Words

The poultice stings as it presses against her splitting flesh, as the cool liquids inside seep out into the painful heat radiating from her back. She does her best not to scream, not to wince, and her failure is rewarded with a Look, disappointment more potent than any fist. She buries her face in the bed, hides her tears as the second poultice presses against her shame, against the burning red streaks stretching and tearing her skin as they swell and throb inside the small of her back, as lances of Wrongness skewer her to her bed. ...

It is understood that ⸤distillation⸣ is a process by which ⸤slimes⸣ maybe be both concentrated and made more amenable to their ⸤purposes⸣. However, this process does not reduce their ⸤curative properties⸣ when applied to a ⸤garden’s components⸣. Through the application of a ⸤purpose-made object⸣ to a fully ⸤distilled slime⸣ a form of thread may be produced with minimal cost to the surrounding ⸤garden⸣. Such thread is suitable for lacing through any ⸤damaged components⸣, and noticeably prolongs their ⸤life⸣. ...

By the time you find the secret door you’re almost ready to give up and call it a day (well, a night. Can’t rob the necropolis during the day!). Maybe this tomb was never finished, this mausoleum never occupied. Maybe it’s just a dead end! A trick. It’s been known to happen. Besides, your lantern’s starting to sputter, the last refill of oil on your belt hanging with the weight of finality. If you waste it on a dead end then it’ll be weeks until you can scrounge up enough for another attempt, maybe months before you can sneak in again. ...

She only went to the witch as a last resort, after years of being shuffled between doctors, of mortifying exams and racks upon racks of bloody vials. And, of course, pain. Always pain, always the ebb and flow of agony filling her and fading away with no rhythm she could hear. She wasn’t stupid, no matter how her mind was fogged; she knew that witches were a last resort, dangerous and mercurial. That’s what she had always been taught, what she’d always heard in breathless news reports about children plucked from their beds and remade into new forms. ...

Feral angel girl sitting in the basement, far from her flock’s nests, filthy light splintered by broken windows falling all around her. It reminds her of her halo, in a way. Letting it fill her senses feels the same as the Thing used to feel in her mind. Years ago someone dragged a whole-ass payphone into the basement, just pulled it right out of the ground and tossed it down. It still sparks form time to time. ...

“Why!” (slam) “won’t!” (slam) “you!” (slam) “die!” She brings the window down on your neck again and again, each impact sending fresh cracks shooting through your body’s smooth glass, reopening the old ones you had so laboriously sealed earlier in the day. A passerby glances at you, curious about the noise; you do your best to smile back, to ward off his attention. It’s easy enough not to wince, to play this off as just some game. ...

(this story hurt to write; I cannot say whether it will hurt to read, but please don’t force yourself to.) The witch treasured her dolls more than anything else, more than all her wealth and power. She crafted them from the finest components, beautiful souls carefully freed from failing flesh and woven through with threads of memory and love; each one a testament to her devotion. For a time this love was even reflected in the title the world gave her, that welled up from the strength of her workings and the marks she left around her. ...

A ⸤garden⸣ was once a place with plants and paths, ordered according to forgotten aesthetic principles. It was generally understood to be undesirable for the garden’s ⸤components⸣ to retain their eyes, so as not to unsettle visitors and to provide them with drinks. The drinks offered by paths were typically rich and metallic, sometimes fortified with ⸤powdered calcium⸣. Those presented by plants were delicate and floral, full of tender salt and spice. They were considered more intimate, and needed to be replanted more frequently. ...

Each morning you wake to new holes in your vision, new sharp-edged gaps; each morning you wonder what they will take from you. At first it was only ever small things, easily unnoticed, spare chargers and half-forgotten souvenirs, the remains of a meal. Nothing that mattered. But then you woke to find that one had opened near the center of your vision, a gash of flickering emptiness tearing at the world; and as you turned to hug someone you can’t remember any more you felt it tear her apart, smelled her hot blood spilling out to soak the sheets. ...

Slipping into the club, music pounding at your ears, in your bones, the thrum of life and song and dance; friends with you for a moment then gone in the kaleidoscope whirl, torn apart, joining the crowd– And you go with them, lost in light and sound and movement. The noise is inside you, it is you, filling your motions with beautiful Purpose; twirling through the crowd, intersecting and diverging, no partner lasting more than a few moments–that’s not what tonight wants of you. ...