#tdi Ezekiel | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lycanpunk666 · 6 months ago

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Beloved Wretch

It had been only a few days since Ezekiel had stowed away in the plane for the new season after being so unceremoniously booted off. What had he done? What was so wrong that it had caused Chris to throw him out after his worst crime may have been talking too much? He saw everyone else’s looks, too. The way that they pretended to be subtle in their bitter glares and mutters. They thought he didn’t notice. He did, but his father had always told him to hold his head high (though that may have been referring to his posture). They just weren’t cool enough for him! And Ezekiel was cool. They just couldn’t tell. Sucks to be them. The Zeek was gonna win. Even if it didn’t… look like it yet! But he will, in due time. You just wait.

But Ezekiel had grown hungry. He had been here for several days in these vents and he had quickly regretted it. He had pinpricks of light that sliced out from the vents that cut into his home like radiant knives. And he savored it. Everything else was dark. So dark that he knew his pupils were like saucers so they could take any amount of light that came to them. His cat, Jessy, did that all the time back at home when it got dark. Freaked him out a little. He knew the spelling was wrong, but he was never good at that anyway. Everyone knew what he meant, anyway.

They looked at him strange, though. Just like the other contestants did. Like he was stupid. Like he didn’t know any better.

“There’re so many ways to spell Jessie, and you had to pick the one that’s wrong. How stupid can you be?”

He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t. He deserved to be treated like anyone else. He had a good head. He deserved to be treated like anyone else. He had a good mind.

All he needed was something to eat.

He stares through the lights in the vents, pressing his nose wordlessly as he gazed upon his fellow contestants.

They’d forgotten about him. Hadn’t they?

As those in the first class sipped what smelled like mocktail and feasted upon sweets and shrimp in glorious feats of decadents. And Ezekiel’s stomach moaned and growled. He presses his face into the vent so hard that the cutting light was literal and present upon the bridge of his nose. And he didn’t care.

He watched as one of the girls— Lindsay? sipped a mocktail, leaning against the stool at the bar as she giggled at something that new guys, Alejandro, said. He had her wrapped around his little finger with just a few compliments, and he didn’t like it one bit. Lindsay HAD a boyfriend! Where WAS Tyler, anyway? He can’t see him here, and he didn’t like what Alejandro was doing. He didn’t know his intent, but he’s seen and heard enough about this guy that he didn’t like it. Ezekiel wished he could be there. Tell him off. Would he have listened? Does it matter, so long as he was there? Was it selfish to think about it as a chance to be present rather than just helping his friend?

He watched and strained his ears to listen to the din of the cabin, and the warm ambience of light that washed into the place.

And Ezekiel felt warm tears fall upon his cheek. He didn’t feel it until he could taste the salt. First thing he’s tasted in ages.

He was crying.

He was crying, and it was all beautiful, and he was so, so hungry.

He was in hell, looking at heaven, and he ached for the companionship, for the din and the words that floated without care, for the light and the food and the warmth and everything that he saw here.

And he cried.

——————

It had been a week and a half since he entered the vents.

And something was wrong with the place. The slices of light were gone from the vents, and he was blind. He could hear, however, as he crawled upon all fours and his stomach devoured itself.

He still needed to win. And to win, he needed to live. They’d love him if he survived. He was brave.

He needed food. And he needed a shower. He was left here in the circular vents, crawling on his hands and bare feet, covered in filth that he had no choice but to keep.

And he could not hear the words anymore. The individual voices. He could hear sounds. But not words. He strained, and clawed at the walls, but nothing could be heard. He knew they could not hear him, either.

But he did hear something. The faint scratching of claws against metal.

For an insane moment, he wondered if they were his own. His nails had grown (was it right that they had grown this fast), but he had filed them down to keep them from turning into claws. He was still a person. He still had a mind.

But scratching meant rats.

And rats meant food.

——————

It was just crumbs. It was just crumbs, and they just made it worse, even when he licked the hot metal until his cracked tongue bled.

The rats themselves did not taste that bad, however.

Nothing did, he supposed, at this point.

——————

There was something inside the rat. Something rotten. Something alive. Not a disease. But not… NOT a disease.

There was something alive. And it twisted through his gut and his veins and his brain and it began to speak to him in his head in song.

Stupid beast.

Stupid, brainless thing.

They’ve forgotten you.

They wanted to, too. They hate you. Less than hate, worse yet. They feel nothing at all for you.

But don’t worry.

I do.

They don’t remember your face. Your name has not been on their tongue for ages.

But I am here. I am here to help you. And I will allow you to live. And you will be grateful for it. Beloved boy. Beloved, wretched thing.

He was scared.

But what could he do?

A voice, after all, is a voice (even if imagined).

And it was better than silence.

——————

He doesn’t know how long it’s been anymore. He doesn’t know how long he’s been blinded here. How long his eyes have tried and failed to scrape for an ounce of light and have given up. And how his body has grown… unable to scratch his way around the vents.

He collapses upon the vents, struggling to draw breath.

He can’t die.

The rats have had their fill, too, when he hadn’t gotten the chance to devour them, too (and the worms within them grow into colonies within him).

He’s pretty sure he’s entirely lost two of his toes, and half of his right ear.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

Nothing matters.

His hair’s fallen out, too, in clumps. He tried to eat that, too, but nearly choked to death from it.

He had something he wanted to do. Something that kept him here. What was it?

He can’t remember.

He can’t die.

Sniveling wretch, The voice sung. You still have food. Don’t you? You still have sustenance.

Look to your hands.

The blinded wretch cannot see them, but he looks down nonetheless.

And at last, he understood.

He sticks his thumb into his mouth. It tasted disgusting due to the level of grime caked upon it, but he didn’t care about it. He sucked upon the thing, and it brought him such a brief sense of comfort. A brief relaxation in his stiffened shoulders that brought him back to when he was small.

When he was tiny, and cared for, and loved dearly. And nothing bad has happened to him yet.

He ached for the feeling.

Do it. The worms whispered, in chorus.

Do it and feed us. Beloved wretch. Beloved boy.

There was a crack.

As his mouth filled with blood.

He would have cried if his throat were not bone dry.

If his tear ducts were not barren like a desert from all the tears he has already lost. And the worst part was that it was wonderful. Just like the rats, it was absolutely… delicious. Once he severed the bone from its joint, it made a satisfying pop sort of sound. It didn’t hurt as much afterwards. It didn’t even make him all that sick.

He was bleeding quite a bit, but he just held it against his tattered shirt.

The claw that had formed on his thumb scraped against his already-ruined throat, but he didn’t care. It was food.

It was all he could do not to descend upon another.

But the things inside his blood and stomach sang to him once again.

He doesn’t need all of his fingers, anyway.

——————

The thing formerly referred to as Ezekiel was not grateful as Chris McLean, the mad host, pulled it from its prison.

The light burned its eyes, and it could not do anything but scrape and claw, finally drawing blood as its claws dug into the mad host’s skin before being thrown into a cage.

It was provided solace briefly from the blanket thrown over the cage, despite the taunts beyond the curtain.

But it realized, just a few moments later, that it was not afforded salvation.

The curtain is taken off, and the gaunt creature with a ruined head that lulled to the side stares with the vaguest recognition towards a small… crowd.

It knew these people, somewhat.

They stared at it. Like something was wrong with it.

Nothing at all is wrong with you, beloved.

It’s like you thought.

You’re too good for them.

They gasp because they are in awe.

You are better. Better than them. Pay no mind.

The wretch’s hungry, hungry eyes glance through the onlookers as its breath huffs and wheezes pained breath from lips that have long been stained with filth and crusted-over blood.

Until its eyes once again fall onto a familiar face. Big blue eyes and long blonde hair that still shone from her meticulous care.

Lindsay.

She…

Why was she…

Looking at him like that?

A name left her lips. Confused, mostly, with pain pricking through her tone.

“Ezekiel?”

Ezekiel.

The wretch-

Ezekiel. He had a name. He had a face. He had a mind.

Barely present.

And…

Ezekiel…

Ezekiel wants to scream. He wants to yell words, to beg for mercy and forgiveness, to sob and cry for his family, his friends, for mercy! Mercy! HOPE! ANYTHING!

He reaches out. Through the bars of his cage, with his hand that barely had three fingers left, all ruined and ripped with cracked claws. And he sobs. He sobs without tears.

But he has cried so much that his tear ducts are dried, many times over. And the rancid air and dust of the vents, and poorly healed wounds, and the worms from the rats that twisted through his blood like a serpent choked out his throat and lungs in much the same fashion as a noose. And he could not speak. He roared and moaned and barked and sobbed tearlessly and breathlessly.

Like the mindless beast he was.

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