#✦ 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 * mandela catalogue verse.

[cataschism]

➤ closed starter for @hcsuffered.

Terror, Six believes, comes hand in hand with life. There’s no amount of living that can beat this world in all of its horrors             /             its unfairness             /             its cruelties. Never pausing for breath. Six is the last person to believe that truly & without losing everything, the world can change for one person, or because of one person’s heart. Six has seen its own limbs grow to enormous, horrifying lengths, much like one would expect more of fungal parasites than of a living person. ( eat, eat, eat. )

Double - digits. What a far away concept.

Even more so, in a world full of things             /             things like Six, without being Six, being more Nines or Twos or things of that nature. They had horrible faces and unfaces, features without features and skin that’s so raw & bleeding it’s unlike the fabric of reality itself. Six does not truly exist without being in the mind of people that fear Six, and without those people, Six cannot be sure its truly alive or breathing. Even with the knowledge that its body is concrete, that its real & tangible             /             without sight or fury, it might just disappear.

Such is the way.

In the open plains of the world as it’s come to exist, with the Alternates such as Six roaming around freely             /             stealing people’s identities and their livelihoods from underneath them, forcing suicide after suicide among the masses for looking at their faces             /             their voices even cause discreet harm, replaying & replaying & replaying with such an insistence that it’s hard to ignore. Impossible, even. Calling out from the voices of loved ones to beg you for mercy             /             to come inside the house, please, Mark, the last thing you need to do is get caught by one of those things           /           why aren’t you listening? don’t you trust the sound of my voice? ( eat, eat, eat. ) stupid boy. idiot boy. didn’t you always know you’d be found, eventually?

Six has covered its eyes with a yellow raincoat, although muddied now by the cross country journey of its wanderings, aimless and never ending, it has done its part. Unlike the other Alternates its witnessed and laid hands upon, all Six remembers is this pronounced feeling of starvation             /             terribleness & terror & negligence of the self all mixed into one             /             Six is not without feeling, but without fullness, like narcissists begging for more attention.

Unlike other Alternates, as well, Six cannot speak, but translates through intentions. Actions, as one might say. Intentions to hurt, to eat, to turn invisible. But, much like all the rest, hungering beasts devouring prey, songs numbing pain             /             Six can feel the presence of non - Alternates. The presence of a victim, waiting to be caught. ( eat, eat, eat. )

Six doesn’t think the victim has noticed it, yet. It’s still small, only taking the appearance of a nine - year - old child, gender both undetermined in its intentions and in its exterior             /             with a muddied yellow raincoat, brown & red. In the rain, it might even just look odd, out of place             /             but not dangerous. who could fear such a little, pathetic wet thing out in the rain, tummy rumbling, practically crying for help ?  ( eat, eat, eat. )

Those who would consider Six not dangerous would not survive the night. ( eat, eat, eat. )

[cataschism]

previous.      mark cursed at himself for not saving enough money for proper shelter   ———   just short of a few dollars for some nights at a motel room. at least he wouldn’t be concerned for FOOD as the necessity for such is seemingly absent from his being entirely. head lowered, mark hadn’t realized that he had passed a PECULIAR SIGHT. a presence that existed as an odd shiver down his spine. he blinked once then turned to notice the figure within the yellow raincoat.      a child? NO   ———   the flowers that grew within his lungs elicited the same shiver. any sight seen within mandela county should be taken with a CAUTIOUS approach. decades have already passed since that night yet the memories are FRESHLY INTACT in his mind’s eye. “…Are you alone?” mark finally uttered out in a monotonous voice.

The only gods left in the world were the temples of the people they struck down             /             inside of their bellies & their minds will the gods’ mold - ridden artifacts             /             the remnants of their THRONES, sniveling & childish will remain. Six knows God by the strength of their bloated belly, pudgy             /             & full, and has not met him again since their first day awake. Wandering the earth, remembering God’s sweet melody             /             & the feeling of their belly when they last ATE ( eat, eat, eat. ) what a wonderful feeling!

Raining in the country - side adjacent             /             the kind of town that’s got everything & nothing that you need ( no safety, all empty homes. we’re coming to you live, )              /             densely packed & not, not after the Alternates             /             Six waits and wears for meal after meal, finding nothing, not even a rat in the garbage             /             their stomach shrinks & shrinks, unable to deny its hunger!

Almost too good to be true, when a living person approaches              /             isn’t it? What hope is there left in a world where justice no longer matters, & it’s end all - be all ? Truth & fairness, those things died with the temples of bodies, ( bodies, bodies, eat, eat, eat. ) still rotting in their living rooms, necks loose             /             news cast after news cast, & nothing changes / no one can truly identify an Alternate before their mind’s CRACKING apart             /             & waiting for the sweet movement of getting out of bed to find their release             /             anything that stops the smiling, incessant             /             & just like ‘ you. ’ mark, mark. EAT, EAT.

❛ …mm? ❜ The child’s             /             the not - child, the CHANGELING ’s voice is small             /             an unbecoming trait of something so lethal. Six dare not turn around             /             they know their face, eat, eat, they know its consequences             /             a smile ever so present & a body ever so wilting, defiant, wilting, alien, alien, alien.

<<look away.>>

Hard to bring to the fore - front their INTENTIONS             /             how to make him look away? in the end, no way             /             he has to trust his intuition, & if his intuition tells him to get closer, well maybe             /             maybe             /             they’ll eat? finally? please, please, they’ve never been so hungry. ( mark, mark, mark. )

<<turn away. go away.>>

❛ …mm, ah. ❜ Their vocal chords weren’t made for speaking, and truthfully even these moans of noise hurt their throat. It feels like agony.              /               Anything for a meal. A duel in its head: it doesn’t want to eat him, but it wants to eat.             /             even monsters scream at the sight of their bloodied meals, sockets still attached, staring back up at Six, crying.