Work Text:
The waves churned, crashing into the humble construction I dwell in. It awakened me as the storm loomed over the perturbed sea, startling the once-serene surface of liquid. I hastened to sit up, to find a position to gauge the danger and my whereabouts. The sky was a blackened mess of dark stars and swirling fogs that tainted the once clear view. Water was laid out in a rolling and tattered carpet as far as my feeble mortal eyes could see.
Dismay settled in a lump in the pit of my heaving chest, just below my left breast as my heart rammed in the suddenly constricting cage of my ribs. I was prepared to call this my doom, to endeavor to crumble into a weeping pile in the hull of my ship. However, my graces were saved as I tripped over and turned to see land on the horizon. Not a far distance, only a few miles, were the towering cliffs of Orkney Islands that block out intruders and freeze out its owners.
Something swelled in my throat as my body twirled around to reorientate the boat towards the salvation of the shore. Land was safer, safer than the boat. I hastened to the safety of solid ground expanding so vastly as if reaching out a hand to my shaken form. Too fast the boat came in contact with the docks, but it was a menial issue of the mind as my feet caressed the stableness of it, the soil cradling my shaking legs.
The shakiness of my limbs subsides with every stride of my swift retreat fareth into the land. Yet, I realized with late serenity, that it was unneeded. The once terrifying clouds had already cleared far above my headband. Even as I thought back, my journey the last mile was adjoined with calm waters, except for that I stirred with my thrashing to get ashore. The storm, that I so feared to make me quake in the pit of my dry boat, had already passed. What I had witnessed as I was awoken was just that of the trailing end of said natural occurrence. Even if I had stayed to tremble in the design, I would have been unharmed as the rest of the squall left my view of sight.
I felt ridiculous for my haste and glanced about to confirm my rushed experience was safely behind the closed doors of only my mind. There was a lonely boat that was but a dot on the sea far away, the only witness besides the cliffs that rose up tall. I thought for a moment as I stalled in the sand bar, that perhaps the storm had looped around me, leaving me a float just as I had left myself when I had taken my mind to another land of consciousness. My only evidence being that no sane creature would be out during something so horrific. Regardless, I was now vividly shy of the gently foaming currents, so I quitted the scene towards the sanctuary my house on this accursed island would give to my miserable person. Before I could, my foot caught on the covered lump of a thing that clutched at my shoe’s toe and I fell to meet the ground as sand filled my nostrils.
Often, I would have been disgruntled and would have oh so violently shaken myself unyieldingly, attempting to free myself from the object of my capture. But, my eyes caught on the warmth of my dear friend. Henry Clerval, he was there, lying in a position of comfort on the sandy beach with his head tilted up. Yet, he was not breathing.
Something akin to my sadness and horror clawed deep out of my aching bosom and I howled my anguish in the air. Pulling and prodigy at the body of my dear friend, who for all purposes, should have been fine. He was seemingly uninjured in his fine clothing and hair neat, he was even warm under my delicate skin tempting the soul to come back to the body. Nothing I did succeeded and eventually my mind drifted until latching onto the neck adorned with nothing but blossomed bruises of fingertips. Everything stopped in my head and mind, even as the clouds finished their dispersal to reveal the warmth of blue sunlight.
I could not support myself for no longer and I leaned with all my vigor on the shoulders of my unmoving loved one. I know who did this, that wretched devil! My anguish festered into astonished anger of undivided rage. That miserable wretch, the creator of my downfall, the ruination of my love, he will pay for what he has done to my loved. I swore to the sky words that describe the beast pretending to play in human form, long strings of wishes and promises until my energy gave out once more.
My hands gripped onto the warm skin of Clerval’s wrist and I reoriented my focus. I could save him. Herny, my love and friend who helped me and was my light on this cursed trip, I will save him. That devil and his now forever banished mate were made of dead flesh, so was, aguishly and ill-fated, now Henry, but he, my dear, is fresh. Flesh still gives warmth. He will be there when I bring the body back. I must work in haste, that boat is now so close, and my loved cannot hold on to this form in the dead for long. I gripped the limp corpse with all my strength, shifting the weight until he and I were as comfortable as can be before I quitted the scene.
I struggled and fought to my dwelling to the surety it gave me and him. Once there, I hastened to prepare, my tools still with me and set neatly in their places. I got to work restarting this work of beautiful art that was not worthy of taint.
With my previous works, they required months of study and gathering and making. This moment though, there was no need to restitch flesh and rebuild muscle. My work took days yet, I refused to treat myself to the luxuries of food and hygiene and sleep, I only took mere moments to drink the liquids to keep me running as I resolved to fix my darling. However, in my already weakened state of freeing myself from the slavery of that devil, my body could take no more and slumped to the floor.
I missed it as I tried to pull myself together in the face of my loved. I blinked once in the lightening of the dim late sun, then twice, then the body was sitting up and before me. Henry, once again promoted to breathe by laws of living, stood before me once again well. He stared at me, then uttered words. Words of questions then comfort at my disheveled and battle-worn figure which shook with such violence. Tears trailed hotty against my skin and he hastened his sickened comfort to me. His skin touched mine, and once again he was hot. Not the mild warmth that leaked from him while he cooled after death nor the coldness that seeped into my pores while I worked on him, but a burning heat that warm bodies produce.
I could not explain to him just yet of what had happened to him nor of what I had to do. For now, I contented with proving I was of sane mind and letting him tend to my distraught figure with unblinking eyes and I watched over his stilted figure to make sure everything was of sound. Henry, my love, would never be the same. Never to integrate back into society, and that was all the fault of that wretch. Henry Clerval, once his mind was less fogged and less destructive, who of no doubt would help with the departure of the devil from this world. However, for now, I sat in company with him, my only companion for years to come as I would have to keep him away from society. Elizabeth and my dear father and my lone surviving brother would have to make it through this world without us.