#cw taphephobia

[bracefacefreak]

the magnus archives ➤ the fears: the buried ⛏️ I’ve dreamed of it, of course. Safe and happy below, wrapped on all sides by uncounted miles of crushing, loving, earth and stone.

[pinnithin-writes]

you’re only mortal

A short narrative for an NPC in my current dnd campaign. 1486 words.

The first time Reynin Carlile died, it was a surprise. 

A sword between his shoulder blades and he was done. The steel severed his spinal cord, punched through his lungs, and emerged on the other side. Reynin didn’t even see who stabbed him. He was dead before he hit the ground. 

The second time was a surprise, too, if only for the fact that dying doesn’t happen twice. 

Reynin awoke to a dark silence and a dull pain in his back. His hands were clasped together, which was odd, because Reynin didn’t sleep like this. He felt cold metal beneath his fingers and his confusion grew, because he definitely didn’t sleep with his sword. His dark vision did little to orient him, and his breathing quickly thickened the surrounding air, so he deduced he was in an enclosed space. Rich cushioning cradled him on all sides, soft and almost comfortable.

Oh, he was in a coffin. 

Reynin’s pulse spiked. He rapidly remembered dying, and then dreaming, and then faint traces of a conversation. Something older than him, older than Eunara, had decided he would live again, but the details slipped away when he reached for them. All he could deduce was that his goddess had touched him and he was blessed to return.

Some use that was, locked in a casket. Reynin swiftly panicked, beating on the lid and shouting for someone, anyone, to hear him. His own voice was close and too loud in his ears, the pounding of his fists ringing dead. It occurred to him that there was likely a mountain of graveyard dirt overhead, the realization lodging in his throat and choking him. He swallowed and hiccupped, terrified as his thoughts raced to Hartline, to his friends, and the sword that had buried itself in his chest.

Someone had killed him. As the air thinned around him, Reynin was able to cobble this truth together. Someone deliberately drove their blade into his back - a real, living person, because the wraiths they’d been fighting were unarmed - and ended his life. He remembered a brief flash of steel breaking through his ribcage, mild surprise, and then nothing. His lungs burned as he sucked for air, tears streaming down either side of his face and pooling in his ears.

It fully hit him. I died. 

I died and they buried me.

His oxygen went quick and his life burned away again.

The third, fourth, and fifth times were much the same - awakening, remembering, and dying quickly of hypoxia. It took a few deaths for the panic to settle down, to use the precious minutes of lucidity he had before confusion set in, and assess his situation. Reynin’s suffocation took a little longer the sixth time around as he forced himself to breathe slower and think.

Soyinka wouldn’t have given him this gift for nothing. It would be a waste to bring him back - repeatedly, at that - only for him to remain locked underground for eternity. She must believe he was capable of escaping, and that he had all the necessary resources to do so. His chest ached as he struggled for air. What tools were in this box with him?

His sword. His hands. His brain. That pretty much summed it up. He didn’t have the space for a good strike with his fists and his sword was all but useless, but Reynin could still feel magic guttering low within him. That candle flame of hope was all he had.

With a murmured plea to Soyinka, Reynin summoned what little magic remained and blasted the roof of his prison. The force of the impact knocked the air from his lungs, but he was rewarded with the sharp CRACK of splitting wood. Dizzy, uncoordinated, he hit it again, and blow by blow he worked the lid loose. Every breath was fire until, suddenly, it was earth - clods of soil rushed in to bury Reynin further.

He threw a sleeve over his face as graveyard dirt surged around him, coughing and swearing and struggling. This sort of suffocation was somehow worse, loam crowding his lungs and crusting his eyes. He sucked a breath through his sleeve, making his choice in the same moment he recognized it. Choke on dirt and continue to die here, or crawl to the surface and live. 

Reynin crawled. 

He only died once more in his desperate scramble to freedom. By the time he suffocated for the seventh time, Reynin concluded he’d much rather be stabbed again than experience another death like that. Earth was everywhere- it blocked his ears and caked his hair and coated his throat and sealed his eyes shut. He was no longer an elf but a worm, and for what felt like an eternity the crawling was all he knew.

Until he finally emerged on the surface, retching and coughing up grave soil, limbs trembling from the effort. Vaguely, he registered cool night air on his skin. He was alive. Somehow, despite everything, he was alive. He wept and knuckled debris from his eyes, greedily pulling in gasp after gasp of blessed fresh air. He was never taking breathing for granted ever again.

When he was finally able to see, he found himself staring at his own headstone, washed pale in the moonlight.

REYNIN CARLILE 1588 - 1611 BELOVED COMPANION AND FRIEND

With shaking fingers, Reynin checked his own pulse. It tapped out an abnormally rapid rhythm, but blood was moving through his veins. He certainly felt alive. Living hurt - his skin stung with the scrapes of clawing through the soil and oxygen deprivation made his head ache. He knelt in the dirt and listened to the wind in the grass, at a loss for what to do next. 

It wasn’t like he could go back to the temple. He would be decried as a heretic for his resurrection. Or murdered again. Both, in all likelihood. The space between his shoulder blades ached where the blade pierced him. He didn’t have a clue who killed him - none of his fellow paladins hated him enough to do such a thing, as far as he was aware - but whoever was responsible likely lurked within the temple walls this very moment.

He could draw conclusions about motives. Reynin Carlile wasn’t a vain individual, but he possessed enough self awareness to know he was both admired and reviled, depending on who was asked. Over the years, he’d collected enough information about the Mortal Coil’s history to be dangerous. In hindsight, the level to which he spoke out against his leadership was probably what did him in.

He glanced down at his funeral whites, muddied and ruined from his escape, searching for regret and failing to find any. This was a death Hartline would approve of, he thought wryly. Then his breath snagged in his throat.

Hartline. 

Reynin’s heart broke all at once when he realized what this meant for them. He couldn’t tell Hartline he was alive. That he had been murdered, met Soyinka, and returned. Hartline would make a hotblooded decision and get themself killed in ten seconds flat. Guilt crawled inside him. His absence ensured Hartline’s safety. Maybe in their grief they’d be overlooked by whoever chose to end Reynin’s life. 

Tears rolled down his cheeks, carving tracks through the grime on his face. My lady, he thought, what a heavy gift you’ve given me. 

Suddenly, rather than feeling bewildered and inconvenienced, he was very sad that he’d died. Even though he returned, the life he knew was over, his path abruptly diverted to a bigger purpose. A different sort of dying, unmourned and unremarkable. He cried with a lot of dignity for someone who just emerged from his own grave. As he watched the soil soak up his tears, he decided he deserved a good and proper breakdown once he was safely away from Whitecap. A private funeral, just for himself.

Unsteady, chest aching, Reynin stood. He picked his way out of the bed of loose earth until he stood on solid grass, gaze lingering on the distant temple spires that speared through the gray dawn. Unconsciously, he tried to brush the dirt off his robes before realizing how utterly useless that would be. A long, thin sigh stuttered out of him. But then he wiped his eyes. Raised his chin.

Enough of this. He had the right to feel sorry for himself, but certainly not the time. Running into his own mourners was not ideal, and the sun was quickly rising. Reynin turned his eyes from the horizon and began picking his way through the graveyard. 

Soyinka’s Blessed, he mused as he went. What a joke. He wondered if his goddess was regretting her decision, watching her Blessed leave town on foot with his death count already at seven.

A few miles from Whitecap, he stopped short with a barely audible, “Fuck.”

He’d left his sword in the coffin.

[lifeinpoetry]

I can lose twenty percent of myself before depression sets in, before all the songs

in my head go silent. & after, I can only talk about myself

as ending. My throat, a carillon tower flooding with the musician still inside.

— Brandon Anthony Melendez, from “Taphephobia the Morning After I Learn Chester Bennington Committed Suicide,” published in The Adroit Journal

[thehorrortree]

Book Review: August's Eyes by Glenn Rolfe

TW/CW: Pedophilia, child abuse, Taphephobia, kidnapping, child murder, alcoholism, homophobia, reference to miscarriage, Transphobia, Arachnophobia, Suicide, and emotional abuse. Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.   Spears…