asimplesimmerson-blog - Tumblr blog

asimplesimmerson-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Broken People

I had a feeling when I saw her that she was the one. The exact everything I’d read about. A few differences here and there: the facelessness wasn’t well documented, that was certain. And neither had I imagined her corporeality to be so ill defined; a thrill of red to the right, a soft quaking of steel tremors to the left; flitting restlessly in the humming darkness. I suppose she was the darkness. The stony silence was suddenly a full-throated sigh. The rocks clutch at the brim of her skirt; cover their nakedness behind her buzzing hips.

And here I am, hundreds of feet below surface level. My lamp slowly dying; overwhelmed by this viscous darkness that keeps tearing through its light like a hand through smoke. Little particles of it dance across the floor and vanish, like a living thing with its guts being pulled from their casing. And as I watch this bizarre phenomenon taking place, I realize it isn’t just dying. The light is being eaten; swallowed in ravenous gulps.

As this is happening, I feel in me that pang of hunted horror that every hungered after thing dreads. Cold scorched nostrils reel in the terror and thrust it out in cloudy gusts, growing ever larger as the panic leaps between the gaps in my teeth. My mouth opens; someone should hear me. If anyone, God. One last shout into the world just to let it know I lived. But nothing comes.

But there is also in her a shuddering grip of something else. Survival is comprised of two very important factors: fear, the driving force of life, and sex, which ensures the continuation of life. These are two inherently distinct survival mechanisms that very very rarely, if ever, get conflated. I’ve had a girlfriend or two that liked a handprint left on her ass that she could admire the next morning, but that is a very peculiar type of fear-sex situation. Not often when a man is lost in the woods with his heart glued to the roof of his mouth, pupils dilated to manic proportions, does he stop to consider that whatever is lurking just out of periphery is there to slip its tongue between his teeth.

But right now, I feel it. I feel that rising heat in my gut; a quickness to my breath. That feeling of expectancy; like the dry chill across the front of my tongue the first night I saw Rachel, standing there at the bar with lips pursed wryly at the corners like it knew a delightfully dreadful secret that the rest of her face didn’t. Rachel. I am thinking about Rachel. But no, I’m not? I can’t be. Not the love I felt for her the first time she fell into my arms, sobbing into my chest, while I kissed the crown of her head. Not the heavy pressure of her sleepy head on my chest when she stayed with me that night; the sound of rain catching in my gutters, lulling us to sleep. In fact, I’m not thinking of Rachel at all, I realize. The memories are surfacing as the thrill between my legs grows, but this is just a desperate attempt to rationalize; to latch onto something familiar when a situation so undoubtedly alien occurs. No, I’m feeling her legs wrapped around the back of me; hot breath against the hitch in my throat. The slick unknown tangled in my fingers with a belt buckle banging against my wrist. Rachel is here, but only for the convenience of knowing what I want. The horror of this realization chokes me senseless for a moment

until I realize this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

I’ve found her. The huldra. The Siren. The Medusa. There are a thousand names for her. Every myth just a bit different, but all so inherently the same. I also know that I need to leave. Self-preservation demands that I turn on my heel and run. It’s the only way to deal with this kind of monster. I know that too well. It’s how Rachel finally got away from me.

But I’m here in this stinking pit for a reason. Decades of research have prompted this meeting: Late nights in haunted forests. Years and years of smelling like the underbelly of a rotten log. Fear driven all-nighters in places where I couldn’t scream for help even if I wanted to. The stakes had always been high. I wasn’t about to walk away now.

So I speak to her instead:

“Hello?” that seemed a reasonable enough introduction to a hungry, swirling mass of sexual energy, but it was met with silence. I step forward and try my luck again.

The darkness recoils somewhat, but still no response.

“I just want to talk. I’ve—”

“LEAVE.” The stalactites rattle. It isn’t a voice. Just a rush of air escaping the cave.

“I’ve been looking for you. For a long time.” I take another step deeper into the darkness. Still she retreats from me; presses herself into the walls. The cracks between the rocks shimmer with veins of her. My lamp is still breathing low, but somewhat easier now that she’s backed off, “I’m not here to make you do anything. I honestly just wanted…to see you.”

“w-woman?” the breeze that whisks by me is coarse, unrefined, but distinctly incredulous.

“Yes, I’m a woman. And are you…woman?”

“d-doesn’t ma-atter. Leave!” the wind is shrill. Scared perhaps? I’m not too sure. There isn’t enough inflection in a rush of air to determined nuanced emotion.

“please,” I gently lower myself to the ground, groaning slightly as I realize the floor is about three inches deep with water, “I just want to talk.”

Silence. I accept it as acquiescence.

“How long have you been down here?” I ask, fishing for my camera. She might not show up on tape, but I can at least bring something back home. For who? For Rachel? She doesn’t ever want to see me again. But I’m already filming.

“Al-ways.” She answers curtly. Bits of her ooze from the little nooks she’s crammed herself inside.

“Why? Why are you down here?”

“Wh-y you uuuup?” the sound of her makes the water ripple around me. My teeth chatter. The water is quickly seeping through my jeans, surrounding my most delicate areas. For a moment I regret not pursuing a more tropically situated monster.

“well, for one, it’s warm up there. I like that—”

“warm yyyyessss!” the sudden rush of wind takes my breath away. I pull my coat closer around me, but it isn’t doing much good. “L-ike warm!”

“What are you?” I ask, hoping to tempt her with a warmer topic.

“c-cold.” She sighs.

“I can relate to that.” I feel icicles forming around my nostrils. Rachel always said you can tell if the temperature is below zero when your snot freezes inside your nose. I had asked her if she’d consulted the scientific method for that theory. I feel her laughter; taste her tongue. The warmth of her hands as they slide up my arms.

“Is this you? Is this you making me think about…” I stop to suck on my teeth, trying to decide if an amalgamous sex monster actually has any reference for what constitutes human sex. I decide that it probably doesn’t, “this feeling?”

“yes.” She replies. The lack of hesitation takes me by surprise.

“Why? What are you? What does this accomplish?” The water has risen past my thighs at this point. My entire lower body is engulfed. I’m outright fitfully shaking but only partially from the cold.

“Did you know,” Rachel narrows her eyes, and I lean forward to hear what she has to tell me. Girls like Rachel aren’t necessarily out of my league, but you must approach them with the utmost caution lest they be of a…straighter variety. She hadn’t recoiled when I leaned up against the bar beside her, which is always an excellent sign. She takes a delicate sip of her drink; just the tips of her dark lips wetting the straw which allows a small stream of soda water to trickle out the side of her mouth. She tactfully wipes it away with the edge of her thumb. In the same, calculated movement, she catches my gaze and smiles, just ever so slightly. I swallow. Hard.

“Did you know,” she continues, mildly clearing her throat, “Medusa is a story about feminism.”

I scoff. “I mean, I took a gender studies class, but that doesn’t change the fact that medusa gets her head cut off.”

She shrugs and turns back to the bar.

“Not saying you’re wrong in any way,” I stammer, backtracking. I’m not about to lose her, even if she is bringing up basic third wave feminism at a fucking monster-con, “I’m just saying it’s a shame that we lose all the good ones.”

“A real shame.” She turns back to me; a coy half-smile poised at the edge of her mouth. I have a feeling she knows my game, but I’m not about to let that eat me up inside. You do what you have to do to keep a pretty girl’s attention and I’ve always been good at turning situations in my favor.

“Men ruin her. Then they blame her for being ruined. Then they kill her. Classic patriarchal scheming.” I speciously muse, taking the opportunity to soak in the heavy curve halfway down the middle of her blood red dress.

“It’s just a real shame nobody simply asked her to give her head away.” She replies, ignoring the weight of my scrutiny.

“Give her head away?” I stifle a quick laugh, “I’m…not sure that’s…I’m…I don’t think that’s how things work.”

“You’d be surprised what broken people will give away if someone just asks,” She brings her drink up to her mouth, but this time she holds the straw ever so gently between the points of her teeth. Like a wolf bitch with her marrow-loving jaws around the neck of her pup.

“That’s…” I furrow my brow, “an interesting take on the story. I suppose?” I’m not sure what to make of that turn in conversation, so I steer back to something I’m more than comfortable navigating: small talk.

“So what do you do?” I ask cordially, waving down the bartender so I can preemptively buy her a new drink before she sucks the one in her hand dry. That’s always the excuse they use to leave you.

She bites down on her straw with an almost excited snarl; peeling her lips back from those sharp teeth.

“I hunt monsters.”

The memory breaks. My arms shoot from water. Newborn crystalline sculptures of what they once were. I want to scream, but I’m gasping; floundering in the darkness. The cold surrounds me like a vice. Tugging my limbs down into the tenebrous lake that has now risen well past my shoulders. I try to stand, but the muscles in my legs are useless against this cold. The wind is whipping past my ears; slapping me across the face; digging into my eyes.

“Stop!” I’m hoarse, barely able to shape my mouth to form the words, “I’m not here to hurt you!” The wind slows enough that I can open my eyes. Not that it matters. Without my lamp, I’m blind.

“Th-en wh-at?” The voice sounds closer; more like a voice than just the scraping of air against the cavern.

“I just,” I gasp as the tears come. Without a hand to wipe them away, they freeze halfway down my cheeks just to sit there and burn, “I needed to find you. I’m not a fucking monster hunter! I just needed to show her that I found you. That—so that she—she’d love me again. This is the only way. You can do that for me. Please, just let me get her back. Please. I don’t know what you are, but surely you understand this. I fucked up and I need her! I fucking need her! Give her to me! Please! Please!” And my pleading transcends to a raucous squeal without shape or intelligence. I’m wailing senselessly with the ever-rising water lapping at my open mouth.

And I feel her rather than hear her. The capricious lilt in her voice. Her soft bottom lip gently sliding along the base of my earlobe.

“Yes, I can do that for you,” She pulls away from me. Her! Rachel! There in the darkness with me! Soft light, something reminiscent of moonlight, streams from the pores in her skin, setting the cavern ablaze. Her long red hair ripples like a throng of garter snakes around her shoulders; writhing all the way down to the small of her back. She stands, and in the dim light I can see every curve of her naked body. It’s her.

But The darkness I’d been conversing with begins to pour from the cave walls; thousands of little rivulets slithering up the back of her. They bury into her joints and soft points, working her muscles like fingers beneath a table cloth. She sways from side to side like a marionette. I’m both horrified and transfixed as I watch her hands grope her newly formed body. And all those sinewy little ropes hanging from the wall begin to detach. They slither through the holes they’ve made in her skin and disappear.

The water is also beginning to recede. It isn’t until its nearly gone that I see the stream of it traveling up her legs; twisting around her kneecaps, across her rounded belly. Her mouth is unhinged at a startling angle, waiting for the water to pour in. All the while she stares at me; hands groping at her breasts like an animal; yellow eyes gaping like two hungry mouths in the dark. I’d never seen anything so ineffably horrifying in my entire life as the rebirth of Rachel, my loving bride.

She takes a shaky step in my direction; heels buckling like a toddler who’s learning to walk. The vile lurching motion elicits a fearful moan deep from inside me. But still, I’m locked in place; my limbs still buckled with cold. Her legs are too new to take her more than a few steps, and she lets herself fall with a sickening slap against the slab of rock below. Apparently unfazed by any sort of human understanding of pain, she starts crawling toward me. The sides of her mouth are wet with water and spit as it’s pushed back up from her stomach. Hand over hand, she’s dragging herself toward me; fingernails digging into the rock; ripping from their beds. Instead of blood, water seeps from the delicate skin underneath. I manage to skitter back a few feet, but not fast enough to outpace her. She’s upon me in a second; her leaking face sliding up my pant leg and into my lap. Her hand slicks around my wrist. And then I scream. I fucking scream loud enough to tear my throat. I feel the trickling blood running down into my lungs, but I continue to scream. There’s no fucking reason not to.

“let me be warm again?” She purrs, resting her head on my chest.

Still screaming. No stopping on that front.

She lifts a hand to my face. I whip my head away, but her hand follows. It wasn’t wet like I imagined it would be. In fact, it’s more like velvet; like she is covered in a soft layer of fur. The fingernails she’d lost look like watery little globules now, clearly in the process of regeneration. Soon they’d be just as solid as they once were. I chance a glance at the face I’d found so terrifying only moments before. The yellow eyes had simmered to a gentle hazel. My heartrate falls just a bit. And I start to cough as I let my guard down. Blood bubbles over my chin. She wipes it away with that same thumb she had used to wipe her own mouth the first night I met her.

“Shh Shhh.” She cradles me. Pulls me into her chest. And I sob there, still too cold to make sense of any thought. Everything is too cold. I’m so fucking cold. She pulls my face up to hers. Kisses me. I let her. Warmth returns to her lips as she presses them against mine. I start to kiss her more fervently. The taste of her. It’s the exact taste. I reach my hands to grip the back of her head; to tangle my fingers in that soft, familiar down at the base of her neck. She smiles into my kiss and I know. This is her. This is Rachel. Without a doubt, this is Rachel. I laugh and draw her closer to me. We tumble back onto the black stone, banging our heads and laughing even harder because of it.

“You’re so cold, Rachel.” I pull her even tighter to my chest.

“I’m not that cold,” she giggles, struggling to free herself from my embrace.

“I didn’t mean for you to end up here. But I found her. I found the Medusa. And she brought you here!” I can barely form the sentence. Again, I pull her closer. My hands keep slipping for some reason, like they’re e losing their grip too quickly. It must be the shock of it all.

“It’s the cold,” she remarks, noticing my frustration, “Just give yourself a second.”

“No, it’s too cold for you to be down here,” I’m panting, pawing at her, “I have to keep you warm. I’ll be fine. I made it this far.”

“You made it this far,” she repeats, giving me a quick peck on the cheek, “so let yourself rest.”

“I can’t. I have to keep you warm.” The room is starting to get dark again. I know we need to start heading out soon. Though, I’m unsure how to attempt that without a lamp.

“We should go before the light fades,” she starts to get up, but I yank her back down into the safety of my arms.

“There’s time for that. Let me give you my coat though. You’ll need it in here.” I quickly slip out of my coat and drape it over her naked body, “There. That’ll keep you warm. Let’s lay here for just a second. Let our body heat warm it up before we head out.”

She rolls her eyes, typical, but obediently sidles up to me. I take her again in my fumbling arms; relish the steady rise and fall of her chest. God, it is so cold.

“You ask nicely, and you can get anything you want.” I whisper, teeth chattering so loud I doubted she would hear me. But to my surprise, she whispers back,

“Only if you ask broken people.”

I shrug, “details.”

She’s beginning to feel so much warmer the longer we lay here. That’s great because we should really head out soon. God, it’s cold. I am so cold.

#short story #not sims #writing #medusa #lovecrafian #read this #story

2 notes · View notes