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girlfromthecrypt · 10 months

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The sea breeds giants. So did I.

(TW: forced impregnation; non-graphic, basically implied. Also non-human.)

When I was young, I became aware of a peculiar talent of mine. When in the sea, I can dive as deep as I want without ever having to come up for air. The pressure seems to have no effect on me, either. The ocean turned into my playground.

I was born and bred in a small coastal town. Growing up, I came to know by heart the sound of the waves crashing against the rugged shore and the smell of salt carried across the land by every breeze, hanging in the air with every breath. My parents were never reluctant to let me go swimming by myself. Whether that was out of faith and trust in nature or simple negligence I'll never know, but I was grateful for it nonetheless. I wouldn't have had it any other way. When I went down to the beach, I would always go alone. I'd always return to the same desolate little spot that was all my own. Nobody ever found me there. Nobody ever wandered by.

I started, quite literally, testing the waters. I'd stay under for longer each time, exploring new depths at every opportunity. The further I swam, the more I saw of the world below. The masses of water didn't crush me as they would have a similarly unprotected body.

The volume of air in my lungs never seemed to decrease with my descension, and I never felt so much as a hint of pain when surfacing. I could open my eyes and my vision would be just as good as on land. Furthermore, I could swim faster than what should have been possible. Occasionally, I'd get so lost in the motion that I'd swim for a couple minutes only to then come up, turn and find that I couldn't see the shore anymore.

I did encounter a bunch of creatures that had intentions of eating me, but I was able to escape every last one of them, always getting away without so much as a scratch. Sometimes, I actually found it exhilarating. I know just how dumb I was being, willfully putting myself into danger, but at the time, I felt invincible.

There I was, a tiny human exploring the dark, vast expanses others were so intimidated by—all on my own. It was a deeply spiritual experience. I was by myself, sometimes so deep underwater that I could hardly see the light from above at all anymore. It was these pitch-black spaces that truly intrigued me. While I could see much better in the darkness than most people, it was still kind of… off-limit. These areas somehow struck me as distinctly more threatening, more dangerous and unnerving than just the wide, open sea.

They were yawning, abysmal maws, practically brimming with mystery. Then one day, I just… did it. I swam further and dove deeper than ever before. I plunged into the darkness, into the murky cold. I had never minded the freezing temperatures, and I didn't now. I was solely focused on what was below, without a clue on what I expected to find. I figured there had to be something amazing. Or perhaps there was nothing there for me to see. Maybe I was simply doing it to prove to myself that I could go the distance.

Perhaps I really didn't think I would discover much. Which made it all the more surprising when I spotted a greenish-blue glow in the distance. It immediately drew my attention and I started moving towards it, slower than before but just as deliberate. While a primal sense of dread began to creep further up in my chest with every stroke that carried me closer to the unearthly light, my curiosity far outweighed my apprehension. The colder and deeper it got, the brighter it became. Where in the world was it coming from?

I kept steadfastly heading towards it, until I could finally make out the source. When I realized it, I stopped, freezing mid-movement. Floating in the dark masses of water, seemingly endless widths and depths both above and below me, I was hovering motionlessly in the void of space. And staring at me from within the blackness beneath was an enormous glowing eye.

It sat within a horrid face, above a mouth so big it could have easily swallowed me whole, and a dozen people more. It opened its maw a mere slither, revealing rows upon rows of needle teeth, each one longer than I was tall. The body this head was attached to was so gargantuan that the better part of it remained invisible to me, hidden in the nebulous spheres of the bottom. I cannot describe to you the fear that I felt in that moment.

It wasn't just the terrifying sight in front of me, not just the teeth and glowing eyes; it was the sheer size of this monstrosity. I suddenly felt like I was merely a grain of sand on a big, long beach—a tiny speck among billions so easily carried away with each lap of the tide. If I was the grain, then this was the wave. Hulking, mighty, boundless; unaware of such a minute little being as myself, unaware and uncaring. If this creature were to swallow me, I would forever be forgotten, and it would live on none the wiser of my panic in the face of its vastness.

I stayed perfectly still, floating in place despite the icy currents pushing and pulling at my body. Stayed perfectly still, my blood frozen, my heart in my stomach as the snake's giant eyes bored into me. I knew then and there that I had been wrong.

This being was aware of me. And when I heard the voice in my head, the tiniest of whispers, I realized that it was even more than that.

"You are very small for a thing with purpose."

I don't know how I responded. I suppose I simply thought the words, but somehow, the Ancient did hear my question.

"What are you?" I asked the thing in the dark.

"I am."

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Not if I can help it."

Despite the relatively soothing nature of these words, there was an undertone to the murmur they were spoken in. There was calculation there, raw and vicious.

"Will you let me go?"

"Afterwards."

I kept staring, my thoughts racing as I feverishly contemplated whether to flee or to linger. Something told me that if I moved a single muscle, I would be sucked into the space behind those needle teeth within a heartbeat.

"I have a need for you."

My throat constricted when a strange fog seemed to ooze from the creature's body; swirling, misty tendrils mixing with the water and enveloping me in their strange pale haze.

"What is this?" my mind cried out in terror.

I struggled, kicking and flailing to maneuver my rigid form out of this strangely contaminated zone. For the first time in my life, swimming did not come effortlessly. Through my clouded vision, I could see the unearthly green light slowly fading as the Ancient shut his eyes, masses of water shifting as it sank down to the very bottom once more.

I was then hurled up to the surface by a current that dragged me almost the entire way back to shore. I was swept onto dry land by the waves, and on the beach I laid, trembling in the summer sun as my eyes gazed into the far too bright sky. When I was found, I was burnt and blistered and covered in my own vomit. A group of surfers happened upon me by chance and took me to a nearby hospital. It took three of them to carry me. My stomach had swollen to the size of a beach ball.

The doctors couldn't explain it. Neither to myself nor my parents. Without ever having known intimate human contact, I was pregnant. The unborn baby was growing rapidly. I was rendered immobile by its weight and size merely three days after the conception. A week later, I gave birth. I don't remember any of it, having been sedated during the process. But I can still see the faces of the medical staff looming over me, the last image from before I fell asleep etched into the folds of my brain. Their eyes wide open, features contorted in shock and disbelief.

My daughter was released into the sea a couple weeks after her birth. I hadn't yet regained my ability to walk, so my father carried me down to the shore to watch as my baby slithered into the shallows and disappeared in the waves. During her brief time on land, her weight had already doubled and tripled. Nobody had any idea what to do with her besides letting her go.

It's been two years since then. I haven't set foot into the water since I met the Ancient, and I avoid the beach however I can. But yesterday was different. Yesterday, something enormous washed ashore. I recognized the Ancient by the form of his severed head and his lifeless round eyes. I recognized the father of my child. There was no trace of the rest of his body, except the red that tainted the shallows. I don't know if the Ancient had envisioned this end for himself, but whatever the case, I felt light as a feather gazing upon his mangled remains.

Thank you, baby girl.

______

OOC: Hi! Followers of mine who have migrated from nosleep likely know this story already, but since I'm still getting the hang of this whole Tumblr-thing, I figured I'd post it here, too. Basically as a test, though I guess I'll pull a lot of other stories from there over here, too. Either way, this is a a dark one I'm rather proud of. I hope you guys enjoyed!

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aphroditesacolyte · 7 months

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Meryl and Diosia P24

Ch 24. // Fish In a Birdcage // Read on AO3

Masterpost

Summary: The world is confusing and strange to them both, just as they are to each other.

Content warnings: fear of death/they are in an intense situation, uh... a person being regurgitated I guess??? please read at your own discretion, thank you!

~Approx word count: 3,223 words

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Droplets of silver light swept over him, fluttering on his lashes and across his chest, until finally his eyes opened to be met with the radiance of the moon centered in the sky.

I slept in…?

Warmth cradled him, a gentle haze all around, and instinctively he curled in not only on himself, but in on Meryl as well. It took all he had to will himself to move, even just a little, for the bliss that lulled him was much more potent than it ever had been before, and he was quite accustomed to a few days of rest after having eaten. However, this merfolk was an exception all around.

An exception most definitely—exceptionally enamoring to him, to the point that even when he had him as close as close can be, he craved him. He wished to be able to press his lips to Meryl’s and taste that certain spark that made his mind buzz. Although, perhaps taste wasn’t the right word at all—it wasn’t something he truly tasted, and yet it lingered in his head and in his mind, a sugary coating that made his heart flutter.

All he knew at this point was that something that is not food does not stay in a stomach, and, as much as it pained him to admit, the mer was much more than food to him. He could say Meryl replenished him truthfully, simply not in such a literal way.

He had to… let him go.

His little nest rustled as he pulled away from it, drawing himself groggily down to the water’s edge, wings lightly flapping for the sake of his own balance. However, as he was about to let Meryl go, a realization of sorts struck him; the water was dull and vile, unfit for someone as lovely as Meryl. It was no place to let go of his little treasure, and so certainly, he wouldn’t—not here—rather, he would go somewhere else before he did such a thing. And luckily, he had the perfect idea.

The wind hugged and clung against him, nestling its way through each feather and strand of hair while below him grey turned to blue, a deep, reveling colour that somehow only reminded him of Meryl, and convinced him to muse further. In his head he doted on and on, a thousand thoughts rushing through him in his flight.

To begin with, Meryl would be mad at him for this—he was certain of it. This, in combination with the flame of instincts, drew him further over the water, until suddenly he crashed with its surface.

He swam further and further, pulling himself down into the ocean’s depths as he did. The water was dark, a blur he grazed along in search of one particular place, something he happened upon mostly by the luck of memory.

Its mouth was ominous and wide, embedded into the sea itself, at night a sort of void one would regret coming to. Regardless, he moved through it keenly, well aware of the luminous blues yet to wash over him. His heart raced as he pushed against the water, feeling the resistance of each molecule against his form. His wings whipped and propelled him forward, and his arms kept shoveling at it all the same.

The light came to him, and a moment later he was piercing the surface, hands grasping at the edge of stone and upon this platform the blue glow crystallized all around him, and each plant that made its home along the wall was nothing short of nostalgic decor.

It had been so long since he had visited this cave. Seven years—at least.

The deeper he went, the tighter and smaller it became, a sort of tunnel that was accommodating to a creature his size, but certainly not of grandeur. Suddenly however, it opened up, like how a butterfly unveils its wings from the cocoon, and then dances across the sky and vision of whatever viewer it may have.

Below him was an abyss, trailing back and back, and all around him stood sorts of cliffs and sea-stack like rocks that bellowed up from the depths, where, if one was unfortunate enough to fall, after a minute or so they may strike the surface of water once more. Here, far along the roof of the cavern, the incandescence of light was still glacial and enchanting as it stemmed and crawled over stalactites. Throughout the sort of platforms, dozens of pools formed and spilled over, fine waterfalls cascading down the rocks.

He spread out his wings, and settled at a fine, large platform and its pool, where no water fell off of its edge (which made it an arguably safer place to settle). The water burbled beneath his knees as he slammed down against it, and its whimpered echoed on for a long while as he adjusted himself. He could feel his stomach twist and turn, even though Meryl was well and perfectly still.

He didn’t want to do this—to let Meryl go.

But he had to, and so he did. He pried open his jaw as far as it could go without someone to widen it, and clenched his abdomen tightly, an immediate wave of nausea overcoming him. He couldn’t take the sensation of something crawling up his throat, and had to swallow it back down.

He let out a defeated sigh, his hands flopping onto his lap as he murmured, “I’m sorry Meryl, I’m trying.”

He ever so slightly clawed at his knees, the sharp, subtle curve of ebony claws digging into his legs as he strained himself to try again. He’d do this, he couldn’t keep Meryl there forever.

He kept his mouth open wide, and before he tried again drew in a slow, soothing breath, as if to reassure himself that he was capable. He did this with Roka just about a day ago—he hadn’t lost the capability in a day, and though of course Roka was difficult to spit back up, he certainly wasn’t this hard. His stomach squeezed again, and his eyes scrunched shut in his focus, fighting against a powerful reflex to resist.

He felt everything become utterly crushed in his chest, a suffocating feeling similar to that of terrible stress, and knew that he was almost there. Everything stretched, now fervidly, and much opposite to taking someone in it felt of a terrible pain. His throat stung with his lover’s form, until finally the weight had settled at the back of his throat, and he began to wrench him out.

Meryl came pouring out quickly into the pool he had chosen, and for a moment he only gritted his teeth and clutched at his empty core. He had expected the water to splash and sputter, to hear panicked gasps and cries, but instead, it was silent.

He peered over at Meryl, and his heart dropped seeing how still his figure was. Meryl lied there, impassive eyes closed and calm. At once the water became extraordinarily violent from Diosia’s fumbling, wings flapping and beating against the surface as he scrambled over to Meryl, who had floated a little farther away from him. He hurriedly knelt in the deepening pool and wrapped his arms around Meryl, trying carefully to keep his neck beneath the water so that the gills that ran along it would have access to it. Stretching over and down, he pressed his head to the mer’s chest, straining his ear.

It took a moment to reply, but a gentle thump came back in return and he knew Meryl was well—or at least, alive. He hadn’t done anything to hurt the mer; he’d only kept him close for a little longer than promised.

Once he was certain that Meryl was alive, he drew the mer closer to the shore and left him to rest. It was understandable for him to be tired—at these hours mer naturally were, or at the very least it was to his knowledge that they were. He pattered away from Meryl and quicker than he came, he left.

His speed was much farther from the leisurely, almost-rocking-like pace he had been in before; he moved sharply, quickly, for it was only a matter of time before Meryl woke back up, and when he wanted to gather food before the mer had woken up (for certainly Meryl was hungry by now, much like himself) he needed to outrun Meryl’s consciousness.

Though hardly the same, his task took him very little time, and soon enough he was trailing back along the stone, a large tuna in hand, and yet in his race, hesitation bit at his legs as he moved down the tunnel—slowly, skidding and scrapping against his better judgement, he came to a halt.

“What am I doing?” He questioned aloud, shifting the fish in his arms. “I’ve hardly known him for ten months why—“ The realization struck him as he looked down. “—he’s a fish.”

He shook his head scornfully, a light, and yet so very dark laugh escaping his lips. “I’ve fallen for food, like you.”

It wasn’t as if the fish could reply, of course, however, being alone for so long certainly enriched one’s imagination. It was simply a habit he’d made for himself, rambling on and on aloud, musing to no one in particular.

“And for what? For what have I risked my pride? My heart? My own needs? Perhaps my own life?” He smiled, ever so slightly. “Just a someone, I suppose as everyone else ever does.

“Simply a someone.”

He leaned against the wall, as if implanting himself within the stone could be a sufficient excuse for not facing Meryl, the being he had fervidly devoured only a day ago, and that now he felt insatiably in need of.

“But shouldn’t I regard food as more of a something?” His eyes flicked down to the fish with a particular disdain, one of dissatisfaction, as if he were angry it hadn’t contributed to his reflection. “Like you.” He added, bitterly;

“Even when you were alive, you didn’t say a word. Creatures like you serve their role to their home—in your case, the ocean—and then they die and are to be eaten by another creature. You are nothing but support to bigger, greater creatures. You’re pathetic.

“I…” His speech faltered before he found the words to continue on, “I am not so! I am not to be eaten. I serve myself… and a goddess, rather admittedly. But it is still far prettier a purpose than you, fish. And I am certain I ought—”

A cry echoed down the tunnel, thwarting every (conceited) remark he was to make to an animal that was already dead and his gaze snapped over worriedly.

“Meryl?”

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Meryl had no idea what he had gotten into; his mind so blearily recalled the night he snuck out to shore and became caught deep in citrine eyes, whose intents displayed in sharp pupils had permanently bewitched him to a fate of death. And then, death hadn’t come. Again and again, it slinked by him as nothing but a snake at his feet. It slithered by so often, hissed and bore its fangs and thus made him so certain that it would never bite, that it was only temperamental, and that it only needed to find its ease at his side.

And now he felt its venom in his veins.

Fear was his sedative in the moments leading up to, and the way his heart had tossed him about—the way Diosia had tossed his heart about—did nothing to give him stable grounds. He was beaten and afraid, and miserable and longing, and frightened and compliant in all ways. Physically, he had denied himself nourishment for two weeks in an act of punishment, believing that maybe he had failed the siren entirely, and that Diosia was dead.

The weight of Naigale’s death had always been such a motive in helping Diosia; even if it took the face of death to siphon that truth out of him, he could acknowledge it now. He felt like he was making up to a species he had harmed, a species that was already dying before he drove a spear through a siren’s heart.

And now, so fittingly, a siren drove a spear through his.

Didn’t he deserve this?

He deserved to be trapped between Diosia’s teeth, if not pierced and torn apart by them entirely. As a matter of fact, this was gentle—merciful of Diosia. In some twisted, bitter way he could understand the tenderness that Diosia carried in his actions, despite their demented consequences, and could feel a lack of ill-intent in every touch.

But he was still afraid. He didn’t want to die. No one ever does.

And at first, he wasn’t so sure if he was conceding to death or to Diosia as the two in concept were completely separable, even if one brought the other on occasion—but that was all before time began to drag. His world became the colour black for the darkest parts of someone were tucked away inside of them, deep where no one else would find a secret nor a crevice that was never meant to be found. The hours crept by, and for all of them he could not see.

There was nothing to see; he was trapped within a void, slowly becoming kneaded into another being entirely and dissolved by their adulation. Whether he was asleep or awake, he couldn’t tell, as all he could see was black. Like tar the blackness sunk in on him, coating him from the tip of his fin to the last curl of hair upon his head, and progressed to be too heavy to move in. Now trapped, he was fodder to passive systems and natural processes—it would all occur to him without thought nor command from Diosia at all, and he wished the fact could pardon Diosia as innocent of killing him then.

In spite of it, once the burning began and he could tell that the tar had been lit aflame, he admitted his lover to be at fault. He was dying. The world closed in on him, squeezing tighter and tighter. He imagined it was so Diosia could drink up every last drop of him, anything that remained.

When he was sure it was almost over, he was right; light spilled into his head, a mellow, satin blue illuminating his eyes. Weightless as he was, his spirit drifting along, he let himself wander aimlessly.

But then he breathed.

And he cried out.

And he breathed, and he was alive. The world around him was so very real. It was tangible that he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even hurt. There were no burns, no scars—nothing. He was alive—every breath told him so. In that moment no sweeter, exhausting truth could have saved him as this realization did, the realization that Diosia hadn’t killed him as he convinced himself that Diosia had. His lungs felt crushed by the freedom of air, the weight of such being far too heavy for him to handle. He was adjusting to a much wider space now and couldn’t afford himself to take in air that he hadn’t already breathed before, and so he dipped below the shallow water entirely, where the world felt smaller by a more tolerable amount. His feverish rejoice parted only for further questions, ones primarily in regard to his current circumstance.

Had Diosia left him by a pond somewhere?

He lifted his head from the water and drew himself closer to its shore, sitting within it. He then tilted his head upwards, and realized he was nowhere he had ever been before. Above there were no stars, rather, there was the painting of a different world entirely, a world he had peered into only once. The place reminded him of Naigale’s cave immediately and the memory did well at knitting his insides into one another, causing everything inside of him to twist nervously.

This was no place for a merman; this was a place for a siren.

“D-Diosia?” He muttered out, a hazy, reluctant call.

“I’m right behind you.” A voice guided gently in return.

He whipped his attention over to the siren, anticipating the dark looming figure he knew well as Diosia, the figure who might’ve come from hell itself other than anything else, but that was not who he saw. The figure Meryl saw crossed his legs neatly with his hands rested impassively in his lap with his wings set down across the stone, still subtly gleaming blue, and looked at him with clement eyes and a quiet glow. Diosia’s pupils, as opposed to the snake-like slits they often held, were widened and rounded.

A silent reverence could be seen in him, and as Meryl stared longer, it seemed to become louder. Diosia leaned in eagerly, curious as to what words laid themselves at the back of Meryl’s throat.

Finally, Meryl spoke; “What is that for?”

Diosia looked down to the large fish that was dead at his feet, then back up to Meryl.

“For you.” Diosia then quietly elaborated, “To eat.”

“You went fishing for me?”

“I did.” He beamed.

“Th-thank you,” Meryl uttered, pushing himself forward towards the fish. He reached out for it and slightly flinched when Diosia moved to push it further towards him, even if it was hardly a menacing gesture.

For the next few minutes, neither he nor Diosia spoke, both much more preferential to keeping to themselves. He ate in silence, drawing out his meal regardless of how repulsive he found eating to currently be, as it offered him an escape from confrontation. He bit into the fish again and again, awkwardly keeping everything as noiseless as he could manage given the empty, echoing state of their environment, where even a mere twitch of Diosia’s talon seemed to yell on afterwards.

Diosia murmured, tenderly, “Meryl.”

He agonized over his reply, but Diosia spared him from words, speaking once more.

“I’ll take you back to water come the morning, and for tonight, I hope you shall rest. And…” Diosia no longer spoke, prompting Meryl to glance over. “I am very puzzled and very lost; however, I do know that I wish for your company.”

“I am, too.” Meryl flicked his eyes up boldly. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

Diosia froze over, like ice had crawled through his pores and burrowed into the marrow of his bones; the fear his question struck was potent—it was the first time he had ever seen Diosia scared at all.

Diosia breathed, “Why would I do that?”

“Because you’ve wanted to since we’ve met, and then, after I thought you had changed your mind, it seems like you still want to. Do you still want to, Diosia?”

“My instincts are not fair to me; my species is burdened differently than yours—”

“So, you do.”

Diosia pleaded back, “Meryl—”

Meryl whimpered in return, “I don’t know why you do these… weird, psychotic things and I still love you regardless. I don’t understand what you get from playing this game with me.”

“Meryl.”

“What?”

“I… I’m scared. I don’t understand either, but I am not so certain if this is still a game.”

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#original characters #original writing #acolyte's stories: meryl and diosia #fantasy writing #oc story #romance writing #oc: diosia #oc: meryl #original story #oc writing

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avengerscompound · 5 years

Text

Your Whole Life

Your Whole Life: A Captain America Fanfic

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 2308

Rating: M

Square filled: @star-spangled-bingo - Amnesia

Warnings: Some sex talk, injuries

Synopsis: You wake up in pain to a group of the prettiest people you’ve ever seen. With the help of Wanda, the team untangles your life so you can remember how you know them.

Your Whole Life

You opened your eyes slowly. Your head ached and your vision was blurry. The face of a blond man swam into your view as your eyes began to focus. He was beautiful. Really beautiful. That kind of beauty usually seen only in the airbrushed pages of fashion magazines or Men’s Health. Right down to the perfect pores on his pale skin. Soft blue eyes, the same color as the ocean right between the shallows of the coast and the dark drop off of the deep sea. Eyelashes, long and dark. The kind most people can’t achieve even with the best mascara. The kind people resort to using false sets to try and mimic. His lips were full and pink. Kissable lips, perfect for sucking on slightly as you pulled away from a kiss. His blond hair was messy like he’d just taken off a hat and he wore some kind of combat armor that was blue with a white star in the middle of his thick chest. You couldn’t see exactly what kind of body type he had thanks to the armor but you could see he was large and muscular. He was obviously strong. Despite how confused and displaced you felt, and aware that it was an odd thought to have while it felt like your head had been cracked open, you wondered about how nice it would feel to be held by those large arms of his and to be cradled against his chest.

He said a name though you didn’t recognize it and as he looked down at you with concern in his eyes he ran his hands through your hair and cradled your head. “Are you okay?” He asked.

“You're really handsome.” You said. Apparently, your filter had been broken and you flinched internally that you’d say something like that to some stranger who had stopped to help you.

He chuckled softly but the concern didn’t leave his eyes. “Thank you, sweetheart.” He said. He looked off to the side and you turned your head. The room seemed to move too quickly and once again your eyes took a moment to focus on the group of people who were now gathering in beside you. “Sam?” The blond said.

One of the others moved forward and kneeled beside you. He was gorgeous too. As your eyes flicked around the group you realized everyone here looked a little battered but insanely hot. You had the strange passing thought that this was some kind of battle royal for want to be models.

“You’re really pretty too.” You said to the guy who was now looking intently at the side of your head.

“Thanks, hon. You’re not too bad yourself.” He replied as he looked you over. He pulled a pen light out of his belt and flashed it back and forth slowly past your eyes. “You know where we are?”

You furrowed your brow and tried to think. It was like trying to access a large black void. There was nothing. Nothing about where you were or why you were here there. “N-no…” You stammered, looking around.

“Keep still, you had a really bad bang to the head.” He said gently. “What about your name, you remember that?”

That one scared you. You knew you had a name, but not at all a vague idea what it could be. “No.” You said, the distress coming out in your voice. “What’s wrong with me.”

“Don’t worry, honey. You’re with the best. We’ll figure this out.” He said gently. “Retrograde amnesia. Usually, it’s temporary with this kind of head injury. We need a stretcher and get her home.”

“Done and done.” A guy said in red and gold armor. The armor seemed to bleed off him and form a stretcher on the ground beside him.

Something about the armor clicked with you. You lifted your hand and pointed at him. “You’re Iron Man.”

He chuckled. “That’s right, dear.” He said. “You a fan?”

“Yeah. You’re amazing.” He laughed again and the two men who were crouched beside you carefully lifted you onto the high tech stretched that had once been the Iron Man armor.

“Well, well, Cap. She remembers me and not you.” Iron Man teased.

“Alright, Tony. I’m sure you’re loving that.” The man named Cap said.

You looked back over to him. “Do I know you?”

He looked over at Sam like he was looking for permission to answer. Sam nodded and Cap smiled softly as they both lifted the stretcher. “That’s right, sweetheart. You know all of us.”

You looked at him with your brow furrowed and then looked at the others again like you were trying to drag out the memories of who these people were. Apart from Iron Man, there was nothing, and really, the memory or Iron Man seemed to be attached to t-shirts and plastic toys. Babies onesies. Why did Iron Man make you think of onesies?

“How do I know you?” You asked.

Cap looked over at Sam again. Sam nodded and readjusted how he was carrying the stretcher. “Go ahead. When we get on the jet if you have any photos show her too. She needs a little push to access the memories.”

Cap smiled but the guy with the spiky mohawk was the one who answered first. “You met me first.” He said. “We used to work for a government agency called SHIELD together. I used to train you in melee weapons you remember? Swords, staffs, things like that?”

“I can fight?” You asked holding your hands up in front of your face.

“You can hold your own.” He said. “When you graduated we went on a few missions together. There was one in Korea and one in Lebanon. One time in Hungary I accidentally shot you through your shoulder with an arrow. You remember that?”

Your hand went reflexively to your left shoulder and slipped under the top of your tactical armor and ran over the scarring that remained from the wound in your shoulder where the arrow had hit. You remembered the pain that happened and also how ridiculously funny you had found it. How Clint - Clint was his name - had felt so guilty and you’d used it to make him do things for you all the time, like get coffees and sandwiches.

“Clint?” You said. “You changed your hair.”

He chuckled. “I did.”

Cap smiled at you and they put the stretcher down in the jet. Clint rubbed your shoulder where he’d shot you all those years ago and he headed to the cockpit of the jet to start it up. While he did Sam began fussing around you. A sharp sting bloomed in the back of your head as he treated it with something.

“You met me next.” The redheaded woman said. You looked over at her as Cap took your hand. “We met at SHIELD too. You were a full agent when we met. You didn’t trust me because of where I came from. Then one day we had to fight our way out of this HYDRA base. Just the two of us. After that then you did and we used to go out drinking. One time a guy wouldn’t leave you alone and I kneed him in the balls. Remember that?”

You smiled thinking about those nights dancing with Natasha. Clint would be there too sometimes and … and a woman named Hill. Sometimes there would be big groups of you. You and Natasha always tried to outdrink everyone. You could never keep up with her though. Natasha touched your hip and you reached up automatically and put your hand on her shoulder. The way you touched when you danced.

“Nat,” You said, softly.

“There you go.” She said and tapped the tip of your nose with her finger before heading into the cockpit.

“I think you met me next,” Sam said. “Wasn’t for long though. Just a brief thing when SHIELD fell. Don’t know if you’ll remember me from that.”

“SHIELD fell?” You asked, not even sure what he meant.

“Yeah. It was riddled with HYDRA. There was a big battle. They launched a bunch of Helicarriers and they crashed into the Triskelion?” Sam said.

You had a vague feeling you knew what he was talking about, but more like it was a story of a story. You shook your head.

“Not to worry,” Sam said. “The memories are coming back pretty fast. You’ll remember soon enough.”

“I think you basically met the rest of us at the same time. We built this compound for the Avengers…” A timid looking, mousey man, said.

“The Avengers?” You asked, the term definitely seeming familiar to you.

“Yeah, does that ring any bells?” Sam asked.

Cap turned a little and tapped an A logo he had on his arm. You narrowed your eyes and looked at it. “You’re superheroes.” You said.

Cap laughed. “Something like that.”

The young brunette woman stepped over and looked at you. “Can I try, Sam?” She asked.

Sam looked from you to her and back. “I guess it’s worth a try. Go easy though, Wanda.”

Wanda stepped closer and she tilted her head as she looked at you. Her eyes glowed pink and she twisted her hand. The same pink light flicked from her fingers into your head and slowly visions started to creep out. Your name, parts of your childhood. Your parents. Where you went to school.

Iron Man… no that wasn’t right… Tony stepped forward and crouched beside you. “When we built the new Avengers’ facility we wanted it to be a huge organization. So we started recruiting people. Nat and Clint recommended you and so we made you the offer. You met most of us around the same time. Maybe me first when we talked money.”

As Tony talked memories flooded back. Driving into the Avengers facility and marveling at the size of it. Being shown to the little apartment you’d be living in. Starting work and meeting the others through it. Getting to see Sam flying and Wanda use her powers to toss people around. Having Vision float through walls. Fighting back to back with Bucky. Hulk calling you scary girl. The way Rhodey and Tony were always trying to outdo each other on the field. How crazy and amazing it was when Thor showed up.

Cap ran his thumb over the back of your hand and you looked back into his eyes. “Do you remember how we first started working together on missions and how in synch we always were? How we started spending time together outside of work? Just as friends to begin with and then a little more than friends.”

As Cap spoke you remembered all the hours filing paperwork together. The times in battle where you'd picked up his shield and thrown it to him or when you'd used him as a spot to launch off so you could kick some bad guy in the face. You remembered watching old movies with him. Opposite ends of the couch first and then later, cuddled up together.

“Do you remember how slow I was? How long it took before we kissed for the first time?” Cap asked. You touched your lips remembering the sensation of his softly caressing them. You had been so excited when he'd been ready for that first kiss. The kiss had led to slowly exploring other things, until one day you were sleeping together.

The sex. Oh god, the sex. He was such a pleaser. Never once had gone away without at least one orgasm. Normally it was more. You could almost feel the weight of his body on yours and the way it felt to have his cock penetrating you. Stretching you our and pushing in as deep as you could take it.

You reached up and touched his chest and he smiled. His eyes looked full of both love and fear with a shimmer that told you he was holding back tears. “Do you remember when I proposed? We had gone dancing and then out for a walk down at Brighton Beach.”

You could hear the waves and the sound of Luna Park floating in on the breeze. The smell of the ocean and the warm press of his hand in yours as you’d walked together. How he’d dropped to his knee and told you how he loved you and he couldn’t imagine spending another day without you.

You ran your thumb over your wedding ring and more memories flooded in, coaxed by Wanda. The wedding. How Natasha had been your maid-of-honor. How Bucky had been his best man. How you’d felt a little like a princess in your dress and how odd that feeling was for you. How he looked like there was nothing else in the world except his love for you when he saw you.

Your honeymoon spent in bed with each other the whole time. The pregnancy test with its two lines. Seeing the little peanut shape on the ultrasound and being so excited. How big you got, but how his expression of pure, deep love never changed. How freaked out he got when you went into labor.

When your baby was put into your arm. Sarah. When you brought her home and found a gift from Tony full of Iron Man baby clothes and toys.

You looked up into the blue of his eyes and smiled. “Steve.” You said softly pulling him down to you. He kissed you deeply, exactly how you remembered it. The soft caress of his full lips against yours, the very hint of tongue. He pulled back and stroked his thumb along your jaw, that expression of deep and pure love on his face he wore so often when he looked at you. “I love you so much, Steve. How did I forget?”

#starspangledbingo #steve rogers #captain america #steve rogers x reader #captain america fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #reader insert #smut #ish?#amnesia #your whole life

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cadviium · 4 years

Text

of strange waters and even stranger fish

That morning, perched at the end of the dock, the fisherman had only one thing on his mind: the noon bell in Riceville. An arguably menial and temporary inconvenience, really. Only a few seconds of dull droning echoing across the water. Still, the clock on his wrist was checked almost manically as he flipped his forearm over, back, then over again, watching the minute hand inch steadily closer to the fateful hour. Once that siren went off, it would be over.

After enough years at sea, you tend to gain a certain understanding of the water, of its inhabitants– both those you should and shouldn’t be aware of– and this man understood with great certainty the finicky and fidgety nature of a coddled fish and the steadfast composure of one not so.

The marine fish to whom he dedicated several decades were not of the coddled sort. In spite of their stick-splinter bones and lace gills, they endured the pitch and throw of the stir above them unflinchingly, braved the bubbles and fizz of an unsettled ocean. The bestial grating of salt, the cracking of bows and splitting of hulls, mere backdrop to a plodding existence. Vagabonds with aperture eyes that bore witness to treading feet going still, void and unblinking, with nares like slits that could smell the pulpy metallic tang that invited teeth, teeth, and more teeth, they paid no mind to the rubbing of rope and the shearing of scales and the dull glinting of steel. Seawater was lawless and impassive, a briny gnawing of mouth and molars, a collision of gods challenging water with wind, infinity with paper fins, and the fish were too.

He couldn’t say the same for the water in Riceville. It lapped slow against the spruce pier, bored, lazy, like a pot-bellied dog running its tongue over its own sick, so the fish here were not used to the pitiless thundering of the earth making percussion of their backs. They were only accustomed to a passive suggestion of a wave, a caress in place of a crash, and would respond with alarm to any disturbance beyond that sluggish pull of the water.

With this came the issue of the noon bell.

It was a relatively new addition to the town, only implemented when the mayor was informed that time was making a run for it and now needed to be reined back in. That was less than a month ago, not nearly enough time for the fish to acclimate. Those chimes would strike the lake’s face with the ferocity of a blasphemous nun, folding and crimping the surface into a paper fan, combing the depths, pushing the water together, pulling it apart again, braiding it, and it would inevitably send the fish scattering like dropped pills, burrowing in weeds where they could and getting tangled in taut, panicked circles where they could not. So sheltered. So fussy.

There was something gentle about it for a while, he thought. The fishing pole fit that fit his hand like an old friend, the soft cork of the handle kneaded and compressed until the indents matched his knuckles, his fingers, his fingernails. The repetitive casting and reeling, casting and reeling, and bringing nothing up. With that rhythmic tranquility came possibility, and it was the possibility that made it worthwhile. But now noon was coming. That possibility would flee, fins slashing through the thick calm, and the empty palms of his hands were beginning to ache furiously.

He had no fish, nothing to present to Gardner and no reason to say, “See? Maybe next time you’ll put down the GameBoy and come with the old man.”

This was his life, baiting, luring, reeling. What would he be if he couldn’t even bring in one panfish? What would he be to Gardner? Not worth the time. The grip on the fishing rod tightened– if only minutely– with that thought. He needed that fish, and he needed it badly.

His musings were interrupted by a floating object encroaching upon his periphery through a split in the trees. A boat, the first one in a while, carving a triangle into the ripples with tender precision, not lawful enough to be a surgeon, not careless enough to be a criminal. White, white like bleached bone, white like satin moths, white like ladyfish convulsing on an oily deck. The deck of this boat was empty– no oil, no ladyfish, and, oddly enough, no passengers. From what the man could tell, there was no one on the boat.

“Hey, Murray! Back again?” came from the boat anyways, drawling and defiant towards Murray’s expectations for it. Murray wasn’t shocked. This was usually how things worked around here. Upon closer inspection, the man saw a vague shadow in the captain’s cabin, the bareboned outlines of something that might’ve been a person, but also maybe not, a being of less concrete shapes and more negative space. The fisherman smiled and waved back anyways, hand flicking backward once like he were swatting a gnat; it’d be rude not to.

“Yessir, just got in,” Murray called back with hands cupped around his mouth, dutifully ignoring the way the boat’s ivory paint sung in the late morning rays like a surfaced pearl, how it made him the greying mothball tucked in the corner of the boat’s closet.

“You be sure to tell Lauren and her boy hello for me. I haven’t been down to that ol’ farmhouse in quite a while.”

Don’t worry, he’d be sure to greet the closed doors, the rivets in the wood, the curves and halted twists in the knobs. He’d say hello to the scattered toys strangled in wires like veins, to the empty driveways scrubbed of chalk, to the quiet dinner tables with open seats but spotless plates. He’d raise his hat to the disgruntled elbows and disinterested shoulders and dolly eyes, to the “we’re going into town” and the “we’ll be a few hours late.”

If the greeting were on the boat’s behalf, would the tension finally leak from their joints, dripping onto the hardwood like spoiled milk? Would the knots in their backs finally be worked into paste? Would he finally feel welcomed? Murray nodded to the boat in a way that was not a promise but could’ve been a confirmation and prayed the boat’s company– or lack thereof– took no notice of how even the boat was better dressed than he.

He wore an offensive orange vest, an unholy brawl of stiff fabric and angry stitches with pockets upon pockets, layered and stacked on top of and under one another like playing cards, so many that not even the man was aware of all their contents. Under the barbed intensity of the vest sagged a tired flannel and graphic t-shirt that read, “The 1968 Plymouth Road Runner: Anything less is just a car.” His first ride. Crashed the beauty into a henhouse in the summer of ‘81 and, evidently, hasn’t gotten over it. Atop his head was hair of a close-cut grey, the sort of grey that screamed couch change, dust bunnies, and other forgotten things. Covering that was a creamy bucket hat, yellowing with age, the brim reduced to patchwork and loose string. While he mourned the majority of his outfit, Murray turned a blind eye to the cap. It was a gift, a dying hat from a young boy to an old man, and he felt no shame in wearing it.

As the pearly split in the lake continued along its persistent eastward path, the water returned to its unnatural quiet, the dips and splashes of his line and lure lacerating the surface its only note. He was entranced by the coal-black water, the way it smelled like nostalgia, like rotting seaweed fermenting on a prop. The way it rehashed the constant small fry he’d hook from the surface each year, the awareness of something further in the depths, the simultaneous fear of the known and unknown.

Reminiscing was suffocating in the stale, near-noon sun.

On every horizon stood trees, encompassing and blocking him in like a battalion, especially the dense woods behind him. They didn’t move with the breeze. Birds sat silent in those treetops, indifferent watchdogs with eyes upon eyes upon him. What they were guarding, he didn’t know. Directly behind him, branches cracked, and the dense cloud of dirt and sticks and other mysteries at his back got heavier.

With the boat gone, Murray sat by the water alone. He’d recently noticed no one really swam in the lakes around here, this one in particular. He asked some clerk named Luke about it yesterday, and she’d only muttered something about cleanliness and a chemical spill back in April. A terrible tragedy, really decimated the farming industry this year. She never looked up from the coins on the counter, though she’d already totaled them to eleven-eleven twice.

That must be why the fish were so disinterested. Yes, there was something wrong with the lake. He’d have to explain that to Gardner. It was possible Gardner already knew, and that’s why he’d refused to come; he was the local after all. They could try a different lake tomorrow, perhaps that one near the repair shop. Even as he thought this, an unopened spool of fishing line and a smaller fishing rod still shiny with novelty mocked him relentlessly from the trunk of his car.

His fishing line was sagging in the middle, draped across the surface like stray hair. He reeled, cast, checked his watch again. 11:44.

At 11:53, the birds erupted from the trees behind him, a thick, writhing mass of beating wings and beating hearts. Murray started at the shift in atmosphere, at the sound of air pulsing like dusty rugs shook over a balcony rail, his mouse-trap jaw flinging shut, but then he settled.

What were a few birds to him? He wasn’t fishing for birds.

Above him was a sky at war with the crows and the cardinals, the black-backed woodpeckers and black-capped chickadees. They were blind and bumbling in their panic, bodies slamming against tufts, into talons, a collision of comets.

Murray stared with the indifference of a sea bass as an unlucky few were struck from the sky and sent careening downwards like heavenly pariahs, their feathers spilt ink in the midday sun. The nimblest of birds with bodies sleek as knives– the swifts, the sparrows, the songbirds that didn’t sing– managed to pull up before hitting the water, wingtips razoring their glassy reflections. Fate and physics were not so kind to the bigger birds and their still-fumbling fledglings. Backs, glossy like lacquer, crashed into the tame hills. They thrashed hysterically against their swampy cradle, dotting water across the lake in a constellation, their wings slackened by gravity or drag or maybe just teeth.

The fishing pole suffocated in Murray’s now-tense fist, but only for a moment; before long, the newfound rigidity in his shoulders drained like stale bathwater, and he nodded twice. Sure, the splashing would have without a doubt scattered the bluegill and the perch and other docile panfish, but it also drew in the more ravenous beasts lurking deep in the weeds with their pin teeth and pincushion jaws. They’d be prettier trophies anyways.

The surviving birds spread through the air like ripples of a different kind, blacks and browns and reds arching across the sky in swells. He watched them go as the last of the drowning birds slipped into the abysmal black of the water, leaden ghosts, all silent and all without purpose, surrounded but alone.

The birds died like Murray lived.

From beyond the trees, not long after the birds, came a grinding screech like metal peeling against gravel. It lurched in the air, halting and mounting in intensity, a red carpet rolling out in the breeze, and Murray lurched with it, left arm darting outwards as he swiveled towards the woods; the fishing pole followed, skidding its oversized lure along the rocky lakebed. The scream was a heartbeat on its own; it pounded with the floundering desperation of an animal without the mind or lungs or wings to flee, the pace fluttering like a sunken bird, a coddled fish.

It was distinctly boyish, a noise ridden with gasping pleas and strained vocal cords. That could’ve been Gardner. What? No, it couldn’t have. That didn’t make sense. Pull yourself together.

Murray’s throat tightened in a vice he hadn’t felt since his hair was full and his spine straight, a vice from a time when the sun ate at his flayed collarbones and torrents rocked his ship with the reckless abandon of a young mother. Back when his hands weren’t as rough as the rope nets they strained against, before the neverending loitering on the ends of piers. Back when he didn’t have to concentrate for the thrill of stinging salt in his eyes and in his nose and in his mouth to manifest itself.

Somewhere in the claw and bite of the howling, he saw himself. He knew it all too well, that moment when human retreated to animal, when cognition lost itself to the frenzied scrambling of instinct. The sudden absence of your internal organs. The feeling of your ribcage folding in on itself, collapsed at the sternum. The dread that you were about to learn what a hooked fish already knew. The scream-soaked boy in the woods sounded like he was starting to understand.

With great apprehension, Murray studied the trees that stretched from the dirt like witches’ fingers, gnarled and reaching towards blue, and the dark spaces left between them, the roots and limbs that branched out like nerve endings. Despite his being a seaman, he recognized a few certainties about the forest. He knew it was a place that breathed, often in more ways than one. There were lungs hidden in those trees, in the rushing of wind on his neck, in the shuddering of bushes, in the wriggling of larva on rancid meat. He knew it was a place that savored the hot reek of decay, bathed in it. A place that would leer with greedy eyes as you rotted and boiled and pussed, as the ravens ripped and the pigs picked. And he definitely knew it was a place where he did not want to be.

Even from the dock, Murray smelled the dredging weight of blood painting the dank air. It hung heavy in the heat like a dark curtain flung closed in mourning, a bitter speckling of iron and warmth. He swore he could hear it, too, the dripping onto the dirt and leaves like a metronome in time with the ticking on his watch. Air misted in red really was a horribly sweaty and labored sort of air to breathe.

He took a wary step further from the end of the pier, closer to the beginning of the woods, and the bottom of his boot caught on every snag and splinter in the woodwork. Moving to take another, knee already bent with his foot hovering over the dock, he noticed a subtle resistance in his left hand. A tug on the fishing pole, one that drew the line taut as Murray pulled away but dropped it as he whipped back around, a butterfly’s kiss of a bite.

In the crashing chaos, he’d nearly forgotten about the fishing pole, about the fish, both having fled to the back corners of his mind, loud children told to go be quiet in their rooms. But, now, they pounced back to the forefront, eager and all-consuming. He had to manually remind himself to breathe. In, out, in, out. Had he done it? A fish? It had to be. In that instant, even after decades of nets, poles, and spears, he forgot how his arms worked. Right then, they were useless rolls of ugly, disjointed meat with bends where bends were not meant to be, and he couldn’t seem to convince his brain to spin the reel handle.

There was a brief pause in the screaming like it was thinking, and the cavity in the air cowered at the sudden unpredictability. Screaming was expected, foreseeable; silence was not. What followed was a soft shuffling in the leaves, dumb and dragging, nearly misread as the sloshing of the waves. It continued for maybe five seconds, maybe ten. Then a thud. A groan. And the shouting started up again, but it was now a much more wet and guttural thing, the kind of bawling that bubbled in your stomach and shredded your throat. Not just a fearful cry but a doomed one.

The pole was a train track as it rattled in Murray’s unsteady hand. His mind was razed by a tug of war in which he was the rope, torn between two sides. One: his grandson, hugs, smiles, the smell of vanilla wafting to the living room, the beeping and buzzing of gadgets. The other: skittering eyes, a chest that spasmed with panic, a fight wrought of maw and teeth and willpower. He could tell that fight was made of more than his two hands could blot out.

Now, Murray may not have been old quite yet, but he certainly was not young, a stalled car at a crossroads between expecting to live and preparing to die, and his body was starting to feel the effects. What good would he honestly be to the boy with his handicapped parking pass and aching knees?

The boy. Not Gardner, of that much he was sure now. For all he knew, it wasn’t a boy at all. A vague thought made of more smoke than fire surfaced, a memory of a crew, a cry, and a conversation.

“Them red foxes are sly little bastards,” a deckhand had said. “Sound just like a crying kid.”

“Nah, mate,” interjected another, spitting a toothpick into the liquid mountains below, “they sound like a kid gettin’ axed to bits.”

Of course. It was just a fox, red and angry. That’s all. Nothing worrisome about this simple, angry fox. Stop trembling, Murray. Only a fox.

And what was a fox to him? He wasn’t fishing for a fox.

He pulled his cap a little lower over his ears to mask those wails like tires squealing on pavement. There was a jumbled sentence living somewhere in that noise, a radio reporter suffocating under layers of static. It twitched in his head, flickering over the same words again and again.

“I don't want to die.”

Ears lied. Murray was well aware of this by now. They lied when Gardner called him boring, they lied when they overheard Lauren on the phone– “I love Dad, but I’m tired of being his keeper… yeah, I miss Mom, too.”– and they lied when that damn red fox pleaded for help. Because it was a red fox. A red fox, not a boy, and red foxes do not talk nor beg nor comprehend their own mortality.

Slowly, carefully, Murray rediscovered the crooks and cables in his arms, trying to redefine them as extensions of himself instead of parasitic appendages he held no liberty over. He flexed his right index finger at his side, bowed it at the joint. Then his middle finger. Thumb, ring and pinky. Flattened them again. He straightened his left index finger off the rod’s handle, curled it back over the cork, repeated the motion for his thumb and middle finger. Cut a circle in the air with his wrist. Bent both arms at the elbow, extended them forwards. Rolled his shoulders back.

Finally, his right hand was brought up to grasp the reel handle, and he spun it around the axel like the minute-hand of a clock. The fish complied with the dull apathy of a leashed dog, weary and heaving. No struggle. No defiance. No nylon dicing the water as a wire does clay.

A bulging maggot wriggled its way in between the folds and membranes of his thought process. What if it was not a fish at all? A clump of weed perhaps? It really was awfully still; the absence of that fluttering to and fro, of that pathway spanning an arch as wide as the line allowed, was just as loud as the fox.

Upon a brisk shake of his head, the maggot was muscled from his mind, smearing grease in its wake. No, it was a fish, he assured himself. A lazy one, maybe. One that slumped instead of swam, that floated instead of fled. But a fish nonetheless.

He could still hear the shriek continuing to build– ragged and cold and full of gaps and breaks where the voice dropped out underneath like thin ice.

Reflected in the water, gazing in wonder at the fiber weaving around the reel, was Gardner’s face. Murray could see the smile through the tide, the square teeth, triangle lips; that, and the regret, the eyes oddly enraptured by wine stains on the carpet after he presented his soon-to-be bounty to the home. In the whirring of the line, he heard Gardner’s apology, the wishing he would've gone, the promises of a future outing, the interlocked pinkies.

Like a skewered worm, the screaming squirmed in the air until it softened, flickered, a dying lightbulb of a sound. It became much less bright and serrated as the ice thawed to a lullaby of groaning. It was almost worse. What likely wasn’t (but could have been) calling for “someone” melted into what likely wasn’t (but could have been) begging for “anyone.”

“Please, I don’t want to die alone.” More exhale than words. A trick of the mind.

Reeling, contemplating, he stayed on the dock, occupied by the handsome bottom feeder arrested at the end of his line. A man intoxicated, Murray was trampled by flashing images like a stop-frame film, flares of brown, blue, and grey. What awaited him under that blanket of water? The duck’s bill of a northern pike, green and plagued with white blotching? The prying whiskers of a catfish, stirring up a haze in the loose sediment? With each blink, a new enthralling possibility. Scales, slimy and gold in the sun. A distended belly, all slick fat and gummy flesh, overflowing in his paws. Gills like the underside of mushrooms. Fins unmarred by the curious nibbling of smaller fish.

There was more shuffling in the leaves now. Quicker this time, and quieter. With purpose. Murray heard a sharp intake of air, and in the next moment, it was cut off with a wet squelch, a noise like ramming your thumbs into rotten squash, like stepping on pumpkin guts, the innards squishing through your toes like worms from the damp earth, seeds plastered to your feet with orange syrup and stringy fruit and other sugary rot. The woods went silent again.

The fish’s head broke the surface.

The stench broke next, reeking of curdled milk left in a hot car, of browning cabbage, of floating carcasses thrown about by the tide. The smell elicited little more than a scrunch of his nose, a possible downturn of his lower lip, but it was the sight of the fish that left him dumbfounded. Muddy and listless and undeniably dead. And not the type of dead that could be confused for slumber. The type of dead prophesied by beetles and gnats, the type that loomed in crumbling crypts, in the deserted rooms in hospital basements, in the soupy broth that marinates coffins. Long dead. Still a fish. Just a fish, just a fish, just a fish.

Swollen leech lips gaped open soundlessly; the beginnings of plants– green, white, and every shade of brown– flowered from the pyramid of silt clogging the space between them. Nothing was where it was meant to be, not even the hook, Murray noted. Not through rubber lips but through the fish’s eye did it tear, leaving it deflated and half-popped from its socket like a displaced joint, all wrong angles and exposed nerves.

No bite then. He must’ve snagged it off the bottom. Did that still count as catching it? Sure, it did. A tinge of burning crimson alit in his chest, regardless of attempts at dousing the flame. Any fish was better than no fish.

Neither the sight nor smell deterred him for too long either way– Gardner was waiting for him. Ignoring the slicing pain of nylon in the soft of his palm, he tugged the line upwards by hand until the abdomen was above water. He set the pole down beside him, line still cinched in his right, and leaned over the edge of the dock on his shins, fumbling through the warm water with his left and searching for purchase. Skin brushed against decay, and Murray snatched up both the fish’s wrists in his hand, the texture a strange mix of spongy flesh and thin, ridged plastic. Oh, they were already bound, how convenient.

Line in the right and limb in the left, he tried to drag the body up onto the pier only to find the skin on its hands coming off in filmy slabs much like slippery gloves. Its hands slithered through his grip and splashed back down in the lake, a sucking pop in the fish’s neck sounding at the added weight on the line still hooked to the crannies of its skull. Wiping the greasy wads on his vest, dulling the orange with stains, he huffed once, like a taunted bull.

Once more into the fray.

Resolutely, the fisherman ignored the slush of soapy fat under his fingers as he rediscovered the wrists underwater and grabbed hold again. He arched backward, boots braced against the woodwork, drawing the fish into the sky until it fully broached the surface. More tissue tore off its back in little strips like soaked paper as Murray heaved it onto the dock.

His catch now fully splayed out along the pier, arms bent in prayer, still joined at the wrist with elbows jutting out to the side, the ankle of one leg tucked behind the knee of the other, Murray stopped for several moments and did nothing but stare at this bulbous, buried thing he had dredged up. The skin was a beast to be in the presence of alone, a collage of rot with pruning green on top and a purple underbelly, spotty like watercolor, the whole body mottled with seeping blisters. Limbs were bloated balloon animals, blown up in cartoony colors. He thought about reaching down and twisting the arm into a purple-green dog, thought about shoving a pin into the fish’s cheek and listening for the pop and sputter of a collapsing inflatable. He did neither of these things.

Adorning the fish’s head were bread-colored curls and an upturned piggy nose weeping a gross syrup, a steady mix of water, blood, and something creamy and clotted that made the air taste of sour butter and sausages gone bad, percolated by mold. There were a few chunks missing here and there: an ear, a toe, various intermediate nuggets of meat. Even so, Murray cast a small blessing out for the meek nature of Riceville fish. Without it, this one would've been picked down to the grit and bone.

Eventually, his attention turned back to action. With a thumb and forefinger, he pinched the hook at the joint between steel and string, jiggled it a bit, then twisted it from its anchor under the upper bone of the fish’s eye socket. The whole eye came with it, yanking braids of slime and sinew out behind it.

Moss and milfoil grew from its mouth, taking root in the dirt and decaying gums. It was beautiful in a way, how life existed as a byproduct of decay, but that beauty had no place in a fish. He wrapped his fingers tight around the hollow stems, around the leaves like moth’s antennae, around the clumping earth, then ripped it all out; bits of festering tongue and tiny dandelion incisors came with it, ensnared in the green. Much better.

Though the animal still looked like the type of fish only a shark could love, it was sure sizable, Murray could grant it that. Definitely over a meter, maybe even a meter half? Nothing like the bass and panfish he usually brought in. Plus, the way all its colors came together to paint its smeared portrait was sure to trump even the best of artists. In spite of the circumstances, he couldn’t bar the pool of glee swelling in his chest, dripping down the caverns of his abdomen, spreading like flower petals at dawn. After a morning of bug bites and itchy welts, of a pulsing sun and pounding radiation, he’d done it. Finally. A fish for his grandson.

The noon bell went off, stampeding over the water, a hum in his ears, a murmur in his ribcage, and the fisherman was all teeth. White, white like bleached bone, white like satin moths, white like dead ladies and dead ladyfish. His fist gripped the fish’s snarled and sodden hair with a shivering enthusiasm even as patches came off in clumps, plastered to the spaces in between his fingers.

He couldn’t wait to show Gardner his catch.

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chelleaslin · 5 years

Text

Lukadrien June Day 17- Siren Au

@miraculouschallenges

Adrien followed the beautiful melody to the shoreline, it seemed to echo and bounce of the waves, floating around the entire beach, not emitting from one true location.

“Adrien?” A familiar voice called, “Are you okay?” A small warning voice in the back of his mind told him that he should respond, that he knew that voice but his brain was muddled and preoccupied at this moment. He ignored the person and took a slow step into the water, and another and another. Soon he was chest deep, the beautiful song that seemed to call his name in an unknown language hummed against his skin as the light waves sprinkled water onto his face.

“Adrien! What are you doing?” The voice called again, Adrien hummed as he realised that that was Nino, his best friend. Perhaps he should turn around and go back to shore? It didn’t seem safe coming out this far when he couldn’t swim. He turned around, ready to slowly make his way back to his friend when the singer suddenly boomed loudly, the noises sounding like it was directly in his head, pounding its way out. He gripped his head and screamed in pain, what was happening? Without realised it he had turned back out towards the ocean and had slowly started to walk deeper and deeper, with every step he took, the deeper he went and the more the pain lessen.

Eventually he went under, water filling his lungs instantly and burning his throat. He started to choke, yet his body didn’t react, he just keep going further and further. His brain started to lose focus and soon he didn’t even remember to move at all. He floated under the water, the edge of his vision darkening as he felt himself slowly loose consciousness.

Something swam into his field of vision, it was bigger than a fish, it’s sliver scales shimmering under the sunbeams that penetrated the water’s surface. If he was fully awake and in more control of his thoughts, perhaps he would have freaked out over the possibility of a shark, but at this point he was too far gone. He felt himself slip away as a concerned face enter his filled of vision.

Everything was black, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t feel, he couldn’t hear. He was trapped in some hellish void and he had started to panic.

“Calm down.” A unfamiliar voice boomed around him. It was useless though, how could one calm themselves when they were struggling to breath? He started to claw desperately at his throat as if that would somehow make it better. “Breath” The voice commanded, suddenly a rush of air hit him. He choked on once for before vomiting up sea water, his airways finally clear, he gasped in big, greedy breathes filling up his lungs and making up for his recent lack of oxygen.

Light started to peel in around him, bright whiteness evaporated the darkness. He blinked his green eyes trying desperately to rid them off the burn left behind by the suddenly light. With each blink the white light turned into baby blue, white smears stayed in his vision and it took him a second to realised they were clouds, he was looking at the sky. He gasped, sitting up and looking around. He was on the shoreline but he wasn’t anywhere near where his friends were, this side of the beach was deserted as far as he could tell.

He looked down at his body, counting his limbs and checking for any signs of harm. As far as he could tell he was fine, minus his drenched clothes. He furrowed his brow as he looked around, no one was in sight, not a single soul, so who had fetched him out? Did he just get carried to shore? Surely not. He would have sooner drowned. He closed his eyes as he tried to recall his memory, unfortunately everything was a bit hazy.

He sat on the sand and watched the waves crash against the shore, trying to understand what happed. It was like he was compelled by the beautiful singing he heard, it was drawing him to the ocean to the point he almost died, yet he didn’t want to stop himself, he wanted the source of that noise and nothing not even death was going to get in his way. He shivered in fear as he realised how messed up that was.

“Adrien?!” He heard voices scream and panicked as he realised his friends saw him go under but not come back up. He scrambled to his feet and quickly ran towards the voices, his legs felt like jelly beneath him but he powered through it.

“Yes! I’m here” he yelled back. “I’m alive! Guys!” He screamed as he ran around a massive rock and saw his friends in the far distance.

Laying low in the water was Luka, a beautiful silver and blue siren, he watched in sorrow as the Human called Adrien ran back towards the other humans. He could feel the fear washing away from Adrien’s body as relief filled his being. I did that too him, he sadly thought.

Their were legends among the merfolk, that only a Siren’s soulmate could hear their song, it something intimate that only two half of a whole soul could hear.

Luka spent day after day out on the shore, singing his heart out for all the humans that visited, only no one heard, no one appreciated his song, until today. The human, Adrien, he heard him! He answered his call and came to the ocean but it wasn’t to be.

The human couldn’t breath underwater the same way Luka could live on land, there was an impossible barrier between their love that couldn’t be persuaded.

Luka wrapped his arms around his torso, nothing had changed about his live drastically in the last few minutes. He was till in the ocean, his home, surrounded by his fish brethren, yet he had never felt so alone before.

He swam towards the humans that were celebrated his humans safe return. All of them were hugging and touching his human, he could feel the happiness and relief rolling of their group in strong waves. Despite the jealously that was burning inside of the sorrow that consumed his chest, he felt the tiniest spark of joy. He may never touch his soulmate, never hold him, never kiss him or even speak to him but he was relieved that at least this Adrien had other humans in his life. One that loved him immensely and cared for him, they would have to make up the love he, himself was unable to give.

“You really scared me!” A human said, he had an odd contraption on his face, his eyes hidden behind sea glass.

“I know, I’m sorry... I-“ Adrien cut himself off. “I don’t really understand what happen.” His voice was soft and vulnerable, all the other humans faces broke, they looked as sad as Luka felt. They all continued to comfort him for a few minutes as they all come to the reality that he almost died, Luka almost killed him. His own heart ached at the thought.

“Only, Adrien Agreste nearly drowns on our first day of vacation! What are you going to do for the rest of the summer?” The human with the sea glass covered eyes asked, laughing. Luka closed his eyes and opened his sense, although the human laughed, no joy or happiness were present in his emotions, just fear.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll still come. I might just stick to the shore.”

Lukas perked up at this, Adrien’s coming back? Everyday for the rest of the heated days? He felt his heart flutter in his chest, he may not be able to have direct contact with his love but he can at least admire him for afar.

“Come on, let’s head back to the hotel.” Another human asked, they had long hair that spread out around her like the water does to his hair, yet they were on the land, no water was affecting it. Her hair was a dark colour, yet the ends glowed like the morning su , Luka hadn’t seen a human with bright hair before, only merfolk, was she one of them?

“Alya’s right, lets go.” Sea glass agreed, nodding his head. The black sticks on his face slipped down on his nose, making Luka’s eyes widen, okay, so they weren’t attached to his face because he couldn’t feel any pain coming from him. The group of human all started to pack up their belongings and walk further up the beach, onto part of the land Luka couldn’t see. Adrien didn’t move an inch, he stared out into the water with an unreadable expression on his features. He turned his attention back towards Adrien, he felt a few new emotions rolling off of him, Confusion, hesitation and longing, what was that about?

“Adrien?” The last Human of their group, called. They had hair as dark as the depths of the ocean and eyes and blue as the small waves atop it.

“Sorry, I just-“ he hesitation grew. He sighed before tearing his eyes away from the water. “I swear I wasn’t alone out there, Marinette.” This, Marinette, looked at him in confusion.

“Do you mean to say, someone saved you?” They asked. Adrien nodded as he looked back out onto the ocean surface. Luka was hiding just behind a rock, he was sure Adrien couldn’t see him, his blue colour scheme a camouflage mechanisms. Still, he felt himself blush as the human’s green eyes flitted over said rock.

Luka’s smiled as he realised that he was the cause of Adrien’s hesitation. The human remembered him and wanted answers, perhaps it wasn’t too late for them? The other humans said they’ll be here for a while, maybe he could have a chance to talk to Adrien. His stomach flipped as he worked himself up with many fantasy’s in his mind, he knew it wasn’t wise to get ones hopes up but he had waited 208 years to meet his human.

“Let’s go, yeah? We can ask around tomorrow to find your rescuer, yeah?” They grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it, Luka glared at the gestured.

“Alright, let’s go.” They both turned away from the shore and started to walk towards where the others went. Luka swam out from behind his hiding spot and slowly swam as close to the shore as he dared. He felt love sweet up in his chest as he watch his human, begging tomorrow to come quick so they could be reunited. He opened his mouth and let out a beautiful note, one note turned to two and two turned to three, eventually he was singing a beautiful melody, one filled with all his love and adoration for his human.

Adrien stiffened on the land, whipping his head around to see Luka’s half exposed in the water. His eyes widen as he realised that the boy from his dream was real, someone rescued him. He wanted to run to the water and thank him was he was paralysed in place by the beautiful melody coming out of the boys mouth.

“Adrien!” Alya snapped, he jumped turning to his friend who were all giving him odd looks.

“What?”

“Let’s go take you to a Doctor? You’ve been acting strange and we’re worried, you could-“ Adrien turned her out, turning back towards the water eagerly, he was meet with disappointment as he realised the mysterious stranger was gone. He was about to admit defeat and finally head back to the hotel or hospital, wherever it was they were taking him, when something shiny caught his eye, it was a large silver tail, ducking into the water. It was shimmer in the afternoon sun and looked absolutely stunning and strikingly familiar, he shook his head and turned around, leaving the beach behind, perhaps he need rest? A small part of him though, a voice in the back of his mind was screaming for his attention, to turn around and run back to the water, that everything he just saw was more connected then he was willing to admit.

#miraculous tales #miraculous ladybug and chatnoir #adrien agreste #Lukadrien #LukadrienJune #Siren #Mermiad #luka couffaine

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kpopfanfictrash · 5 years

Text

Castaway (M)

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: You / Jongin (Kai)

Rating: 18+ (description of plane crash, explicit sex)

Word Count: 7,950

Summary: A plane crash leaves you stranded, somewhere deep in the Pacific Ocean. Your only company is Kim Jongin - though whether this is better than being alone, you still haven’t decided.

It’s been three days on this island.

Three whole days, since Flight 1032 disappeared somewhere over the Pacific. To me, it didn’t disappear. To me, it crashed. Our pilot frantically steering a malfunctioning plane towards a narrow strip of land. Fumes burning the air, people screaming, my head clutched between my legs as I prayed frantically to whatever god I could.

I’m not a religious person, not by a long shot but in that moment I was. I became suddenly convinced of the afterlife, god, damnation and the certainty that I’d done a very poor job with my life. Clutching my backpack overhead and praying to whomever was listening – I swore that I’d be better, if I only lived.

The moment the plane hit the water, there was darkness. The plane sank so quickly, filled so rapidly there was barely time to think. I’m not sure how I found the hole, only that as darkening water filled the cabin – I felt the brush of a current at my ankles. A current which could only mean one thing – that somewhere out there was a hole.

I yelled to anyone who could hear to follow me. Then I took a giant breath and went underwater. Following until I found the hole, punched through the side of the plane during descent. Water rushed past but when I looked back, I saw no one. I don’t even know if anyone even tried to follow. Not all got their masks on in time. Some weren’t even wearing seatbelts, when we fell. I remember there being a lot of blood, in those final moments.

I somehow got out. Kicking and pushing until I made the hole big enough, and then – I swam. Using my last, weary strokes to propel me towards the surface. The moment I broke, I don’t know I’ve ever felt such happiness. Lungs burning, stomach retching as I took in that searing breath of air. Water rushed into my lungs as well, forcing me to choke. My eyes blurred – I don’t know if it was from fear or happiness.

I offered another prayer, my hundredth, to the fact that there was land. Thanking the pilot, for steering us in this direction. Swallowing yet another gulp of sea water, I turned towards shore. Pushing until I no longer could – and then sinking, letting the current carry me in.

I collapsed on the beach. Clothing wet and waterlogged, backpack still somehow on my arms from where I used it as a cushion. I don’t know how I didn’t lose it in the sea – if I’d been more sensible, I would have thrown it at the first chance I got. It probably made my ascent to the surface slower but by that point, I was glad just to have it.

That was three days ago.

Now I lean against a palm tree, trying once more to create a spark. Taking a rock with my right hand and striking it against the left – over and over again. Pausing, I set them both down to wipe sweat from my brow. It’s so hot out. I stare down at the crystalline sea, the water unnervingly calm and clear. The reason for this being a coral reef around the island – Jongin found this out, our first day.

Jongin. The only other person to have made it off the plane. He sat in row 32, seat D. Finding an opening similar to mine, pushing his way out to swim to the surface. Jongin made it to shore before I did and he was the one who found me on the beach – lying half-dead, limp on the sand.

The first sight I saw was him, dark hair disheveled as he looked downwards. Poking me with his right foot until I awoke. I squinted back, trying to decide if he was an angel before a wave of warm, salt water broke over my back.

Gasping, I choked on sea spray while somehow managing to drag myself into a seated position. The sun was bright, burning my shoulders as I heaved onto the sand. Expelling every last bit of salt water from my lungs.

“You’re alive,” he said blankly, while I struggled to regain myself.

Still peering at the island, I remember a momentary wave of panic. “Who are you?” I asked, barely able to get the words out. Scraping past sand and salt lodged in my throat.

The man exhaled, looking down at me with strange emotion in his eyes. “I’m Jongin,” he said softly. Then his gaze lifted past, to the ocean. “I think that we’re the only ones left.”

Staring at him now, emerging from the ocean, I remember. Remember my sudden fear, the way I scuttled backwards. Searching, scanning the horizon for a sign that he was wrong. For some sign he was lying, that someone else would come to help.

There was nothing. Just the clear, blue sky. The deep, blue ocean beyond. Stretching in an endless, limitless void to the edge of the world.

Our plane deep beneath the waves, the crash flooding back to me as I stared at the sea. Jongin informed me then that he’d circled the island once already – and I was the only person he’d come across. It looked as though we were alone.

Now though, Jongin trudges up from the water. He has on his white t-shirt and jeans from the crash, now pretty frayed about the edges. I imagine I don’t look much better, in my navy tank and shorts. Since our arrival I’ve worn my hair in a top knot. Not really caring about things like make-up or clothes, since all our luggage went down with the plane – all except for my small, black backpack.

It’s unfair for Jongin to still look so perfect. I haven’t told him this, but I remember him from the airport. I remember watching him board, a few groups ahead of mine. He has the kind of face you’d remember, with sharp cheekbones and dark, brooding eyes. I remember staring while he walked through security.

When Jongin poked me, half-dead in the sand – I had a very long moment where I thought he was an angel. It soon became clear to me though, that he was not.

Jongin trudges now towards my shade, dropping a bunch of coconuts at my feet. “You get a fire going?” he asks, peering behind me.

I roll my eyes. “If I did, don’t you think you’d see one?”

Jongin looks back up. “Okay, you didn’t make one. Here’s some coconut milk. Drink up.”

He tosses me one and bends, grabbing a second with one hand. Jongin smashes the hulk against a tree, breaking it open. He takes the bottom half in his hands and drinks, turning to find me watching.

I raise both eyebrows. “There’s a stream on this island with fresh water. This is wholly unnecessary.”

Jongin smiles, wiping the back of his mouth with one hand. “Yeah, but if I’m going to be trapped in this real life Castaway – you can bet I’m going to drink coconut milk from a shell.” He glances past, into the forest. “When I was out on the beach just now, there was a cloud coming over the western end of the island. We should probably find shelter.”

I nod, pushing myself to stand. I slide the two rocks into my backpack, figuring I can continue on our way there – one of these times, it’s bound to work. Jongin falls into step beside me as I trek through the rainforest, pushing back limbs of trees and hanging vines.

I shudder as I step through a spider web, hastily brushing silk from both arms. I let Jongin lead after that, grabbing a stick to push away giant, hanging banana leaves. We walk inland, heading away from the ocean. It takes about fifteen minutes to get there – fifteen minutes spent in complete silence. Then we emerge, panting from exertion in the thickest part of the forest.

There’s a clearing and in the middle stands a structure built entirely of Banyan wood. It’s old, half-rotting from age but the front is mostly intact. We found it on our first walk across the island, following the river until we found this clearing. It seems to be an abandoned military post of some sort, probably from the second World War.

The Pacific is littered with these – although this one is less than helpful, being not equipped with any sort of working radio equipment. The tower which aided this fell long ago, courtesy of some Typhoon or the next.

Jongin enters first, depositing the remaining coconuts onto the floor. We’ve divided the room into three portions – the middle being our main area, where we keep food and supplies. To the left is Jongin’s room. A wooden partition dragged down the middle, hiding his makeshift bed from view. To the right is where I sleep – a small room at the front, which may have once been the office.

At least I have a door though, and the one blanket we were able to scrounge up. Setting my backpack down on the floor, I examine our pile of goods. It’s not much, whatever I had in my backpack.

One (1) small, black backpack

One (1) metal thermos

Two (2) broken and waterlogged cell phones

One (1) paperback novel which, after a dip in the ocean is basically pulp

One (1) First Aid kit – mostly empty and obsolete, being from my hike through New Zealand

Four (4) nail files (thank you, CVS)

Two (2) wallets, full of useless money and credit cards

One (1) deodorant stick

One (1) bottle of facial mist, not useful in this humidity

Five (5) hair ties

This, along with various fruits and food from the island. The shelter already had a few utensils as well – in a desk in my room we found a knife. Something which proved invaluable these past couple of days. This, along with rope and a few tins of what looks like very questionable sardines.

Jongin turns to face me, just as thunder rumbles overhead. “Excellent,” he groans, looking up while drops begin to fall. Pouring thick and fast onto the roof above.

We’re lucky to have found this shelter. As the rain comes down, I shudder to think what it’d be like to be outside in this. “Okay,” I sigh. “I think we should search the cabin. There’s got to be matches somewhere.”

Jongin ignores me, hopping from foot to foot while brushing sand off the soles of his feet. We’ve been barefoot since our second day, discarding shoes in favor of the burning sand. It was uncomfortable at first, but today it hurts less than yesterday did.

“We need to think of a way off,” Jongin says quietly, gaze finding mine. “We can last for a while. But we need to be thinking of our way back home.”

“I know,” I nod, unable to stop my annoyance. “If you have any plans, do share. Because I’m afraid I’m fresh out of brilliant ideas.”

Jongin’s gaze narrows. “With smart remarks like those – who needs ideas?”

I bend my legs to collapse on the wooden floor. Yanking my hair from my bun until it falls around my shoulders. I peer up at him. I can’t say how much I wish I had a sports bra. Or just a change of clothing. Each morning I go down to the river to bathe. Each morning I shake myself dry the best I can before placing back on sopping wet clothes – the water doesn’t really matter, everything dries quickly in this heat.

Jongin exhales before turning away, pausing in his door. “I think fire is the best bet,” he says quietly. “If we burn a part of the island – if we send up smoke signals, we can get attention from a passing plane.”

I nod, letting my hair fall through my hands. “Yeah, fine,” I grumble. He’s right – fire probably is our best bet. “We can try again tomorrow.”

When there’s a bright bolt of lighting I flinch, shifting to face the door. I hate storms and the horrible intensity of those on the island haven’t helped at all. When I look away, I’m surprised to see Jongin standing here. He stares back at me from his partition, arms folded loosely over his chest.

“What?” I demand.

Jongin’s gaze moves to the storm around outside. “Are you scared of thunder?” he asks.

I shrug, pretending I’m not. “Not as scared as I am at the thought of being stuck on this island with you for eternity.”

Jongin laughs, the sound hollow. “God forbid,” he says, turning away to his room. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight,” I murmur, watching him disappear to darkness.

I stare at the storm for a while, watching until it’s too dark to see. Then I move into my bedroom, collapsing onto my blanket and staring up at the ceiling. Shifting for a while in my makeshift bed before I start to cry.

The next morning dawns bright and sunny. Memories of the storm forgotten as I hurry down to the stream. The river is the only fresh water source on the island, trickling from the mountain’s crater to pass our hut about a hundred feet back. I hover at the water’s edge, glancing back before determining myself to be alone. I lift my shirt, shimmying from my shorts to dunk them in the water and set them on a rock to dry.

Then I dive in, the water deep enough for swimming. I make a few lazy strokes backwards, knowing if it weren’t for my current predicament, this would be a very nice moment. I can’t enjoy it though, can’t stop thinking about how I might die here. How I might never see my family again, never see civilization.

They must know we’ve crashed by now. Someone must be out looking for us, but the Pacific Ocean is vast place. Who knows if we were even on course, when we landed in the waves. Our pilot brought us here trying to land. The airline might have lost contact well before that.

I emerge from the river, dripping wet before pulling on my clothes. The path to the hut is slippery and I fall several time, grabbing at a nearby spider web in the process. I yelp, brushing this away – and pause. Staring at the web, almost hypnotic before gasping – I have an idea.

“Jongin!” I scramble up the hill. Running through the clearing to throw open the door.

Jongin looks up, halfway through tugging on his shirt. I blush, looking away as he covers himself. Jongin seems just as startled as I am, not saying anything as I take a step closer.

“Jongin,” I shake my head, remembering why I came. “I have an idea – come quick.” Then I disappear, heading out into the forest.

Jongin frowns but follows, grabbing my backpack and flinging this over his shoulder. “So, what’s your great idea?” he asks, catching up quickly. “Will it help us get off the island?”

I glance over, grimacing. “Unfortunately, no. It’s not brilliant,” I confess, taking the same path we took to the ocean yesterday. As we walk, I scan the woods. “But look,” I stop, pointing at a rock. “Look here.”

Jongin follows my finger with his eyes. “What, exactly am I looking for?”

“Look closer,” I insist, leaning forward and breaking off a stick with one hand.

Jongin looks closer, grimacing. “A spider web?” he asks. “Is it magic? Can it become a raft and sail?”

I huff. “No. I read about it in a book. In South Carolina, back in the early settlement days fishermen would take banana spider webs and throw them out in the ocean. It would create a natural net, which you could use to gather fish. Jongin,” I laugh, eyes wide. “Fish. No more coconuts and breadfruit.”

Jongin stares back at me. “Fuck,” he mutters, grabbing for a stick himself. “That is brilliant.”

I nod, sweeping into a grand bow. “Yes, yes – I know.”

Jongin starts to laugh, the gesture turning his face to something ethereal. “Yeah, right,” he chuckles, gathering more of the web into his arms. “Don’t get too carried away, Y/N. Got to fit your head through the doors of our small cabin.”

I grin, traipsing down the trail behind him. “Don’t thank me yet,” I warn. “Let’s just see if this works. Also,” I add, growing more and more worried. “There’s the small matter of us needing to start a fire.”

Jongin slows, looking back at me. “I wouldn’t worry,” he admits. “We’ll do it together.”

I nod back at him but remain silent, unsure why Jongin is suddenly being nice to me. I don’t have time to ask, since we’ve now arrived at the soft, white sand of the ocean.

“Alright,” Jongin sighs, staring out at the reef. “How do you want to do this?”

I hold the web up to the sun. “I figured we’d go to the reef, fasten this between the coral? You know,” I gesture. “The least sharp kind.”

Jongin looks as though he’s trying not to laugh. “Okay,” he grins, bending to set his stick against a tree. Before I can say a word, he grabs the hem of his shirt and lifts overhead. His hands slide to his jeans, tugging to reveal the top of black boxers.

“Whoa!” I exclaim, throwing up my hands to shield my eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

Jongin is laughing “Going swimming,” he announces, grabbing his stick and heading towards the ocean. “Coming?”

I stand there for a long second, hovering with indecision. Then I close my eyes, gritting my teeth as I undo the top button of my shorts. Sliding these past my legs so that I’m in my underwear and tank before grabbing a hold of the spider web and following.

“Okay,” I grumble, coming to a stop in the water. “Is this it?”

Jongin looks over and stops, doing a double take. His gaze trails my body, ending where the water meets my belly. Skimming my thighs, which are completely exposed. Jongin swallows, forcing his gaze back to mine.

“Yeah,” he breathes, slightly unsteadily. “Here.”

I nod, refusing to look directly at him. Pretending I don’t notice the water-soaked hair, his bare chest. Instead I move forward, taking my stick to stretch out the web with one hand. I lower myself into the water, pushing with both legs until I find the right spot. I stretch the web across coral, hoping any fish which swims through the opening will be caught.

Behind me, Jongin is doing the same. I stand, watching his back flexing and shifting. Even his leg muscles are prominent, bending as he moves around the reef. I swallow. Shaking my head before wading back to shore. Jongin is beautiful, yes – but we’ve been together for three days and, aside the briefest moments of sympathy, we’ve kept mostly to ourselves.

Perhaps that’s my fault. I was so in shock that first day, I barely spoke. I can vaguely recall Jongin asking me questions while we moved about the island, but can’t quite remember my answers. I remember one-word sentences, too dizzy to fully process his attempts at conversation.

As I move, I hear him splashing in the water and whirl, confused by his waving. “Sea turtle!” Jongin yells, waving again. “Come look!”

I can’t help but laugh, as I try and to run to him. The water slows me though, and I very nearly fall in the cove.

“There!” Jongin points, as I come to a scuttling halt beside him.

“Whoa!” I gasp, so shocked I slip on a rock. Flailing wildly, before crashing sideways and knocking Jongin clear off his feet.

“Ah!” he yelps, trying and failing to keep upright.

We collapse awkwardly into the water and I land on his chest, his face mere inches from mine. My hair falls forward, his hands solid on my hips as his body presses close. Jongin stares, from where his ass lies in the sand. “I, uh,” he says, softer than I think. “Sorry.”

Then he regains control, pulling himself upwards and yanking me with. Jongin’s hand lets go quickly before turning back to face the shore.

“Right. Sorry,” I add, flushing as I follow.

Jongin peers over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”

We’re silent on the walk back to the cabin, a more comfortable one than before. Jongin’s gaze is warm, lingering for longer on mine, as does my own. The intensity makes my blood heat, body tense. I’m too aware of him, too focused on what he and his body are doing.

When we arrive at our hut, I decide to clear my head. “I’m going to get a fire going,” I announce, stopping before I reach the door.

Jongin looks back to shrug. “Okay,” he nods. “I’ll take another sweep of the cabin.”

He disappears inside, leaving me to sag against a tree. I feel as though I’ve narrowly escaped. Or narrowly missed out – I’m not sure which. Lowering myself to the dirt, I grab two rocks. Practicing striking them over and over, until finally – I gasp. There’s a spark.

Almost at the same time, Jongin yelps inside the cabin. I jump upwards, dropping the rocks. “Jongin?” I call worriedly. “Is everything okay?”

He appears at the door, breathless while holding something above his head.

I squint. “What is it?” I ask, eyes widening the closer he gets. “Holy shit,” I breathe. “Is that –?”

Jongin nods, grinning as he reaches me. “Tinder,” he declares, proudly setting the box on the ground. “Tinder, matches and – well, rum,” he laughs, holding aloft the dusty bottle. “It must have been someone’s personal stash, hidden beneath a floorboard in my room.”

I gape, still struggling to comprehend. “Jongin,” I mutter, vision blurring. “Do you realize what this means – we can,” I choke, shaking my head. “We can make signals, we can…”

Slowly, Jongin presses the rum into my hands.

When I look back up, he’s raising both eyebrows. “Care to celebrate?”

Excitement stirs in my veins, making me shiver. “What did you have in mind?” I ask.

The sun sinks slowly below the horizon, dancing across the embers of the fire. I grin leaning back on my elbows, burrowing them into the sand. “This isn’t bad at all,” I sigh, eyelashes fluttering shut.

Jongin laughs from somewhere near the waves. “Not bad?” he calls out. “I think that you may have actually smiled, Y/N!”

I start, opening my eyes. “I smile!” I yell, a tad defensive.

Jongin wanders over, collapsing into the sand beside me. He stares at the flames of the bonfire. “Sure,” he nods, grin fading. “Not much since we’ve been stranded, though.”

“Well. Not much to smile about right now,” I say quietly, watching the flames leap higher. They jump and crackle, personified against the deepening black of night. “You remember what the crash was like.”

Jongin becomes silent beside me. “I do.”

I look sideways, meeting his gaze. “Then you understand why it’s been hard to smile.”

He looks back, his gaze dark. “I do.”

It occurs to me then that Jongin is, perhaps the only other person who would understand. Who would understand the full horror, the guilt of surviving the way we did. Of narrowly escaping, only to have others die instead. To be handed a chance – but why? Everyone else on the plane is dead but here we are, alive.

For now - but who knows for how long. We have fresh water, we have food, we have fire. It seems like we should last until you’re rescued. But what if we never are?

Seeing this uncertainty, Jongin holds out the rum. “To them,” he says quietly, not needing to clarify whom he means.

Without breaking eye contact, I lean over and accept the bottle. Taking a swig and watching him watch me. Handing it back and seeing Jongin lean his hand into the sand. He takes the rum, drinking a long sip himself. I continue to stare at him, head buzzing with drink and fire and him. He’s so close that were I so inclined, I could reach out and touch him.

Touch the perfect planes of his face, staring back at me. “I saw you in the airport, you know,” Jongin whispers, still looking.

My heart stills. “You did?” I murmur, even as Jongin moves closer.

He nods, hand sliding into my hair. Bringing my face to his, then stopping. “I thought you were beautiful,” he exhales. “I thought I had lost it, thought maybe I’d died as well, the day I saw you on the beach.”

“You poked me with your foot,” I grumble, as his lips brush mine.

Jongin’s lips curl into a smile. “I knew you were alive,” he murmurs. “I could see your chest rising and falling.”

“Yeah, well –"

Jongin kisses me. His lips are hot, pressing in a way which makes me want more. I give him it, opening my mouth to allow him access. Jongin moans as I press closer, arms wrapping around me to lower me into the sand.

His hand skims my side, sliding up my torso to tangle in my hair. I arch upwards, biting his lip and drawing it into my mouth. His kiss, the press of our bodies becomes messier. Legs entangling as he makes a half-broken noise. Lowering his head to kiss down my throat – which is when I realize what I’m doing.

My eyes open, stilling as Jongin pulls back to look at me. “Are you,” he starts. “Is this – “

I close my eyes. We’ve been drinking, we’ve been talking about the plane wreck. This kiss can’t possibly be about just me. Jongin can sense my loneliness, sense my desire – and it makes me shut him out. "I think… I’m going to go to sleep.”

Jongin stills, falling silent until I open my eyes.

“Okay.” Jongin’s gaze shutters, turning to something unreadable.

I’m already up though, already scrambling to stand. I push myself backwards, turning away from the fire, the moon and him.

“It’s alright,” Jongin calls softly, from behind me. “I’ll put out the fire.”

I nod, practically running into the forest. I wind my way back towards shelter, my headache already starting to emerge. When I reach my room I collapse, wishing fervently I had a bed. A mattress and a house and running water and a bath and a refrigerator.

A sob breaks past my lips, unable to control myself. I fall face-first onto my blanket, hiccupping gently as I cry myself to sleep.

The next morning, Jongin isn’t in the room. I exit early, glancing at his bedroom but hear nothing. Normally Jongin is a loud sleeper. He tosses, he turns – though come to think of it, I never once asked why. Maybe Jongin also has nightmares.

He’s not in his room though, so I continue to the river. Bathing quickly and in silence, trying to ignore the memory of his lips on mine. Jongin’s hands on my hips, our bodies flush together. As I close my eyes and let the water run off me in trickles, I shake my head no.

The kiss meant nothing. I need to ignore it happened and get on with my life. Focus on surviving, on getting off this damn island. I pull back on my clothes, yanking my tank top down and heading towards the ocean.

Jongin is already there. He stares blankly across the surf, hands laced casually behind his head. He doesn’t have on a shirt, and there’s strip of white tied about his head. It keeps some of his dark hair from his eyes. I come to a stop beside him, nervously glancing over.

“Hey,” I say, but he doesn’t look in my direction. “You rip your shirt or something?”

Jongin doesn’t move. “Yeah. Caught it on a reef when I went for a swim this morning. I tore the rest up.”

“Right,” I say. Though I wait, he doesn’t say more. “Do you want to see if we’ve caught any fish?”

Rather than answer, Jongin turns away. Walking towards the ocean, not speaking even as he wades in. The sea is calm, a mirror of glass broken only by the ripples we make. Bright coral stretches in every direction as we go farther. The coral used for our trap is yellow and as we close in, I make a tiny exclamation.

It worked – it actually worked. There’s several fish in our makeshift net, wriggling as they try to get free. Jongin seems surprised as well, though he bends quickly to grab an end. “Get the other?” he asks, avoiding my gaze.

I nod, not knowing what to say. We both lift, carrying the net to shore while Jongin shakes his hair free. He picks fish out one by one to toss them onto his shirt. “I’ll go to the cabin,” he mutters. “Get a fire going and try and cook these.”

Then he leaves, gathering the fish and disappearing into the trees. I stare after for a long moment, unsure of how to fix this. Jongin can’t be angry about last night. When I pulled back, he let me. He’s probably just embarrassed, I reason. Probably just regretting kissing me in the first place.

Stomach sinking, I trudge through the jungle. At the clearing I see Jongin, already building a fire circle. He places stones evenly, having already dug the pit for the middle. I come up behind him, hovering for a second. “I’ll go get firewood,” I declare, turning around.

Jongin doesn’t answer, just grunts. There’s plenty of kindling at the edge of the forest, I gather a large pile into my arms. Pausing mid-way to stare at him. Jongin’s lips are tense, brow furrowed while leaning forward. He appears concentrated as I exhale. Wishing I could make this better, but unsure how. I could tell him not to worry, tell him I have no feelings for him.

That’d be a lie, though. As I walk closer, my butterflies only intensify. Jongin might be sarcastic, he might be rough but he’s also helpful, thoughtful and observant in a way that I’m not. The first night on the island, he must have heard me crying. When I awoke the next morning, I found him sleeping against the wall outside my room.

His head was leaned against the wood, mouth wide open while snoring. I stared down at him for a long moment, too startled to scream or run. I just stood there, watching his legs balled up against his chest and wondering how long he’d sat there. How much he’d heard.

Then I slipped past, moving quietly into the dawn of the day.

When I returned, Jongin was no longer there. I didn’t say a word about it, but it never left my mind. Even now, I see him like that. Walking forward, I see the gentle soul who sat outside a stranger’s door and soothed their nightmares.

As I arrive at the circle, I drop firewood at his feet.

“Thanks,” Jongin says, grabbing for a log. He arranges them in an A formation, moving kindling in the spaces between. Jongin pulls out the tin of matches, lighting one and watching the tinder spark beneath his fingertips.

I’m staring. I realize this and turn away, dragging the shirt full of fish closer. “Will you smoke it?” I ask, curious. “That’s probably the best way for it to keep.”

Jongin looks up slowly to meet my gaze. “Oh?” he asks, raising a brow. “And do you know how to make a smokehouse?”

I flush. “No.”

“Yeah,” Jongin mutters, gaze dropping to the flames. “We can just cook it and eat as we go. Let’s focus now on how we’ll get off this island – not how to prolong it.”

My words catch and I swallow them, nodding once before turning away. “Of course,” I mutter, stomping inside.

Of course, Jongin wants to leave. Of course, he doesn’t want to be here a minute longer than he must. I’m the one who got drunk, the one who kissed him. At the same time, a voice in the back of my mind says he kissed me too. Says he kissed me back, found me beautiful.

This voice I push aside though, telling it we were just drunk. Jongin and I are in the middle of the ocean, no other people for miles and miles. Of course Jongin said that. I shake my head once more and stare down at the pile of things we’ve collected. Cell phones – useless. Novel – useless, unless we use for kindling at some point. I exhale, running my hands through my hair.

I wander further into the room. Dim lighting filters in, darker than before and I wonder if it’s going to rain. No sooner do I think this that thunder sounds in the distance. I glance outside just in time to see rain sweep down. Soaking the clearing from one end to the other, Jongin swearing profusely outside.

He darts in from the silvery sheet of rain, shaking water from his hair while shoving his headband back. Chest rising and falling with each breath, as I quickly step aside.

“Is it raining out?” I ask, watching his expression turn from annoyed to incredulous.

Jongin stares, water dripping from his hair. “Are you fucking kidding?”

The corner of my mouth lifts, almost laughing as he turns away. Jongin stalks towards his bedroom and I hear the sound of something being dumped on the ground.

“The fire is ruined,” Jongin calls over the partition. “We can try and catch more fish tomorrow,” he groans, appearing in the doorway. “For tonight though, fruit and coconut.”

I shrug, wrapping arms tighter around my waist. “That’s fine. At least it’s food.”

Jongin nods, jaw tight. “True.”

He stands there, gaze dark with words unsaid. I want to ask what, but I’m afraid it’s me. Afraid I did something wrong by kissing him, afraid he thinks he’s led me on, afraid he suspects my too-strong feelings for him.

“We should try to figure a way off here,” I murmur, looking out at the rain. “Smoke signals. We could light a bonfire on the far side of the island. Maybe a series of bonfires, spelling out S.O.S.”

Jongin doesn’t move. “I guess.”

“Fine,” I huff, shaking my head as I walk towards the door. “I don’t see you coming up with any brilliant ideas. Try and think of some, then let me know.”

“I can’t,” he snaps, even as I turn to face him.

“Also fine,” I hiss, taking a step closer. “But then stop cutting me down every time I do.”

“I’m not!” Jongin breathes deeply, pushing a hand through his still-wet hair. “I just – I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Neither do I,” I mutter, moving to walk past as his hand closes around my wrist. I look up in surprise, finding him closer than before. His gaze meets mine, earnest and open – and scared. “What are you doing?” I ask.

Jongin exhales, still not moving. His hand is warm, fingers firm as his thumb slides against my skin. “Why did you leave?” he asks, so quiet I think I’ve misheard.

“Leave – what?” I ask.

It’s not what I thought he’d ask. I thought he’d ask why we kissed in the first place. Why I was constantly staring at him, why I laughed at all his dumb jokes, why I bickered so much. Why I kissed him with such openness, such passion that it embarrasses me to think about.

Jongin’s gaze lowers to my lips. “I kissed you,” he says softly. “And you left.”

My head buzzes, though I’ve had none of yesterday’s rum. The rain is loud, nearly drowning out my thoughts as Jongin takes another step closer.

“What?” I blink up at the shape of his lips. “We were drunk, we’re out here all alone! I didn’t want you to think – why didn’t you come after me?” I snap, changing the subject. “You moped around all morning ignoring me. Pretending you couldn’t even see me. What was that about?”

Jongin looks incredulous. “Honestly?” he gasps. “You can’t be so dense. I just asked why you stopped kissing me, and you still don’t understand!”

“Understand what?” I nearly yell, trying to be heard over the rain.

“I like you, dumbass,” Jongin growls, crushing my lips to his.

His arms close around me, pulling my body flush to his. His hands slide into my hair, tilting my face upwards. His lips open mine, utilizing none of his previous restraint. No – this kiss is raw, untamed and Jongin’s lips coax fire as they break over mine. He backs me against the wall, pulling me forward. Stopping long enough to slide his lips over my jaw.

“Is that fucking clear enough for you,” he growls, nipping skin above my collarbone. “I’ve thought you were gorgeous since the airport. Thought you were kind since you shared everything you had with me. Thought you were brilliant since you found way after way to keep us alive.”

My head spins, barely able to think around his lips, his teeth, his words. Around his hardness, grinding against my hip. His body still wet from the rain as my hands slide eagerly over him. Wrapping around his neck, pulling him closer.

“I thought you could tell,” I whimper, while his palms cup my ass. “Thought you could see I was falling for you – and I didn’t want you to know.”

“Why,” Jongin murmurs, pushing my tank top around my shoulders. Dropping gentle kisses to the curve of my neck. “Why hide it, when I was doing the same?”

“We’re alone,” I confess. “I didn’t want you to think that I wanted you because I had to. Because there was no one else.”

Jongin pauses, stopping to look at me. “Wrong,” he declares, gaze intense. “Even if there were one hundred, one thousand other girls on this island – none are you. We’re going to be rescued, we’re going to get home and when we do – I want to take you out on a date.”

“A date?” I ask, wicked grin on my face. “What would that entail?”

“Oh,” Jongin muses, thumb trailing softly from my shoulder down. Tracing the curve of my breast, the hardness of a nipple. “I can think of a few things.”

His hands slide up my top, pushing it above my head. He unbuckles my bra next, letting it drop to the floor. His gaze finds my curves, taking in the swell of my breasts and my hips. “These. Off,” Jongin says roughly, tracing the top of my shorts.

I continue to watch, even as I unbutton one button. Pushing my shorts to the ground, stepping out to reveal I’m not wearing any underwear.

“Ah, shit,” Jongin groans. He bites down on his lower lip, just looking.

I see the outline of him, hard against his jeans and grow impatient waiting. “Touch me,” I demand, sliding hands up and into my hair. “Or I touch myself. In my room, alone.”

Jongin’s gaze snaps upwards. His eyes darken, as he takes a slow step forward. “Touch yourself?” he murmurs, lips finding my neck. “I don’t think so.”

His hands slide up my torso, grazing my breasts as my knees press together. Already I’m wet, soaking and I know Jongin will find out as soon as he touches me. As soon as his hands make their way between my legs, but right now they’re in my hair. One moving down to my ass, pulling me against him.

His lips find mine, mouth opening lazily. His jeans are in the way and I fumble hurriedly with his zipper. Pushing them to his ankles, waiting until he steps free. I see him then, erect and straining against his boxers. The sight makes my pulse race, and I barely stop myself from dropping to my knees.

“Where do you want me?” I whisper, biting Jongin’s earlobe. I watch his body shiver, even as I run my hands over him. “You can have me wherever you like,” I tell him, grasping between his legs.

Jongin groans, eyelids fluttering while he pushes into me. Hardening further, as I trace over his boxers. Jongin opens both eyes. “First on your back,” he murmurs, hand hooking my knee to wrap around him. “I want to eat you out until you’re begging me to come. Then,” he grins, bending to grab the other thigh. “We’ll see.”

I can’t think of a response, because his mouth finds mine once more. His kisses are hot, needy while walking me into my makeshift room. Jongin kneels, first one leg, then the other on my blanket. He drops me before him, staring as I slide one leg against the other. Keeping firmly shut while grinning wickedly back at him. I arch my back on the bed, raising my breasts for Jongin to moan.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, lowering himself to his elbows. “Spread yourself for me.”

I obey. Opening my legs, coaxed by the press his hands and the look in his eyes. Jongin stares brazenly at my thighs, as though wishing to devour me. His hands slide further up my legs, thumb brushing my clit before pushing a finger inside me.

I gasp, arching off the bed. “Jongin,” I moan, while he moves a slow circle .

“Mm,” Jongin murmurs, bending until all I see is dark hair. “My name, already?” he smiles, tongue flicking quickly against my sex. “How’s that?”

My fingers fist in his hair, pushing my hips upwards. I need more, want more and Jongin slowly spreads me further. His mouth moves up, lightly sucking before pulling back. Tracing over in circles, patterns until I’m panting with need, begging him for more. Then he inserts his finger again, swirling his tongue and fucking me faster. Teasing, while I grind my hips messily upwards.

Pushed suddenly over the edge, I snap. Gasping his name as my orgasm shatters through me. I exhale, breathing heavily and finally able to hear the rain once more. Jongin pushes himself onto his elbows to look up, a smug smile on his face. “You’re not done yet, are you baby?” he murmurs.

I stare back, gaze defiant. “Fuck me,” I say. “Please.” I pull him up to taste myself. His tongue slips inside, even as my hand closes around him. “Do you want me to…?” I trail off, suddenly uncertain.

Jongin shakes his head no, dropping a kiss to my shoulder. “I just want to be inside you,” he groans. Hesitant, as his gaze meets mine. “I know this is an odd moment to tell you I’m clean, but I swear. I can get you a doctor’s note as soon as we return, I –”

I capture his lips with mine. Continuing to stroke his length until his breathing is ragged. “Okay. And I’m on the shot,” I murmur. “The answer is yes.”

Jongin hovers for a second, letting my fingers guide him before pushing forward. Filling my body inch by inch, sinking into me with a slowness that leaves me breathless. Forcing me to feel every part of him, his hardness satisfying me in a way I haven’t felt in months. Jongin pauses, wrapping my thigh about his waist.

When he thrusts again, my head falls back. Chest rising as he starts to move. I raise my hips, wrapping both legs tighter as he falls forward. Thrusting slowly, smoothly with hips that take their time. Hips which explore every inch of me, in the best way possible. There’s a thin sheen of sweat on us both but I don’t mind. Arching upwards, brushing his chest as he kisses me again.

Jongin’s tongue is so thorough, so expert I can barely focus. It’s too much, too intense as I open further. Letting his hips drive me steadily towards a second orgasm. My hands seek purchase, searching and finding it in Jongin. I scratch boldly, sliding down to his ass as Jongin moves harder.

His thrusts become jarring, nearly unbearable with my sensitivity but his rhythm is too good to stop. It’s like I’m breaking apart, breaking down only to rebuild around him. His body does the same, for me. He bites at my shoulder, choking out my name as I feel his thrusts become sloppy, uneven.

“Come baby,” he begs. “I want to see your face like that again. I want to hear that noise you make, that he catch of your breath. Oh – fuck.”

I can’t help my strangled groan, the way that I shatter around him. His hips rock once more before Jongin comes as well. I feel his warmth flood my body, hips gradually slowing until he stills.

Jongin exhales, as I push hair back from his eyes. My thumbs stroke his face while raising my lips to his. I kiss him once, twice – until he falls down beside me. Jongin reaches over to grab a leaf – grinning, almost laughing as he cleans up.

I can’t help it – I start to laugh. Falling onto my back and throwing my arm over my eyes. Not moving until I feel him flop beside me, gathering me into him. Jongin softly kisses cheeks, lips, eyelids – until I open them to look at him.

“Hi,” he murmurs, smiling back at me.

“Hi,” I respond, kissing him again.

Four weeks, five days.

Today is a Sunday. Jongin has rigged a device in front of home which marks the passing days and seasons. The days are easier and easier to bear, becoming the same sort of routine. I’m slowly becoming comfortable with the idea of being here for longer – or I would, if it weren’t for how close we are.

The past week, we’ve spotted search planes. At least, that’s what we think they are – it’s hard to tell from this distance. Each day, we light the bonfires. Each day we move them to new positions. Trying to find ways to get their attention. Today we use damp leaves – it makes for a smokier fire.

Jongin dances before the flames, ignoring my laughter from behind. “Jongin!” I call out, collapsing onto the sand as I continue to laugh. “There’s no way they can see that!”

“You don’t know,” he yells, jumping from side to side. “They could have really good binoculars.”

That’s when I still, staring past him. Recognizing something on the ocean, too far off to see clearly.

“Jongin,” I breathe, scrambling upwards. “Jongin, I think –”

Jongin has stilled though, mouth slightly ajar as I come up beside him. He nods, almost reverently while his arms wrap around my waist. Pulling me closer to kiss the top of my head. “It is,” he says, voice tight.

I stare out across the waves, at the tiny black dot coming closer. Nearer and nearer, until I read the giant, block letters written on it’s side.

RESCUE.

I choke, turning to bury my head in Jongin’s shoulder. “It’s real,” I whisper, shaking my head.

He strokes my hair. “It’s real,” he repeats, awed. “Y/N – we’re finally going home.”

#kai smut #jongin smut #exo smut #kai fanfic #exo fanfic #jongin fanfic #kai writing #jongin writing #exo writing

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m00nj311y · 5 years

Text

All Worth It For You 1/?

Where did he go wrong?

A cloud of glimmering silver bubbles raced past him to the surface. His world, once clear and vibrant with a plethora of colors and sounds, was now darkening with the color blue, a monotonous pounding ruthlessly crashing into his head.

Steve's orders were clear. He was to infiltrate a GAIA ship and disable its communications. Incapacitate all enemies. Gather intel for SHIELD review. Leave. Debrief.

Green-gold scales filled his vision, a tail twirling and flicking with minimal effort. The vice grip on his legs grew tighter. Pain flared just above his ankles; the merman's claws dug deep into his skin, constantly slicing his flesh with each movement of his tail.

Steve expected to be intercepted at any time. It's happened before, it'll happen again. He did not expect a man to slam him over the railing of the ship and plunge in after him. Steve had lashed out with his shield, the metal slicing through the water, but it hit nothing. He kicked, again and again, but the sharp hands always returned.

The merman yanked him downwards with such force that bubbles shot out of Steve's mouth; in an instant a clawed hand wrapped itself around his throat. Pain exploded behind his eyes when the man slammed Steve's head against the sandy floor.

"You've become unbelievably annoying, Captain." The merman's voice rang clear in the blue. His name was Ross Sweinden, Steve remembered, one of GAIA's packs of muscle. They had met before, only a week ago, when Ross had nearly bested him in combat. Steve was impressed, he respected Ross's strength; the man would've made a worthy Avenger if only he wasn't so eager to use brute force. "How's about we end this?”

Steve didn't bother to reply as his fingers twitched, aching to remove the oppressive hand. His vision was darkening, a black fuzz consuming his world. Water forced itself into his mouth, down into his lungs. A tight burn in his throat chest contrasted the chill of the blue void around him.

Ross shook him. "Don't die on me, Steve!" His grip on Steve's neck tightened---and then loosened.

Steve didn't have the energy to wonder why. The black fuzz was now invading his mind, peaceful and comforting and urging him to just let go, you've lived long enough, Peggy is waiting, you've got a date. Yes, he's given his all to this era, hasn't he? He built up the Avengers, stopped an alien invasion, and found and liberated his friend. What more could the world, could SHIELD, want from him?

The Avengers will survive. They will take care of everyone.

Let go, Steve.

Blue filled his vision again, unusually bright. Although Steve's vision was blurred with pain---head injury, he had to remain awake---he saw that a face was before him. It wasn't Ross; no, a dark-haired man stared at him, a sharp-toothed but relieved smile on his face.

Steve couldn't tear his gaze from the merman's eyes. His irises and pupils were glowing the same blue that shined out from his strange metal suit. The werewolf was transfixed.

Too soon a smooth, featureless mask slid down over the merman's face. He turned to the left and, his voice hosting a mechanical undertone, clicked and whistled at a companion.

In a similar mechanical suit---this one black and silver and glowing orange---was his friend. Whether it was a machine or a merperson in a metal shell, they easily and repeatedly overpowered Ross. The GAIA agent snarled and swiped but he knew he was outmatched. When the orange merman glanced at Blue, he swung in place and bolted away.

Steve really wouldn't be surprised if Ross was the type to swear revenge.

Blue and orange, gray and black, filled his vision. Unnaturally smooth fingers and arms wrapped themselves around the joint connecting his arms to his shoulders and hoisted him up with a gentleness he only recieved from Natasha.

Above him was the moon, its form wavering erratically. Werewolves and the Moon, people thought the two had a connection. Dr. Erskine never mentioned the effects the moon had on werewolves or even human-turned-werewolves, and Steve never felt any more powerful under a full moon than he did under a crescent moon. But he prayed anyway, begging whatever---if anything---possessed the moon to heal the concussion he knew he'd have, that it wouldn't last too long, that he'd get to go back to the surface, that Natasha and the others search for him.

_____________________________________________

Tony knew his father hated humans. Something about a human male chasing him when he was a pup. So when---and it is a when, because Father had his ways of worming secrets from their holders---Tony's big Star was found...well, the young Princes will ensure he gets sent to the wealthiest quadrant in the human community.

For the sixth time in their hold, Star went limp. A concussion. Tony knew what those were like, to fall unconscious again and again, to sometimes forget what happened, to have the life sucked out of you at the mere flick of a tail---or leg, in Star's case. All he and Arno could do was swim as fast as they can to Strange's Sanctum and keep him as still as possible in their arms.

"He's different, this Star of yours," Arno warbled.

Tony nodded. Even in the water, humans had a particular scent to them. But Star's taste was warped, human but not-human. "So how deep do we need to bury this secret?" Because if Father found Star he'll know immediately that Star is in some way special, and he'll have him tested. And if there was anything Father loved more than his own sons, it was prestige and the admiration (coughjealousycough) that came with it.

"Pretend-he-doesn't-exist deep." Arno led them in a dive though a cavern filled with shrimp and spiders.

"Ah, my weakness." But Tony heard the implication in his brother's words: We should've stayed home. But that only hardened Tony's resolve to help and protect the not-human. There was something about him that lured Tony to him, something that Tony knew would be worth the hell Father will eventually put him through. As they emerged into the depths again, Tony spared Star a glance. His head was up, turning left and right as they passed swarms of bioluminescent jellyfish, but his movements were sluggish.

In the distance were the upper shelves of the Subduon, the trench Eingara was built in: the shelves of the poor, of the merchants and traders and artisans, and of the Upper Military. Piercing through the encompassing darkness were the lights, glittering and flashing red, blue, green, and yellow. The Sanctum was more attuned to the wealthy while still remaining quite a swim away; it was located right at the bottom of the trench.

"There're going to be a lot of curious fish," warned the elder of the brothers, angling them toward the bright lights. His gray face plate lifted, revealing a thoughtful frown. "Star still needs time to acclimate. If we take him down there, we'll have another flounder."

Tony nodded, lifting his own face plate. When they were young there was news of a Merrow who'd saved a human and brought them down to the depths. But even with the newfound abilities to breathe underwater and survive its bone-reaching chill, the human still had yet to adapt to the crushing depths. By the time the Merrow reached bottom of the trench, the human "looked more like a flounder."

And Tony did not want to be the traumatized owner of a flounder.

There was a human community up on the shelf, high enough that Star would not succumb to the pressure. For now, they were Star's best chance at survival. As if they were sharks on the prowl the civilians cleared the way for their princes as they swept through the city, their eyes lingering on the limp not-human in their grasp. They hummed and clicked theories to one another but none were arrogant enough to intercept them. Tony prayed that they couldn't catch Star's scent in the water, prayed that a noble adorned with peridot, gold, and/or a rainbow of pearls wouldn't be in the crowd.

The human living area was a time capsule, a timeline of trends that dominated the stonemasonry field mixed with the myriad of surface cultures. The first humans, chosen survivors from shipwrecks throughout the centuries, were dumped in towns of jagged and shoddy stonework. Generations passed, and new divisions were added, the stonework displaying floral and animal reliefs as well as strange geometric depictions.

Displaying a mixture of whale and dolphin reliefs and curving lines was the hospital, one of the largest buildings in western division. Like the Merrow civilians, the humans threw themselves out the way of the royals, signing to one another and pointing to Star.

Clusters of pillar coral lights bathed the inside of the reception area with kelp yellows and sky blues. The receptionist, an elderly woman, lifted her head as the princes swam up to her. Seeing that their load was limp, her eyes widened and she thrust herself from the desk. The woman pointed to a white-lit hallway on her right and swam off.

Tony and Arno followed.

The room the receptionist led them to was lit with a golden coral light that was growing downwards from the ceiling. The stony floor was carpeted with sea grass and the walls swayed with vibrant anemones and soft corals. To the left of the doorway was a wall-long counter, all its contents sorted into neat groups. In the middle of the room was a mechanical bed fashioned into a mussel shell, fitted with sealskin sheets. The princes lay Star down on the sheets, settling him on his belly.

Star blinked open his eyes. Those little windows to the sky searched the room before fixating on Tony. Confusion was written all over his youthful face.

"You'll be safe here, I promise," Tony assured.

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ofstarsandvibranium · 7 years

Text

Part of Your World

Fandom: Star Wars (Air Force/WWII/Mermaid AU)

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

As requested by @spacegirl-kenobi : Hello! It's spacegirl-kenobi here! Could you please make a fanfic of Poe as a Air Force Pilot and the Female!Reader a mermaid? The Female!Reader saves Poe from drowning in his Air Force Jet Fighter after being shot down by a First Order Pilot, and they both fall madly in love with each other. And thank you for liking my moodboard!

A/N: Yes, I really did just name this after the Little Mermaid song. I love Disney. Also, peep those Wonder Woman references.

“Poe! You got one on your tail!” Poe heard his friend and fellow pilot, Snap, exclaim.

He looked behind him and he could clearly see the First Order Nazi plane right no him. He gritted his teeth, “Go back to base. I’ll take care of him.”

“But Poe-”

“GO!”

“Okay! Good luck!” Poe watched Snap’s plane make a U-turn and fade from view.

“Alright. Let’s get this done and over with.”

You were well away from what you used to call home. No longer was the place you lived home after your father insisted you to marry the most obnoxious merman in the community. No, you couldn’t. So now here you were probably miles from Atlantica. You felt so alone.

The sun was still high in the sky, so you decided to swim to the surface. It was very rare to encounter a human in these parts of the ocean, so you figured you would be okay.

You emerged to the surface and spotted the island you often saw when you traveled with your friends. However, due to fear, you never explored it. That was about to change. You weren’t going to let fear take over you. You swam to shore and used your mermaid abilities to transform your tail into legs, which was now covered in a red and orange skirt type clothing. You closed your eyes, sat in the sand, and let the sun dry you. You listened to the sound of waves hitting the rocks, the sound of birds, and the sound of-

RATTATTATATAT!

Gun fire? You opened your eyes and, coming into view, were two plans. They circled around each other firing their bullets and one another. What was going on?

“Shit!” Poe exclaimed. His left wing had been hit as well as his gas tank. He was losing altitude, “Fucking Nazis.” Poe began to head towards the water, bracing himself for the impact. In just a few minutes, his plane was in the water and he was unbuckling himself from his seat to get out as quickly as he could.

He managed to grab his pack and pop the cockpit open. But as soon as he began to swim away, his foot got caught. He struggled as tried to free his foot. The more he struggled, the more the plane began to sink. Poe gave one last deep breath as he was dragged into the water ready to accept death.

Once you saw the plane crash, you were on your feet watching. You saw a man in the plane get out, but it appeared he was stuck. You watched him struggle to get free, but it didn’t seem like he was able to. You then watched as he gave up and let the plane drag him into the water. You had to do something.

You ran into the water and dove deep, changing back into your original form. You swam as quickly as you to the man. You saw that his eyes were closed and he was sinking towards the bottom.

You went to the source of his struggled. You managed to free him after a few tugs and you pulled him up the water’s surface and towards the shore. You dragged him onto the sand and listened to his heart. It was still beating.

Out of nowhere the man shot up and started coughing up water. He clutched his chest gasping. You sat there wide-eyed.

The man looked at you, “Am I dead?”

You blinked at him in surprise and then shook your head, “You’re a man.” You managed to say.

The man looked at you, “Uh yeah. Um, who are you?”

“Y/N, from Atlantica.”

“Hi. I’m Poe, from Yavin. Where am I?”

“An island in the middle of the ocean.”

Poe looked around then at you. He noticed your tail and his jaw dropped, “Y-You’re-You’re a-”

“Mermaid. Yes.”

Poe shook his head in disbelief, “I’m definitely dreaming or dead.” He stood up and began to walk further up the beach and towards the trees of the island. You quickly changed into your human form and followed him. Poe looked back and he was shocked to see you not far behind, “How-”

“We’re part fish and part human. Therefore, we have the ability to change forms.”

Poe took in his surroundings: a beach, trees, water. He then looked at you, “Is there a way to get off this place?”

You shook your head, “Probably not for you.”

Poe was not amused, “You’re a lot of help.”

“I’m not accustomed to how you humans are, okay? Give me a break! Be grateful I even saved you! My people see humans as a threat!” You crossed your arms over your chest and glared at Poe.

“Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. But will you help me get back to my base?”

“I suppose.”

A month. That’s how long you spent with Poe on the island. During that time, you got to know one another. He grew up an only child in a small town of Yavin. His mother was a pilot in World War I. She died after falling ill when he was about nine.

You told Poe about your family and people. How humans only sought to hurt your people. Poe was disgusted from the tales you told. But he assured you that not all humans are like that. There are some who are good and kind. Like him.

The more you spent time with Poe, the more you started to fall for him. As you helped him survive, he helped you live. He gave you a new meaning to life. He gave you love.

So now a month into your current situation, you two conducted a plan to make Poe a raft. To ensure he gets back to civilization safely, you’d swim beside him the entire journey providing him fish and shellfish as a source of food as well as direction.

You both were well on your way to making the raft using a collection of broken branches and vines. The more productive the project came, the more dread filled your body.

Once Poe was back home safely, you could never see him again. The ocean was your home. How could you live without it?

6 months later, the raft is nearly finished. You want to tell Poe how you feel, but you just can’t. Not when he’s so excited to go home and be back with his people.

Unbeknownst to you, Poe is dreading going back home as well. He’s come to love you. Your smile, your laugh, your wit, everything. He supposes it might be due to the fact that you’re the only other person he’s had contact with in a while. Yeah. That’s probably it. It’s just an infatuation. Psh. Love? Nah.

“It’s finished. It’s finally finished!!” Poe exclaims as he stares at the raft before him. After many trials and failures, the structure of the raft was perfect. It was able to withhold his weight and float on water. Despite your heartbreaking, you were happy for Poe. No longer did he have to struggle to survive. He could finally go back to the human world.

You smiled at him, “So, do you wanna leave first thing in the morning?”

“Yeah. I think that’d be good. You said that human civilization could be about a day or two out from here?”

“I think so. It’s been a while since I’ve gone near the human cities.”

Poe stepped towards you and gripped your hand smiling, “It’s okay. I trust you.” Damn him for making you feel the way you do.

You pulled your hand out of his, “We should rest. We have a long day ahead.”

Poe’s smile fell as you turned away and walked towards the little hut you two built months prior, “Okay.”

Night fell and you floated on your back in the water staring at the stars and the moon. You couldn’t sleep. Your thoughts were filled with Poe, the joy he had brought you now shadowed by the sorrow of his upcoming departure. You hated yourself for falling for him.

“Hey.” You were startled by Poe’s voice. He sat there on the rocks.

“You’re supposed to be asleep.” You said frowning.

“So are you.” He recanted.

“I’m making a mental map of the stars so I know where to go.”

“Well, I can’t sleep.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Because I’m too busy thinking about you.”

You wanted to think it was because he felt the same way you did, but you didn’t want to get your hopes up, “Why?”

“We’ve spent months together. You helped me, even when you didn’t have to. You didn’t have to stay here with me, but you did. You gave me a friend. Someone to fill the void of potential loneliness I could’ve experienced. You helped me survive with your knowledge of the sea and fishing, with your smile, your laugh, your eyes. You gave me someone to love. And I don’t want to leave you.”

You shook your head, “You have to go back to where you belong, Poe. We’re from different worlds. I belong with the merpeople. You belong with the humans.”

“Come with me.”

“What?”

“Come with me. Live with me and amongst other humans.”

“The ocean is my home, Poe.”

“Do you love me?”

You hesitated. You wanted to say no. Your mind was telling you to say no, but your heart won, “Yes.”

“A common phrase among humans is home is where the heart is. My heart belongs to you. Y/N, do you really want to go back to the people who want to marry you off to some no good merman who doesn’t even love you?”

“If we do this, it’s going to be very complicated. You know I can’t stay on land for a long period of time.”

“I’ll figure something out. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

You softly smiled and climbed onto the rock where Poe perched, “Well, looks like I get to be part of your world now.”

Poe brought his hands up to your face and his thumbs rubbed soothing circles into your wet skin, “Y/N, you are my world.”

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron imagine #au #star wars

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dw-writes · 6 years

Text

NaNoWriMo - Day Two

Hello everyone! I know I just posted Day One not too long ago but I felt like I needed to add what I wrote for day two as well! I’m working pretty ahead of schedule, which is nice, and I’m enjoying this story a lot more than I thought I would! So here it is, day two!

As I said, feedback is is very welcome and appreciated!

Days: 1//2//3//4//5//6//7//8//9//10 11//12//13//14//15//16//17//18//19/20 21//22//23//24//25//26//27//28//29//30

of a mermaid.

The clam grew cold and hard and burned her skin. She gasped and struggled to free herself of it without losing grip on her tail. “Up there, in the light waters, where you are care free and out of harm’s way, you dream of something more,” it spoke against her skin, “You dream of breaking the surface and going beyond.”

The little mermaid dropped her tail, let it spiral down, down, down into the darkness below, into the depths that made her seem pale in her own eyes. She ripped the calm from her with both hands. The skin of her fingers burned. She smelled a sharpness to the water, looked up to see thin clouds of red floating away from her head and into the water above. As the clam left her hands, it ripped at the skin of her fingers. More clouds of red. More clouds of blood. The mussel at her waist grew so cold that it hurt. She cried out and tried to pry it free. “Sweet shallows child, sweet sun kissed child,” it cooed.

Thin tendrils slithered up her tail. The mussel tumbled into the darkness as she released it. It bumped against the top of a creature she had never seen before, one with a light that bobbed in front of its, with thorns for teeth and extended far beyond its bulbous face. Something lurked deep down behind it, something with long and pale limbs that brushed the mermaid’s tail in eight different places. Eight. She knew by the way her scales grew so cold that they were hot.

“Let me help you,” the creature croaked. It’s light extended up to the little mermaids face. The creature’s long body emanated a cold that thickened the water.

Ten bone thin fingers clamped down on the head of the thing. They ripped the head back, let the light bob far behind its intended reach, and it lit up the face of a gruesome woman. She was more bone than skin with eyes that were startling dark in her bleached white face. Another hand, another ten bone thin fingers, fluttered through the water to the little mermaid’s face. There were six more of these, six more ten fingered hands that brushed and smoothed and caressed the little mermaid’s tail and sides with burning touches. Tendrils of darkness of blacks and purples and greens, snaked up the woman’s naked chest and dipped into the spaces of her ribs. Beneath her, the tendrils were illuminated with a light of their own, beautiful spots of purples and greens with pinks hidden in a forest of paper thin tentacles. The woman was a jellyfish and a skeleton in one and it made the little mermaid’s heart sputter and race.

Her jaw fell open to show a cavernous and empty space. “Let me help you, my sun kissed child,” the creature hissed from between a cage of ten bones, “Let me grant your wish to see the above.” Ten dull fingertips tapped against the curve of the little mermaid’s skull, smoothed over the bald skin. They were just as white and cold and unnerving against the little mermaid’s rich and warm brown skin as the sun scars of the surface were in the day time. She wanted nothing more than to swim away, to leave, but she knew she was trapped.

Prey stuck in the vice grip of a predator. The little mermaid thought of her six sisters and wanted to weep.

“I ask for a simple token,” the creature said. Her voice was not her own and it croaked and rasped and it resonated in the little mermaid’s skull with such pain that her eyes screwed shut. “A simple token,” it repeated. Another hand, another ten dull fingers, pressed against the curve of the mermaid’s throat. “Your voice.”

“My voice?” The question came as a surprise. The little mermaid couldn’t remember the last time she spoke, the last time her voice danced in her ears, only that it had last been amongst her sisters as they sang and swam through pods of whales. It was a soft sound, a soothing sound, the sound of waves and whale song and the warmth of the waves that broke against the shore.

“Your voice,” the creature repeated. The little mermaid stared into the voids of her eyes and trembled. “You know me?”

“The witch,” she breathed. The skull of the predator trapped in the witch’s hand cracked under pressure. “You could take me up there?”

“Better,” came the reply. The witch snapped her head one way. It clicked as it slowly went the opposite. The ten dull fingers at the mermaid’s throat enclosed around it. “I could make you one of them.”

The mermaid froze. Her hands were curled against her concave chest where her heart beat a rhythm so fast and so hard that she thought the water moved around her. Her tail was a smooth twister that burned with a cold so hot that she lost feeling in the tip tips of her scales. The skeletal witch cracked as she moved closer to the little mermaid. Shocked and stings traveled up her tail from the tentacles of the witch.

“One of them?” the mermaid whispered.

“Yes,” was the answer, “All I need is your voice.”

She thought of her sisters, her six sisters with voices so beautiful that they lit up the ocean. But they may be nothing compared to the shore, to the world above the surface of the water. “Could I come back?” she asked and the question was fragile in her mouth.

“A fortnight above and you return to the sea and I return your pretty little voice in exchange for what you bring me from above,” was the tender reply. Another crack, this one sharp enough to make the little mermaid jolt, and the creature in the witch’s grasp floated down into darkness.

“Okay.”

Four letters later, a warmth grew in her throat. The currents moved, changed, swirled up the length of the little mermaid’s tail. She was pushed up, up, up, out of the cold grip of the witch and towards the growing light above. A pressure grew in her skull, a skull that was slowly covered in soft fur, in hair, in the strands she had seen atop the heads of the people on the surface. She felt naked from the waist down, naked and bare and vulnerable in ways that she had never felt before. Her chest burned. Oh, did it burn and it hurt like nothing she had felt before.

She breached the surface and opened her mouth to take in greedy gulps of the crisp air. It was sharp as it pushed through her body for the first time, a beautiful pain that made her laugh. She had never felt anything like it before. Her body fell beneath the cresting waves. The little mermaid pushed with her arms, arms that were now small and full and no longer the delicate limbs that stretched as far as she could see. Her legs – they were legs now, not a tail – moved in a way that her tail once did and she could not feel the ocean floor against her toes. She pushed around, took in her surroundings, and spotted the lights of the harbor not far away.

Her fat fingers and toes and arms and legs were heavy as the little mermaid pushed herself through the water to the wooden planks. She grasped them, the wood soft under her hands, and pulled herself out of the ocean for the first time. Her naked torso pressed into the dry planks above the water. She dragged herself forward, pulling her feet free.

Pain erupted in her hips, in her thighs, in every inch of warm brown skin that had grown from her waist and ended in ten tiny toes. She cried, a sound so harsh to her ears in the air around her. It hurt. The witch had never said it would hurt.

A thunderous sound filled her ears and devoured her cries into the night. The little mermaid wished to push herself back into the water, to take back her promise and go home. There were men surrounding her, asking her questions while their hands fluttered over her damp and open body. A large cloth that rank of death and fish was thrown over her and a man almost four times her size scooped her from the docks.

“Fetch the doctor now!” he called, “Quick!”

A fortnight was fourteen days. Fourteen times that the sun set and the moon rose and they chased each other over the sea faring town in an endless game.

Fourteen days was three hundred and thirty six hours. She had spent five of them staring at a clock, one that moved and ticked away the time of men and women and controlled them from sun to moon rise. Hour six came and the discovery that she could not speak came with it.

The man that had taken her from the docks was a fisherman. He told her himself and she hissed and spat and slapped him until he demanded to know why she was so angry. Her lips moved with silent curses. He was dumbfounded by her quiet fury and almost laughed. He asked her name. She tried to give it and what would have been sound disappeared under the crash of a wave against the side of a ship. The man snorted.

“You’re a mute, course,” he muttered then, and scooped up a feather and parchment, “Can you write?” When she stared at the feather, he swore and tossed them aside. “Then you need a name.”

Angrily, the little mermaid’s mouth moved and the waves crashed again outside. The fisherman frowned. “You keep tryin’ to speak and you say nothing.” His large hand grasped her jaw, pushed it open with his thumb and finger, and he leaned close to peer into her mouth. “You have a tongue but no words,” he mused.

Her hands, ones that were thick and clumsy, pushed against his face and chest to get him to let go. He did with a laugh. “Then I’ll name you, yeah?” he asked.

She shook her head with the deepest of frowns. “No?” he questioned.

She mimicked his mouth movement and shook her head again.

Day three came and he named her anyway, tired of calling her girl and woman and darling. Instead, he called her Avisa, a name he had gotten from another fisherman who passed through. “It means ocean,” he had told her when she began to protest. “Is that not where you came from?”

Her brow knit. She tried to tell him the sea is where she came from, that the sea was her home, but he only squinted at the way her mouth moved and grew tired of her flailing arms and violent posturing that constantly threw the blankets from her naked body.

The moon rose that evening and he came to her with armfuls of cloth. “It’s indecent,” he grunted as he dropped the cloth on the bed she had claimed for three days and two nights, “For a lass to go without clothes. Won’t have the Father come after me for being crude to a lass who drives me mad.” He motioned to the clothing. “Get dressed.”

The little mermaid plucked at the cloth. She had seen some float through the sea time and time again to disappear into the darkness but she did not know what it was for. The fisherman found he had to be crude to help her pull a dress on. She fought him, dug her dull nails into his cheek and made him bleed and he yelled at her to stop being a child. When he stood her up to tug the dress properly around her body, she collapsed.

“What happened?” he asked as he fell next to her. Her hands pulled the skirts up, pressed into the flesh of her thighs and she cried. “Does it hurt?” he asked.

The feather sat at her bedside with a roll of parchment, always within reach in case she remembered a craft she had never known. She picked it up, stared at the sharp end of the quill, and stabbed the exposed palm of the fisherman. He yelped. “What’d you do that for?” he shouted. She patted her leg, gritted her teeth against the pain, and stabbed the swell of his palm again. He didn’t yell. He stared. “Is that what it feels like?” he asked. He ripped the quill from her hand when she stabbed him again. “Give me that,” he muttered. He tossed it out of reach, watched as it spun to the middle of the room. “How much of it hurts?” he asked.

His hands were large and pale against her deep brown skin, shades lighter, like wood that was in the sun for far too long. One alone encased the rise of her hip, the tip of his thumb pressing into the folds of her thighs and her body, while the rest of his fingers splayed over the curve of her backside. Both were dangerously close to indecent areas, he knew, but he was more focused on the pain that flashed over the mermaid’s face. His hand traveled up, over the crook of her hip, and the pain disappeared. “So it stops there?” he asked. She nodded. Now, his hand traveled down, traced her thick thighs and knobby knees, dipped behind them and up over the soft muscle of her calves to the pale skin of her feet.

Every inch stung like a thousand quill tips.

Her face was wet when he stopped. He pushed her hair from her face, noting how it was brown in shade and red in the sun. It had been black when he found her, dripping wet and cold, on the docks long before. He wondered what other colors it had. He apologized and folded her into his chest.

Day six he gave her his name, finally, and she was able to curse her silent curses at him with the name Elias on her lips. He was fond of it, of the curve of her mouth as she tried to yell his name.

They were a pair. By day seven, Elias was helping Avisa to hobble through the fishing market. She tried to swear at every fisherman she saw, even took a fish by its tail and flung it far into the sea, and Elias laughed every time.

Day eight and Elias sat down to teach her to write. It was a slow and arduous process, one that made her angry and him frustrated. When he started to write words and speak them, it seemed to click. She knew the sounds, they were still in her head where her voice still lingered, and her hand was clumsy as she traced out the letters.

She wrote the letter C over and over when he told her how it sounded. She patted her chest and pointed at the letter, then at the sea beyond Elias’s humble shack. “The sea,” he finally said, “You came from the sea.”

Avisa threw her hands in the air with relief. She patted the paper, than herself, and shook her head, her lips forming the words, “Not Avisa,” as carefully as she could.

It took a long time for Elias to stop laughing. Hours. He had to leave her behind in the shack to pace the docks and when he returned he doubled over with laughter again. Such a large man, with a weathered face and wiry scarlet hair, laughing so loudly and for so long made her smile, despite her frustration.

“The sea and the ocean are the same around here,” he finally said when the laughter passed. He sank next to her, falling into the mattress that smelled too much like salt and water and age. “Though in other places, they are not.”

She patted his knee then. He told her stories of seas and of oceans and of places that thought they were two different things until the sun rose on day nine.

She slept for day ten.

Day eleven and she wrote a letter and stuffed it in a bottle.

Day twelve had her begging Elias to take her to a sea, to a different sea, one far away from where he found her, one where she would never have to see the waters she had risen from. “Show me everything,” she begged, her letters shaky and fragile, “Show me everything you love about this place.”

On day thirteen, Elias and Avisa were gone from the shack. A wagon was purchased and was little belongings Elias had were loaded into the back. They left as the moon disappeared from the sky and the sun warmed the day. They traveled far, so far, until the horse grew tired and the shore was far behind them. They slept in the wagon that night, Avisa with no blankets to keep her warm from the cold night. She did not need it. She had lived in far colder waters.

By sunset at day fourteen, Elias and the wagon rumbled over the rocky shore of distant waters, far from where he had found Avisa, far from where the witch would find her. “This is a sea,” he had told her as she limped across the smooth stones with bare feet. He followed close behind in case she fell. “The sea, you see,” he laughed at his own joke. Avisa scooped up a pebble and tossed it at him. He grinned and it was as beautiful as the scars of light across the ocean floor. “Is smaller than the ocean,” he finished. He stood out of reach of the water. Avisa knelt, her toes in the wet sand as the waves pulled at her ankles. The bottle was gripped between her fingers.

He left her as the sun set and turned the water scarlet. He wasn’t far, up on the grassy knoll behind her, where the wagon sat and the horse ate. He watched her all night as she watched the water and waited for a witch that would never come. The moon was full and beautiful and reflected off the water. It painted her in ways that it never could in the sea. Elias noticed that, at night, her hair was black and purple and blue, like the water of the ocean poured down her back.

She was still crouched when the sun rose. Her legs were numb, the pain lingering in the back of her mind. The moon was pale as the sky lightened around it. She watched and smiled and for the first time in fifteen sunrises she laughed. She stood and the sand stabbed the tender soles of her feet. Avisa plucked rocks from the shore and stuffed them into the bottle. She motioned for Elias to join her at the water’s edge. He did. She gave him the bottle, threw her arm as though she was throwing it. He shook his head at her but did as he was asked: he threw the bottle so hard and so far that the rocks clinked against the glass and the bottle gave a hollow thwump as it hit the water.

Avisa held out her hand to him. He took it with another shake of his head. “To see the world then?” he asked her. She took two languid strides forward. The pain was an afterthought to the journey that now opened before her.

As she climbed into the wagon, she swore she heard a scream of thunder and gusts of wind. She wondered if her words had made it to the witch already, if she had read with her dead and haunting eyes that Avisa had never intended to return to the shore that she appeared at, that the humans had two places that were seas and that the witch never said which one, that Avisa hoped that her voice was enough to pay the debt that she owed the witch on the fourteenth day.

“Enjoy it in ways that I never could,” she had written in her trembling hand, “And I may enjoy my days in pain amongst a world I dreamed of.”

“Avisa and Elias were married seven years later and had seven girls to them. The seventh was mute and in pain, just as Avisa was, but came with the grandest of luck. She, too, had seven daughters, as did her seventh daughter, and her seventh daughter still, until our mother, the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter six times removed, gave birth to you.”

Alyssa, the eldest of the sisters, with hair the color of the sun and skin a cool brown, pressed her finger against the nose of her smallest sister, Anyanka. Anya scrunched her nose and twisted away with peals of laughter bubbling from her lips. Her feet ached as she danced across the floor. Alyssa closed the book in her lap, watching her youngest sister twirl in the middle of the room.

Anya was the seventh daughter, Alyssa the first, and the two were the closest of the sisters.

#dw nano 2017 #you can be the king but watch the que conquer #original works

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the-heroic-changeling · 7 years

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So I think I did okay at my interview today

So in celebration, please have my full draft of my post apocalyptic sequel to my vigilante short stories. It's quick, brief, but kinda depressing and melancholy. So please be aware this is a bit sad. And then it gets weird at the very end.

Anyway, here it is. Tagging @jogress @akirakan and @renaroo

I scuttled across Home Three, my six legs clattering behind me. My feet sent impulses through me, the texture of the ground mapped with each touch. My main sight however was electroreception, the ability to sense electricity, both organic and inorganic. I could feel pulses, small flickers like stars poking out through bloated clouds.

The world existed in starlight, like dots among an endless void. Not black, not white, not anything that could be adequately described, just an absence. No sound, no light, just little flickers below me, and scattered shards of jewels dulled and faded with dust.

It was all-consuming to my autistic mind. It was a giant maw of emptiness, broken up only by the impulses and sparks of the scattered life that still squirmed and grew. I tried to focus on them, on the tardigrades, on the lichen, on the survivors

When I had to see I could project into Voyager I and II, Opportunity, or Curiosity, Akatsuki, Huygens, Mascot, Minerva II, any of the rest of the still functioning landers — or even the multitude of stranded UUV that dot that oceans. But there still wasn't much to see there, unless I piloted it to one of the vents. At least, there was nothing to see like home. I mean it was home, this was Earth but it ... it didn't feel like it. It felt empty. Only little sprinklings of life.

...I wonder what the Earth looks like now. Like, through eyesight.

I could only stay on Home Three for short amounts of time, it would be selfish too stay here long, even with my planting. I had to look for movement, try to cultivate the octopi and uplift them, and had to salvage on Mars and the Moon. I had felt bad crashing so many satellites, but I needed resources, and I had known they would crash eventually anyway. Might as well aim them by my bodies so I could have metal, circuits, and electronics. Ideally some that had not been fried by the nuclear war.

The satellites of Earth were all gone now, most of them had fried long ago, the rest had been aimed by me to crash either near Home Three or any of the UUV's. Lucas had been very loving to this body, she made its claw very articulate. It had nothing on a human had, but it still could manipulate well. For emphasis I tapped my claw against my back, strumming the plastic card I carried with me. I could almost feel the card, blind as I was.

...I miss hands. It's hard to stim without hands.

I pulled my claw back and dropped it in front of me like a cane. I probed ahead, feeling for anything interesting. Most of the world in front of me was just bits and pieces of electronics, rusted metal - I was no engineer, though Lucas had tried to teach me. I-I had gotten better over the ... decades? I think it had been decades. Probably not a century had passed yet, at least I didn't think so. Point was I still had plenty of machinery to manipulate and try to build with. I had given up making eyes ages ago though, too difficult.

I paused, feeling something under my foot. I stepped back, and with my claw I clasped at the shape. It was rough but patterned. Probably another infertile seed. Still, I clutched it, and scuttled over towards the planting ground.

I had churned and molded this patch of ground for ages, and lichen and other 'plants' had flourished there. Sometimes even lasting long enough to launch spores and seed new life. No large plants ever grew, no matter how many seeds I tried to plant, carried by the wind. Still, had to try, just in case one seed actually worked.

I dug it in, as the light squishy plants pressed against my legs. I paused digging so I could feel the plant, feel the moldable soft surface. I squeezed over and over, before pulling back and burying the would be seed. As I did I could see tardigrades squirming alongside a pillbug, if I identified it right? It was a big creature, it dwarfed the normal wildlife, that was for sure. But electroreception was not as a precise a long as vision.

I finished burying the seed, and clattered away, leaving the oasis behind. Lichen did grow everywhere here, same with mold. But here in my ... garden I supposed, here they actually grew a bit stronger.

I went back through the emptiness, scuffling my feet as my claw draped in front to help me see. I could feel the squishy plantlike life that clung to the ground, feel tardigrades crawled through them. The tiny beasts were common now, some of the most complex life in Mexico. Well, what was Mexico. Now the country was water logged and empty.

This had been Lucas's country. That was what Home Three was, her grave. Where she finally collapsed from the radiation poisoning, my last friend. I had tried to bury her, but my body here was small, weak, it could not ... it could not lift a person, it could not dig the earth enough to bury a human sized body. I ... again I was helpless.

I reached down and squeezed some lichen, letting the soft material ooze through my claws. I padded it, molded it, trying to calm. At least calm as best I could. There was still life here. Animals, plants — life persisted.

I knew in the deeps more complex life lived, mostly sheltered and cut off from nuclear winter. There were shrimp, clams, tube worms, crabs, snails, eels, some ray-finned fish, and even octopi. Octopi! I ... I fixated a lot on the octopi. And not for special interest reasons.

I knew it would take ages for sentient life to evolve again, even with my help. It would even take ages for complex life to recolonize the upper oceans and the surface. But octopi were a good chance for a successor to humanity, they were smart and they had appendages similar to hands and a very complex nervous system. I had used my UUV to contact them, gesturing to them with the machines' mechanical arms, tried to show them things. It felt mostly like failures. But I kept trying. Some of their groups had grasped how to use tools like rocks to smash open clams, three colonies seemed to grasp that meat cooked near the vents tasted better. It was slow going, but they were learning. Some of them anyway, it varied on the species or the group. But some learned, and some even taught each other without my help.

I relied on those teachers. Because otherwise I ... I might have to do something evil. And I did not want to be evil, not now not ever.

I knew they were still a long way from intelligence like humanity had. And it would be a longer time until I can teach them the Torah, or at least what I remembered of it. I remember a lot but I was no teacher, just a superhero in the waning days of humanity. I ... I also felt nervous about converting the octopi, in Judaism we didn't exactly focus on conversion, we welcomed new Jews but we didn't really make it a mission. At least, not my synagogue.

But I just ... I wanted out stories to continue. I wanted the covenant to be honored. I know it was after the end of the world but I ... I still ... I needed to know we survived. I needed us to have survived. And I was just one Jew in an empty world.

I was a superhero once upon a decade, I could project my consciousness into machinery and switch mechanical bodies at will. I was called the Drone, I helped protect people, disrupt lynch mobs, smuggle supplies to vulnerable communities. I was not the best hero, but I tried. And I ... I did some good. At least I had before the world ended.

I rambled a lot, my thoughts drifted and churned wildly. No medicine to help me focus, no mouth to take it either. And no one to talk to except the occasional octopi. Well, them and the things I couldn't really see.

...

I piloted this unmanned underwater vehicle down, nearing the octopi. I had named this group the 'Smoked Twelve' since there were twelve of them regularly together, and they were one of the groups that cooked their clams in the smoking vents. They were very intelligent, they used rocks to smash open then clams, then held them by the boiling vents to cock them and add flavor. I had tried to teach them that, but they did the bulk of the work learning.

They were descendants of one of the first groups I contacted, a group of refugee octopi not native to the vents. Some of the upper ocean life had managed to sink below and adapt, many by feeding off the massive tons of dead sea life from the fallout, much of them still lived there.

Others like the ancestors of the Smoked Twelve moved into the vents as the rotting ocean floor began to shrink and food began to grow more scarce. They were ill adapted to the heat and the dark, but they were smart. And so far they had survived in the vents for three generations, alongside the native species of octopi.

Only Algae and bacteria clung to the surface of the ocean, and their dead sank down. But animal life was rare in the wider ocean, impossible in the irradiated poisoned surface, and still mostly uncommon in the depths, save near the vents. But it was becoming more common. Crabs and eels from the vents occasionally roamed away from the vents to feed on the decaying corpses of animals killed by the fallout of the war, a massive food source with barely any competitors. The octopi followed too, same with the occasional snail and fish. Surface life also came below, breeding and living off the death. There was still a number of food away from the vents, and life was beginning to adapt to that niche.

My mind drifted a lot nowadays. In the present I hovered in front of the octopi, and they drifted towards me, swimming closer. I worried I was taming them, not educating them, they just were conditioned to obey not to learn. But I ... I wanted hope.

I drifted to the floor of the ocean and moved my metal arms down, before I grasped a rock. Then in my other claw I lifted up a second rock. I swam in front of the octopi group, never learned their proper group name, and I bashed the rocks into each other, slowed by the thick pressure of the water. But still the rocks chipped and splintered, forming little pieces of rock fractals.

The octopi mostly just encircled me, so I repeated it again with new rocks. I had been trying this particular lesson for a bit now, a few years I thought, at least with this group. I was no biologist, no scientist, and I wasn't trained to teach animals. I had pets once but they knew no tricks. But I hoped that if I smashed rocks enough, they would begin to learn how to make knives of stone. And that meant cutlery, the ability to give potions of meant, better cooking on the vents, and possibly more food. And more food meant more risks and experimentation.

One of the octopi grabbed a rock — I recognized the older Octopi, it was Lucca. I had named them for Lucas and the inventor from the Chrono Trigger video game - because they were better at understanding things and experimenting than the rest, they seemed to understand more bits and pieces, figure out more of the concepts. They really did the heavy lifting in understanding me. Right now they pounded the rock into the ground, pounding it until it began to shatter.

I had my body's arm release one of the rocks, and then reach out, struggling, struggling to grasp a shard of rock from the collision I caused. I waved my mechanical arm back and forth, trying to grasp, close, almost, nearly there, just got to strain—

Finally I clutched the shard of rock, and held the chunk of thin sharp rock up. The Octopi did not respond, just staring at me blankly. At least I thought the stares were blank.

I took the knife and drifted down towards a crab they had been eating. One of the Octopi swam past me in a burst of speed, and picked up the crab, hauling it away. That was probably the one who had caught it. I stared after the octopi, as it carried the crab to the vents to cook it. I drifted back away, another failed day.

Lucca had bash the rocks together many times before, maybe fifty. They still didn't know it was to make the knife, or how to use it, or why. They knew how to make the tool, that was fine. But cutting open meat, scooping out the insides, they still struggled with that. I rarely got far enough to show them that motion.

Still Lucca still followed after me, even as their fellow octopi went back to their usual routine. So I might as well had tried to take advantage of this moment. I carried my knife with me, Luca following behind, as I reached a clam.

Swallowing I plunged the knife down, scooping at the inside meat, cutting it away. I felt uneasy, icky, but less so than when I first did this process. And I wasn't eating it, so my guilt felt smaller, as little sense as that might make.

Luca stared at me as I acquired the meat, as with my second hand I pulled out the meat of the clam. I threw it to Lucca, who caught it with their tentacle, and began to swim away. I followed them, before they held the meat out over the vent.

They bite into the meat with their beak, tearing it apart in big chomps. I waited more

And then they left.

I followed after her of course, their body shifting and swimming. They propelled bubbles from their sideways jet, launching them father from me than I could swim.

When I finally caught up they were winging a rock around, seemingly playing with it.

Smash! they struck the rock against the ground, it exploding into stars. They swept their tentacles through the debris in a series of whooshing motions, before abandoning the shards and picking up a new rock to smash.

I stared as they smashed that rock too, then another. The pieces gradually drifted to the ocean floor. I had failed again to teach, there was still too much mental distance.

But at least they had a new toy, a new way to play. It was ... disappointing it was so destructive though. But it was only rocks. And I would rather Lucca pounded rocks together than say tear clams apart for fun.

Lucca would teach the others how to play, I knew they would. It was ... back in human days people said you were not supposed to project human qualities onto other species. Human behaviors were not animal behaviors.

But Lucca ... I would almost describe them as a fellow asexual. They were older than the rest, but they had never mated, and they had taught pretty much all of the Smoked Twelve how to cook and how to club clams.

But they were getting older. One day they would ... they would d-die. And then who would teach the next generation?

I was grasping at any wisp of hope I could find, as ridiculous as some of those hopes were.

I drifted back away, there still was hope as the behavior was taught to play with rocks, they would eventually figure out what they could use the pieces for on their own. But again, that was probably asking a lot from the mollusks.

I ... I wished mammals had survived. Or maybe birds. Both kinds of animals often were very smart, had lots of parental investment, especially birds. I ... I would have loved to have worked with a species of crow or raven, they were very intelligent, they understood so much. But the planet was too irradiated, and birds are very sensitive animals to distortions in climate. They all had perished long ago, the brief survivors suffering as the skies went dark and the atmosphere became a poisonous stew.

So I depended on crustaceans, cephalopods, and fish. Most of the fish were not as smart, but I was a vertebrate consciousness, and I still rooted a little for the eels and anglers that lurked in the deep. Crustaceans were already on land, at least if those were animals were types of pillbug. So they also had a good chance in the new world. They were almost unchallenged on the surface in size and power.

Overall, life would take ages to return to humanity's intelligence and power, maybe millions of years. I could wait, but so many nukes went off, and deep down I feared that they had drastically shortened the Earth's lifespan.

There were ... other things on the surface. Strange things. I knew of about five places with movement on the surface. But they did not glow right. One did not produce electricity at all, and I only knew they might be there by the animals they moved away. Others ... flickered faintly. They had shapes, a flow of electricity, but they were not as bright as living things. I ... I almost wondered if they were ghosts of some sort.

...

I screwed in the plates with my salvaged screwdriver. It was a cobbled together mess, bits of exposed wiring was visible, strange hybrids of cameras erupted from the base, and salvaged solar panels sprouted from it like strange metallic feathers.

I called it my Golemoon, because it was a construct I had made crudely on the moon. Crashed satellites, landers, equipment left behind by human expeditions - I took them all and melded them slowly into something like a rover.

It wasn't done, it was never done. But I had taken apart so many satellites and landers, both on asteroids, Mars, and on Earth, that I had figured out bits and pieces. It was slow, I wasn't that smart, but I had had decades to learn.

I pulled Yutu back, letting my camera take in the sight. I had found the Chinese rover in good shape, surprisingly good, she just needed some repairs on hand with a human intellect. It took some effort, it was hard to manipulate tools with the other rover's arms, but I still managed to fix her, and she now was my main hands on the Moon.

I refused to take apart Yutu, I needed hands after all, but even when Golemoon was completed I wouldn't dissect her. She was ... she was a human invention, a countries first landing on the moon. I couldn't bring myself to kill her.

The Golemoon was not done. It might never be done. Again I was no scientist, definitely not a engineer, I had just taught myself with what mechanical knowledge Lucas had shared. And I was never sure if that was enough.

Sometimes I tried to boost my confidence by reminding myself I was the smartest human alive. I then remembered I was also the most incompetent, and I ended up feeling just as useless.

I backed up Yutu, before turning to gaze towards Earth. It was white with pus, thick clouds blocked much of my view. There were cracks, but from here I couldn't see those peeking beams of sunlight. All I could see was a large fog blotting out the planet.

I wheeled again, to my wall. With my crude claw, built with parts from other rovers, I grasped at the ground, before picking up my rock. I wheeled over to the Plain of Memory, and began to carve again.

I sculpted words, first in Hebrew, then English, then the pidgin Lucas taught me. It was mostly based on Spanish, but with more Mayan and Aztec words mixed in than in the usual Mexican version of Spanish, along with some grammar. She had engineered the pidgin with help from Riccardo, as a sort of code for the three of us to use on her missions, and also to take pride in her Maya-Mexican heritage.

Lucas Rodriguez was the superhero called the Grasshopper, she could leap a good six yards into the air, kick people scores of feet away, and she had retractable armor resistant to most weaponry. Riccardo was her superhero mentor, and I helped scout for her and kept her in contact with the other superheroes on Earth.

I had written about her of course, about the Silken Seer, about Lightning Bug, Cadena, Slick, the Asper, Alchemy Man, my fellow heroes. And I also wrote about the history of our world, our mistakes, our triumphs, the discoveries, the genocides, the hate that destroyed humanity, but also our evolution, our relatives like chimpanzees and bonobos, our beliefs, as many as I could summarize well. It was a mad scribbling with little order in what I wrote, but it kept growing.

I knew a meteorite could shatter my work, but as long as I could I would repair it, keep the stories going. I had wanted to be a writer before I got my Power, and this was the most important story. Though the parts I told as a story were a bit ... altered to fit narrative flow better. As in I worded them differently.

I kept writing, today I was repairing a story about Mu'lan, it had gotten damaged recently. It was a nearly word for word translation of the original ballad, I knew it by heart. I knew we as humans were supposed to be wary about interpreting other cultures, but the last line about the hares, I viewed her as genderfluid. So it had been a source of strength growing up, that trans heroes existed for well over a thousand years.

I wasn't sure if the Octopi would understand gender, or if their future society would. Assuming they could and would develop a society, it would be alien to human society. If I told them I was a trans woman they would probably be confused about everything in that concept.

I continued to carve it, ugh I wish I knew Chinese. Mandarin, Cantonese - any Chinese dialect would be good. More people lived in China than anywhere else during the Fall of Man, and they were one of the sides in the war. They had less bombs, but not many were needed.

My former country was the other side. We had ... there were so many superheroes in the end because we were fighting against an evil dictator - elected with the aid of hateful monstrous bigots who wanted the extermination of anyone not like them. The election was tampered with by a hateful foreign dictatorship, who used our nation as a puppet.

In the end of a tyrant who couldn't understand restraint and a budding world power with everything to prove clashed, and the world ended in first fire, then snow, then rock.

In February 17th of 2018, that was the day of the Fall of Man happened. It felt like only the space of a few hours. Then for the next three years as the atmosphere turned thick and bloated and the surviving humans died off of starvation and radiation poison, an asteroid plowed into the Earth, finishing off the rest.

Humanity had known that asteroid was coming nearby, but with the planet's orbit destabilized by the hundreds of nuclear explosions, the planet was thrown closer towards the asteroid, letting it smash through and devastate the rest of the planet.

Now tardigrades and pillbugs ruled the surface, while in the depths octopi, eels, and crabs ruled. The smartest remaining species were some of the octopi, but it would probably take millennia at rest for them to understand things.

I pulled back from the Plain of Memory, the repairs were done. I roved away from the site, before pulling over to stare at the collection of writings scribbled onto the lunar surface. Just to take it all in. If Yutu broke down, I would want to have a full view of the writings.

I paused, before projecting out of Yutu. I flew about, the moon becoming an empty space with only a few lights flickering. I could not see the Moon itself, nor the Earth, I just could see the storms of Earth, flashes of radiance.

I flew back towards the storms, back towards the body Lucas made me. I had a couple ways of helping find bodies, I had a sorta of sense of where my former bodies were, like a spatial memory. I could find new bodies through electroreception too, I had the sense mostly when I was outside of bodies, only the body Lucas made me let me harness that sense.

I drifted suddenly. There was ... among the hum of plantlife drifted one of the "ghosts" I sometimes saw. But it ... it was far away from the other ghosts of its type. It was swinging its arms back and forth like ... like it was rowing.

The flickering unstable image was not of a human, but of a monkey. Like ... like a gibbon. I could only see its bioelectricity, and I could only see it flash. Again like it ... it wasn't real. There were many monkey ghosts, they were about the most common I could see. But they all clumped up in the remains of southern China, at least I thought it was China, it's hard to tell when you can only guess by the outline of animal life, the location of water, and the position compared to Mexico.

Regardless this ghost of a monkey was far to the East of their normal home, closer to my pillbug body. So then, it was sailing. Over the ocean.

I decided to risk it, and flew into a UUV, one close to the surface. I could not program, but I could give simple orders. She would rise up and head to where I see the monkey ghost, crude as this was I ... I needed to see if I could genuinely see these flickers. Because if they were real and not hallucinations, if there were mammals, not only mammals but tool using primates — oh I could check. Finally I could put the monkey business to rest, and the fear that I was going insane from loneliness, lack of a body, and lack of medication could finally be faced.

I was scared but ... this opportunity was right in my grasp, I had to face it.

Finally I sank into the little pillbug lobster creature of a body, feeling the soft squishy lichen against me feet. I scuttled away, might as well check on that seed, it was probably not awoken yet, even if it was fertile, but I had to check.

#My art #fiction #anxieties of 2017 #post apocalyptic

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amazinganonymity-blog · 6 years

Text

‘Til Death do us Part

A cool autumn's day rushed past the window. The birds, preparing their nests for the coming cold, sang to each other knowing that soon the land would be quiet. Squirrels scampered up trees, stowing their provisions. Kids ran past on side walks, challenging each other to races, frolicking and enjoying their limited childhood. All the inhabitants of the window's exterior went on without a care, and nothing could faze them.

Until he screamed.

Everyone within earshot froze, looking toward the window. The silence was deafening as a woman approached and looked out. She smiled nervously, it was obvious to every creature that despite her delicate composure, she wished to scream herself. Closing the window, pulling the curtains, she turned back around to the source of the scream.

A man sat on a bed in the dark, his head buried in his hands. He vigorously rubbed his freshly shaven head until it was almost bare, his breathing so sharp it could kill another. The woman walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, he twitched it violently and threw off her touch. She shook her head and walked backwards, eventually turning around and entering a bathroom. The man never took his head out of his hands, he clenched his eyes as tightly as was possible and kept twitching. He kept screaming, yelling “No” as his mind raced.

The woman returned, an orange bottle in hand.

“You have to take these.” she said.

The man looked up and opened his eyes for a single moment, burying them again when he sees what she's holding. She unscrews the bottle's cap and dispenses two chalky white pills into her hand. Walking over to the nightstand, she picks up a glass of water, puts down the bottle, and attempts to give them to him.

“Please.” she pleads.

The man did not even bother looking up that time, he curled over even further and fell back, resting in the fetal position. He tore at his green tank top. The woman puts down what she's holding and props the man up, fighting him with every motion. She picks up the medicine once again and pushes it into his chest.

“Take them!” she yells.

The man opens his eyes, meeting hers. He looked upon her in a way he never had before, pure rage boiled in his eyes as he stood up, shoving her into the wall. She dropped what she was carrying, the glass spilling onto the gray carpet below. He went on to swipe everything off of the nightstand next to him. A lamp, alarm clock, several books, and the bottle of pills crashed to the ground.

“No!” he shouted.

He sat back down, burying his head in his hands. The woman trembled for several moments, then she left the room, without uttering a sound.

Time faded away as the man sat, unchanging. After enough time had passed, for whatever reason, he achieved a brief moment of clarity. He fell to his knees and switched on the now overturned lamp, and searched for the orange bottle. He took a handful of the pills and swallowed them whole, without any assistance. He sat on the floor, supported by his bed, and stared at the ceiling. As the pills began to take effect, he made his head level and observed his surroundings. It was no longer a black void and a bed, he could see the now wet carpet, the painting of a house on a wall, the picture of an older couple on another. He swallowed as he noticed an indentation in the wall across from him, next to the closet. He stood back up and walked toward it, he ran his fingers across the dented drywall and gasped as he noticed a small red stain where her head had impacted. He shuffled into the hallway and preceded to the living room, catching his foot on the long rug several times.

He turned the corner to the living room and opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. His heart sank as he saw the woman he loved in the same position he was just in, her head buried in her hands. She sobbed uncontrollably, the sound of which pierced his heart and made him stumble backward. Catching himself, he returned to the corridor and slid down the wall, putting down his head and covering it with his hands. He sat, and he listened. Listened for hours as his wife cried, with seemingly no end in sight. She did not move, she did not speak, she cried. With nothing to do but think, he did, every moment he sat his head swam with every thought imaginable. Eventually he knew that his mind would not be clear for much longer. He looked up, his eyes filled with conviction, and returned to his feet.

He walked up to the couch and sat down. When she noticed him sit down, she recoiled. For a moment he thought she would run, but she stood her ground. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

“You took the pills!” she exclaimed.

He nodded, looking away. His eyes rested on the coffee table in front of him, and at the magazines littering it, lamenting silently as he stared at the perfect people modeling their covers.

“I think we should get a divorce.” he said.

Her smile vanished as quickly as it had arrived, and she choked back more tears trying to formulate a rebuttal.

“No.” she said firmly.

The man locked eyes with her, he stared at her every feature. Her long black hair. Her eyes, as deep blue as a sea that he could lose himself in for hours. She was wearing her favorite white cashmere sweater, the sleeves pulled over her fingers, they were damp of her bottomless sadness. He tried to remember her beauty, for he knew it would be the last time he would experience it.

“I can't make you happy anymore, all I can do is hurt you.” he whispered, once again looking away.

“But,” she stuttered, “you took the pills, you're fine! Just keep taking the pills!”

He kept staring at the coffee table, and subtly shook his head. She put a hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs, and began breathing heavily. After a few minutes, she composed herself.

“I took a vow when we married, 'Until death do us part', and I always intended to keep that promise, no matter what. Please, I love you.”

The man closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed the lump in his throat.

“I love you too sweetheart, more than any man has ever loved a woman. But that's just the thing...”

He looked her in the eyes for the last time, a single tear streamed down his cheek.

“The man you married is dead.”

#writing #sad #short story

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kpopfanfictrash · 7 years

Text

Castaway

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: You / Jongin (Kai)

Rating: 18+ (description of plane crash, explicit sex)

Word Count: 7,950

Summary: A plane crash leaves you stranded, somewhere deep in the Pacific Ocean. Your only company is Kim Jongin - though whether this is better than being alone, you still haven’t decided.

It’s been three days on this island.

That was three days ago.

Now I lean against a palm tree, trying once more to create a spark. Taking a rock with my right hand and striking it against the left – over and over again. Pausing, I set them both down to wipe sweat from my brow. It's so hot out. I stare down at the crystalline sea, the water unnervingly calm and clear. The reason for this being a coral reef around the island – Jongin found this out, our first day.

“You’re alive,” he said blankly, while I struggled to regain myself.

Still peering at the island, I remember a momentary wave of panic. “Who are you?” I asked, barely able to get the words out. Scraping past sand and salt lodged in my throat.

The man exhaled, looking down at me with strange emotion in his eyes. “I’m Jongin,” he said softly. Then his gaze lifted past, to the ocean. “I think that we’re the only ones left.”

There was nothing. Just the clear, blue sky. The deep, blue ocean beyond. Stretching in an endless, limitless void to the edge of the world.

When Jongin poked me, half-dead in the sand – I had a very long moment where I thought he was an angel. It soon became clear to me though, that he was not.

Jongin trudges now towards my shade, dropping a bunch of coconuts at my feet. “You get a fire going?” he asks, peering behind me.

I roll my eyes. “If I did, don’t you think you’d see one?”

Jongin looks back up. “Okay, you didn’t make one. Here’s some coconut milk. Drink up.”

He tosses me one and bends, grabbing a second with one hand. Jongin smashes the hulk against a tree, breaking it open. He takes the bottom half in his hands and drinks, turning to find me watching.

I raise both eyebrows. “There’s a stream on this island with fresh water. This is wholly unnecessary.”

At least I have a door though, and the one blanket we were able to scrounge up. Setting my backpack down on the floor, I examine our pile of goods. It’s not much, whatever I had in my backpack.

One (1) small, black backpack

One (1) metal thermos

Two (2) broken and waterlogged cell phones

One (1) paperback novel which, after a dip in the ocean is basically pulp

One (1) First Aid kit – mostly empty and obsolete, being from my hike through New Zealand

Four (4) nail files (thank you, CVS)

Two (2) wallets, full of useless money and credit cards

One (1) deodorant stick

One (1) bottle of facial mist, not useful in this humidity

Five (5) hair ties

Jongin turns to face me, just as thunder rumbles overhead. “Excellent,” he groans, looking up while drops begin to fall. Pouring thick and fast onto the roof above.

“We need to think of a way off,” Jongin says quietly, gaze finding mine. “We can last for a while. But we need to be thinking of our way back home.”

“I know,” I nod, unable to stop my annoyance. “If you have any plans, do share. Because I’m afraid I’m fresh out of brilliant ideas.”

Jongin’s gaze narrows. “With smart remarks like those – who needs ideas?”

I bend my legs to collapse on the wooden floor. Yanking my hair from my bun until it falls around my shoulders. I peer up at him. I can’t say how much I wish I had a sports bra. Or just a change of clothing. Each morning I go down to the river to bathe. Each morning I shake myself dry the best I can before placing back on sopping wet clothes �� the water doesn’t really matter, everything dries quickly in this heat.