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thewhumpcaretaker · 5 months ago

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◈━ 𝑩𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑰𝒄𝒆 - 𝑪𝒉. 𝑰𝑰: 𝑬𝒎𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒓𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝑷𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒈𝒆 ━◈

Summary: The Messenger has been sent to ensure that Jens abandons his excavation before he sees too much. And, reluctantly, it does its job. It tortures him, with the icy waters of the Drake Passage as a weapon. But soon it will realize that much more is afoot.

TW: attempted mind control, migraine pain, vomiting (non-graphic), shock, passing out, descriptions of being a scary fish

NAME?

.̵̱̻͕͓͇̲̳̑͒͗͜͝͝*̙̗̯̬̀͜͜ͅl̵̝̥͕̐̿̑͊i̵͈̇̄̐͌͘͜͝͝v̜͉̜̉̓́͆̅͆̕͜ȉ̷̛̳͉̠̝͓͗̒̒̏̚:̵̤͈̭͒͐̂̿

MISSION SUMMARY?

Objectives: Prevent APOKRA sighting. Prevent knowledge acquisition. Failure consequence: Prevent knowledge dissemination. Purification of the target. Target: Jens Vídalín.

YOU MAY STATE YOUR REQUEST.

I request reassignment.

REASON?

The target resists verbal persuasion and melding has failed. The target consistently spawns in demolished sections of my psycheworld – that is, in deep space. He begins suffocating. Perhaps, for another, he will spawn elsewhere.

YOU KNOW BETTER. “SHOULD THE DEMOLISHED SECTIONS BE ACCESSED – “

“The only fault is my own. I am the gatekeeper.”

CORRECT.

Nonetheless, any control over the spawn point constitutes an energy drain. I fear that my efficiency may be compromised.

VERY WELL. UPON YOUR RETURN, YOU WILL BE RECONDITIONED.

Wait! That does nothing to solve the issue at hand.

CAN YOU NOT ENTER HIS PSYCHEWORLD INSTEAD?

…It is extremely inhospitable. Something is wrong with it.

WHAT IS WRONG? WHY IS THIS ISSUE NOT A PART OF OUR KNOWLEDGE BASE?

I don’t know.

IS THAT ALL?

…

REQEST DENIED.

And so the surface of the purple Quasar rushed away, and the Messenger slammed back into its body, some 35,000 ft. above Argentina. It lay flat against the outer hull of the plane, straddling the vertical stabilizer. It had taken an aerodynamic shape for the time being, the bulk of its torso smeared back into something unsettlingly smooth and its spine almost melded against the metal. To an onlooker, it might have looked like the outline of something vaguely humanoid with a seamless, metallic sheet shrink-wrapped over the top of it. But it held its human facial features. It wanted to practice those, for Jens.

Jens Vídalín, little ball of bitterness and misery and carbon down by the cockpit, tangle of machination in dark colors and soft fabrics, blood rushing in his ears like the ocean. Jens Vídalín, forsaken child. Jens Vídalín, whose fate was long spoken for. Jens Vídalín, pretty lamb. Perhaps, if the Messenger looked very beautiful to him, he wouldn’t be so frightened in his final moments. But he wouldn’t have to see it at all if he would just listen before it was too late.

That was a futile hope, and the Messenger knew it. It had tried to get him disqualified from the excavation. It had accosted him on the street, looking like a fortune teller and saying that he must not follow through with his plans. It had tried to talk to him again and again without revealing itself, had been trying to gain control of his mind for days when that failed, and had only sent him further into frenzy. It could feel him solidifying his resolve even now, bracing himself for the next leg of the journey. He had stopped trying to look in its direction, and it had stopped trying to reach into his mind. He was already too cold and dizzy as it was, and if it let him feel the icy wind tunnel racing past the outer hull at low pressure, he’d probably fall unconscious again.

But it brushed against his thoughts occasionally, without coming too close. He was absolutely radiating defiance. And something else too…wonder. Yes, wonder at being so close to the truth. It bordered on the sublime. Anyone who tried to stop him now would have to destroy him.

Messenger sighed with its half-formed lungs as the plane dipped into momentary freefall, gliding through a whirl of light snowflakes onto the runway. From here, Jens and his team would take a ferry to King George Island. Then, they would take another ship down the peninsula, towards the pole.

Jens was not looking forward to the ferry one bit. In fact, like most things, it terrified him.

The Messenger could look right at him in the airport, with eyes and not with thoughts, unlike on the plane. It was refreshing, to have physical sight of him. He set down his bag and leaned against a column while waiting for the others to collect their baggage, and Messenger stood at a distance, shifted into the shape of a janitor. He took off his glasses to massage his forehead, his fingers gradually working back through thick black locks of hair, and then finally gave up and let his arms fall back to his sides. Nothing seemed to help. He put his glasses back on before anyone could notice how ill he was.

But the danger of being noticed was small. The Messenger realized how little any of the others on the excavation crew bothered to look at him, though they talked amongst each other. He was, of course, an outcast everywhere. That should be a relief, as it very well knew. A life unbound from other lives was easily extractable, much better than killing someone beloved by all. But to the Messenger, it felt worse.

It saw him stumble on the way to the taxi. It saw him stumble again getting out. It saw him stop in his tracks when he caught sight of the Southern Ocean for the first time, and the Messenger stopped too, some fifty feet behind in the guise of a dock worker with a fur cap and five o’clock shadow. Past the docks, the water was churning in black, rising into the choppy greys of fog and distant mountains, giving out onto a white abyss of sky. The ferry could be seen rocking just a little on its moorings, and Jens was fixed on it. The Messenger squinted, trying to discern with these shoddy human eyes whether he was shaking. He must be. Good, all the better for one last chance to sway him. It checked itself to ensure the proper state of its features, and then mimicked the gait of the workers around them until they were standing side by side.

It turned to Jens casually. “Waves get up to twelve meters out there. You’re in for a wild storm.”

Jens stared, unanswering. It stared back, letting the depthless fathoms behind its eyes unsettle him. His lips were tight. “I’ve heard your voice before.”

The voice box. Damn it. It wasn’t so good at making those.

“You must be thinking of someone else,” it said, and continued on, as if to make for a toolshed adjacent to the dockworkers’ offices. But he was already so on edge that he couldn’t let it go.

“Where did I hear your voice before!?” His own pitched upward in desperation, and he lunged forward towards the Messenger as if to grab its arm, forcing it into a backwards scramble and then a run to evade him. His peers pulled him back, apologizing to it – but it was already gone.

Jens’ companion surveyed the crowd, recognized no one, and turned to Jens. “What’s the matter with you?”

“…Nothing. I just…thought…I could have sworn I saw someone I knew. But I must have been wrong.” Jens shook his head before finally following them away.

It watched him go, steadying itself. That had been close. Better not to join him on the ship at all. And besides, if it could wear out his body now, he’d be sent home.

It circled around behind the toolshed, and then gave up the shambling gait for something more fluid, let itself slip into the water and its clothes slip away, its lungs slip right out of being. Water fluttered through its ribcage and its neck and over its scales. It was no elegant mermaid, but something long and slithering enough to keep pace with the ship when the time came, an armless human head on the body of a pale, ten foot serpent, such as swims in the deepest places. None saw its pallid ribbon slip between the rocks and then low into the harbor, and out, following the ferry.

How many shifts was that today? Five at least. It would be so good to feed, but it wasn’t really necessary. With any luck, it would not need to shift again for some time. The Drake Passage was a two-day crossing. Two days to focus entirely on the target.

It got comfortable, zig-zagging above jagged rocks, letting its eyes adjust to the trickle of colorless light that filtered down through the storm and then the waves. Fleshy, fishy cod ran up against it, recoiling in horror. They made this body lick its lips, though they would not offer it any real nourishment. Farther out, there were icefish and sweet snailfish – it could scent them by the fragments of their dead fluttering through its gills, and that hunger struck harder and harder. But what it needed was lightning. Plasma, rich, brilliant plasma.

And the storm delivered. The Messenger’s maw rose to meet it. Up, up, up, it raced, in a straight line, broke surface and dove into the sky and the sky arced down its throat in a thundering flash. What a sight it was! A serpent eating lightning. The boatman who watched it rear its awfully human face above the water would remember that moment for the rest of his life, and never tell. Who would believe him?

Other things, too, were hungry – killer whales calling to each other in the distance, but even they did not dare to approach The Messenger, whose intelligent, slithering movements they could not predict or understand. It touched bottom, enjoying its fullness, felt the sand against its belly with a simple, hedonistic joy, and left bizarrely snaking trails in its wake.

But it did not forget Jens in its play. No, not for a moment. It tilted its head (and the mind within its head) and sought him, from time to time. Night had come upon them in a curtain of deep grey, and the storm painted it with whites and purples now and then, snapped up by the Messenger if they were close enough. Winds began to buffet the ferry while Jens stared out a porthole, eyes wide.

The Messenger couldn’t quite see what he saw, but it could take in the nature of his state. It wanted so badly to help him… It would have to be brutal to him, really brutal. It have to break him… It hated this in every part, but it felt more powerful out here, closer to the APOKRA. And Jens felt more terrified. Maybe now, all would become possible.

Every touch wracked the Messenger. Its long tail thrashed out in an agony of unfulfilled affection every time it felt his mind. He felt too sick to eat or drink – not from nausea really, but from sheer anxiety. He was laying, probably in his bunk, with his head feeling like it had a cleaver through it, but with his eyes wide open for fear of being approached in his sleep. He knew it was near. And he knew the APOKRA was near. The Messenger had some notion that he couldn’t tell the difference between the two – not that it mattered. It gave him whole thoughts. Go back. Go home. You can live in peace.

NO. Go to hell, he answered.

Experimentally, it let something bleed through, and Jens thrashed just as the Messenger had, but in confusion and terror. He was trying to stop himself from screaming as he felt dark water rush over his body. Good. It would let him feel this every now and then, unpredictably. It drew nearer and nearer to the boat, and to the surface, closing the distance between them, giving him flashes of icy pain, of what he would feel if he didn’t give this up.

It was torturing him. And it would not stop for anything until it knew he would go home and live.

Its makeshift heart pounded with a sick mixture of terror and determination, such as a doctor might feel in the midst of surgery without anesthetic or an animal catcher trying to bring in something wild and beautiful for treatment. Just a little more, just a little more, and this nightmarish interaction would be over. Just give in, just submit, and this will all be easy…

The waves were twelve feet and cold enough to stop his heart. The Messenger rose up within a wall of water where it could see the little ferry by lightning strike, and let itself be thrown back down, over and over, each fall slamming into Jens. At some point he vomited and lay down again empty, fearing for his life. His body was getting fully chilled, and he struggled to warm it, probably pulling blankets around himself, but it was no use – the Messenger had too much control. He was shivering very badly, rocking and crying out and cursing at it.

But Jens would not break. He seemed made for this, trained for this. If it went any harder, he would pass out.

And then it felt it.

There was something else in Jens’ mind with them.

No, it couldn’t be.

APOKRA?

The thing did not answer. But something was happening to Jens. The Messenger felt coldness seep deeper than the bone – not merely unpleasant, not merely painful, but lethal. A second torture on top of the first had overcome him. He was – no. Yes. He was going into very heavy shock. He was dying.

The feverish effort of torturing him had already driven it to the brink. It was shouting in its mind. What are you doing? You can’t feed here, master! You’ve drawn attention to yourself!

It hesitated, but couldn’t hold itself back.

LEAVE HIM ALONE.

Still, the thing did not answer. Its mind had gone somewhere else, carrying Jens’ mind away in its claws. It felt like APOKRA, yes, that much was certain. Vast, ancient, hideous with all the martyrdom taken upon itself. And the Messenger, it seemed, was beneath its notice.

What the hell was the Messenger supposed to do? Jens was unconscious now. He must have passed out in his bed. The third being was inside his psycheworld, torturing him, just as something had made the lights go out on the plane. It must have been the same then, only milder.

Should it follow the two of them?

But then he would feel even colder, and he couldn’t take much more. His body needed the Messenger now, needed heat. And perhaps healing, if it wasn’t already too late.

On impulse, the Messenger streaked towards the ferry.

Hold on, Jens…

He could not hear it, and wouldn’t trust it if he could, but it was frantic. It threw itself against the side of the boat, sprouted a hundred tentacle arms rife with suction cups, and began to scuttle up the flat metal of the prow like an ungodly centipede. Someone above looked down over the railing, let out the sort of strangled noise that humans make when they see a loved one decapitated in front of them, and fainted.

This turn of events was not only thrilling, but convenient. The Messenger wore the fainted man’s likeness into the cabin of the ship, homing in on Jens’ room. It tried the door. Bolted.

Another shift was needed. Thank goodness for that lightning earlier. It became a totally improvised, shapeless sort of slime that oozed under the door and then straightened up again, into the full grandeur of its favorite human avatar, designed for Jens, in case he happened to awaken and see it.

It was panting over him, still soaked and leaving a trail of salt water across his floorboards.

He was sprawled across his bunk, a pathetic tangle of limbs and tears, quite unconscious just as the Messenger had expected. His bunkmate, no doubt tired of his noise and commotion, had gone to sleep elsewhere. “I’m sorry”, it whispered aloud, with its perilously recognizable vocal cords. At least they were rich and melodic. “I didn’t know what it was doing to you.”

He did not stir, only let out a low whine of pain. The Messenger stroked his forehead and thought of him with wild affection, with real giving. His hair was so silken, his skin so soft. But he was icy too. It pitied him, pitied him until its heart tore open – not the one in its chest, but its real heart, beating somewhere beyond spacetime in the psycheworld. And life force poured out of it, into his freezing brain.

How many times had he endured that alone? What an atrocity. And what the hell could the APOKRA be playing at? Food gets away all the time, just let him go and then he wouldn’t be seeking its burial ground…

Compassion kindled to rage. It should slip away now, back into the waves, but it didn’t. Fuck the APOKRA. Fuck reconditioning. A week hence, it might have to end him. But for now it pulled the blankets up around his shoulders, bent over him, and held his cold, forsaken body through the storm.

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#cosmic horror whump #cosmic horror #original fiction #whump writing #oc jens vidalin #oc messenger #fear whump #caretaker forced to whump #reluctant whumper

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