Week 6, Title: Death Forms
Jan. 22nd, 2016 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swirlsofpurpleHe wakes to the scent of blood. The smell is familiar, but the nagging hunger it incites is not. One glance at his surroundings and his lips part in shock; bodies- bloody and maimed and dismembered as far as his eyes can see.
They are still here, he realises, their presence screams at him. Their deaths press against his flesh, cloying. Fingers crawl into his mouth, strangle his tongue, push against the crevasse where eye meets nose. It’s suffocating.
A sharp pained cry of a trampled hand. A cold aching helplessness of falling. A panicked, hopeful running. Pushing, pushing, trying to escape. A throng of hurt and despair and agony and will to survive, to save, to help. A mother’s concern for her child. A cascade of all that should have and could have been and need to be. A child’s soft confused whimper. An anger. A strength. A hollow resignation. A weary relief. Echo upon echo upon echo.
Every breath he breathes them in, their icy spectres rending his body and engulfing his mind with feelings that are not his own.
He’s rocking on the floor, fingers fist his hair; his own he thinks. It’s too much. He owes it to them to stay, to allow them in. He can’t. Can’t. Can’t. Never knew there could be so much to feel.
He runs.
*
They dog his steps. He keeps running long after he should be able. Until he reaches fallow ground. There is nothing here. No emotion at all. Except his own. He lets out a shuddery breath. He sits in the emptiness for a while. His head in his hands, he puts his own fingers in his mouth, mimicking their presence.
His stomach is making odd yawning sounds. He keeps running his tongue along his teeth, it’s a tick. They are different somehow, sharper. He needs people, blood. He doesn’t know how he knows this.
He hovers around the fringes of where he can feel, moves slowly, adjusting.
It’s amazing how many shades of emotion a human being can feel at once, subtle and loud and persistent, some they don’t even realise they’re experiencing. It’s also agonising. Their every-day lives. He can’t get near. This is his punishment. This is his hell.
If he drinks from them it will hurt less. He will feel less. He knows this somehow. Instinct.
*
His teeth tear at them as they tear at him. They scream. He screams with them. He could quieten them, put them to sleep. It would be easier for them and him. But this isn’t supposed to be easy.
He runs his nails across his cheeks and neck and torso, scratches his eyelids. Tries to rip the humans out of him. Tries to rip this out of himself. The wounds heal too quickly, glossing over his well-earned flagellation.
*
He drinks deep. He can still feel the deaths against his undead skin, though foggy now. Their form lures him in. He is one of them.
He drinks and drinks and drinks.
*
His fingers hold them close and rip them apart, drinking his fill, piling corpses high.
He hears them scream and cry.
He is indifferent.
They are still here, he realises, their presence screams at him. Their deaths press against his flesh, cloying. Fingers crawl into his mouth, strangle his tongue, push against the crevasse where eye meets nose. It’s suffocating.
A sharp pained cry of a trampled hand. A cold aching helplessness of falling. A panicked, hopeful running. Pushing, pushing, trying to escape. A throng of hurt and despair and agony and will to survive, to save, to help. A mother’s concern for her child. A cascade of all that should have and could have been and need to be. A child’s soft confused whimper. An anger. A strength. A hollow resignation. A weary relief. Echo upon echo upon echo.
Every breath he breathes them in, their icy spectres rending his body and engulfing his mind with feelings that are not his own.
He’s rocking on the floor, fingers fist his hair; his own he thinks. It’s too much. He owes it to them to stay, to allow them in. He can’t. Can’t. Can’t. Never knew there could be so much to feel.
He runs.
*
They dog his steps. He keeps running long after he should be able. Until he reaches fallow ground. There is nothing here. No emotion at all. Except his own. He lets out a shuddery breath. He sits in the emptiness for a while. His head in his hands, he puts his own fingers in his mouth, mimicking their presence.
His stomach is making odd yawning sounds. He keeps running his tongue along his teeth, it’s a tick. They are different somehow, sharper. He needs people, blood. He doesn’t know how he knows this.
He hovers around the fringes of where he can feel, moves slowly, adjusting.
It’s amazing how many shades of emotion a human being can feel at once, subtle and loud and persistent, some they don’t even realise they’re experiencing. It’s also agonising. Their every-day lives. He can’t get near. This is his punishment. This is his hell.
If he drinks from them it will hurt less. He will feel less. He knows this somehow. Instinct.
*
His teeth tear at them as they tear at him. They scream. He screams with them. He could quieten them, put them to sleep. It would be easier for them and him. But this isn’t supposed to be easy.
He runs his nails across his cheeks and neck and torso, scratches his eyelids. Tries to rip the humans out of him. Tries to rip this out of himself. The wounds heal too quickly, glossing over his well-earned flagellation.
*
He drinks deep. He can still feel the deaths against his undead skin, though foggy now. Their form lures him in. He is one of them.
He drinks and drinks and drinks.
*
His fingers hold them close and rip them apart, drinking his fill, piling corpses high.
He hears them scream and cry.
He is indifferent.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 07:48 am (UTC)Well done!
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 07:57 am (UTC)I really liked this description--this sense of being trapped by choices you never wanted to make, of never being able to escape something like evil that has crept inside you and taken over against your will.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 07:00 pm (UTC)Mwahaha, isn't horrific beauty the best kind ;).
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 05:40 pm (UTC)Well, I'm all for the 'author is dead' approach, so they can be whatever you think they are ;).
no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 05:42 pm (UTC)Ooh, I hadn't even thought of that but I do love firefly.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-24 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 10:37 pm (UTC)Brrr. So cold. I like the way you built to that. The way the language becomes sparse toward the end is very effective.
(And I'm glad to be on a team with you!)
no subject
Date: 2016-01-26 05:23 pm (UTC)Also really glad to be on a team with you :).
no subject
Date: 2016-01-26 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-26 05:24 pm (UTC)