#like god she is unseen and unheard and untouchable | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

chokemein-gold-andmakemea-trophy · 8 years ago

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Scorn and (F)ire (( asignment. proof i write still, if only to please teachers. wow the paragraphs don’t work well when the box is so smol. also like 10 pages in the word doc))

I was lost in the forest; in the graveyard; deep within the catacombs, surrounded by shrouded webs and walls that leaked ambrosia, or something viscous tinted yellow in the light of my torch; which flickered with a constant warmth, a light that slithered as if a snake inhabited the wooden handle held in my hand; It’s home in which it danced to a beat unheard. And it danced in my vision, hiding the ill-mentioned and dark walls of the crypt (anything, really, to keep my mind off of the stench of rotten flesh; the secrets hidden in it’s walls; the absence of any sound besides my own breath), blinding me momentarily. I welcomed it. I stared into the fire, watching it’s odd dance. And at the moment fire split into streaks, no longer a snake, and celebrated my demise. The flames scattered toward me, toward my hand, my fingers grasped around it’s home. I hastened to throw the flames. And the next moment, a light flooded the ceiling as I felt terrible pain across the fingers of my hand.

My own hand at once not my own. And by it’s own volition the blasted fingers clasped the wall beside me, hoping to drench the fire planning to scorch my hands to bone. I felt at once the slick and familiar feeling of slime; of cold and thick drool that ran down a slender neck, home to a head I used to call Ge Well. Memories. Memories washed back untoward me and I had the illusion of seeing her before me, renewed as a beast of death in these fabled catacombs. I saw her stuck to the ceiling above, her drool my captor. These walls would turn me mad. She was a glimpse of a memory, a hallucination of such grandeur my heart soared, even if she was a beast. Her, and yet not. In the next moment, gone, and I scrambled to wipe my sordid hand and clench the forgotten torch, its light still blazing as it waited on the floor. I lifted the torch once more to the ceiling, finding nothing but stone, and the cold flush/brush of air above as my arm found itself tangled in the wind and the fire found itself losing control as easily as I had. A breeze! A way out, if I so desired. My efforts to reach the ceiling were met with gentle ministrations, a stone which popped itself out of place as easily as it could return.

Roderick took a moment to tense, wondering if he should write the next few words down or if he’d rather stop. His heart beat at an unsteady pace, heightened as he brought back memories of his trip out into the graveyard. Sweat began to fester on his brow, the cold breeze doing nothing but to bring back vivid visions of the breeze he had felt inside the tomb. He rose at once, rushing to close the open window before something else came in. His heart racing faster, his head swivelled to check outside, as if at any moment an unseen foe would pop out and desecrate him in his own house. His home which stood on steady bricks and was possibly two stories high. He grasped the window ledge, slamming his windows down, his breathes uneven. He made his way, steady except the times he almost tripped on his return, clenching the desk in front of him before he sat himself back at the desk. The fire ebbed away in the fireplace, a fire less like a snake and more like a lion. Protective in it’s warmth, it’s superiority. And so less likely to burn him.

He slowly turned back toward his writing, his journal out on an open page with barely a bit left to write on. He contemplated, his eyes roaming to each word and back again, sitting with his back hunched over as he skimmed through what he’d already written and decided to add a warning. Just one. Just one to qualm away others who may find what he’s written. He launched into it, the fire painting him in warm colours, his own hands feeling cold and slimy as he wrote:

If I could go back to the moment I found the exit, I would have scrambled to escape. I didn't. I saw what lay beneath layers of earth and… I saw great demons of fire. I have went against God, and my only regret is that I’ve not perfected -

A thud echoed throughout the house. He turned to face the second floor, the sound gone and hidden behind the crackling of the fire. He struggled to hear for more, for creaks and shifts beyond his room. Half of his mind was on high alert, fear drumming down his spine as he tried to finish his warning, just in case something was beyond his bedroom door. Roderick arose from his spot at the desk, his pen scribbling rapidly to recount the passing day's events. His pen leaving the paper only as he found himself walking away from the desk in front of him. His steps slow as he tried not to alert whatever the noise was. He vaguely reminded himself to lay down traps on the lower floors before he clenched the doorknob in his hand and laid his head against the door, listening.

Silence. Silence that would normally be calming was maddening. After all he saw inside the tomb, after the insanity and the hours of crawling through the dark, desolate, and seemingly endless tomb, silence was a short break from the horrors that would await him. It represented nothing to him but a false sense of comfort. He heard deep breaths. As they choked with his fear he realized it was only himself. His eyes returned back toward his desk, his work unfinished. The plate of food that sat next to the journal lay untouched, and the lamp opposite hadn't been lit in days. Shaking, Roderick left his place by the door, stepping over the floorboards he knew creaked. He grasped the oil lamp in his hand as he lit a match to catch on the wick, and the soft light was soon overpowered by the fire. With a shaky breath he turned the knob on his study door and began the trudge out into the unknown of his home as if he were facing a wild winter storm.

He let the lamp burn on it’s lowest setting, fear threading through his skin at the ideas of the creature finding him through the light. His eyes slowly adjusted to the vague outlines of portraits lining the wall, or the absence thereof. Wooden doors with their knobs sticking out as he stayed glued to the right wall, unseen until the last moment where he would be startled by the feeling of something pressing up against him. To the left was a curtained wall, the likes of which would have helped him then. If he could open them all, he’d have no need to squint and run and hide. The light from outside would help him where the lamp couldn’t. But then whatever was out there could see him as well. He relented before his mind could even comprehend what it was suggesting, and he continued his trek through the dim darkness.

With a jump he knocked back from a shape he’d bumped into on the floor. As he neared it once more, fairly sure there wasn’t anything moving, he saw it was a basin of lamp oil. Odd, but I was running low. He took the moment as a sign, extinguished the flame and refilled the lamp. As he went through the motions, he could smell the oil for what it was; strange, a sweet smelling oil that seemed to belong to something else, to some other purpose. It was like honey, or the melted roots of sugar canes. And for his life Roderick couldn’t recall why he would leave something like this alone in his house, all the while watching the flame as it snaked it’s way through the glass chimney. And his mind vaguely recalled what had passed only hours before, events in the tomb that had cultivated on Roderick’s trust in foreign objects, and found himself ashamed at falling into the same similar pattern of allowing things to happen to him; questioning it all when it was already too late.

The realization shocked him, the similarities between the two scenes almost unreal. He thrust the lamp at an arm’s distance and weakly grasped the knob with his other hand to extinguish the flame but it couldn’t be stopped. The fire scorched past the chimney of the lamp, it blazed high into the air and waved wildly through the room. It was a beacon, a signal to the monster hunting him. The light flooded the hallway and he found himself in the second floor corridor, the patterns on his wall too clear, the fabric of the carpet privy to an intense brightness that obliterated all doubts to its flaws. The scuff marks on the floor, the odd trail that forced it’s way down the stairs. The way damp stains littered the walls.

His lamp cast shadows on the wall before him; firm, unrelenting shadows that stretched to reach the ceiling before him the more the light danced. Shadows which mimicked his movements without a second thought. He took a moment to stare as he breathed heavily, his mind playing tricks on the shapes he made; his own arm, still a distance away, forming it’s own person out of flickering shadows with their own head, arms and legs. It was another person inside the flame, inside the lamp. And it grew spindly branches and a lifelike maw that stretched with the shadow, growing wider and wider as it opened it’s mouth until it grew to consume the whole of the wall. And with one second more, teeth grew and the mouth shut itself on Roderick’s shadow, and he gasped as the glass of the lamp burst.

He dropped the lamp, not willing to get burned again. The metal lamp hit the carpet softly on it’s side, the fire threatened to burn the fabric. The light still casting shadows on the almost-empty hallway, bringing full attention to it’s still burning wick. At once Roderick began to stamp down on his lamp, thrashing against the flame. His boots from the tomb, still wet and barely cleaned of grime, had forced the fire back. Oil spilled from the lamp, jarred open by it’s loose tightening and the rough handling by its owner. That was the last thing Roderick saw before the fire was extinguished. And in the black he smelled more of the sweet oil, confirming what he saw.

His breaths laboured, his heart echoing inside of his skull. Sweat dripped down as he remembered he was not alone. He recounted the scene. The suffocating amount of light, the heavy beating he gave the lamp that sounded as if a stampede made it’s way through his home. He doubted whatever followed him home didn’t hear or see one of those. He desperately stopped breathing. He held his breath or forced it out through furtive hands. He willed himself to be quiet. He scrambled to get away from the scene before him and rushed to the opposite wall, his body straining to cover itself in dark, stained curtains. He wished his back was flush against the curtain’s back, the windows chilling glass.

In the darkness that followed, in the speck of light that seeped through curtained windows, Roderick turned to face a sound. His left cheek lay against the cold window. A high pitched and hoarse moan echoed through the hallway. A deep whining of something that should be dead, he thought. Roderick took steps back, unheard on the carpet, as he lifted his arm towards the window. His fingers grazed the heavy curtains as he sought to grasp them in his hands. In a flash, he'd thrown them back and readied himself to run. The night sky barely lighting the corridor as a wave washed over the darkness and diluted it, and at once he eyed the thing shambling towards him.

In the heavy dark of the night, he saw her shoulders glinting through the blue tones as if she bathed in muck. It had found a way out after all. It was a re-animated corpse. A mistake and abomination that went against God's will. Her neck was covered in her viscous drool. Her nightgown trailed behind her in broken streaks. Her eyes as she stared through him reminded him of memories, distant, warped and desolate of any warmth.

At once, he crossed the corridor, making steady paces toward her. Her drool as it raced down her neck, her soiled garments covered in mud and in rust. He saw his wife, her ruined form, her rotten flesh and he tugged on her cloth-bound arms. She was struggling against her confines, banging her hands against the wall, attempting to loosen the cuffs. He bashed at her attempts, and one handedly attempted to drag her away from her spot, only stopping to pick up the lamp.

“Honestly,” he huffed, his voice hoarse though he hadn’t yelled at all that night, “I was worried, dear God. I thought one of those creatures followed me back. I thought I was going to die… And then who would look after you?”

He said this through squinted eyes, barely adjusted to the darkness. The words were both said with such a disgust that he was barely hiding his contempt. They continued the trek down. His steps quiet and near hidden behind his wife’s belligerent thumps against the stairs. The way back down the steps was long, arduous, and steep. Roderick pushed open the iron door and filed them through, his wife effectively cowed.

The dungeon beneath his home was a large open space, stone bricks covered the expanse. Shackles and small sconces lined the walls, covered in grime or otherwise sullied by the activities of the room. In the middle of the dungeon was a working slab, a place to lay cadavers and his instruments. Roderick had lain boxes beside the slab, containing every odd spare piece and part. To the far left wall was a desk, huddled against the corner and brandished with the brightest light in the dungeon. On that lay several papers, denoting and renouncing death for what it was, often ending in tangents before listing the work it took to accomplish what Roderick had in bringing his wife back to life.

‘Back to life,’ he thought, bitingly, his words bringing a bitter taste to his mouth. All he had accomplished was in giving himself another burden. His wife was barely fully formed. Poor Genevieve had to be reconscounced into this thing. Roderick dragged her to her pile, a small mess of meats and other things; baby toys among them. They were suited for the child they would never have.

He groaned before carrying himself to his desk in the corner, the farthest point away from his old wife. The musings about the crypt were hidden on the underside of his desk, and as he felt around for them he finally heard the shuffling of something right overtop him. He lifted his head and came to face Genevieve, her skin as pale as it looked in the moonlight. The distance between them was diminished so greatly that if Roderick tried he could stare into the eyes almost fondly, and remember when he saw something in them other than anger.

“Hello?” he said, the next words were spoken in a sharp hiss. “I don’t have the time to deal with you.”

The monster only stared back, her long mouth struggling as she tried to form words, as she tried to make something out of the garbled speech her tongue lent her. At the epitome of her attempt, her jaw went slack where it laid in a scream for her husband to stare at as if he were studying her cadaver. A short rasp came away from the end of her throat, her hands weakly gripped the chair as she choked to get the words out. "H... How dare... you." They were a whisper, scratched out of a voice that shouldn't be able to speak. As she finished she continued to loom over him, staring into his eyes, daring him to speak.

“How dare I?” He spoke at last. His chair skid to a halt as he stood. He watched as Genevieve could only fall back from the weight of the chair. He towered over her, veins threatening to burst through his skin. The warm light of the lamps were shaking, vexing to escape their captors. “Do you know what I’ve done? I may not have healed you, or brought you back as well as you were alive- but you are alive! I’ve helped you escaped death! I’ve given you years, my dear. And you torment me… You tell me I am going against God, yes! Because I am stronger than God. Haven’t you seen what I’ve done?”

Genevieve was sanctioned to listening to his rambles, to the distinct and desecrating laugh her husband had when he felt he’d outsmarted someone. She heard the way her palms shaked on the cold stone. She heard her heart race as if it were alive. And the soft patter of footsteps, thudding their way through into the lower levels. Footsteps heavier than her own, and unheard by her husband because of his rambling. She took three shaking breaths and hoped that whoever was out there would kill her or her husband by the night’s end.

She brought herself back up onto the chair, holding herself upright on it’s back as she heard the footsteps approach closer, halfway down the path to this door. With a shaking hand she pushed herself onto the desk and watched as the papers flew off of the surface, cascading onto the wet, grimy floor and hearing her Roderick’s keel. When she turned towards him, his face was a torrent of colours and she was sharply reminded of the time Roderick had first shoved a mirror in her face after bringing her back. She collapsed, her hands clutching her face as her fingers worked their way around, feeling it’s odd ridges and dips in the surface. She barely noticed as Roderick continued to barrage her, spit threatening to dampen her hands.

The only time she looked up was as the door opened, and another man tumbled out onto the sordid room. He was stocky, almost rigid in the way he walked, and his own body was malformed and grave-ridden as hers. It was almost more gruesome, she realized, as she was one whole piece put together, and he was rather an amalgamation of parts. A puzzle made with the wrong pieces. She stared as Roderick cowered in fear, mumbling about the crypt.

“I… I buried you in there. I left you in a pile of rocks- I thought you were dead!”

It spoke back. Genevieve found her footing as she held onto the desk behind her to support her. It spoke back with a voice as gravelly as her own, in barely a whisper louder. “I was. But it was you who changed that... Wasn’t it, sir?”

“There was a good reason I kept you in there… It was for your own good... ”

“I’m stronger than you. I can overpower you… Those are the reasons.”

“No… no, of course not,” Roderick shook with the response, his arms reaching inward, almost hugging himself. And then he brandished the knife. “You’re a fool. I-I put you together, I can take you apart again!”

“No!” is what Genevieve tried to say. Her mouth opened and her jaw became slack. Her throat was scorched and scratched. Rather than say what she did her throat let out a shriek that made both men jump before they watched the forgotten woman continue to wail.

She crumbled to the floor as she continued to scream, and Roderick was the first to avert his gaze. He brandished the knife once more, “I think we’ve all had enough of this.” he spoke as he moved ever closer to the man in front of him. The man stilled stared at her, no longer surprised by the noise. He was awestruck at finding another thing like him. Roderick soon closed the distance between them, and it was only by the glint of the blade that the man noticed him, too late to deflect the blow. The man saw the cut more than he felt it. He watched as the knife vanished into his skin. The pain that followed was merely a consequence. The pain that had yet to come would be evident once the entirety of the knife was inside his gut, he realized. His heart beat poorly. His mind reworked itself as he felt small explosions of pain inside of his skull. A new feeling, a blossoming array of the extent of human stimulus.

He felt it as if outside himself. He watched as his maker drove to further push in his weapon. He saw the moment the fire rose out of their sconces, the sudden warmth flooded the room as if they were inside the fireplace. Much warmer than the crypt, he thought. His eyes, his sockets flounced wildly through the room before they landed on the man-made woman he saw upon entering. Her gaze was mad, her face contorted into a snarl. The fire continued to pour out of its containers, slithering down the wall to merge upon a single point as if they were the ends of a star whose center was- Roderick.

His screams were the worst. Compared to his wife’s shriek of outrage, compared to the snarled yelps that the man gave when cornered in the crypt. Roderick’s scream decorated the witch-burning with a sullen air. They stood in silence, the monster not being touched by the flames mere centimeters away from him. The wife in a quiet, predisposed air, as if she knew something like this would have been done eventually, if not tonight then maybe the night after. He stood back as he stared, the knife still in his gullet. Roderick continued his writhing and thrashing where he stood. The fire continued to burn.

Genevieve took her chance. She pilfered through the works still on the desk. The papers on the ground were shuffled through towards the fire. Small wisps of flame detached themselves from the open fire. They slithered toward the papers already on the floor; journal entries and scientific study after study; ways to re-animate and resurrect. They all burned. And then she took the stack in her hand, the latest entries of her husband’s ghastly escapades. She walked towards the fire, her husband still encased in flame. The fire opened to accept her as she walked, his work in hand. She waved at the other monster, the only witness of the night’s events. He stared through the flames, straight into her open eyes. He felt as fire cauterized his wound.

He stayed the night. He watched the fire until they were reduced to ash. He wept for the woman he didn’t know. With one last shuddering breath, he left the dungeon of the home. He faced the home through daylight’s eyes; the curtains finely sullied; the bedroom sparse and yet full of oddities. The room full of bodies and spare parts. He thought he should die like the woman did, and yet he felt fear. The fear of the unknown the old man had, no doubt, the fear of death that sent him to pursuit a way against God. With a heavy heart, he promised God and all who heard him that he would never try and better death.

And yet, he wouldn’t ever wish to die. He would let it come naturally, as natural as he could. And until that moment came, he would look after the home and try and fix it’s unnatural state. He would bring it back to something worthy to the woman’s taste, even if she wasn’t here to see. And he would give himself a name.

#proof i write i just dont do much for myself #chronado #dday ???#always assignments

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