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carnographix · 6 months ago

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You’re an angel, I’m a dog, Or you’re a dog, and I’m your man. You believe me, like a God, I’ll destroy you like I am.

—Mitski, ‘I’m Your Man.’

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Incredibly self-indulgent crossover oneshot-- featuring @vellichorom's Narrator, Thierry, and my strange little woman, Mari(e), in the world of (or inspired by) Amnesia.

Content warning for gore and heavy religious themes Length: 4,765 words

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Ceaseless sound.

The loud, endless chattering of her co-workers around her, the clambering and hissing of pipes and machines as the production line ticked along. Mariella was packing things. She no longer cared to pay any thought to what it was. Just get it done, get it through the line. All will be well. Lost entirely in her own mind as metal and glass clicked and snapped together, the surrounding sounds blurring into one, the cacophony reverberating in her skull. Nobody spoke with her as she worked, though she knew they spoke of her as they walked past, not-so subtle stares and even less-so subtle remarks. She paid no mind. Judgement was between her, and her God– if he could be referred to as such. The common men and women, the animals she so often, though in slowly dwindling frequencies, surrounded herself with; their judgement did not matter.

A clock sounded, though she did not notice at first. She continued to mindlessly assemble the small pieces of a watch, the process tiresomely familiar, automatic. It wasn’t until the volume of her surroundings began to slowly die down, to filter away and out of earshot, that she looked up, noticing the way most of her coworkers had begun to leave. Slipping the watch into its packaging, carelessly folded cardboard tacked together, she was finally wrested from this autopilot state by a voice she knew all too well.

“Marie, my dear,” a warm pair of hands found their way to her shoulders, if only for a moment, as she shook them off with a roll of her eyes, “are you going to clock off, or are we going to spend our entire evening here? I would much prefer the former. This wretched place reeks of oil, sweat, and piss, and I don’t care for the thought of eating the rats.”

“I can’t have been here more than a few minutes, impatient bastard. How you even managed to get to my station so quickly is beyond me.” Mariella scoffed, the corners of her mouth threatening a small smile, as she took a final glance at her workspace, tidying it up for the next poor bastard to be stuck in her place.

They spoke as they left that filthy, contemptible place, relief befalling the both of them as they took refuge from its polluted walls into the cobbled streets and balmy air of a mid-Summer evening. It was the usual post-work conversation; a snide remark about a coworker here, a complaint about the begrimed cathedral to industry in which they spent their days there– it was nothing new, it was nothing profound. Yet, as they spoke Mariella clung to each and every word her friend, her demiurge, spoke as though it were vital, and not merely petty, pointless complaints of the conditions in which they worked. The evenings, right after work, were always the most beloved time of day to her.

Side by side, she and Thierry would walk back to his home, conversing about anything, everything. She felt herself to be, in every sense of the word, blessed.

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They passed through a wrought-iron fence, Mariella running her hand along the coarse metal, over the very top of the intricate designs built into it, as they stepped into, and through, a small garden. It was nothing quite special; neat enough, with the occasional wildflower, though time escaped the older man; between work, and the oddities that he and the strange young woman he called his friend partook in, he hadn’t the time to maintain much more.

Mariella slipped past Thierry, almost losing her balance as she quickly moved to lean against the front door, catching herself on the silver-plated door knocker, wincing briefly as she caught her fingers between the metal and the wood of the door. She fumbled with the door’s lock for a moment, as Thierry watched her. He opened his mouth to speak, how the hell did she manage to get his keys? But, he decided against it, closing his mouth with a bemused expression. He wouldn’t get a concise answer from her, anyway.

“After you, m’lady.” Mariella spoke as she managed to get the door open with a loud click, holding her arm against it to stop it from falling shut.

Thierry rolled his eyes.

“Right, yes, thank you sir.” He said with an exasperated, though over-dramatised, sigh as he stepped through the door frame, pulling off his coat and hanging it on a rack beside the door. Mariella followed suit, doing the same, a self-satisfied grin etched onto her face.

What little decorum she retained after a long day mingling with her fellow humans promptly slipped away as the door fell closed behind them, and she sighed briskly, met with a sudden burst of energy. Oh, how this place inspired her so. She pulled an elastic from her wrist, and used it to pull back thick, curly hair, tying it up in a low ponytail.

She felt herself relax as she came to a standstill behind a leather chair, cracked and worn with considerable use and age. The small house was so pleasant to her, so wonderfully different to her own, which felt more akin to a cave than dwelling. The home was quaint, a single bookshelf full of books with yellowed pages and cracked spines, and a small, modest kitchen with scorch marks on its ceramic tiles. It was quaint, a testament to its age. But, it was a home, nonetheless. The sort of place she’d dream of, late at night, alone when she wished to be anything but.

Though she tried to focus on the room itself, perhaps its lightly cobwebbed windows, or the way that warm light bathed the room, Mariella instead found herself once again focused entirely on her friend, watching him as he milled about. Something about Thierry’s every movement and gesture captivated her, in ways that she couldn’t understand. He had a sort of charm to how he carried and presented himself, as though some strange God in the form of a tired, overworked human.

He walked into the kitchen, reaching down to open the cupboards for a moment and taking out a bottle of rum. He glanced with mild disappointment into the mostly-empty shelves as he did so.

Mariella walked to the bookshelf, browsing the titles, looking for anything that might be of interest to her. Titles in both English and French stood stacked on the shelf, many with pages and spines torn, their yellowed pages stained and spotted with age.

“Do you ever wonder,” Thierry spoke, before taking a long sip from his glass, “if there is a God; if he is all knowing as they say, where has he gone? Why has he, seemingly, abandoned us?”

Mariella was only half-listening, now distracted by a small, old journal, flipping through the pages and studying the words, written in that familiar, antiquated cursive. She was never exactly a religious girl, raised on the doctrine but far too uninterested to keep up with it. Her fingers traced the words on the page as she thought.

She had known the answers, though the ones she most commonly gave were merely empty platitudes, designed to keep people obedient and content.

“Abandoned? No, I wouldn't say so.” She murmured as she scanned the pages, clearly searching for something. “You're here, after all, are you not?”

A small smile cracked across Mariella’s face as she found what she was looking for. A crudely drawn diagram, with some words scrawled underneath it, some form of Latin, maybe German.

She heard Thierry let out an amused huff, taking another sip of his drink as he moved back into the living room, plopping himself down onto his armchair.

“If there were a God, my dear,” he began with a small, lopsided smile, “he would detest my blasphemy.”

“Would he, now? Do you detest what you do? What we do?” Mariella asked, finally looking up at him. She knew she certainly did not.

Undeniably, were their work discovered by anyone else, the two of them would be ostracised for their quote, sin, unquote. Though she did not see it that way. A wonderful act of creation, it was, to her.

Thierry chuckled, oh, how she adored that laugh, as he placed his empty glass on the table beside him, leaning back in his own armchair. Of course, he didn’t detest their work; he loved it, in an odd, twisted way. How could he detest something so intimate to him? Yet, he could hardly speak truth to these thoughts aloud.

“One day, the two of us will be stoned for our transgressions. It won’t be a pleasant fate, I can promise you that.”

She rolled her eyes with a scoff.

“Yes, because I particularly care what the common man would think of me. Of us.” She shook her head. “If that shall be our fate, I am content with it. It does not make it any less worth it.”

“Speaking of which,” she began, looking back down at the book in her hands, “have you heard of vitae?”

“Vitae…” Thierry repeated, his words an absentminded mumble. He thought for a moment. “Life, in the old tongue, isn’t it?” His eyes lit up with faint recognition. Yes, he had heard of such a word. He just couldn’t quite put his finger on where.

“Well, yes, but that's not quite what I mean. Vitae-- the substance. It's this… thing, that living things can produce. Do you know of it?”

Thierry’s face fell, his expression twisting, something indescribable, as he tried to recall something. He knew he had read about such things before, at some point. He couldn’t quite remember the details, yet he could remember the strange sense of horror that had built within him as he read.

She studied his expression, watching a mild discomfort seep into his features, before continuing.

“I'm assuming not. Vitae, if this book is to be believed, is an odd sort of substance which is produced by living things when they're afraid, in pain. The bloodstream is flooded with it, in the right circumstances. It can be extracted. It possesses the ability to extend one's life. I believe we should try.”

He let out a small huff of laughter, shaking his head lightly. Why did it seem like she had a new, morbid obsession every time they spoke like this? Why, every so often, would she become enamoured with the idea of some new forbidden knowledge, some new arcane secret that should be kept out of the hands of mortals? She was so curious about these things. Far too much for her own good.

“Extract it? How would we do that? What, are we going to just start cutting into each other and harvesting blood now?” ‘As though that were much different than their typical little escapades,’ she thought.

“That was the idea. A disgustingly crude and oversimplified explanation of the idea, but, yes.” Mariella said, snapping the journal shut and tucking it back onto the shelf between the other books.

She moved to sit beside Thierry, perched upon the arm of his chair. She plucked his glass from his hand, and swallowed a mouthful of the alcohol inside in one swift movement, her face slightly flushed as the liquid burned her throat.

“It's apparently quite unsustainable– only extractable once, if the subject remembers the torture. So, I was thinking, perhaps, were we to intoxicate me enough, impair my memory, we could repeat the process more than once. Refine it.” She spoke as she placed the glass, now considerably less full, down atop a small coffee table just beside the chair. “If it works, that is.”

“So, you’re willing to undergo that sort of torment?” His expression had brightened, yet his voice still held small traces of scepticism. Mariella nodded, “in part my own insatiable curiosity.” She tilted her head to one side. “In part yours.” She leaned against him, and slid slightly from the arm of the chair, onto one side of Thierry's lap, resting atop his thigh.

“I’m afraid you’ve lost your mind, my dear. Perhaps just a little.” He sighed softly.

“And you haven’t?”

He couldn’t think of an appropriate response. Of course he hadn’t lost his mind… Though, he had to wonder; was it even possible to fully retain one’s sanity after studying and performing such things? He thought back to the countless, sleepless nights, when he could not keep his mind free of such visceral imagery.

He let out a bitter chuckle, shaking his head. “No, I haven’t.”

She could tell by the way he spoke, like his voice faltered as he forced out an unconvincing and bitter chuckle, that it was a lie. Thierry was hardly different from her, and he knew that just as well as she did.

Silence fell between them for a few moments, Tension thick and heavy enough to cut through, to bite into, to rip and to tear. He knew he couldn’t properly argue against what she had said. He really was no different, was he? All those times he had sat down to read those forbidden, forgotten texts and manuscripts, for hours upon hours until his eyes stung. When he had driven needle and blade into her flesh and bone, and she had let him, eager as ever. And this was to be yet another of those times, wasn’t it?

Thierry sighed as he wrapped a hand around her waist. “Very well, then. We’ll try it.”

Mariella’s face lit up as soon as she heard him speak, a wide smile etched across her face.

“Alright…” He mumbled, his free hand running through his messed, grey hair. “If this is the route we shall take, we shall do things correctly. We would not want to risk any unnecessary damage– at least, not yet. After all…” He leaned in closer, his words a low whisper, “this would be most regrettable if it ended in an early demise for you, mon ami.”

“Not that I would mind, to go at your hands. Such bliss, it would be.”

She spoke quietly as she stood, with Thierry's hand, which had previously rested upon her waist, clasped between both of her hands, pulling him to stand with her.

The man did not argue or resist, standing up when she bid him to as a smile crept across his face. Mariella was right, of course she was. What a strange feeling this all was, to relish in the idea of suffering and harm. He could not bring himself to entirely hate it.

There were few words he could say that could adequately explain how the sight of her so willingly falling into potential mortal danger affected him. He had always found something dark and twisted about her, a strange sort of obsession with the macabre. Even better, in a way, that it was he who would bring about her pain and fear. He felt a sense of anticipation in him, as if he was waiting to strike down upon her like an executioner.

“Come, let us get started.”

“Yes, yes, of course. First, however– something to dull the senses, psychologically, at least. To lapse my memory.” She said, swiftly turning as she stepped away and into the kitchen, reaching for a bottle of absinthe. “After all, if I remember, we won't be able to do it again.”

She unscrewed the cap, and drank directly from the bottle, mouthful after mouthful without break, until she had surely had an entire quarter of the bottle at least. She scrunched her face up at the flavour, and gasped as she took the bottle from her mouth, sucking in cool air to soothe the alcohol's burn.

Thierry tilted his head to the side with a small, almost proud smile on his face. She was such a marvel to him– one of the few people in this forsaken world he found himself genuinely enamoured with. To find someone so willing to indulge his twisted desires, one who encouraged them, one who relished in the agony as much as he did in causing it, was a wonderful discovery.

The sight of her drinking her fill as though it were water was an odd one, contrasted by the way the soft lights of the kitchen’s waxen candles caught on her dark hair and skin. He reached out, gently taking the bottle from her hands to place it back on the kitchen counter.

“How are you feeling?” He hummed, voice soft and gentle, comparable to the caress of a snake as it wrapped around its prey.

“It hasn't begun to take effect just yet. Give it a few minutes.” She replied as she made her way out of the kitchen, down the hall, to a door with a hefty combination lock holding it closed. She fumbled with the lock for a moment, listening for the small clicks as she twisted the dial to the right numbers.

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The door creaked as it drifted open, before she pulled it open all the way. There, in front of her, was a stone staircase, leading down into a dark hallway.

The air felt colder, more stiflingly quiet as the two travelled down the stone steps. The basement was lit only intermittently by the sconces that jutted from the walls, only a thin sliver of light illuminating the path ahead. Thierry had always found the basement to be unnerving to a small degree, the way his footsteps seemed to echo against the stone walls, the stale air that clung heavily to the back of his throat.

Thierry could still remember the first time he brought her down here. Those long ago days when those strange, soft, violent thoughts and feelings had first begun to take root in his mind. Such strangely pleasant memories, they were.

He could recall the day vividly as though it had happened yesterday– leading this woman down into the deep, the way she had looked so afraid at first, before they had discovered her love for the darkness that had consumed them.

He felt her hand squeeze his a little tighter, like she was reassuring him that this had been an agreed-upon decision. He had nothing to be concerned about if she agreed to this, did he? He had nothing to fear.

There was an ever-so-slight tremble in his hand as he felt her squeeze it, as if she could sense his minor hesitations and worries that remained.

Entering a room reminiscent of a doctor’s theatre, seeing countless reminders of experiments and times past, was enough to raise goosebumps over his skin. Trepidation, anticipation, excitement–? It was difficult to tell.

She remained by his side, followed and trusted him. Such a faithful creature…

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The room itself had been gradually changed over time, with countless evenings spent experimenting, testing the limits of the body. A rolling tray of many, many blades, saws, drills, and needles sat stationary beside cabinets, the cabinets against one wall still holding all manner of medical supplies.

Mariella drew a sharp and sudden breath, mulling over the idea in her head. There were so many variables, so many ways this could go. Did they have everything they would need? Would it work? How much would she be able to handle? Would she remember? These concerns, however, were ultimately short-lived, as remembrance of the fact this was her idea, something she wished to do– to see if it would work, to see what would happen, washed over her, combined with the absinthe finally taking its hold on her.

They stood at the entrance of the dim, cold room, Mariella’s breath forming small clouds in the chill air. The soft flicker of the sconces cast elongated shadows that danced across the stone walls, giving the room an eerie, almost otherworldly ambience. Thierry's hand lingered on the small of her back, a silent, reassuring gesture with simultaneous possessiveness. As they stepped further into the room, Mariella felt the familiar mix of excitement and dread knotting in her stomach, now tempered by the numbing warmth of the absinthe coursing through her veins.

She felt the first, numbing effects of the absinthe clouding her thoughts, dulling the sharp edges of fear and anticipation that gnawed at her as she laid upon a table situated in the centre of the room. Her eyes flitted to the rolling tray of instruments, their stained, metallic surfaces gleaming under the dim light.

Thierry moved with a detached grace, his eyes scanning the array of tools with a practised familiarity. He selected a long, slender scalpel, its blade appearing sharp, though still worn from previous use.

Thierry’s gaze lingered on Mariella, a mixture of admiration and unease flickering in his eyes. He set the scalpel aside for a moment, reaching for leather bindings that lay clamped to the sides of the table. With a tenderness that belied the cruelty behind the coming actions, he unbuttoned and removed her shirt as to easier access her torso, and bound her arms to lay at her sides, the straps pulling taut against her wrists. She winced, ever-so-slightly, at the constriction but offered no resistance.

“We begin now,” he said softly, picking up the scalpel once more.

Her body tensed involuntarily as the blade touched her skin, a sharp, icy line of fire tracing its way vertically across her abdomen. The pain was immediate and intense, a vivid shock that cut through the haze of the absinthe. She gasped, her eyes widening as she felt the blade slice deeper, parting flesh with a sickening ease. Blood welled up, dark and viscous, trickling down her arm in crimson rivulets.

Thierry’s expression was one of clinical detachment as he worked, peeling back the layers of her skin with a practised precision. Her world shrank to the searing pain radiating from her gut, the relentless, tearing agony that pulsed in time with her racing heartbeat. She bit down on her lip, stifling a cry as the scalpel bit deeper through soft, bubbly fat, exposing the raw, twitching muscle beneath.

“You're doing well,” he murmured as he set the scalpel aside and reached for a pair of forceps. The forceps clamped onto tendons and ligaments which lined her abdominal wall, a fresh wave of pain that left her gasping for breath. Mariella’s vision blurred with tears, her mind a whirl of fragmented thoughts and jagged, searing agony. She could barely focus, her senses overwhelmed by the unending torment. Thierry’s hands moved with a methodical precision, his eyes gleaming with a twisted fascination as he continued his work. He released the tendons, and she felt a relief so utterly sickening that she felt bile and acid rise in her oesophagus, singing the back of her throat as the forceps were withdrawn. She forced herself to swallow it again. Her abdomen throbbed with a hot, relentless pain, the exposed flesh raw and glistening in the dim light.

She closed her eyes, bracing herself as she felt the edge of the scalpel, now warmed by her own body’s heat, press against the flesh above her sternum, just between the clavicles. The scalpel’s blade bit into her flesh with a swift, sharp sting. She gasped, her body convulsing as the pain flared, radiating outward from the wound. Thierry’s hand was steady, his touch almost gentle as he deepened the incision, exposing the underlying muscle and sinew.

“Beautiful…” Thierry breathed, his eyes alight with a fervour that bordered on reverence. “You’re doing so well, my dear.”

Mariella's thoughts were a muddled blur of pain and confusion, an instinctive feeling of fear, of dread, flooding her body, which trembled with the effort to stay conscious. The room seemed to tilt and sway around her, the shadows lengthening and shifting in her peripheral vision. She felt a strange, tingling warmth spreading from the wounds, a peculiar sensation that seemed to resonate deep within her veins. Her head lolled to one side as the tingling sensation grew stronger, pulsing through her body like an electric current. She felt detached, disoriented, the world around her blurring into a surreal, dreamlike haze.

Thierry’s free hand reached for a small glass vial, which he positioned beneath the entrance wound, hands sunk just inside her thoracic cavity. He pressed down, forcing the vitae—a strange, viscous, blue fluid with a faint, iridescent glow, muddied by her blood—to seep from the incision and drip into the vial. Each drop fell with an almost hypnotic regularity, a testament to the efficacy of their twisted endeavour. He held the vial up, his eyes gleaming with a wild, feverish excitement. “Would you look at that…” He murmured, tilting the vial in his hands, swirling the fluid around inside the tube.

Mariella could barely comprehend his words, her mind slipping further into the comforting embrace of unconsciousness. The room faded into blackness, the pain, and fear receding into a distant, numbness. In the depths of her fading consciousness, as darkness claimed her, she felt a strange, twisted sense of accomplishment. They had succeeded. Though, at what cost, if any? The question lingered, unanswered, as she drifted into the void.

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Silence.

Mariella awoke to a room, a bed, in silence, broken only by a ringing static in her ears, and the soft sounds of Thierry breathing as he sat on a seat in the corner of the room, reading the very same journal that she had appeared to have found the existence vitae through just the day prior.

She sat up, wincing, sucking air through her teeth as a terrible ache struck her body, searing from just below her neck to her navel.

“... Did it work?” She asked wearily.

He looked up at her from the pages of the book, creasing the corner of the page he was on and closing it.

“Yes. Yes, it did.”

Mariella laid back with a relieved sigh. “Good,” to which Thierry responded with a small hum and a nod, getting up to stand beside her, brushing her hair from her eyes.

“Marie, dear? Do you not have concerns that, perhaps, someday, this may go too far? That we'll do something that cannot be undone? That we’re doing something wrong?”

“Of course not,” Mariella answered with a breathless laugh, “Who defines right and wrong? God? We, you, are become God; in our acts of so-called blasphemy and sin, in violating, desecrating the human body we have become more than any of the others could possibly be. Spill my blood, break my bones, that I may be reborn anew; something uniquely yours, and yours alone. Push the limits of the creation of the common man’s God, break them, and craft from it something new. Something yours.” She reached up, a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it tight, as though afraid to let him go. “If Godhood requires sacrifice, then, by God, for you a lamb I shall become; a lamb I already am.”

Thierry stared down at Mariella, something hungry in his eyes as he gently pressed the back of his hand to her face.

“Oh.” He murmured quietly. “Oh, yes. A perfect lamb, my perfect lamb.” Thierry brought his hand down and around her face ‘til it rested beneath her chin, tilting her head up further toward him. “So eager, so ready to be strung out on a butcher’s table and carved anew. You… oh, dear, what a wonderful thing you are.” He squeezed her cheeks, harder than intended, as she drew in a sharp breath. “You know, each day, what the coming evenings will do to you, your blood splattered on the cutting-room floor, each time worse than before, and yet here you are, returned to me once again. Indeed, a lamb you are. A most incredible devotee.”

“Devoted, yes.” She agreed quietly, standing up to easier reach him, her God, placing both hands on either side of his jaw to reconnect the two of them as he pulled his hand back.

“To you, and you alone.”

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#my art #art #writing #HIIIII :3 #I DON'T USUALLY POST MY WRITING TO MY MAIN ART BLOG. HOWEVER.#I am unbelievably happy with how this turned out and I spent a really long time on it #amnesia #the stanley parable #fandom tagging it too because why NOT

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