked your back, tickling and tingling the senses and it smelled like animal fur and musk. Like tar it pressed down on your chest threatening to keep you there, to confine you. There was no choice or semblance of one. You had to go - if only to stop the screaming ache of the Call. The lurking feeling of immortal and everlasting unhingedness threatening the man who resisted the Call dispelled itself only late the next evening as you stepped from your doorway. A small pack of supplies and a near-dead flashlight were the only things resting upon you besides the Call and the clothes loosely tethered about your body. Water bottle, matches, pocketknife, rope. Your parents wouldn't miss the items, no matter their true indespensibility. The sun was setting, a brilliant display of colour exploding across the sky then imploding into a single, piercing sun dipping below the horizon. A chill wind washed through you, rattling your thin bones through your jacket and jeans. ch. ⌚ The front of the house was hidden behind layers of forest and gnarled ravines slashing through the landscape. It had gotten darker, and you couldn't help chewing at your lips and grinding your chattering teeth. The closer you got the more compelled and sure you felt about entering. Wood steps and a worn exterior gave a blackening sense of words muddled and confusing but clear enough to tell you to leave and never come back but you couldn't resist the Call. Even bugs flooded through the cracks and crevices and broken windows, heeding the Call that clicked and clacked and scattered and scarred their tiny brains, not knowing that their fate was that of the post-executioned. An iron door knock smiled and laughed and cackled from its perch as you swung it, and the thick wood below groaned at the force. You shook at the desperate noise. No one answered, so you tapped the doorknob and the door ran open, pulling you in as your hand grasped the brass knob. You stared into the foggy glow of khaki walls and left-burning candles dripping wax from the ceiling only to find that the door had left your hold and was closed and the melting wax was melting ceiling lights sparking and smoldering on what they touched. A dizziness encased you, hugging and shaking you. The floor was sinking beneath your feet. You staggered through the quicksand back towards the entryway but - there was not a handle on this side. There was no way to get out but you scraped and scratched at the wood anyway, desperate for some escape like an agnosiatic claustrophobe caught in a cage and snarling and chewing steel bars. Floorboards splintered and stuck into your skin as you sink to your neck, bloody and trapped and banging what's left of your fists against the door. You close your eyes in fear, not ready to accept your fate but having hardly a choice and truly expecting your breath gone in a moment's time. But then a wondrous thing happened - it stopped. Your eyes flicker open and you see that you're not sinking but laying on the floor and your nails are busted and bleeding but the rest of your body remains unharmed and the hall - the hellish hallway - was as any other hallway, dim lights above and boring walls lining a narrow strip of floor, perfect straightness marred only by small tables here and there jutting out in wooden ataxia and displaying vases of flowers. Somebody had to be living there - the flowers were fresh and the lights were lit so brightly they had to have been just reset to new bulbs. However, though relieved, the mortification was too much for the thin raphe of your mind and like your breath had been stolen, you fainted strewn upon the ground. +END PART ONE+
Thank you very much. <3 Just a short update today. ch. ☢ You woke to nothing but cold dust and a dull ache in your head. There were thick sheets across your body, compressing your chest. Velvet - they were velvet, strangling you with their aged fluff falling from fabric and choking your throat. The canopy above war embroidered in gold, pink, purple threads, but the design swam before your eyes. You needed your glasses. You reached up to your face and couldn't feel them, so you laboriously pushed the heavy, musty covers from your body and swung your legs over the side of the bed. The floor was hard and cold like ice beneath your feet. A warm liquid seeped out and touched your heel tentatively, playfully. At the surprise you stumbled backwards, landing on your ass. You'd fell on something, you could feel it beneath you. Warm, about the size of your fist. It gave a sharp, but weak squawk as you eased off of it. You reached below, grabbing it. Wet, meaty. Feathers. You brought it closer to your face to see it. A bird. It was a bird - it's wings and legs ripped fresh from it's body, leaving gaping holes through which you could see its organs and veins, giving a chuckling squeak as you squeeze it. Blood is thicker than water and water thicker than oil, and avian fluids ran down your arm, staining the sleeve of your shirt. You were shaking, biting your lip. You threw the animal across the room, tiny intestines and stomach and liver falling from it as it flew. A cold sweat enveloped you. This wasn't right, couldn't possibly be right. In a daze you reached out, grabbing where you could and trying to find your glasses, your bag, something, anything you could use. Finally you caught hold of your glasses and, after rubbing the lenses with your hem, put them on. You were first relieved by the clarity of your vision, then astounded and afraid and confused. Three deep gashes ripped through the headboard, exposing the grain of the wood. Purple smoke and bubbling liquids were oozing through cracks in the printed wallpaper. The smell of animal piss and sawdust became evident, irritating your nose. There was blood and pus smeared over your t-shirt. The bird, you must have killed the bird, you must have been the one who ripped its appendages and tore its feeble life. Like an astrocyte of cancerous and intangible madness you were the one who initiated this terror. You stood, not touching anything more, found your bag, and ran.
ch. ♘ Of course, the first door you tried was a bathroom - likely the master, judging by its large size. You opened the lid of the toilet, ready to retch in it if nothing else, but spiders and snakes were rolling and toiling and writhing in the bowl. You swallowed your awful bile, stumbling backwards and falling into the shower curtains. The shower head burst into life, spurting melted scorpions and fangs attached to the ends of long streams of dark purple and blue liquid like snakes. You shrieked, manifesting your current horror into one belting scream. You rolled from the shower, skin stinging where the dark liquid had already touched you. You bolted from the bathroom and out the other exit from the bedroom. Down the hall was what looked to be an exit. There were stairs, as well, both up and down. The second floor? The third? You had no clue, but it mattered not. If you could leave, that would be all that you needed. Yet, even that idea of leaving seemed painful - the Call still held you tightly. Either choice you could have made, you still ran into the dark room at the end of the hall. The smell of rot and dusty books was overpowering, but you couldn't see. It should have been day outside, but every place you went the windows showed only an endless, black void. Thinking back, the bedroom shouldn't have been so bright, there was no ceiling lamp... Your hands patted over the walls, searching for a light. There were knobs and levers that you could feel, but no light switch. Reluctantly, you pulled out the flashlight. It was dim, almost dead. The area you could see was still small, but better than a full dark. The first thing you saw was a thick line of white chalk paint, rounded. It curved inwards, and you shone the dying beacon around, revealing an archaic circle. Triangles, ovals, ellipses, pentagons, all were a part of this one grand design and in the middle - in the middle was a Something. You stepped closer, trying to reveal the identity of the hulking chunk of thing. There were teeth, bones - you thought you could see ripped muscles and split organs all trying to be one entity, pressing together so close that they repelled each other.
