#anyway can’t wait to watch Fit join the chopping block in a week :D

[qrcane]

Jaiden “keep yourself safe” Animations

[ayellowbirds]

Sixth night of writing! Up to 10,952 words, more than half a day’s writing over the target number for last night. I’m almost up to a full week of working on this; what do you all think so far?

i’m currently only able to work for 14 hours a week; donations to support this are welcome! Feel free to let me know when you’ve donated, I’ll see about including a tribute of some sort to you in the text of the story:

https://www.paypal.me/ayellowbirds

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(logo fonts are Bradley Gratis and Yiddishkeit Bold)

Click the Read More to continue, or click here for the previous part, and here for the first part!

“Tasty, though.”

“The trick of it is cutting out the core,” Menax explained. “There is some property of the juices in the center that is excellent for tenderizing meat, but can be most unpleasant to the mouth in more than small quantities, unless it is well-cooked.”

He popped a small section of a ring into his mouth, and chewed at it a bit. He looked around the room; Belaset was taking her time to enjoy the ring, taking small nibbles that seemed even more delicate for all her height, while Musick had swallowed down all that she had been offered and was licking her chops. Her ears perked for a moment, and Menax smiled.

“I learned that the hard way,” he added, speaking around the morsel. “That classmate of mine had given a very large quantity in exchange for, ah… assisting him in some unpleasant business. And I found that eating too much in one sitting could even cause the soft palate to bleed. So, I am always overly cautious in cutting out the core, when I can get an ananas to myself.”

Belaset swallowed her mouthful. “Wait, so you mean that, while you were eating the—ananas?—it was as if it was biting you—”

There was a loud and unmistakable thudding sound from directly beneath them. Belaset and Musick both looked to Menax, who swallowed hard. He found that his hand was on the cutting board behind him, already grabbing the knife. The question went unspoken as both of his guests looked down towards the secret cellar.

“Yes,” he said. “We had best investigate.”

Menax’s mind raced as he moved towards the study, grabbing a skillet from a hook on the kitchen wall and holding it as if it was a shield. There was a ventilation grate—doubled up and leading to his small backyard, where nobody out to be entering without his notice. It was possible some intruder had been keeping an eye on his home, and had pried it open while he was distracted in the kitchen. It was just wide enough that a smaller person than himself could fit through.

There was another exit besides that, but he was certain it was even more secret, and he was all but certain it could not be discovered even under extraordinary circumstances, and he had never revealed it to anyone.

But then, if it was his worst fear and the imperial authorities were there to arrest him for theft and experimentation on bodies—he had conducted more than one study specifically of Icosan remains—then it was possible there was sorcery involved, and any number of explanations could be at hand. It could even be a sheyd, having found some way into his home from the other world.

“I’ll keep here the door,” Belaset said, standing between the kitchen and the study. “Might need to shut it, might need to hold it open for you, right?”

“Sound reasoning, Miss Alazraki,” he replied. He noticed that Musick was simply letting out a low growl rather than speak, her muscles taut and her ears held back.

He moved to open the secret door.

BEFORE

Pain!

Cold, much, much too cold.

Never such a cold, empty, too empty, hungry thirsty feeling too dry and wet at the same time—cold outside, colder inside, darkness on darkness.

Where? Think, remember.

A fight?

“Wait, stop, I’m Icarian Se—” pain!  “—you’re screwing up weeks of investigation, look, my badge!” SHARP! Burning, fire, angry! Hate! Screaming! Teeth, hooves? White and red and red going white going black.

Don’t belong there? Where? Why? What do you mean, won’t have me? What did you call me? I—maybe?

Where are you going, where am I going, where am I?

Can’t talk! Can’t move? Move, move, move—something—my throat?

My mouth? Clay? Stone?

Bone?

Got to get out!

Move!

PUSH!

Where? Cold, cold box, get up, still cold inside, too cold inside, too dry, too thirsty, too hungry, too empty, move!

Can’t move right, where—table, floor, walls, air flowing—a grate?

Can’t move it. Sound? Footsteps, one, two. One very big. No, three, an animal?

Above! Above, so—stairs?

There, stairs!

Sound, light, warmth!

Too cold, too dry, too empty, thirsty, too hungry!

Light, more light, opening—it’s warm it’s big it’s hot meat blood I’m empty I’m cold I’m dry I’m HUNGRY!

NOW

As Menax opened the door, too many things happened at once. Something that should not have been up and moving about loomed over him, very much up, and lunged at him, very much about.

He somehow had the presence of mind to realize that the cadaver, the distinctly and definitely deceased body, was attacking him. He managed to thrust his knife into its—her?—raised hand, but a fleshless jaw closed on his shoulder.

He was ever so thankful that his daily attire involved several layers, including a durable undergarment.

Dropping the pan and letting go of the knife, he brought up both hands and all of his strength to push the walking corpse away. Questions sprang into his mind as his body acted. A dybbuk? He knew that sometimes the dead could possess unliving things if they were in the likeness of the living, and some were quite hostile.

The corpse paused, chewing cotton shreds, and slowly looked at her hand, where the knife was embedded. She mouthed something, seeming unable to speak—the vocal cords were part of the damage to the throat, of course—and with a strange stiffness, settled into some kind of fighting stance, holding out the knife as if wielding it.

Menax was vaguely aware of Belaset swearing in incredulity, while Musick uttered a long string of prayers; all he could do was fall back on the two ways he had been trained. The first, was academic—the second moved his hands and feet, and he did not dwell on it as his mind raced. If not a dybbuk, a vampir? No, this corpse seemed to conscious, now. He had studied cases of vampir attacks, and although they looked like the living, they were feral things driven solely by bloodthirst.

His opponent was measuring his own stance, taking in the situation as he made adjustments in his footing, retreating in a way that he hoped was not too obvious, to invite another attack. His hands were raised, fingers ready to curl into fists but not openly presenting either a threat or an invitation.

Not a vampir, and not a phthisick, either. The cause of death had been injury, not a wasting illness such as consumption, and he seemed to recall that pthisicks did not move their physical forms much, preferring attacks of an invisible nature.

The corpse’s yellow-stained eyes moved to the windows, to the door Belaset was blocking. Her feet moved back just a touch, as if considering retreating back to the cellar.

Certainly not a neveylah, as there had been no proposal of marriage, nor one of the headless hunters, as the body quite plainly still bore a head.

Slowly, cautiously, the corpse crouched. Not readying to lunge again, no. Hands held up—then pausing, lowering the hand with the knife in it, wincing. One hand still raised. A gesture of caution, or conciliation. Sitting, watching, waiting.

Menax moved back with more haste, keeping one hand up and using the other to gesture to Belaset and Musick.

“Back, back up,” he said, and as they moved through the door into the kitchen, “shut it—hold it!”

Belaset did so, putting her whole body against the door.

FIVE YEARS AGO

“I’m just saying, this is, like, the third time you’ve volunteered to disguise yourself as a girl,” H. said, rubbing a salve into his cheeks and forearms. His appearance changed slightly as he did, looking older, gruffer, more worn. His clothing fit the look more than his casual attire did, dressed like some kind of laborer, with an apron covered in stains of uncertain origin covering most of his body.

“And I’m just saying, it just works out that way,” V. replied, rubbing a differently-colored cream into… her, yes, that was appropriate right now. Rubbing it into her chest, reaching down through her collar. She felt the ache of fatty tissue growing where there had been flatness a moment before, a few nascent hairs falling away. “F. is disguised as a boy, we had to balance things out for this mission. They’re expecting even numbers.”

“Yeah, but—” H. gave up, throwing his hands up in the air. “Whatever. You’re not my row, anyway.”

True, F. Ferdbin had disguised herself as a boy because her natural appearance was the closest fit to that of the person of interest she was replacing, and that her expertise in chemicals made her the best choice to eliminate the target up-close. The rest of them were just meant to be the schoolmates of the boy whose visiting uncle was, in secret, a notorious firebrand.

And while it was true that the letters they had intercepted suggested a group of five other friends—D. joining H. as the other boys, with B. and N. together with V.  on the girls’ side, while O. and J. observed the situation from a distance, ready to effect their ‘exit’—V. had to admit to herself that there had been no particular statement of the actual genders of the rest of the party.

But it gave her an excuse to be, well, her, at least for an hour or so, as long as the mission went according to plan.

An hour or so later, all had gone according to plan, the mission was entirely successful, and V. and F. were dead.

ABOUT A YEAR AFTER THAT, OR FOUR YEARS BEFORE NOW

“Me? Specifically, me? As… a girl?” V. asked, surprised.

“Yes, you’ve demonstrated exceptional skill in taking on disguises regardless of gender,” Chief Nurse Eciurtal explained, reviewing V.’s records. “The officers have taken note of this, and in light of your exemplary performance as a member of  the Corpse—”

Not exemplary enough, if she was still ranked just number four, she thought to herself. She was leader of a whole row, and still only counted as four out of twenty? It was absurd. And what a rank. Out of all the parts of the metaphorical “Corpse of the Empire” represented—‘corpse’ being in the more general sense of a body and not just a dead one, or even an organizational ‘body’—she was….

The “Pit”. The lowest point of the stomach, the point in the abdomen where ‘gut’ feelings laid. Oh yes, important. But not The Brain, not The Crown. Not even one of the eyes, ears, The Neck. On the diagrams they used to map it out when they explained it to her and the rest of them all those years ago, the part circled to indicate The Pit included, well. Well! It was an unpleasant, smelly area. Including some parts she didn’t like being reminded of, much.

And the damnedest thing was that her own body decided that was correct. She always had excellent ‘gut’ feelings, an instinct for things. It felt like the center of her balance, too. And she effortlessly shrugged off certain illnesses and poisons, like that one time that left the rest of Row Four in the latrine for a whole day. At least that, she was glad for. But, well. There were other things. Things that she was told were the result of being particularly healthy there, ways her body was betraying her hopes.

So, she was very glad to be receiving this assignment.

And she was trying not to think too deeply about the fact that she was thinking of herself as “she” before even putting on the disguise.