#and flesh decomposition

[unforgivenn]

WHUMPTOBER - DAY 21 BODY HORROR

Tattoo Gun | Spirit Possession | “Let the bedsheet soak up the tears.”

CW: Torture, Body horror, Non-con marking/tattooing, mutilation, physical transformation, Psychological manipulation, Descriptions of blood, bile, and flesh decomposition

The low hum of the machine cut through the air like a whisper from Hell. Whumpee's wrists were strapped down, their skin cold against the steel cuffs, as Whumper prepared the tattoo gun.

Whumpee’s chest heaved, heart hammering inside their chest “Please,” they whimpered, their voice a fragile, broken thing. “Please, I don’t want this.”

Whumper’s face was unreadable, their eyes dark with something far colder than malice. “This is going to hurt,” they murmured, their gloved fingers gently brushing Whumpee’s tear-streaked cheek. The touch was so tender, it almost felt crueler. “But pain makes the body remember. And you? You need to remember me.”

“Please… don’t…” Whumpee’s voice cracked, every word soaked in desperation. Their body trembled, weak tremors against the restraints. “I-I didn’t mean to lie—I didn’t—”

“I know you didn’t,” Whumper replied, calm, like they were discussing nothing more than the time of day. “But you need to learn. There are consequences for secrets.”

The gun buzzed, the sound louder now as the needle hovered near Whumpee’s skin. The ink inside the gun wasn’t black. It wasn’t even red. It was a sickly, yellow-green sludge, thick like bile. Whumper dipped the needle in again, the liquid dripping slowly, like something rotten.

Whumpee’s breath hitched. “No… please…” Their words were barely audible between sobs, tears trailing down their face. “I don’t want to be marked like this…”

Whumper smiled, soft and sinister. “Oh, this isn’t a tattoo,” they whispered, pressing the needle to Whumpee’s collarbone. “This is your punishment.”

The needle pierced flesh.

Whumpee’s scream tore through the room, raw and guttural, the sound of something breaking inside them. It wasn’t just the sharp sting of the needle, though. No, this pain was something far worse. The ink—whatever it was—burned as it seeped into their skin, not like fire, but something alien, something wrong. The liquid crawled under their flesh like it was alive, twisting, writhing, spreading through their veins like a parasite.

Whumper leaned in, their breath hot against Whumpee’s ear. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? This ink binds with your nerves. You’ll feel everything.”

Whumpee’s body convulsed, their chest heaving in violent jerks. The skin around the tattoo puffed and swelled unnaturally, veins bulging and darkening, almost black beneath the surface. The flesh itself began to split, cracking like brittle paper, slowly tearing apart as though something inside was trying to escape.

“N-no… please!” Whumpee gasped, thrashing against the restraints. “It’s spreading—stop it!”

Whumper’s hand came down on their shoulder, pinning them in place with a firm, almost gentle pressure. The touch only made the skin there split further, a nauseating crack and wet squelch filling the room. Whumpee’s body jolted, spasming uncontrollably.

The ink wasn’t staying inside them anymore. It was leaking out, a thick, oozing sludge that dripped onto the table beneath them. The stench hit them instantly—like rotting flesh, festering meat left to decay. It bubbled under the skin, crawling and pulsing, stretching the flesh until it tore further, revealing raw, glistening muscle underneath.

“Look at it,” Whumper whispered, their voice dripping with twisted admiration. “Let the bedsheet soak up the tears. This is what you’ve always been underneath.”

“I-I can feel it—please, it’s moving inside me, please…” Whumpee sobbed, their voice barely holding together.

Then the convulsions became violent. Their bones shifted beneath their skin, cracking with sickening pops in ways bones were never meant to move. Their spine arched unnaturally, jagged pieces of bone pushing through their back, shredding through the already torn skin. Flesh peeled away like paper, hanging in strips, their body dissolving, mutating into something grotesque.

Whumper watched, their eyes gleaming with cruel fascination. “You always hid something disgusting under that pretty face. Now everyone can see.”

The air was thick with the smell of blood, bile, and rot. Whumpee’s throat burned as bile surged up, choking on the taste of copper and decay. Every nerve in their body felt like it was being torn open, the ink still slithering beneath their skin, turning their flesh into a horror of twisted limbs and pulsing, swollen veins.

“Just… kill me…” Whumpee begged, their voice barely more than a ragged breath. “Please…”

Whumper knelt down, gently brushing a bloodstained tear from their cheek. “No,” they whispered, voice soft, almost loving. “Not yet. You still have so much more to feel.”

[persephonaae]

:(

[teethbomb]

I love the new story but if it’s set in 1952 why does everyone dress like it’s the 1920s

[cantdanceflynn]

THANK YOU ALL FOR WAITING FOR YESTERDAYS PROMPT HERES BOTH YESTERDAYS AND TODAYS

[rainbowchewynuggets]

TMA Encore #14b

Not-Martin cannot reach his partner.

Not-Jon isn’t listening. Even now, as the man drags his screeching nightmare of a body around, the end of which is held in unseen space by his masters. The worst part is that he knows it. He knows he has failed to control the hunger, and he still won’t stop. With his back against the wall, he managed to phase through it into a whole new realm of delusion.

NJ: It’s still happening all over the world. We can’t just leave it like this.

Not-Martin could hear Not-Jon’s voice carried through the field of obstacles set between them just after the hellscape had risen.

NM: We weren’t supposed to fix the entire world. We only wanted to undo our part in it.

Not-Jon then told him what he saw in his flash of true omniscience. The apocalypse could still happen a hundred different ways. Not as closely managed as theirs had been, but still teetering on certainty more than either of them had dared to fear.

Not-Martin could almost see it as the image crept out of the crack in the barrier Not-Jon holds between himself and his partner. Not-Martin had had just enough time to question if it’s only true of this world or of every world they’ve attempted to save before perishing the entire possibility. He begged and threatened, finding no argument beyond what has driven them so far. Their mission is over. They don’t belong here. They have no future here. It’s time to go.

He cannot reach his partner.

Not-Martin moves silently through bucking, shifting halls. There is no choice but to do his worst. The long sharp piece of industrial steel in his hand should be enough. The enigma that used to be the prison can’t hurt him at this point, and it isn’t trying to. Not-Jon can barely make controlled use of his abilities and doesn’t want to. He only tries to push Not-Martin away. The two know each other too well for the contest to be swift. Only now, Not-Jon is marred by the degradation of his body and the panic of the threat of premature death. Not-Martin can feel his vulnerability. It draws him forward.

Then, he finds him cornered. Motionless. Staring.

Not-Martin has the perfect shot to do it. Multiple shots. The makeshift dagger twitches in his grip but doesn’t move. He can’t even take a step closer. The grisly fate of being the stronger candidate to carry out this Extinction wrests his will. Cradling Jon as he died and waking up alone in the house on Hill Top Road stretch on for eternity in his memory. A hint slips through the barrier of the sheer enormity of the hunger’s pressure. He feels the fear that the Entities soak up from Not-Jon. The creature knows that if he surrenders, he’d be leaving his heart behind with all of his pain. If they shared it, it would grow until they tore at each other before eventually moving on to the rest of the world. He can’t bring himself to kill them both. It paralyzes him just as it does Not-Martin. He can’t die. He has to hold it all down just the way it is, or the Entities will win.

Not-Martin tries to shut it out, but the hellscape seizes the exposure of fear. It divides the chamber in two and pulls their occupants miles apart. Not-Martin is dragged down through the floor and encased in a cell within layers of brick and cement. Feeling like he’s out of moves, he surrenders to his isolation.

He cannot reach his partner.

~

Tim and Sasha sit in silence on the peninsula as the cracked tape plays.

It stops with a click.

Listening to the tape wasn’t very comforting. It at least prompts them to break the quiet and process things aloud for a while.

Neither of them fully forgive Jon. They had already gleaned that Jon’s worst nature was being pressed by an entity that knew him inside and out. They did try to warn him. Though, they do give him points for realizing his mistake, if too late. They’re both in the same boat with him, really.

Sasha ponders her relationship to agency and risk. When she found out about her death at the hands of the Stranger, she was so afraid and upset because she felt like she had had her life and participation in something important torn away and misused. But now that she’s here, after making her best efforts not to die and not to sit out, she finds that she has still been made into a tool. In hindsight, the right thing to do really was not to participate at all. How could she have known? The trap was shut before she knew it was there.

Tim takes the time to unravel some grief. After losing Danny, he had investigated the death as hard as he did because part of him hoped that he could hunt down whatever did this. As if it could be held accountable. Getting confirmation from Not-Jon that it was something real and evil that could potentially be killed was gratifying. But it all turned out to be so much bigger and deeper than he’d imagined. And now, it’s made its way inside him and his friends. They’re part of that “other”. If he gets up now, his drive to see things set right will only be used against them.

Martin is the most worrying case. It had at first seemed that his outbursts of bravery were signs of him coming out of his shell. In hindsight, it was a sign of something much worse.

They think that perhaps the best, most resilient thing they can do against their tormentors now is nothing.

~

In his quest to find Not-Jon, Martin stumbles upon Not-Martin’s cell through a small hole in the surrounding materials. He almost passed by, thinking it was empty at first. It’s hard to see through the haze that now follows him everywhere.

Not-Martin fails to express his surprise that Martin made it this far and the clear reason why, based on his faded pallor. Martin’s face is unreadable. He reacts mechanically without a word, trying to pry the door of the cell. Not-Martin stops him. It would be better if he stayed. His voice is low, like the hum of air flowing through an empty vessel. Martin lets his discomfort show, if only slightly.

Martin: You could have told me that this apathy thing was part of the Lonely.

Not-Martin muses humorlessly that he wouldn’t have been able to abstain from the Entities’ power either way. This way, he has some leverage.

Martin stifles a bitter frown.

NM:  Are you going after him?

Martin: *heavy sigh* Yep.

NM: Take this.

He gives Martin the sharpened steel. He admits that he’s never going to be able to stop Not-Jon. Martin will have a better chance since Not-Jon won’t be expecting him. He hasn’t been watching Martin for a while. If he’s remorseful enough, he might even hold back.

Martin: It’d be smart to take care of you first, wouldn’t it?

The sharp end of the steel gravitates toward his double’s throat.

NM: Well, I think I’d be good for it at this point. But he won’t play fair if you do. I’ll try my best to stay put.

Martin takes a minute to consider.

He leaves.

~

The fog that follows Martin begins to dissipate as he arrives at the wreckage of the Institute at the very top of the island’s interior. The field of loose boards and shrapnel creates a consistent chaos that makes it difficult to distinguish out-of-place shapes. 

He wades further into the wreckage.

Further. Further.

Suddenly, a mass of metal tines and canvas pulls itself deeper into the junkheap with the sound of crunching glass. He follows.

The heap grades down into a steep hill where larger pieces of rooms slowly drift. There, he finds his target half-submerged in the debris. It shoves away slabs of brick wall and window from the center of the pit, making awful noise. It doesn’t appear to notice as Martin approaches under the din.

Dark purple tissue rises and falls beneath the missing ribs on Not-Jon’s right side. Martin readies the steel dagger.

Closer…

Closer…

Closer…

Martin tightens his fingers and plunges the weapon into the gap. Wet reeking soil and maggots spill out, covering his hand.

Nothing else happens. Martin retracts.

The tissue tightens, but the creature ignores him.

Martin looks for another spot, wondering if he could get away with tearing the thing open neck to hip so that it can’t move.

As if reading his mind, the creature raises its head.

NJ: Your hands are cold.

It speaks in a voice nearly unrecognizable. The faint remains of the voice he knows are what freezes him solid.

NJ: You should have turned around while you still had the chance.

Martin readies himself for an attack, but one doesn’t come.

Not-Jon stops. He hoists himself out of the wreckage and looks at a figure cresting the lip of the pit. Martin turns, and an incredulous thought crosses his mind.

Oh my god, is that Jon?

Jon, a dot in the distance, shouts and throws a pipe at the creature. It misses by several feet, but the creature recoils all the same. The trash starts to shift, rapidly increasing the distance between them and Jon. The creature itself dives into the wreckage and out of sight. Jon scrambles forward, hopelessly outpaced by the still expanding ground.

Martin doesn’t move. Or, he doesn’t try to. The world around him twists and loses definition. The myriad images taken by each movement of his eyes suddenly don’t add up. He feels dizzy. He doesn’t move.

When it finally stops, Jon slides in next to him, panting. He steadies himself on Martin’s arm.

Jon: Are you alright? I-I didn’t mean to do it like that. I was just scared I wouldn’t find you again.

Martin: You... you did that?

Jon has to sit down, more than a little dizzy himself. He gets Martin caught up on his strange developments. When he’s finished, he pushes his disheveled hair back and looks up at him. Martin looks positively ghostly to Jon.

Jon: It’s happening to you too, isn’t it?

Martin nods, sitting down next to him. Up close, he can see that Jon’s clothes are torn and stained in more places than they had been before. So are his own. Two scraggy little rats huddling in a monster’s trash yard. He puts down the dagger.

Martin: It didn’t work. He shrugged it off.

Jon winces and lets his head list forward.

Jon: Right. Of course he did.

Martin: I should have been more suspicious when Not-Martin told me to go for it. But I couldn’t… stop myself, I guess.

He swallows hard.

Marin: Turns out he’s as tied in with the Entities as the other Jon, after all. For all we know, they’ve both been having their strings pulled this whole time.

Jon: And I think I know what their masters want.

Jon outlines a theory he’s been formulating since their departure at the waterfall. He’s being marked on purpose to prepare him to replace Not-Jon as their avatar. Not-Jon is dying too quickly, and Not-Martin is too unmotivated. If Martin marks him with the Lonely, him killing Not-Jon would replicate the replacement ritual that killed the first Jonah. He’s already close with the power he has. That’s why the creature was afraid of Jon. Why he tried to separate him from Martin.

Martin observes that they would just be repeating the cycle again. Jon defeatedly says that he doesn’t think they can escape the cycle, but they can mitigate its trajectory from here. If Jon had control of the hellscape, he could let the others go free. Then, they could come back with a cement truck before Jon loses the will to stay in the enigma. He, Not-Martin, and the intruding Entities would be left to die. The rest of them could go on.

Fog thickens around them.

Martin was seriously considering the plan up until that last part. Assuming that he wouldn't make it out alive had excused him from having to think about where this escapade would lead. If he survived, he would have to live on with the guilt of dooming Jon and being stuck as a creature of the Lonely. The Fears might still escape through him. Reflex tells him to push the thought away, but it doesn’t go. It’s too important.

Blood suddenly rushes through his brain, as if he’d slammed the brake at high speed just before he would have rammed into traffic. His pulse pushes the coldness in his veins out into the air.

The sureness of the plan vanishes. It feels like desperate haggling with a devil that controls all the variables.

Martin: No. I can’t. You can’t. It’s not gonna fix it. You said so before.

Jon: It’s too late, Martin. We have to!

Jon’s voice quivers with palpable uncertainty.

Martin is speechless.

The Lonely turns on them, closes in, and swallows them both.

~

The fear that had just gripped Martin materializes. He can’t find Jon or anyone. The more he calls out, the more he can feel the ice in his body, needling through his muscles and bones. He can’t move. His legs are lead. He has to go find Jon.

Move damn, it. Move.

Hot sears on cold as he takes a single step. Every impulse tells him to stop. They warn that he’s giving up on the only power that gives him an edge. He’ll be vulnerable. Killed. Used.

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t want this.

Another step. He nearly falls. He wants to live. They are going to live through this. It’s the only way.

~

Jon appears to be outside. The hellscape has spread. The civilians all around him are suffering in terror. Their screams and writhing forms are muted and gauzy, as if he exists on a plane apart from them.

He isn’t one of them anymore. He did this to them.

His shadow is too long, too large. He looks down, and all we see is color. Above, the Entities fill the sky.

He feels his connection with them as a person identifies an appendage as an extension of themself. They’re not as devious as he had imagined. Dull, abstract amalgams of the fears of the living more than creatures in their own right. Their “voices” are loud, but they don’t command him with speech. They act on impulse. Their base repulsion at impending death and the desperation to feed are only reflections of that which dwells in their creators. In Jon.

It’s human. Almost pitiful. Though, their endless size makes Jon acutely aware that he is their appendage. They pay no heed as he pleads, “Stop… stop… stop… stop.”

The only path clear of victims lies straight ahead of him, stretching on toward another enormous shape on the horizon. He resolves to follow that path to its conclusion. The haunting chorus wanes behind him as he walks. His shadow passes over a sliver of black. The dagger. He picks it up.

The enormous shape ahead begins to shrink, as if retreating further into the distance. Jon quickens pace to catch it. That coward. He’s not going to let it get away.

The shape shrinks further and further and further until…

Not-Jon tries to talk Jon out of it as he approaches. He tells him about the other possibilities he saw for the apocalypse.

Jon doesn’t reply.

Not-Jon says Jon will never be able to stay in the enigma any more than he has been able to entomb himself. He always knew that he should have and tried many times, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The urge to get out and act always won out.

Jon: I’ll risk it.

Not-Jon: You don’t want this.

Jon: I have to.

Not-Jon: No, you don’t. You shouldn’t.

Jon’s expression twitches, but he keeps coming. He can feel his emotions twist and pull him back form the inside. From the Web. From the Eye. He's sick of being manipulated.

NJ: I’m sorry. I never should have laid this all on your shoulders. I thought that if I had the right to torment anyone over this, it was you. But I could hardly have prevented what happened to me any more than you could prevent what’s happening to you. Trying to take control now–believe me, it won’t make you feel better.

Jon lunges.

Jon: Stop groveling. Do you really expect me to just let it happen and pretend I couldn’t have done anything?

Not-Jon recognizes the exhausted contempt in his rival’s voice. Just as it had from a version of Martin he once knew, who had petrified and ground down to become the one he knows now. Just as it had from the friends he lost a lifetime ago.

He could keep trying to scare his younger self out of this, but he suddenly thinks he’s already done enough damage. Instead, he reaches with difficulty into a long-buried vault to offer something more compassionate. He can feel himself tearing apart as he does.

NJ: It doesn’t have to be that dire.

He says that the best successes he ever had were small–trying to help other people through the ordeal rather than directly tackling a force that always outmatched him. It added up, and lives were spared. It helped him keep going.

Jon’s expression grows complicated.

Jon: They won’t be spared if they die at the end.

NJ: They might not.

Jon: Prove it.

He searches his double’s eyes when an answer doesn’t come.

Jon: You don’t believe a word of what you’re saying.

The worn, scarred hands that hold the dagger back tremble with exhaustion.

Not-Jon: No. I… I can’t.

Jon pushes with all his might, the dagger’s edges biting at his hand. But the broken man is still made of iron. Still trying to force him to obey with the power he insists he doesn’t want.

Frustration boils in Jon’s chest. With little hesitation, he burrows into Not-Jon’s mind to force him to give up rather than being coerced himself. To tear away whatever resilience is still holding the creature up.

That’s where he finds it. The obsession that has grown in him like a tumor over decades. There is nothing to hold or take away. It is an absence. An abyssal certainty of doom.

Grasping at the nothing inside of Not-Jon brings Jon an epiphany.

It only makes sense. Thinking that life could continue after the worst-case scenario would contradict the urgency of the mission that keeps him from giving in to the Entities. At the same time, his masters need that fear to manipulate their puppet and sustain themselves.

The cycle turns on that certainty. Questioning it might be the only way out.

Jon could radically, illogically trust the road ahead and hope for the best, making whatever improvements are within his reach. In that way, at least, he cannot be controlled by his fear or despair.

The thought is asinine. It goes against every value of logic he has. The thought of the inherent risk alone is killing him.

Not-Jon reads it in his face, the jagged steel point inches from his chest.

NJ: You understand now, don’t you?

Jon sets his jaw.

Jon: You lied to us–threatened us–because you said it was the only way. But did you actually try trusting us before? Or was that another lie?

NJ: We did. Many times. They always got to you in the end and drove you apart. Most of you didn’t even make it past Prentiss. I had to try something else when I felt the ceiling starting to come down on me.

Jon: So it was more reliable to manipulate us to put us where you wanted us. You didn’t actually intend for us to get killed.

Not-Jon needs a moment to summon another breath.

NJ: Wasn’t planning on it.

Jon: But if it hadn’t worked, you would have done worse.

The creature has to steady itself, but he manages a nod without looking away.

Jon: Because what can’t you afford to do when the alternative is oblivion?

Not-Jon holds his steadfast gaze.

NJ: Would you honestly have done any better if you were me?

Jon: Well, like you said. I don’t have to be you.

————

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[mechahero]

//Sure, Lambda's cute and all but it's not so fun once his skin starts sloughing off and his limbs detach because he's decomposing.

[trollbreak]

Eiteth horrors <3

[d0omzdayfursuitz]

i remember this one post thing where it was like "rot sounds so much scarier than decompose" and. No. Rot is deterioration. Like your flesh falls off, sure, but. worms and maggots approach you rapidly. Decomposition is everything. Oh this bird wants a strand of your hair? Yeah sure! And also the flesh is so fragile and rotted that the action gives the beetles a new entry to your cracked skull.

[abyssopelagicstar]

Really fucking degraded this year wow

[themindelectricdemo4]

Hehe! You'll never find me! *hides in a tree stump & rots with the passage of time

[sticcmann]

Silas birchtree is far superior than Bipper and Bord as a bill cipher possession. Silas is already dead, we don’t have to feel bad for the possessed person. Silas is already dead, he smells like rotting flesh which he is. Silas is already dead, Bill influences the decomposition process, turning the skin yellow. Silas is already dead, Bill has to build his portal before the body completes the cycle of decay. He has a little cult. He married every woman in town. He goes on television and reads trapezoid smut. Final scene, Silas rambles about “this not being over” while having bullet wounds all over his body, dehydrated, burning. What a guy

[my-morbid-fantasies]

A dakhma (Persian: دخمه), also known as a Tower of Silence, is a circular, raised structure built by Zoroastrians for excarnation (that is, the exposure of human corpses to the elements for decomposition), in order to avert contamination of the soil and other natural elements by the dead bodies.Carrion birds, usually vultures and other scavengers, consume the flesh. Skeletal remains are gathered into a central pit where further weathering and continued breakdown occurs.

[loves-alibi]

something bad

dark!141 x reader

original post

summary: There’s something wrong with the 141…

1.6k words

warnings: implied cannibalism, violence, blood, reader gets hurt, reader is implied to be smaller than simon

***

You’re not there for the op– out on the basis of a nick to your side. Not really a nick– but rather a 3 inch blade you hadn't seen before it was hilt-deep in you.

Kate calls you in the night. You're still not well. The stitches are out but you're not ready to be in. The wound aches and burns and keeps you up at night. You consider it a blessing tonight. On account of the throbbing, you're awake when Kate calls. She doesn't mince her words.

They've gone dark.

Are they supposed to?

No.

You're on base in less than an hour. They refuse to send you after them. Hell, they don't even allow you to go in uniform. Too official for someone who’s supposed to be resting. This is on a need-to-know basis, Kate says, and you need-to-know.

Siberia in December. You’re nauseous just thinking about it. Guilt, you think. You were supposed to be on that op, leading a platoon of non-141 soldiers. You should have been there, maybe things would have gone differently.

It takes thirty-seven days on base to track them down, on top of the fourteen that they were missing before Kate called.

You’re cleared by medical by the time the big day comes, yet Kate doesn’t let you join the rescue team. She says that the op needs a level-head. So you wait on the tarmac, arms crossed over your chest to stop the trembling of your hands. You squint up at the sky for hours waiting for the silhouette of their plane to finally appear. Eventually, it does.

You’re off before the engines stop chugging, running as fast as your legs will carry you to the lowering ramp. Please be alive, please be alive, please, oh please be–

They’re not just alive. They’re… statuesque. There’s no other way to describe it, but John, Simon, Kyle, and Johnny– each of them look better than when you saw them last. Warm skin and full cheeks. Your eyes are more sunken from this last month and a half than theirs. You’re so happy to see them alive that you don’t bother to wonder how.

The boys are kept in medical for a few more days. Something about hypothermia and wanting to monitor their vitals for longer. You don’t get it. Their vitals are strong, stronger than yours have ever been. But the doctors know best.

You visit them every day, spend your breaks by their sides. None of them talk much about Siberia, an eerie silence falling over the room every time you try to bring it up.

In the time you spend outside of the medical ward, you hear whispers. People look at you out of the corner of their eyes, lowering their voice to make sure you can’t make out what it is that they’re saying.

It isn’t until you’re in the mess hall one day, when a dumbass private who doesn’t know who you are tries to impress you.

“Did you hear about the 141?” He asks, a mischievous smirk across his face. “My mate was on the rescue team– said they found bones with scratches on them. No flesh, no blood, nothing left.”

Unfortunately for the private, you’re running his drills that afternoon. You make him and all of his meathead friends who bought all that nonsense run until they collapse. They call you a bitch when they think you’re out of earshot. You ought to give them another lap– another ten –but you can’t. You’re too deep in thought– images of bones, scratched up and licked clean–

No. Not licked clean. Decomposed, you tell yourself despite the nagging voice in the back of your mind saying that the Siberian winter would certainly slow down decomposition.

The nagging is over quickly, when the next afternoon, the boys are let out of medical. They hop right back into work. Meetings, paperwork, and training.

The day after their release, you join them at the gym. You don’t expect much, maybe some light lifting and cardio on their end, but you’re dead wrong.

Johnny’s on the bench. Kyle, Simon, and John watch from a few feet away. There are more plates on the barbell than you’ve ever seen. You don’t even need to count to know that there’s about three hundred pounds looming over Johnny. Johnny’s always been strong, but even he’s never benched that much weight before.

But he clears it.

One rep. Two reps. Three reps. All without breaking a sweat.

He stops when they realize you’ve entered. Nobody addresses Johnny’s newfound hulkishness. Instead, John clasps his hands together and suggests some friendly sparring.

Sure. You could do that. It’ll do everyone good. The whole team is out of practice, so when John calls you and Simon up first, you don’t blink an eye.

However, it quickly becomes evident that something’s not right. Simon’s always been strong. He’s nearly six and a half feet of pure muscle and rage. It’s a well-known fact that sparring with him will always end in a victory for him.

Against an opponent of his mass, agility is your strength. Where he’s poised to use brute strength, you can duck and weave. It’s enough to throw him off guard enough to delay the inevitable.

But now? You can’t keep up. It’s as though Simon is predicting your every move. Moves that once would make him flustered don’t

You’re thrown to the ground face first. You’re waiting for John to call the spar. You lift your head to look at your captain, but his face is a blank slate. No, not entirely blank, his eyes are sharp, observant. It’s not just him. Kyle and Johnny are right at their captain’s side, breathing heavily. Kyle’s canines tug at his bottom lip.

“Call it,” you groan. Something warm trickles down your nose and into your open mouth. The taste of iron explodes across your tongue. A heavy weight looms over your back. “John, call it!”

“Missed you,” Simon whispers. His breath burns the skin of your ear. “Smell good, so good.”

Something touches the back of your neck, wet and warm. It feels like a tongue, you think, before realizing that it is– Simon’s tongue. He groans as he licks a stripe down the length of your neck and to your shoulder where you’re met with the stinging sensation of teeth sinking down into flesh. Hard enough to sting, but tender enough not to break skin. Yet.

“John–” It comes out breathy and high pitched. “For fuck’s sake–”

“That’s enough.”

In the blink of an eye, Simon is gone and you’re hoisted up by John’s strong arm. He takes you to a bench tucked away in the corner of the room, though not away from the prying eyes of your fellow sargeants, now watching you with parted lips. Simon’s nowhere to be found.

Simon, who had just cornered you and pinned you unlike anything you’ve seen before. It was animalistic, like you were his prey. For the first time ever you found yourself afraid of what Simon could– would –do to you.

John reappears with a rag and a water bottle. He soaks the rag and hands you the water. You lean back to down the water. It’s a mistake, you realize as blood drips down the back of your throat. You were so out of it you hadn’t realized that your nose is still bleeding.

“Look here,” John grunts. He peers in your eyes and grunts again. “No concussion.” One hand comes to pinch your nose as the other uses the rag to clean up the blood. “Nose isn’t broken.”

You hum, eyes fixated on John. He seems so calm, like he hadn’t just watched his lieutenant go utterly ballistic on you and–

You shudder, remembering the feeling of Simon’s tongue on your skin, his teeth in your–

“You’re alright, sergeant?” John asks.

You consider lying, but John’s looking at you like he already knows what you’re going to say. “I just–” You stumble over your words, “Simon… He was so– I don’t know how to describe it –unlike himself? Did it seem weird to you?”

“No.”

You frown. “John, I’ve sparred with him before. It’s never been like that. It felt unnatural.”

John swipes the rag over your lips. “You’re just out of practice from the nick.” John takes his hand off your nose and lets it slide down your body. It toys with the hem of your shirt for only a moment before creeping up your side and to the healed wound. His touch is muted by the thick scar tissue, but that doesn’t stop heat from exploding throughout your body. “How is it, anyways?”

It’s undignified the way you lose focus. John’s so close to you, having moved in closer to feel the scar. He’s tracing it, fingers half on the wound, half on the sensitive skin over your ribs. “Good,” you whisper.

“Good,” John repeats.

Someone clears their throat behind you. You try to turn around but John tightens his grip on you.

“We’ll take the rag if you’re done.” Kyle. And you assume by the sound of shuffling feet that accompanies him, Johnny as well. John hands them the rag with a nod.

The sound of footsteps fade, but before they're entirely gone, you hear Kyle and Johnny bickering about first dibs. It curdles something in your stomach.

Your heart is racing so close to John. Everything instinct screams to get away, but you simply can’t. At least, not yet.

“John,” you ask. “What happened in Siberia?”

John smiles. He removes his hand from your side and brings it back to your face. Your nose is bleeding again. A much calmer drip than earlier. John brings a thumb to the stream and swipes it away.

“We survived,” he says. “Isn’t that enough?” John pops his bloody thumb into his mouth and smiles.

[moeitsu]

I might just be talking out of my ass. But something that’s been lingering on my mind lately is the aftermath of Arthur’s death on that cliffside. Specifically, how long Arthur’s body may have remained there before Charles found him—if he even found him at all.

I see a lot of fanart and fiction often depicting Charles finding Arthur’s body within hours or days of his passing, and giving him a proper burial. But when I was revisiting the later chapters of the game, I was reminded that Charles left the gang to help the Wapiti tribe. He had no way of knowing exactly when or how Arthur’s end would come, only that the gang’s days, and Arthur’s, were numbered.

Realistically, Charles may not have stumbled upon Arthur’s remains for weeks, maybe even months. By then, time and nature would have taken their toll. Left exposed to the elements, scavengers would likely have picked Arthur’s body clean, leaving behind only bones. Rain, wind, and sunlight would have further eroded what was left, leaving a weathered skeleton, possibly unrecognizable as the man Charles once knew.

The game itself offers a glimpse of what a decayed body looks like in its world. Arthur occasionally stumbles upon long-abandoned homesteads or corpses, their identities erased by time, with only bones and scraps of skin or hair remaining.

Imagining Charles finding Arthur in such a state is heartbreaking. I can’t help but picture the overwhelming guilt he’d feel, seeing his friend reduced to a pile of remains, knowing Arthur had died alone and was left without a proper burial.

At this stage of decomposition, Arthur’s body would have already begun to return to the earth. The natural process of decay means that as soft tissues break down, they nourish the surrounding environment. Fungi and bacteria consume what remains, transforming flesh into nutrients for plants and animals. Perhaps, by the time Charles arrived, Arthur’s body was already entwined with the landscape—grass and wildflowers sprouting where his blood had soaked into the soil.

It’s a grim yet oddly beautiful image. Arthur Morgan, a man who spent so much of his life trying to redeem himself and do right by others, becoming part of the natural world he loved dearly. A man who gave everything he had to the people he saw as family. Always giving, giving, giving. Until there is absolutely nothing left but his body, and yet he gives that to the Earth too.

I imagine Charles, determined to honor his friend, carefully gathering what remained—bone fragments, perhaps even a few lock of Arthur’s hair and bits of clothing. Wrestling with the forces of nature to reclaim his friend from the earth. Despite the difficulty, Charles would have ensured Arthur’s remains were laid to rest properly, in a place where the flowers could bloom in his memory, and the earth could cradle him in peace.

Call me morbid, but there’s something hauntingly beautiful about this idea: that Arthur, a man shaped by the rugged wilderness, would ultimately be reclaimed by it. His story, his legacy, and even his physical form returning to the land he roamed freely.

Don’t even get me started on his reincarnation as a Buck.

[sobredunia]

.flow

do you guys maybe have some horror game recommendations :)

[kelsh]

A (somewhat) accurate process of Mike rotting after he got scooped because I'm literally obsessed with the stages of decomposition and I've been curious about it since seeing that cutscene in SL.

disclaimer!!! I did not use gore photos or non-con photos of the deceased, my references were pigs or medical literature

Close-ups below + decomp timeline:

Stage 1 - Immediately after to a couple hours since death, Pallor Mortis (paling of skin) and Algor Mortis (gradual loss of body heat) occurs. Livor Mortis (pooling of blood to extremities) begins to set in.

Stage 2 - A couple hours to a couple days after Michael's death, Livor Mortis has become fixed, giving the lowest extremities on his body (hands, feet) a purplish hue. Rigor Mortis (stiffening of muscles) occurs and fades after a few days. Autolysis (destruction of cells by the self) causes loosening of skin, fluids released gives it a sheen. Eyes start to cloud.

Stage 3 - A couple days to almost a week since his death. He should be bloating like a balloon but the giant fucking hole in his stomach from the scooper releases all gases (he stinks.) Ennard puppeting his body made it hard for flies to land but they eventually got there and the maggots have hatched. Continued decay of his flesh turns him greenish and makes his skin slough off. Liquefied meat seeps from his orifices. Eyes are fully clouded.

Stage 4 - A week to a couple weeks since the scooper. Bro is experiencing premature male pattern baldness. He's all squishy and slimy from the body fluid and rotting. Exposed parts become a purplish-black colour and the maggots are graduating to further life stages. Eyeballs cave in, get eaten, or in Michael's case, pop out.

Stage 5 - A couple weeks to a month since bro's death. The last chunks of his hair are holding on by a miracle. Most of his outer flesh is eaten away and is almost entirely a purplish-black. Maggots have mostly turned into flies and left for college.

Stage 6 - Ennard realizes they can't stay in a zombie anymore and decides to dip. Leaves Michael a fresh set of eyes as a "sorry" gift. His rotting has thankfully stopped but it'll take a while for him to regenerate. Or not. I have no idea how remnant works. For now, he's basically a sack of rotted flesh and exposed bone. Bald.

This entire post is essentially-