Where we buried the smell of death
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Warnings: major character death but that doesn't last long, Death as a mother figure, supernatural elements, bizarre, purple prose, non sense, excessive use of comas and metaphors, and just... I don't even know anymore. Not a cross over, but can you imagine Wammy as Frankenstein and L as his little creature and think of all the ways that could have gone wrong?
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"I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel"
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
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Once upon a night, a lady in a cloak picked up an encrypted slab, no , a flower, foxglove, a little boy waited with the face of pain, and the sardonic consumption of illness that makes the fleshy parts flutter and sting. She shook her head, clasped her hands, and sang with honest sorrow "Oh it is cruel to be kind" to the airy sin that clogged her bloodline for a thousand years. Pity to resort to the enhances of Death, she held him, face buried in his fair scent, mouthed words against his ear and sprint into oblivion holding his tiny cold hand, a hollow mark of love.
"Mother" he called out in a borrowed breath, but not to her, and Death, in her end of being and eternal grace, answered back, laid his head in her lap, his dark hair tangled in her luminescent bones, she pressed the side of his skull until his ears rang with her disembodied voice, and she sang with the voice of her mother, her other one, the tale of the paradoxes of life like they were dear. The cold of her hand on his brow, the kiss she leaved there, a touch pure as ignorance of what comes, as alone as hope.
Later, he would hear from no one's lips, that he was born from a thunderstorm, no, during a thunderstorm, and that his veins are made of lighting. He would look down on his arm and trace the blue patterns, carrying him over time, over scars of coldness and warmth, and the deep ocean where truth hides. Everyone who dares cross a word with him is said to talk to spirits, because he makes the ground tremble, but it's a lie, because his smile has more teeth than a human, but that's a lie too, he is no monster, he will tell his fractured reflection on the evening, alone and quivering, "I'm not a monster", he will say only once, but continue the chant in his head as he follows with dainty fingers and an anemic smile the scar on his chest, from collarbone to pelvis, ricocheting into other ones, like seams of a rag doll that knew so close the roaring of the clouds from years ago.
There is the figure of a storm in the forecast for tonight.
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A house, a manor, in a street with no name, a way no reaching must be attempted, haunted by the living, fighting for the dying, hush spirits, hushed. A gate opens and silence spreads like a gunshot in the air, an axe on fire, imagination knocking into perversion. The way to hell is being stepped, with the keys chiming in his pocket.
He leaves his overcoat in a hanger by the main entrance, steps out of the night to break the stillness of dark blue walls and embroidered carpet. Long hallways and old secrets. He walks, catches the pictures that shiver at night with the corner of his eyes. And the fire place that controls time. He walks backwards in his mind, following the path of the inanimate, the order, his gun in a safe place, silver bullets lined and polished. A rumor spreads, the fire kindles, as a thunder shows the Universe's boundaries, it has none, he follows his shadow to the next room and children cry in their cribs far too many miles away.
His waist coat rests on the back of a leather chair, behind his desk, facing the entrance he walked by, but not him, red stripes on this wallpaper, patched up from the inside out, the shadow of a small fish in the wall tank colors his face for a moment, he stills and watches its tail wave at him and away, the water its fresh, he can smell that much from here, bubbles form, rise and burst at his sight, he feels slightly drowned. A faucet drips and it's not much ominous, but humidity reaches the very dark place of a mind, he knows as he takes one foot in front of the other, how dangerous it is to follow, sweat drops in motion down his face, he feels the sting and pull of an injure that never heals, a stain that was never there, internalized.
He places his hat with care, wet from the rain, next to today's paper crumpled on a table, a different room, much unlike the others, each one heavier than the last and he thinks it is no coincidence. The smell of burned wax and iron greets him at the foot of his bookcase, old but in pristine condition, books protected by dust, lined systematically in a language before numbers; tomes and encyclopedias, some he had memorized, some he had written. He scans his fingers over the leathery spines, a familiar motion that send shivers down his spine and up the oldest, wisest part of his brain cortex, flashing red in warnings. He hears his own voice and it sound like a tomb.
The tome comes down heavy on his hand, activating the system that reveals the staircase like a secret to his own weary home. He turns to grip the wildness that has left him with a vice, and a thirst that cannot be dominated, the thoughts that consume his night as easily as a breath against his cheek.
He downs the stairway, long and wide and rundown by the heaviness of the steps of time, two at a time. Reaching the threshold is the easiest, what comes next makes the dread on his stomach rise, and doubt jumps on his shoulder. He takes his morality, his vision, and the values he holds dear on his back and says a prayer with more force than necessary before he paces like a pendulum.
The silence resounds against him, with the ghost of an echo, eternal in its grace, like music in nature if you lay still and listen carefully. The crucifix of an ashen Jesus Christ spins, nailed against the wall as it is, like a compass in a defying gravity environment. The night is long and the air is stale, frozen in a moment whilst everything moved around it in pulsating beats. He opens the final door with an oval key but it feels like the first in his life. The room, his personal lab, sit directly underneath the fireplace, but he doesn't dwell on it.
Small light bulbs hang bare, not one exceeding 60 volts, he is careful with light, wouldn't want it to cast his secrets, aware of his defaults, aware of this, madness.
The room no man inhabits, but machinery he has harvest himself from dust, exhaling electricity, and, by the time he will be finished, life. Its wall a mix of nature, dark greens and browns, with the vast dimension and thickness in the air of the forest on a night like this, many years ago.
Stacks of bandaged papers he excuses as his research, spread open over file storages made tables, a Bunsen burner sits with last night's unfinished dinner, today's breakfast is somewhere within the array of dirty beakers, a still boiling condenser filling a 1000 ml Erlenmeyer flask rounds his old desk, test tubes in various states of filling with faded colored liquids, to the brim, or fuming, most odorless, colorless, and tasteless, some stench. He avoids all that as long as he tastes blood behind his teeth.
He washes his face on the sink, there is long dark hair in the faucet, but he pays no mind, his skin prickles and there are cogs in the mirror, turning at the opposite direction than the grandfather clock on his living room, the one with the checkered wall paper and figurines that weep blood.
There is a fridge behind a hidden door, a complete collection of cytological samples of every tissue in the body, tubes of human plasma, a picture a boy he knows so well by now, a life time ago, a clipping on the newspaper with the compelling story of small geniuses, a copy of Robbins' Pathologic Basis of Disease, parcels with tied ribbons an untied ribbons, young fresh organs, he ignores these the most.
Scrubbing up to his elbows in soapy water that looks like his ancient faults beneath his nails, he prepares his scrubs with the practice routine of a mortician. Threading lightly, there is icy ground on his feet, on the air, like speckles of lunacy that grips and holds and never lets go as long as you deny it.
He marches up, uncertainty poking holes at his soles, tomorrow he will find little markings on his feet, amongst other horrors of a making not entirely his own. There are forces that oughtn't to be meddle with, and Quillish Wammy subscribed with blood and terrible youth.
Surgical drapes in shades of cobalt maintain the semblance of legitimacy, hiding the miles of wires and cables, raw and patched up in black tape, running across corners, hiding behind furniture, lighting up the in between of walls. He swallows dry and feels his muscles contracting with anatomical accuracy.
Honey, the kids are screaming, honey the kids are screaming, a televisions chips. The gentle sway of trees, old scratching sound from inside the skull, teeth on bone, bone of rot. Flower wither at the stank of fresh air, a cloud of nothing mists the air. No impulse shall be trusted, for truth is an acquired taste.
He moves the drapery surrounding him, him, the one, the undisclosed, he staggers, takes a breath that holds no owner, his gloved hands feel tighter, skin pulling at the wrong direction. The smell is not quite so strong anymore, with the ice and pines. The strong forces lurking at his back, mulling over his books, ancient and unfinished alike.
He's an inventor, but soon he will be a collector.
"It would be monstrous" they told him, words with a clarity no one could understand, he saved his tongue, hand pressed against his cheek in an effort to contain, mask his silence as a cheap brand of understanding a man under a lighting strike gets.
"You would be perfect" he whispered, milky eyes and slackened jaw stared back at him, probing needlework on supple skin, brain matter charred and resurrected with a promise. Knowledge is latent and memories are smoke.
He thinks he hears him but as he casts down a look he knows it's not the boy, couldn't possibly be, the walls melt with understanding, goo poodles, puncture marks engraved on the doors, he slams his palm flat against the table, the boy doesn't blink, couldn't possibly, he sees his hands in fine tremors and makes a loose fist, "I will save you", and he means it this time.
Sutures of silk and nylon line up the epicenter of his chest, staples across the natural sutures of the skull, disdain covers the gentleman's features, such a sad tale for such a young soul. He will give him purpose, make him clean after all the grime that coveted him, and followed him along the bright lines and wrongful turns of his short life span.
Lighting illuminates half his face, a Jacob's ladder makes a brief cameo and it's almost enough. For science, he keeps to himself, "For the world" is what he says instead. Blink one, two ,three, a widow's wail, it wanes out his own thinking, fire circuits crackling.
A sculpture fall on its side, the eyes leading the exit. Sterile floors and walls, and the smell of bleach and disinfectant is the starting point, he works with his hands, sweat trailing down his spine, tiny finger-shaped bruises on his wrists, a child weeps, leather straps and skinny legs rattle the table, black spots tip toe around the edges of vision, zig zaging the core of his voice "We're almost finished". Be still, he commands with a mask, gas leaking into mouth, mouth scratching the soft inner walls of a throat, lungs heaving, stomach jumping, tears streaking.
Cruel, the gentleman would hear, but cruelty would spare what kindness could not. He will not spare this boy, who has no experience with any sort of kindness that isn't immediately followed by trepidation. Unmoored by emotions, in a fragile morality that quivers like a wind chime of bones, and a sense of duty that left to be desired. There are, could be said, advantages, to belonging nowhere.
A raven pecks the lone window, a tree with gray leaves salutes the night, a hangman scarecrow that jumps at loud sounds. It's the night where ghouls come out to play, come out to play, come out to play, sings the sister of a man he never knew, it quiets when a witch uncovers a streak of moon light. The boy sees all of this, and knows, no one will believe him. His eyelids are held open for him, cold steel so close to his warm eyeballs, to the blood pumping slow and then fast, hearing the EKG like a womb, compelling, sweet talking him to sleep it off, we're almost done the man had said, the goose bumps on his flesh settle and a drop falls into his drying retina.
The man reaches for his side table, the sound of sterile instrumentally makes thin lips part, dry breath passes them only to be pushed again, as a command, steel gray eyes breach him, fingers scratch to grab at something ticker, more grounded than the boy's thin white scrubs.
The sea wakes a ripple at its heart, blood leaks and he can't identify the source, such pale skin, apply pressure and take the pulse. Airway, breathing, circulation, disability, exposure. The boy has pure oxygen pushing open his bronchus, bursting open the little veins and arteries and their connections inside, forming new ones, stronger ones, his head is tipped back, all angles aligned, he is one long tube for which life passes through, his skin is pale, blue veins jump and eyes flutter in their cages, conscience slips away like a river between the folds of the universe, he has no voice, his limbs are locked, and his eyes follow no order, no light, dry burning aches, he is naked and frail under his gown.
He cleans the hard worn sweat off his forehead with his arm, blue scrubs clinging to his skin like a compulsive thought. Blood loss is minimal, bruising easy to convey, he will leave no damage to spare. Kneading the soft part to endure, the hardened parts to break.
Both of the thin arms are pierced with IV lines, one with a steady glucose drip, the other one with a saline solution and a strong opiate, as a conglomerate of sedatives are being cleansed by the fresh blood course.
"Do not move", it would be hazardous, he wants not to threaten the life of the boy, but to improve his capacities, go beyond formal limitations, for science, for the greater good.
He hears stabbing inside his ears, realizing soon after that is his own blood, his own nerves and thoughts rekindling with life. A conjure is whispered closely to his lips, he savors it and keeps it in his ribcage where it bounces with a beat, it is his heart, again, he is summoning his other self to rearrange and relearn, but the placing is incorrect and he doesn't recognize this new order, his insides itch, and his eyes are all seeing, the past, the future, the beyond. A course of information shocks him, he convulses, spits and chokes, his cells die in a shock of heat and regenerate at an impossible pace, he dies a million times and is born again as a stranger to himself. He knows this, but the pain is distant, of his old self that he has watched died from the inside of his eyelids. He calls out and is met back with nothing, his lips are sewn shut, his eyes held open, trapped, he thinks."You're safe" he hears.
He helps him on his feet, his hands are small and dainty, but the pulse is strong. He stand on his feet, familiar and unaccustomed, he coughs and it shakes his lithe body off balance, he is however, defused of illness and weakness.
Snow falls like ashes on the window, crusting the hinges until spring comes along.
The man watches, entrapped, sweat coiling in his skin, breathes a speck of frosty air and whispers, enchanted, "L".
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