A DEVIL REBORN
Happy Halloween!!! A detailed ID will be placed under the cut (it's close to being 1K i could literally post this to Ao3)
p1. ड्याम्म (dyamma) - Nepali for "(feeling) full", "hitting something"
p3. Chutiya - Hindi for "idiot", "moron" and other related insults
p5. க்ரீச் (kreech) - Tamil onomatopoeia describing scraping/screeching sounds
[Extended Image ID: DYAMMA! Slamming his hands on a table, Achanba Okram finds himself in the darkness of his laboratory. He is wearing black clothes and a white lab coat on top, and has a bowl cut with rectangular glasses.
His thoughts whirl within boxes that are coloured gold and are outlined with red; they put a voice to the uneasy feelings Okram knows are stirring inside of him. The thought boxes read:
With Pavitr gone, I finally have time to string my thoughts together. Half-drowned answers bleed out of my pores. Coalescing like some great, abysmal creature of unknown origin.
Bracing his hands against the table, Okram is acutely aware of his body, of the gaping holes in his back that bubble with demonic energy. His thoughts narrate, My body quakes when I begin to question, wracked with paranoia. With dread, as if the idea of what I had to face was unbearable.
The holes in back — four of them, spaced evenly from each other — begin to ooze golden liquid, hot like fire and viscous like tar.
And yet, Okram thinks, I felt it all the same: that crawling, scintillating horror of my reality. Of my tainted flesh and blood. My being here is the work of demonic forces.
Golden arms, fluid yet bony, powered by some otherworldly thing, unravel from the void in his back. They flounder and expand around him, filling the lab with a cold glow. The fingers are tipped with talons, and, if he looked hard enough, Okram swears they are edged with blood.
I died years ago, Okram thinks. I lost my humanity to the fire of the devil's madness. Thus, the question remains: what is the future of Achanba Okram, a DEVIL REBORN?
The lights of the lab suddenly brighten, and Okram hears him before he sees him. His arms register the presence of the other person, immediately unraveling and slipping out of reality. Just outside, Pavitr Prabhakar's voice calls, "HEY, DOCTOR OKRAM! Sorry I'm late! Traffic was abysmal today."
Pavitr's entrance catches Okram by surprise, and he stutters out, "PAVITR?! You- ah- you have one of your shifts today?"
His thoughts reprimand him, You CHUTIYA! Pavitr always has his shifts on Tuesdays!
Pavitr is unaware of Okram's turmoil, sauntering into the laboratory while hefting up a white plastic bag. He's wearing a black and white flannel shirt, and he has circular earrings. Pavitr's eyes are trained on the bag in his hand. He answers Okram's question with, "Yeah, I do. I, uh, got a little hungry along the way (I'm always so hungry)." Pavitr whispers the last part as he lifts the bag up. He continues, "so I went and bought some vada pav, and—"
He suddenly pauses, his eyes locking onto Okram. He can't tell what is going beyond Pavitr's eyes, but the other man's analysing gaze unnerves Okram to a degree beyond description.
(In Pavitr's POV: his Spider-Sense was just triggered. Red and gold squiggly lines emanate from and surround his head in a halo.)
Pavitr lowers the bag slightly in concern. "Uhm," Pavitr says "are you okay, Doctor?"
Dread and fear floods Okram's system. Suddenly he is hyperaware of everything in the room, including the golden arm that has sprouted from his back and was lying on the workbench behind him, right in Pavitr's line of sight.
Play dumb! Okram's mind screams at him. Accordingly, Okram replies, a tad too tightly, "Of course I am, Pavitr! Why wouldn't I be?"
KREECH. The golden arm scrapes its taloned fingers across the table, no doubt giving away its location.
Okram chuckles nervously, sweating almost immediately, at which his mind howls, Not that dumb!
Pavitr narrows his eyes at Okram and at the golden arm on the workbench. "Are those...demonic arms?" he asks Okram, a shadow crossing his face.
(In Pavitr's POV: In the back of his mind, Pavitr sees a vague and faded image forming in response to seeing the arms. He remembers Doctor Octopus, the man with two extra sets of arms who had attacked him many years ago; he was one of the first villains Pavitr fought as Spider-Man. But... Doctor Octopus died a long time ago. Perhaps...?)
"Oh, Doctor..."
Pavitr's gaze softens as he asks, "Are you being haunted by demons? Have you been attacked by them? Why didn't you tell me? I'm so sorry this has been happening to you. I can't imagine how stressful this is for you." A moment, and then, "Do you want to talk about?"
Okram hides his face in his hands, quickly responding, "No, I'm alright, Pavitr."
Pavitr walks forward, placing his bag down and reaching down to place a reassuring hand on Okram's shoulder. "But, Doctor, men of your generation have ignored their mental health for too long."
"Yes, I know," Okram sighs.
"It'll be okay, Doctor," Pavitr promises, "we can figure something out!"
"And what?" Okram asks somewhat sarcastically. "You will be here with me 'every step of the way'?"
"One hundred percent!" Pavitr says.
Behind them, one of Okram's demonic arms reaches out to peer at Pavitr and Okram; if an arm could be happy, it certainly was. The arm is seemingly pleased with Pavitr's helpful and understanding nature. /.End ID]
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Ngl as a small business owner who puts out something extremely pirate-able and who has never earned enough to make a pay check, this...
...is extremely upsetting.
Do y'all realize that most small business are maybe a handful of people? Do y'all realize that company's like LLCs exist to protect owners from legal and financial repercussions if the company falls apart? I'm not a company because I have stockholders, I'm a company so that if the business goes bankrupt the banks can't seize my fucking house. It's not evil to use existing legal structures to protect my family's assets. It's not unreasonable to ask people not to steal from businesses like mine.
It's like on Tumblr when it's One Artist or One Author Doing The Thing Themself you guys are all about it but the minute anyone tries to collectivize to do better we go from One Person Against The World to The Embodiment of Capitistic Evil with no in between, which is especially insane coming from the website that claims to think individualism has turned toxic and we should do more with community organization. The minute lots of people are involved in a business, there HAS to be legal structures like contracts and shit to protect the people involved. The Lone Creator Forging a Path is great for that one person. What about everyone else?
And so... some of us try to make a company to lift up a group.
And then I see shit takes like this.
Maybe. Maybe DONT fucking pirate from literally anyone just cause they've got the word "company" I'm the name?
Maybe remember that for small businesses, yes even when they're a company, there's a single person, or a family, or a group of friends, who are working their asses off to build something, and actually? Stealing from them makes you a FUCKING DICK.
Like. You realize we're just people right? Other regular people trying to survive the dystopian hellscape that is the now?
Maybe stop acting like you're automatically entitled to the labor and creations of others solely because you've decided that there is an entire huge category of people it's okay to steal from.
Like honestly. What the fuck.
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Until They Are Forgotten
He never quite knows where he will wind up wandering when he casts himself out into the Warp. Instead of merely listening to the melody, he allows himself to become one with it. To feel the thrum beat within the fiber of his being. To hear the choirs of endless voices cry and scream, blending into song.
This time, an odd note of melancholy is what drives him onward and in. Something has been gently needling at his conscious mind, and so he has gone out to investigate what it may be. Such journeys could take minutes, hours, days, years, or longer. He never knows and has not cared.
Following the note, sustained and faint like one held too long upon a violin, he finds himself reaching his destination. Within the realm of thoughts and dreams, he feels dust and ash coating his feet. He tastes the dry, acrid air. Smells the smoke, thick and billowing, filling his chest.
But what he sees is not the desolation he feels. No, he sees thousands of souls, all gathered, weeping, pleading, roaring...
An endless tide of them. As far as he could possibly perceive. Thousands. Millions.
He recognizes them. He knows them. He remembers weeping for them. The pain in his chest that refused to leave him for weeks. The same pain that twisted and coiled and almost turned to indifference. He feels the ash between his fingers. Feels the grip of cloth, the struggles of a feeble man, speaking what he thought to be heresy, and what he now understood as a form of the Truth.
He looks at the sea of souls. He listens. He hears their melodious suffering, how it blends with the background hum of the universe itself. He reaches out to them all with hands made of radiant gold, and feels as they reach back. He feels the small hands of children, grasping at his long fingers; the rough, firm hands of honest workers; the delicate hands of artisans and writers; the grasp of those feeble in body, yet strong in mind and will; how some grip his hand as though desperate for something to cling to, and others as though they are greeting an old friend.
He sees them. Sees their eyes, their minds, their hearts. Sees them as they once were, and now are. Sees the fear. Desperation. Conviction. Anger. Grief. Friends, families, lovers, all still together despite how time-ravaged they all are. Some barely remember what they were. Others remember well.
He listens. Hears the tales parents once told children. The jokes once passed between friends. The arguments once held between lovers. The jabs between rivals and enemies. The mundane hum of existence, maintained in this one space.
This space could be anywhere, he knows. This place could be a chasm, a palace, a city square, a forest, a field. It matters not. All that matters is that all of them are here.
His eyes close. He tightens his grip on their hands. He allows himself to remember the bone-deep ache that pursued him from this moment onward. He allows himself to remember the anger that burned in him so brightly before it smoldered. He allows himself to remember the act that set him down this path. A quiver of the lip. The feeling of dry ash coating and covering beautiful golden skin, revealed by thin tracks that glistened in the low candlelight. Skin that earned him his name.
Aurelian.
He hears it now, being whispered through the gathered souls. He hears all his titles, murmured with reverence or spat with hatred.
He feels their grips all tighten with his own. Something builds within all of them. It is an overwhelming tide of emotion. It is sorrow. It is grief. It is pain. It is fear.
And strangest of all, it is understanding. His time here is impermanent, as is theirs. Soon he will leave, and they will dissipate. They will become one with the endless song, and he will find a note to untangle anew.
Some are scared. Some are too weary to feel fear, and simply wish to move on once more.
His eyes open. The gathering before him flickers between packs of formless and nameless daemons, and the forms of the humans they once embodied. He sees their souls. He sees who they once were. Sees their hunger. Their pain. None see the Neverborn quite as he does. None take the time to have these moments with them, for them to remember who they were, and for them to remind the pilgrim that he, too, was human once.
Slowly, he uncurls his hands from the crowd. The scent of ash, the feeling of smoke, the view of the gathering all begins to fade. Back into the melody they vanish. He remembers the eyes that stare at him mere moments before they are swept along. Remembers the feel of the smaller hands that tried to hold on for just a few moments longer. The whispers and pleas to just remember them.
And, as swiftly as he found this place, he leaves. A single tear trails from him, falling, forming itself into a wisp that fades after a few fickle moments of existence.
He returns to his confines upon a world of madness and horror. Within a chamber, with walls covered in a language never meant to be uttered by physical beings, he sits. He folds his legs. Feels the cloth against his gilded, tattooed skin. Reaches for a stylus and ink with only one pair of hands. And for the briefest of moments, he sees eyes that he had not stared into in millennia reflected back in that dark pool of ink.
With a shuddering breath, he reaches for paper, and begins to write. Allows his emotions, his thoughts, his memories to flow onto the pages. He sits like this for hours. For days. For weeks. He writes names. Writes what he felt. Writes what he saw. He writes and writes and writes.
When his hands finally still, pages fill the room. He feels the tenseness and soreness that should not be there. He feels all the physical limitations he swore he had shed long ago. As he stands, it all falls away. The facade of anything human flees, leaving behind a strange little god-thing. A perfect representation of Chaos Undivided, wrapped in the gold of its most powerful enemy.
But deep within its chest, there is the dullest of aches. A promise. A reminder. Remember why you are here. Why you quest so hard for the Truth. Why you stare into the abyss and have become one with it. Remember the blood, the tears, the suffering that formed each step to this pathway. Remember the sorrow. The stares.
The pages are organized and compiled with naught but an idle thought into loose bound tomes and journals to be studied later. He feels the tug again. There is a note out of alignment, and it demands his attention.
He wonders where the song will take him this time.
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