The sun is hiding behind a cloud when Lost bursts out of the stairwell into the open air. The rooftop is a wide plaza, peppered with an eclectic assortment of beach equipment and the usual detritus of disused spaces: buzzing heat exchange units, vents slurping down fresh air, and a handful of pigeons. It feels like it is about to rain, but she hopes that it will not; she needs a fast burn to put an end to things. ...
This is the deal that you will make with the endless void in the moment of your death: you will fill it with the fruit of your soul, and when you have nothing more to give you will be part of it. The void is as large as the world and as small as a teaspoon, and at first it does not seem like such a hard thing to fill it. Perhaps you will last longer than your predecessor. ...
Originally posted to Twitter on January 18, 2022. Fleeting waves of mirage haze sleeting across my eyes like rot’s reeking spore, each flexing the world’s bounds further still—walls bow against absent pressure and cracks grow into gaping doors, and all the while the shimmering gem of aura’s heart eats and eats and eats— That brightly lit not-mouth, an angel dancing at the center of my vision; it’s odd how similar a mouth and a wing and an eye can look, you know, how feathers are just teeth seen by someone who’s still waiting to be taught how to be a victim. ...
She always felt like part of her was missing. An ache in her heart, an absence in the air around her—skin wrapped too tight around her bones, blood beating in time with a rhythm unlike her body. She always felt like something was wrong. Always, until she met them. The first time was nothing special. Their strong hands fumbling beneath her skirt, tearing her stockings; the hunger in their eyes tempered by furtive glances towards the office door. Her stammered protests, the blank animal fear curling around her mind as they fucked her— ...
Her lips press against your skin like sun-warmed feathers, soft and gentle, lingering only long enough for the poison to soak in. Each kiss leaves you shivering against the dead field below you, fingers twitching against soil rendered cold and lifeless by winter’s harsh grip— You don’t look at her. The elders made that prohibition quite clear, before they sent you out to offer yourself up. Once they would have scooped out your eyes before leaving you for her to find, but now there are better ways and your vision was bad even before the acid’s touch. ...
“Just try your best, okay dear? It’s fine if it takes a few tries.” Abigail’s eyes jump between the cleaver Cloth Mother has just wrapped her fingers around and the too-small body spread out on the table. Outside the pool of light, Wire Mother grins and blows smoke into the air. “Don’t waste time, dear.” Wire Mother draws the word out, makes it into an insult as it hisses between its glass-shard teeth. “It needs to die.” ...
Once, long before, you wondered why the witch–your witch, now–was always covered in bruises, why her skin was forever a tapestry of slowly fading marks, all those purples and yellows hiding the warmth of her skin. Once, you wondered why. But then you died. When you were alive, you had assumed the obvious. She had never cared to cover them, to conceal them, and you couldn’t conceive of her as a being that anyone could hurt without her willing consent; so you assumed it was simply a kink that she didn’t care to keep secret. ...
The willows’ leaves hang heavy and low, a cascade of crimson tears soaking up the lake’s polluted water, planted by some long-ago witch to decorate a pathway through her estate; but she is long gone now, and her gardens have dwindled to be nothing more than a park. It is a good park, mind, sometimes called one of the city’s shining jewels (though only by poets and brochures); on most days it’s full of picnickers and joggers, stray students playing games on the lawns and witchlings praying for luck at the tomb hidden on the north bank. ...