#Aidonsvalley | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

natamoko · 4 years

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UNEARTHED by @nakamoto

for @11thsense (3.7K)

(There is a reason why Aidonsvalley stands alone, makes its own decisions, attracts and denies, takes and leaves. There is a reason why it has a heart of its own.)

On the door of the Church of St. Agnes, a page was stamped: “1 PETER 2:4-6 — As you come to him, the living Stone - rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him - you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

A crimson thumbprint was displayed alongside the words, and Raheem didn’t know whether to take it as some extremely obvious omen or something that should be ignored. He shrugged and went on his way. He had things to do. Nothing necessary, of course.

Aidonsvalley attracted a healthy amount of tourists due to its strange nature. The sun appeared at dawn and left at dusk just like it did everywhere else in the world. Everything worked as it should, but evidently something was amiss. The land chose what it acquired and what it discarded. It chose what it claimed and what it dismissed. And if you did everything right, (and you had to—those who didn’t could never die, those who didn’t would wander and lead a life of toil forever) then the land embraced you warmly enough and you would never get to leave. Raheem had been claimed not too long ago. Partially because of his transformation when he was fifteen, partially for a reason he had not yet understood. That knowledge was long overdue.

Aidonsvalley loved the supernatural, he knew that much.

Despite the wonders it did for the town’s tourism, he couldn’t help but mess with the newcomers everytime they arrived. They marvelled at the aging billboards (“Look, honey, this is the ‘56 ad! From the D’Arcy era; you know I love my beverage trivia—”) and the churches at every corner, more churches than convenience stores. They usually arrived in the evening times when it was cooler, because that was when the neon electronic advertisements would light up. No one ever donated their used dreams, but they sure loved staring at it.

Raheem, from a folding chair situated near a rhododendron bush, noted that these particular tourists looked alike, but not so much that you could mistake them for siblings. They were both wiry and tall, limp blonde hair; one was pulled back in almost identical ponytails, while the other was closely and badly shaven. Diligently poring over the maps in their hands.

The couple peered at the statue before them—Edmund Aidon, the founder of the town. His image was said to be greatly exaggerated, as his biceps were larger than what seemed humanly possible, and his canines were unusually blunt. Still, he looked important, so tourists adored him.

The woman, the one with a fascination for old Coca Cola television advertisements, tapped lightly against Aidon’s thigh. Her partner asked, “Isn’t it magnificent?”

“I’m not too sure,” she said, giving it another light knock before straightening and snapping a photo. “Smile, Edmund Aidon. 1834 to 1911. Timor dei in terra. I think that’s his own personal motto, or maybe something for the town. You studied Latin in school, Geoff, what does that say?”

“All I got was ‘terra’,” he said with a shrug, “Land. And are you okay? Why are you obsessed with that thing?”

Raheem had never offered the statue anything other than a sidewards glance. The tourists in the area generally camped near the lake, hoping to catch sight of the legendary local siren (or something close to that—there wasn’t a word to accurately describe her). Or sometimes they lingered near one of the many churches, over-analysing the scripts hung to the doorposts or trying to catch a word or two from one of the sermons. A rumour had started spreading amongst the tourists a while ago of demons being summoned in church, the house of God being used as a cover. As a demon himself, Raheem knew that was untrue. But its unlikeliness didn’t stop the persistent, eager tourists.

If they were going to remain here, poking at the statue and conversing, they should spend some money on him and make themselves useful. Raheem continued listening to their conversation, considering whether he should use his influence. But unfortunately, he wasn’t really in the mood to make them both walk off the pier, hand in hand, and become April’s supper, or cause them to develop a sudden intense fascination with his father’s restaurant.

The woman turned to her partner. Raheem could see her face from here, all sunburned skin and worry in her eyes. She scratched at her crooked nose and gave the statue one last tap. “I don’t know. It feels hollow, almost. Forgive me for this, but slightly corrugated, even.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” ‘Geoff’ said, not even bothering to check for himself. Idiot. “The guide says it’s made of marble. Marble doesn’t echo.”

“This does.” She sighed and stood up. “Whatever. We should head to the hotel now. I’m starving.”

• • •

It started with Alex losing sleep. Then his jaw would begin to grind against itself while he was both sleeping and awake. His eyes would redden and become sore, the skin on the tips of his fingers would begin ache before breaking and bleed in preparation of what would happen next.

It did not matter whether he was indoors or out, visible to the moon or hidden, awake or asleep. It was an inevitable part of his life. There would be a chanting in his head (run run run), the urge to find someone and pull them apart. Then there would be prey underneath his fingernails and between his teeth, blood would taste more like fear than copper, and the ground would move beneath his feet so quickly it would hear but beneath him. When the sun would rise he would become still and straighten and look eastwards, then shortly find himself waking on the forest floor. That was routine.

This moon was particularly awful. Coffee severely worsened things, made the readjusting of bones so much more painful, and he had been drinking it no less than ten hours ago in order to stay awake and supervise his younger sister’s recent dressmaking project. His parents were not pleased with him being left in charge, especially since the moon was so close, but there had been no one else.

Alex picked a piece of bone from between his teeth, imagining it came from his father’s femur or his mother’s skull. They were the more harmless Aidonsvalley folk—or, at least, the sort that believed themselves to be harmless when they were just weak—and he despised them for it. They were related to him but were not his family.

He suddenly felt around for his glasses’ case. He was not especially helpless without them, but they were the key to looking relatively normal. Only a select few people knew who he was. His moon-addled mind had concluded that his glasses were the key to stopping the residents of Aidonsvalley from looking too closely at him and figuring out exactly what was wrong.

Alex gave up and struggled to his feet, holding a tree for support. Within the forest stood an oak, with the beginnings of a treehouse balanced atop it.

He grinned. It’ll never be finished. Aidonsvalley chose what to keep and what to throw away, and buildings would never be included in the former. The most recent home that hadn’t been destroyed by the town had been built in the mid-twentieth century. It was just another strange part of the town that Alex was simply not particularly interested in solving. However he did like to reminisce about Anita Darlington’s attempt to build a windmill when Alex was younger. She was his aging neighbour, and spent an entire season constructing her windmill, which stood next to her vegetable garden.

It was struck by lightning less than an hour after it’s completion. Alex had been riding his bicycle next to her house when the incident occurred. He still remembered the flash in the sky moving downwards, his hammering heart, the smell of burning wood. He remembered the fright in his chest and Umi’s terrified face. He remembered how pleasant of a day it had been beforehand: warm, but not overbearingly so. Not a single rain-cloud had been sighted.

•••

“I’m telling you,” Raheem insisted, his hand holding onto Umi’s upper arm. “I’ve never seen someone stare at it for so long. You have a good eye—”

“So do you,” said Umi. He gave the statue a gentle knock and frowned. “It feels cheap. Too light. It’s almost like sandpaper. I’ve felt something like this before.”

A week had passed since the incident with the tourists, and Raheem had spent it scamming them by selling useless trinkets and completely fake stories about the origin of the town’s strangeness. He usually undertook little projects throughout the year, but it was summer and he deserved somewhat of a break. The ancient Coca Cola bottle he found buried in his garden and had subsequently sold to the blonde, observant woman would support his expensive lifestyle for at least a week at most.

If Raheem scraped the top layer of the soil in his garden, he could find enough things to set up his own museum. It was not a phenomena exclusive to him, and additionally, no one knew where all those things came from originally. Once, when uprooting weeds, one of the townsfolk, Amara, had discovered that her front garden was soaked in blood, not water. That explained why she couldn’t grow anything more demanding than cress.

Kel took Umi’s hand. He had sort of forced himself into this boring excuse of an adventure, but Raheem didn’t mind because he didn’t mind Kel. He was quite fond of anyone who sought out an entertaining experience.

“Never knew a tourist would work you up this much,” said Kel cheerfully, before pointing to a mark behind Edmund Aidon’s knee. “Hey, what’s this?”

“Looks like a square,” said Umi, leaning forward to see it clearer. “How did you spot this anyway?”

“Not sure,” answered Kel, despite obviously knowing that the mark had shifted itself, working up towards their line of sight so it could be seen. Those sort of things were ignored here. Everything had a life, and its own motives and ambitions. “In my opinion, it looks like a jackhammer, a bit. If you turn your head and squint.”

“No it does not,” said Raheem, annoyed. “It’s a cradle.”

Yes, it did appear to be a cradle the longer he looked at it. The thin bars grew clearer. Somehow he could tell it was wooden. But something about it all wasn’t right—it didn’t look like something carved into the statue. Rather, something that had been a part of it ever since it was constructed. Aidonsvalley didn’t have a symbol, official or unofficial. Something strange was certainly going on. Raheem wasn’t sure if he wanted to dig deeper.

“This is odd,” remarked Umi. “This is the only thing that survives Aidon—no other records as far as I know, and there’s something carved here. Should we look into it?”

“Maybe,” said Kel. “This isn’t very strange for this town, but it’ll be fun to investigate. But where? The library won’t be much help. They don’t keep records there.”

The only library in Aidonsvalley was this stuffy building from the early twentieth century that held absolutely nothing of value. Investigative material couldn’t be brought in for some reason or the other. It was all rejected in some form. The town archives had to be kept elsewhere because of it. As a demonstration of this fact, once, the mayor's niece Stephanie Murray attempted to trace the nearby lake’s history. Her paper had promptly burst into flames, and she decided to complete her project in a café maybe an hour or two away from the town. Really, the only thing the library had going for it was its complete Toni Morrison collection.

“They keep the town’s archive in the church on main street,” said Umi. “You know the one: St. Agnes. Apparently there’s a cellar underneath the altar, but I can’t be too sure.” He turned to Raheem, expressionless. Unsure. “Look, if you can find a way to get in, I’ll help you out. You know I’m not too certain.”

“I know,” replied Raheem brightly. “Doubting Thomas. Do you even think there’s something strange afoot?”

“Well there’s always something going on here,” said Umi, affronted. “If we get caught, it’s your fault. I’ll get Alex in on this as well, it’ll make things easier, I think.” Pause. “Do you want to get ice-cream with us?”

He waved a dismissive hand and turned back to Aidon. “Sure. Go ahead, I just need to check something.”

The two waved—Umi visibly confused but still sure in his own decision, Kel apprehensive and glancing around—and made their way to the nearby parlour.

Raheem placed his hand flat against the statue. Something shifted beneath his touch, he heard a faint noise like a beating drum, and he frowned.

Half an hour later on the other side of town, Alex stood at the lakeside. The lake beside Aidonsvalley (still technically within the town but somewhat shoved to the side) was the subject of many rumours. The tourists all cleared out before the sun had fully set, interested in what apparently went down beside the lake, but still in possession of some sense of self-preservation. Unfortunately, Alex did not have the aforementioned sense of self-preservation.

The only harm that could possibly befall him was if he lost his balance and fell down into the lake. There were pointed rocks below, carefully sharpened at dawn and at dusk, and if he pierced any part of his body, he most certainly would not survive that experience.

There was someone standing on the jetty above the lake. Alex recognised him as one of the Fallow brothers, three siblings from a family of mechanics. They handled the people who “washed up at the town’s shores,” fixed their cars, cleared their memories and sent them away. He was a high school student. Perfectly average. Nearly unnoticed. Graduating this fall.

And April was also below him, treading the water. Her hair floated on the surface. Alex averted his gaze, half out of respect and half to avoid her hypnotic technique. But he still saw her from the corner of his eyes, saw the way she unhinged her jaw and said the Fallow boy’s name: Matthew, in a voice she didn’t possess.

The boy moved closer to the ledge. He crouched and peered through the water. April’s power was clouding the air, turning it green. Matthew moved slowly, as if he were running through a lime cloud as if in a trance. Or a dream. Then he called for his mother and April responded in kind. He, foolishly, reached for the water, looking at her face and seeing his late mother instead of what she truly was. April grabbed his wrist and pulled.

He toppled over easily, and didn’t struggle until April sank her teeth into his neck. He flailed desperately and cried out from under the water. His movements slowed with every second until he finally fell still.

April emerged from the lake a moment later, her upper half collapsing on the ledge. She looked up at Alex and grinned. “It’s rude to watch a siren eat, you know.”

“Really?”

“No,” she said, “But it is an indicator that you’re the main entrée.” Her smile widened. “Kidding, I love you.”

Alex continued to watch the water. “He wasn’t claimed, you know. He can’t die until he gets things right. I’d expect to find him in the sewers. Or in the church.”

“Why’d you think I chose him?” April questioned.

They stared at each other for a moment before Alex reminded her of the time he saved her from these ‘low-quality’ whalers, as he dubbed it. She owed him, she even said that earlier. Then he told her that he needed her help breaking into her uncle’s church. Her hand shot out so fast, tightening around his earlobe, that he shouted and wobbled perilously on the edge.

“Idiot,” she chastised, “Why’d you wanna do that?”

April had this unfortunate habit of being constantly hesitant. It was not a con, for sure, but it certainly hindered any interesting activities Alex thought up. This was the wrong time to be careful, he reckoned, because if there was a mystery surrounding Aidonsvalley, then it was bound to be serious. She should know this.

“Something weird is happening,” said Alex, separating her fingers from around his ear and trying to keep his tone light. If he appeared to be desperate, she might decline just to fuck with him. “Raheem told me.”

“Raheem is a compulsive liar.”

“Not to me.”

He belatedly realised that it was the wrong thing to say.

“No,” April answered with a grin. “Not to you.”

Sensing a serious change of subject, Alex quickly arranged himself to a sitting position further up on the ledge. He balanced his chin against his palm and gave her a long look. She raised her brows in turn.

“Do you not have the stomach for this, April?”

“Of course I have the stomach for this,” she snapped. “I’m just careful, unlike you lot.” She paused. “I’ll help you plan your little heist, but don’t tell me what it’s for.” Despite herself, April grinned at him. “If that happens, I’ll get really interested. Things will all go down from there.”

•••

Raheem sat on the stone steps of St. Agnes, a book in hand. It was in French, a language he didn’t recall ever learning, but he could understand it perfectly. Strange. Even stranger was the fact that he could not walk past the altar for some reason, so Alex and Umi were the ones who had to retrieve the appropriate town records. Raheem was not pleased. He started this adventure, but had been forced to play whistleblower instead.

“How annoying,” he said as his phone began to ring.

“Found something about the town’s origins,” said Umi, breathing hard. From a distance, Raheem heard Alex laugh. “None about Edmund Aidon himself, though. I’m beginning to doubt his existence.”

“Tell me more. Is it interesting?”

A sharp inhale. “Oh, very.”

And it went like this:

The Preston’s were a family known for their hatred for supernatural creatures and how they exercised the aforementioned hatred. Once they were a few generations into the family practice of murder, several other families joined together with them to help achieve their shared goals. They called themselves The Cradle. Soon enough a town was founded for the five thousand or so members, and its name was unpronounceable.

About a century after the town’s creation, someone received word of a counterattack. In just a matter of days, vampires, werewolves and other supernaturals would band together and burn the town to the ground. Fearing something a little worse than death, the townsfolk hypocritically sought out a method to save them. They selected a random person in the town and made them live forever. The exact method, Umi stated, was not stated. Then the other townsfolk transformed themselves into the town—they knocked down the church and all the homes and created new walls out of their own flesh. The altar was made of bone. They drained the lake and replaced it with their own blood. The grass and the trees were fertilised with people, and the person they left behind was meant to bring them back once the danger had been averted, but they didn’t.

With a chill creeping down his spine, Raheem noted that the person might still be in Aidonsvalley. He glanced around in worry for a moment, as if the person might just be standing at his shoulder. Thankfully no such thing existed, but something else attracted his attention.

A porcelain statue near the church’s pillar, of a mother holding its child. It could be mistaken for Mary and the baby Jesus, but its features were hauntingly realistic and unlike the usual paintings of the Madonna and child. Beneath the porcelain was flesh, presumably. Raheem stared at the child holding his mother’s finger, sat in her lap, and felt a feeling both strong and indescribable.

“So presumably Aidon came across an already furnished yet empty town, then re-established it,” said Raheem, “But if that’s the case, wouldn’t there be anything about him? It’s like he just sprouted here.”

Things in this town tended to do that, he reminded himself. He was used to everything here. The tourist had described the statue in a strange manner. Slightly corrugated. That could mean skin, but it was hollow—

“There’s a chance that he was the person left behind,” said Umi slowly, “and no one ever thought to write it down since he’s a constant. You wouldn’t take note of the colour of the sky everyday? It’s either blue, red and sometimes black. We know that.”

They both hung up after Umi agreed to finish up shortly. Kel joined Raheem on the steps, very carefully not meeting his eyes. Perhaps the blue colour was too bright for this time at night, Raheem told himself.

The more Kel touched a stone step with his fingertips, the more it wore away until it revealed a portion of a face. Grey-skinned, open-mouthed, expression trapped somewhere between terror and exhilaration. The person’s eyes, fixed skywards, slowly lolled down to look directly at Kel. If its mouth was visible, Raheem would have received confirmation that it was smiling.

That was two incidents now, he stated privately as his heart jumped. The first was the cradle appearing just as Kel drew near, the second was the face.

When Umi and Alex returned and led the other two away, the stone replaced itself and the face was safely hidden away. As the four followed the path they had followed for well over a decade, Raheem distinctively felt like he was being watched. Perhaps it had always been this way, but now that he knew that Aidonsvalley was a real, living, breathing town, he felt it strongly.

There was one thing he knew for sure, though. When he would eventually sit in his living room, surrounded by relatives that were not family, and press his head against the wall, he would hear breathing. A deep inhale and exhale. It makes the whole world shake, but he’s the only one who feels it. He’s one of the only people that knows this town is made of living stone.

#im taking exams at the moment so if this feels rushed that's why #but anyway i just wanted to write an explanation on why aidonsvalley is Like This to some extent #inspiration came from that one time i heard something breathing in my living room wall while i was praying with my family #my writing

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