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No one is certain by the end if they’ll ever get the smell of mud and sulfur out of their skin or clothes or forget the sounds that came with such acts out of their ears where it seemingly echoes insistently. You would think that by now the demons would be used to it. After all they know the smell of their own blood, it’s familiar. Like an old friend.
But this is different.
This is far more different.
Not to mention the sounds. . .oh gods the sounds.
Never in their life would they have ever suspected that they would one day find a sound that was so much worse . . .so much more haunting than anything even Gwi-ma’s nagging voices scratching in the back of their heads with something akin to sharp claws or rusted nails, could conjure.
But they do.
Oh god do they find out that day that there is.
And it's tragic because deep down they're all sounds that they should all be used to by now. But knowing exactly where it’s coming from makes a world of difference. Knowing that they’re the ones causing it to one of their own makes even more of one. Knowing personally the source of the violent cracking of bones, the soft squish and slippery slide of blood that oozes three shades too dark through broken skin. The screams that follow the agonizing shifting of hands pressed against your ragged flesh as it attempts to mold what's broken back into it’s original position or at least something as close to it as they can get at the very least. The pushing and pulling. The agonizing pressure to force something to re-crack underhand that just leads to even more curses, coughing, threats, and the act of garbled bargaining and pleads as you beg them all- the one who re-breaks and those who try to sooth you through it all whilst holding you down- to just stop.
please just stop
But you know that they can’t.
You know that they can’t because if they do there’s a chance that you will die. And everyone highly doubts at this current moment in time, that after all the shit you and the others have pulled over the years, that there’s a god, demon OR otherwise, left out there who's going to be kind enough to resurrect you a second time if you do. So instead they push on in spite of your pleas and mournful begging.
It’s the first time in years that you’ve ever actually begged like this before.
Go figure this time no one’s listening to them again.
Time passes. Or at least you think that it does. But for all you know you're stuck in an infinite loop; reliving the first excruciating cracks over and over. Only this time there's no sign of stopping. No sign of an end in sight. Sounds instead blur together. You taste blood in your mouth that you so desperately want to spit, but you can’t tell if it’s yours or if it's coming from the hand that you're assuming someone has shoved against your mouth, either to keep you quiet or perhaps maybe instead to give you something to, at least at the very last moment, bite down on.
And you do
For the first time
you're sorry that you do
At the start of it all you're already starting to sweat.
The heat that your body exhausts as it attempts to rapidly heal itself any time another bone breaks makes the enclosed space between you, the room and the others feel like a jungle in comparison. It’s stifling, muggy, almost choking. It seems to also amplify the smells surrounding you and them somehow. The one time you open your eyes when everything slows down in order to catch a glimpse of what’s going on around you, you see the guy whose rebreaking your bones; he’s sitting at your waist now, wiping his nose on his upper bicep. He sniffs with a low snort and you know that noise as one made by someone who either can’t stand the stench surrounding him or is enjoying it all just a little too much. The thought churns your stomach that it might be the second option.
But thank god you know who's doing this.
Thank god you know they won’t turn on you in a frenzy if given the chance to do so.
They would have already done so already if they wanted too,
you know that well enough.
Off and on occasionally they do give you a reprieve. A few moments time to catch your breath. A few moments to just relax while they check to see if everything they’ve recently broken has realigned correctly. But it never lasts. You can’t relax for too long. They’re racing your body as well as the clock. Trying to out pace it’s rapid healing. With every new break you experience, your body heats up. You feel the shifting under your skin, hear the low popping and clicking as bone reconnects. As sinew twists and muscles stitch. If it was just your arm or your wrist or even just your leg, everything would have been fine. You probably wouldn’t have had to go through all this and could have just realigned the break yourself when you were alone. Could have done it yourself like you always did. But the mangled bones on the right side of your body are far too broken to allow them to heal on their own because any time that they do, they malform and misalign.
But with every break comes stress.
Not to mention, your starting to feel
Cold. . .
Your body is a marvel; what it can take and what it can give and what it can do is the reason why many sell their souls for it. But there’s always limits to what it can take, and right now it’s exhausted and that’s a problem. Because if your body is cold it won’t heal. They try to keep you warm as they work but it doesn’t seem to change much of anything. You still feel the frigidness slowly creep up your limbs as time seems to march on just as slowly. So they work fast with whatever heat you have left. You're too exhausted by now to properly protest much, feeling as if the slight moment’s of relaxation they have gifted you weren’t nearly as long as you hoped it would be.
The moment they say they have to start up again, you're certain that you cry.
Perhaps maybe you do
Perhaps for the moment. . .they let you. . .
They're still afraid after all.
Afraid that they will be the death of you. That the stress they cause alone will kill you before anything else has the chance too. But they have to finish, you know that they do. So after a few more moments dreading what needs to be done and what is to come but finding no way out of it, you and them go right back to square one, right back to where you left off. . . .only this time you're too tired to scream much anymore and that worries them, though they don’t say much about it. Your thrashing isn’t even nearly as violent as it once was before, and you're not even biting down anymore on the hand that cradles your face whenever a bone gives way under the pressure and weight they force down upon it. You're simply just lying there.
“Just a few more,” they say instead.
Just a few and we’re done, they whisper.
“Almost done.
We Promise.”
But that was a lie.
You all knew that.
It takes another two hours.
It takes another two hours and during that time you’ve lost count over just how many times your body had given out. Over how many times they had to stir you back awake because you had gotten too still, too quiet. But you're not surprised; not really. Even before this, it’s not like they ever let you sleep whenever you wanted,
Why should it be any different now?
The final bone broken and realigned takes your breath away.
It's up higher, or perhaps maybe even lower down. In the end it doesn’t really matter much, it all feels the same regardless anyhow. But it’s stubborn. And for some reason or another it refuses to give in under the immense weight like all the others, no matter how much of it the one doing the breaking throw's against it. It seems almost comical in some sad way, that the final stretch would somehow be the hardest, but it’s not like you have the energy to complain much anymore. And perhaps if you don’t, then maybe it just also goes to show you that everyone else might just be as exhausted as you are.
After-all
how could the strongest of you all be struggling this much right now over something so trivial as breaking a bone
if not for that reason alone
There's a grunt. A sudden press with about as much weight as Abby can throw behind it.
Except. . .
nothing happens. . .
There’s curse.
Silent, almost like it's breathed through gritted teeth.
An adjustment
Press.
Again nothing.
Another curse, louder this time.
(Fuck!)
He tries once more. But again, nothing happens for a third time. Instead, sudden blossoming's of pain surrounding the stubborn bone makes you cough and groan and try to shift and roll onto your side in a sorry attempt to garner some relief, but a hand on your shoulder is seemingly all it takes to keep you still. Above you, you just barely hear the loose ends of conversation. Something seems to squawk in the background as well, though you haven't the faintest of clues where it could be coming from.
(Abb. .aybe you sho-)
(ut up. .ammit!..)
He sounds tired. . .
but you also hear the edge in his voice
But once again your not really all that surprised. . .
You already know what he's like when he gets tired.
You’ve forgotten however what he's like when he get's desperate as well. . .
(I almo. .ot it)
He's stubborn. . .
Another adjustment
He tries again
. . . .
( sonofa . . .)
Turns out he doesn't have it at all.
(maybe w-. . .take a brea-)
You barely hear that. But you know by now what his response is going to be. Because you know Abby. And you know that once he gets going on something, it's very hard to get him to stop, especially if you’re so close to the end. And as if to prove that point, whatever it is that you're laying on suddenly shifts beneath you as the other's curse and gasp abruptly; trying to hold on after a sudden abrupt pitch to what you think is the right. There comes another grunt and if you didn't know any better, judging by the light plume of warm air suddenly fanning out against your upper torso and the others frantic questioning over just whatever the hell it was he thought he was doing- you would have assumed that despite his height, that Abby had climbed up on whatever surface you were laying on.
And your assumption would be correct. . . You feel the surface your on shift as he adjusts himself.
You feel the shift of his hips against your pelvis, but that's only because he's bracing on his knee's.
You feel the weight difference as he presses his palms against your skin experimentally.
A sudden pressure and release. . .the slow crawl of fingers up sweat soaked skin that feels like hot needles against your sensitive flesh.
He's trying to get a feel
And when he find's it, you barely hear his silent bark of victory as he lays his palm's flat out once again.
You open your eye's for a moment
Pressure and Release
He won't look at you in them. But he talks to you for just a moment.
Pressure and Release
You just have absolutely no idea what he's saying.
Pressure and Release
Pressure and Release
Because you don't realize until the moment it's too late,
that it's not you he’s talking to
He's counting to himself
. . .two. . .three. . .four. . .fi-
CREEEESNAPCRAAACKCRUNCH
When the bone finally does give in at long last, it’s like taking a sledgehammer directly too the chest. You're left suddenly and without warning, gasping for air whilst scrambling violently, with the just second’s worth of energy that your bodies been preserving this entire time, coursing through your tired veins. Your body had been holding it for this long, using it solely to keep you awake.
It's all gone the moment that you use it.
And the others can do nothing except hold and soothe you through it as you cough with enough force
that you swear you'll break something again.
You suddenly feel very tired. . .
Abby keeps his hand on you for just a moment. You feel his claws tap lightly. You swear you could also feel his eyes boring into you. You hear a grunt as he finally steps down. Hear the weight of his seemingly uneven footsteps as he circles around you. They tell you to relax as Abby pokes and prods at you. Checking. You hear a separate voice all together echo out from somewhere far away that only Abby seems to notice and answer back too. The one's closest to you continue to reassure you. To tell you to just breathe it out. That they think that they're finally done; that you can relax again for a bit while they go and check.
But sleep is hard- relaxing is harder. Your entire body’s throbbing.
Not to mention you’re very cold now as well and relaxation as a result is simply too hard and too much of an undertaking to commit to. Though your body feels like it’s about to take that offer with no strings attached the moment that it can; you just can’t seem to do it as quickly or as deeply as you want too. The doze you do eventually take is so light that you can hear the footsteps of the others even through the pulse of whatever blood you have left still rushing through your ears. Someone touches you suddenly on your shoulder, and it's the same touch that they’ve been using on you to wake you up for who knows how many hours now, only to then tell you once they wake you that they got to do this entire shit again.
You flinch at the touch as a result, you want to pull away.
You want to tell them no.
You just want this all to end.
You've been through this song and dance enough. . .
But instead of forcing you awake, they instead hush your protesting mumbles, they soothe you once again instead.
You can relax now, they say
hush
Just sleep.
It's over
They won't hurt you anymore.
It’s alright
It's done
We're sorry
At least that’s what the voice that cards fingers through your cold-soaked hair tells you.
But suddenly, you don’t want to.
Not because you don't believe them or anything; you after all, do hear the sincerity in that voice. Plus something else that you're too tired to protest against tells you to believe them for the time being. So naturally, you do.
No . . .no you can’t seem to sleep, because suddenly, even in your ebbing, tiresome agony, one thing seems to remain a constant.
You begin thinking about her
She hadn’t crossed your mind much at all throughout this whole ordeal since it started. It bothers you that she hasn't, but no one can fault or blame you for not doing so. After all, your brain and body have been too preoccupied and distracted with everything else going on to even focus on such things. But now that it’s over and they finally allow you to doze, you can think freely of her without the distraction.
And so you do.
You do and by doing so, you wonder if she’s actually here. Close by. Close to you. You swear that you can smell her; flowery and elegant. Not really words that you would use in an outside setting. But in your head you can use as many poetic and quit frankly sappy words as you want and no one will laugh at you.
But you swear you hear her voice
You hope that she’s here somewhere
you have so much to apologize to her for
Something tells you to just open your eyes,
to just look around, take a peak-
( The smell is strong, she must be here )
( Why hasn’t she said anything )
( Perhaps she's just scared. . . fuck )
- but you can’t really do that. You can’t really do much of anything right now in fact. Something is shushing you, attempting to lull you and you're not really surprised that it's working as well as it is. So instead, there’s just one more protest you attempt to make that dies on your lips before you can even get a chance to get the rest of the sentence out. Just one more name instead manages to get through. It passes in such a way, that you mistake for a moment that you may have said it out loud. But what you produced in reality unbeknownst to you instead, was the humble whisper of a very tired, very injured man. A sound you don’t even realize that you made.
Not that it matters though
Because that's all it takes it seems.
All of your leftover energy goes out; not into keeping you awake. But instead into you saying a name no one even realizes that you’ve uttered until it’s too late. And after they finally do, but before they can truthfully inquire to you about it, you're out of the blue and so far deep into the black that there are stars out in the middle of the afternoon. And all the while your still left confused and convincing yourself that she’s here
All because you fall deep with the scent of lavender in your nose
her smell
Not knowing about the candles they had lit in order to alleviate the stench of your blood.