the situation with my health is not improving. im not going to let blacklight die or go quiet again, but updates for now are going to be ‘whenever’ rather than once a week, until im doing better. sorry.
Category: Updates
30-1
Chapter Thirty: Louisiana Land (in which the past is a persistence hunter)
(Read the entire chapter at once)
Storms were brewing on the horizon again.
Zarah could see the thick, dark clouds approaching in the side mirror, painting the outlines of the mountains bright and sharp with their dark backdrop. Coming from the west meant it was likely a sea storm, rolling in from the coast. Storms that came from the east over the desert felt different to Zarah, though she had no idea if there was any truth to it. Less bluster, less heat.
Storms from the north rarely made it to them, usually breaking on the thicker part of the range. Why they didn’t tend to come from the south either, she had no idea. There was probably some complex meteorological reason behind it. Kihri would probably know.
“Turn it up turn it up turn it up turn it up turn it up turn it up turn it up!”
Zarah could hear the faux-leather of the steering wheel creaking in protest as Orae’s grip on it grew tighter and tighter. They wore driving gloves, because of course they did, and Zarah couldn’t get the image of them splitting along the seams and popping like sausage casings out of her head.
“Zee, stop ignoring meeeee.”
Zarah pretended she hadn’t heard her, resting her chin on her forearm, where it in turn was propped on top of the open windowsill of the car door. Leaning her head out slightly filled her ears with the roaring of the wind, effectively cutting off the possibility of further conversation.
“ZARAH.”
…unless her sister decided to yell directly in her ear, and she wasn’t able to hide her flinch.
“…what?”
Kihri’s expression showed that she very clearly understood everything that had just happened, and was only being as smug as she was because she’d won. The last part was inference, but her twin being a sore loser was not exactly new information.
“Turn up the radio, Remy and I are trying to listen.”
Grudgingly, Zarah reached for the volume control, only for Orae to slap her hand down with their own, not removing their eyes from the road.
“Do not touch the volume.”
“Both hands on the wheel at all time!” Remy said cheerily from the backseat.
Lucel barked happily next to him, in what sounded suspiciously like agreement.
Orae’s jaw looked like it was made of steel cable, but when Zarah reached for the volume a second time, they didn’t stop her.
She had to ask. “…was it road safety, or the dog?”
“I will crash this car and kill all of you.”
“So, the dog.”
“…she doesn’t get many creature comforts these days.”
“Aww,” Remy and Kihri cooed, uncannily in-sync.
“Soft,” Zarah noted. That was the word, right?
“Oh,” they spat, “don’t make me show you exactly how hard I am.”
“…”
“…yes, I heard it as soon as I said it.”
Zarah lay her head back down on the sill, eyes closed, letting the wind pull at her hair again.
“You wonder why we’re only half-ashamed,” Remy and Kihri were singing along to the radio, cheery and out-of-tune. Well, Kihri was singing – Remy obviously didn’t know the words, so from him it sounded more like “yo wahweh why wee ohh haffamed”.
“Must we really listen to this rubbish?”
“Kihri and I don’t get to sit in the front, so we get to pick the radio station.”
“Counterproposal; it’s my goddamn car, and I get to pick the goddamn radio station.”
“Rental,” Zarah said without opening her eyes.
“Yes, and it’s my rental. That I paid for.”
“Once poor, always poor…” Kihri sang.
“Ooo puhh ahhees poor…” Remy ‘sang’.
“Awoooooohhooooooohhoo!” Lucel howled.
“I am going to crash this car and kill all of us,” Orae said.
“Zarah?”
Zarah looked up from her plate. “<Sorry>- pardon, what?”
Mrs. B pointed with her chin at Zarah’s plate. “I asked if everything’s okay. You’re not eating.”
She glanced down at the heap of rice and meat she’d spent the last ten minutes pushing aimlessly around the plate. “Sorry.” She picked up her spoon and started shovelling the food into her mouth again.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Mrs. B. said. “You don’t have to eat if you don’t want to. I was just worried.”
“Sorry,” Zarah said again through a mouthful of rice. “I was thinking.” Her stomach was turning over, in truth, but that was no reason to not eat when there was food in front of her.
“If you’re sure.” As always, she seemed a bit amused at the rate Zarah ate, for whatever reason.
29-12
“So,” he rasped, “should I be telling people to stay away?”
“If you can. Might end up with police, if that makes it easier to justify.” Some people might otherwise take being told to stay away as a challenge.
“Do I wanna know why?”
“Depends,” Kihri said. “You enjoy gore?”
“‘No’ it is.” He chuckled. “Your sister didn’t exaggerate, you are a firecracker.”
Kihri preened. “I try.”
Ghabis laughed. “Damn, that was uncanny. Zarah, all this emoting hurt your face?”
She hadn’t planned on bringing it up. “A little.”
Kihri squawked out a laugh. “You’re kidding me?”
“You move your face too much.”
“I move my face a normal amount, you just don’t emote at all!”
“I emote.”
“You have two settings, angry and bored. Prove to me you can smile.”
Zarah smiled.
“See?” Kihri said.
“I smiled.”
“That was not a smile. That was like what dogs do before they bite you.”
“Right. A smile.”
“Well,” Ghabis said, “some things don’t change, huh?”
“<We could be so lucky>,” Zarah said. “Thank you, again.”
“Ah, weren’t nothing, kid.”
“We appreciate it all the same.”
Salt-and-pepper eyebrows raised slightly. “Oh yeah? That just a you-two ‘we’?” He looked over her shoulder at Remy and Orae.
Zarah sighed, and gestured vaguely in their direction. “Them too ‘we’. For now, anyway.”
Ghabis looked Orae up and down critically, no doubt taking in the suit and expensive-looking sunglasses. “Hm,” he said again. “Something’s going on, isn’t it.”
Not a question. “Something,” Zarah agreed. “Orae, Remy, they are…” And this is why we plan our sentences in advance, Zarah. “Common enemies,” she settled on.
“They are, or you have?”
Zarah sucked air through her teeth.
“Ah.” He chuckled. “I won’t pry.”
“Thanks. It’s complicated.”
“I’d ask if you’re in trouble, but I think I know the answer already. Y’think you can handle it?”
Zarah shrugged, ambivalent. “No choice.”
“Yeah.” He glanced up at the sky. “Should be getting back. You know where to find us.”
“Hey,” Kihri said, “say hello to Cole from me, would’ja?”
Ghabis laughed, deep and chesty. “No thank you, I’d like to keep my remaining teeth. Keep dry, you two.”
“Goodbye, Ghabis,” Zarah said. “Keep dry.”
“Rain passes straight through me, old man,” Kihri said. “Worry about yourself.”
“Always do.”
They watched him amble away, still puffing on his cigarette, until he rounded the corner out of sight.
“So, we have got to go talk to Cole sometime, right?” Kihri asked after a second.
“<Easy for you to say. She can’t throw things at you>.”
“Aww. Get over it, you big baby.”
“…died, so it was just her,” Remy was saying as Zarah walked back over to them. “She never seemed very bothered by it, though!”
“Your past is just a neverending cavalcade of horrors, isn’t it?” Orae asked.
“What was horrifying about that?” Remy said.
“Done?” Orae asked her instead of responding. “Good. Then you can come with me to buy this stupid tarp.”
“Can’t,” Zarah lied shamelessly. “Have to work.”
They scowled, pulling out their cigarette case and lighter from a pocket. “Of course you do. You aren’t getting out of moving the body, I hope you’re aware.”
She wouldn’t leave it to the two of them, but she didn’t feel like telling that. “Okay. Tomorrow.”
“Yes, fine, tomorrow.” They flicked their lighter a few times, failing to produce a spark. “Bloody-”
“And that is our cue,” Kihri said as Zarah took a step backwards. “Way too much smoke for one day.”
“You can shrug off gunshots but you’re afraid of a little smoke?” Orae asked snidely.
“Look up pictures of smoker’s lungs on the internet sometime,” Kihri retorted.
“Bye Kihri, bye Zarah!” Remy waved, smiling in that closed-eye way of his. “This was fun!”
“See you round, dude,” Kihri responded. “I’ll text you later!”
“Which part of that,” Zarah heard Orae demand as she turned away, “was fun?!” The rest was muffled as she flipped her hood up, tucking her hands into her pockets and keeping her face down.
“Where did you go?” Zarah asked Kihri, once they were a few streets away.
“Away.” Her sister’s mood had quickly soured again, and the response was short and snappish.
“Away where?”
“Just away. I needed some time to think. And I wanted to avoid the risk of getting some more fucking bullshit in my head, but look how that turned out.”
“You said you weren’t-”
“I know what I fucking said,” Kihri snapped. “Fuck.” She turned her head away, and Zarah realised with a start that she was walking alongside her, rather than floating. She… never did that.
“Fuck,” she repeated after a few seconds, still looking away.
“…Kihri?”
When she spoke again, it sounded like she was forcing “…I know where to look next.”
Zarah stopped in her tracks. “<You what?>”
Kihri stopped walking, her shoulders slumped. “I know where to look next. I have for a little while.”
She sounded casual. “<Why,>” Zarah said slowly, hands curling into fists, “<are you only telling me now.>”
“Because I was deciding whether to tell you at all.”
“You-” The words stuck in Zarah’s throat. “Where,” she asked instead.
Kihri sighed. “Daradha.”
“Oh,” Zarah said.
“Yeah,” Kihri agreed.
29-11
“I don’t care what kind of nonsense dream priority you think you’re fulfilling,” Orae snapped. “Wake up.”
“…su revel, je su awake,” he mumbled, yawning.
“Idiot. Get up, we need your freakish strength.”
“We aren’t going with that plan yet,” Zarah said. “A corpse flying is also very conspicuous.”
“A corpse flying?” Remy said.
“Trying to figure out how to move this guy,” Kihri said.
“Oh! You want me to chuck him? I can do that, sure.” He hopped to his feet, but Zarah held out a hand.
“Remy. Can you throw a body from here to outside city limits.”
He grinned. “I dunno! Would be fun to find out, though.”
“Again. Suspicious.”
“And that time at the morgue Auclair sent a man into the lower stratosphere wasn’t?” Orae countered.
“Lightning hits the same place twice,” Zarah countered. “We were lucky, that time. We shouldn’t risk it again.”
“The saying is ‘lightning never strikes the same place twice’, and it means the exact opposite of what you just said.”
“What? Lightning does strike twice. Who made that saying? Have they ever seen lightning?”
“I think Zarah’s right,” Kihri interjected.
“Oh, Vyas agrees with herself?” Orae said. “How shocking.”
“It’s a fun idea, but it’s probably a bit too eye-catching,” she continued, ignoring them.
“So what do ‘you’ suggest, then?” Orae snapped.
“Uh, get over yourself and put it in your car, you baby. Put down a tarp if you’re so worried about the upholstery. It’s that or carrying it through the streets and we’re definitely not doing that.”
Orae gritted their teeth. “…two tarps.”
“Buddy, you can put down ten fucking tarps for all I care, but Zee and I ain’t paying for them. Like, we literally can’t.”
“Remind me again why we can’t just leave it here?”
“Basic human decency,” Zarah said.
“Oh, like any of you really care about that.”
“They’re right,” Remy agreed. “I don’t.”
“I do,” Zarah said. “And so do you.”
Orae pointed a single finger at her. “You,” they said, twitching slightly. “You.”
“Me.”
They made a noise like gravel poured into a car engine and threw up their hands. “Insufferable.”
“I think that means yes,” Remy said cheerily.
—
The alley was quiet when they stepped out of the incomplete loading dock, the air warm and sticky without the wind that had been blowing at elevation. It wasn’t going to storm yet, Zarah was fairly certain, but it almost certainly would within the next few days.
They’d left David’s body behind, to be collected later once Orae had their car and the tarps. They’d come on foot, a fact that had annoyed Orae, due to the person who had led them there insisting on it.
“So,” Ghabis asked, “was that useful?” He was sitting on the ‘ledge’ where the ramp descended into the ground. He’d trimmed his thick grey beard recently, and even in his tattered old cargo jacket and flatcap, the neater facial hair helped sharpen up his appearance to a shocking degree.
Zarah ticked her head to one side in a gesture of ambivalence, walking over to him. “Don’t know if ‘useful’ is correct.”
“Ah, shame. But it was what you were looking for?”
“Mhm.”
“How did you hear about this place anyway?” Kihri asked. “Don’t picture you as the urban exploration type.”
Ghabis frowned, eyes narrowing. “Kid… why are you talking like that?”
“Ah,” Zarah said, dropping her finger hastily. “Sorry. We are trying something so that Kihri can talk. She says it, and I repeat it.”
“It’s not perfect,” Kihri added, “but it’s better than nothing.”
Ghabis’s brow lifted. “Well. Ain’t that interesting. Nice to speak to you properly, Kihri. Or, closer to it at least.”
“Likewise, old man. Seriously, though, don’t tell me you went climbing all the way up there.”
He chuckled raspily. “I did not. Word of mouth, that’s all.”
“Cole?” Zarah asked.
“No, one of the regulars.”
A regular, in their context, was someone who repeatedly experienced periods of being unhoused, rather than people like themselves for whom the more relevant measures of time were years or even decades. (It occurred to Zarah that she didn’t actually count among that group anymore. She didn’t like thinking about that, so she stopped). A lot of the time, in her experience, it was people trying to escape some kind of unhealthy home in one way or another, who lacked somewhere else to go. They’d stay away as long as they could bear it, or until they were found, then return for as long as they could bear that.
Zarah didn’t consider herself to be particularly lucky, but she didn’t exactly envy those people either.
“Her dad kicks her out whenever he gets a new girlfriend,” Ghabis continued, “so Cole took a bit of a shine to her.” Zarah felt like she had missed an implication or forgotten some fact there, but didn’t actually care enough about Cole to ask. “The kid likes to wander – that urban exploration thing you mentioned, Matchstick.”
“That was Kihri, not me.” That was twice now in the last few weeks she’d heard someone talk about the concept, after never hearing about it before. Was it what normal kids were getting into? That didn’t seem right, but what she knew about normal could fill a cup on a hot day.
“Right, sorry. Anyway, the kid was telling Cole about an old building that made her feel all weird, and I thought, well now, that sounds like something someone else was asking about me recently.” He winked, as if it wasn’t already clear who he was talking about. “Guess I was on the money.”
“You were. Thank you.”
Ghabis waved it off. “Any time, kid.” He patted a few of his pockets before pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a matchbook.
Zarah took a step back as he lit up, knowing he wouldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t a habit she’d ever picked up, although she’d come close a few times. Kihri yelling lung cancer statistics in her ear had been upsetting but admittedly effective. When you weren’t sure you were going to be alive in a decade, though, that seemed fairly abstract compared to something that made you feel warm and painted over your hunger, at least for a short while.
29-10
“Hm?” He looked up as Zarah repeated the question out loud, abandoning the piece of rebar he’d been twisting into random shapes. “Oh, mhm, yeah.”
“You ever taken a skull apart?”
“What is this conversation,” Orae muttered.
“Uh, maybe? Taken apart like an orange or like a banana?”
“Orange, I think. You ever see anything at the back of the throat? Like, ghost stuff?”
His brow scrunched as he considered it. “You know, I’m not sure I was ever paying that much attention?”
“Well, fair enough.”
Orae was looking at her. “What?” Zarah asked. “Something on my face?”
“Yes,” they said. “Expressions. It’s unsettling.”
“Zarah, say ‘blow me’,” Kihri said.
“I’m not saying that.”
“Stop trying to censor me!”
“<I’m not> censor <you, you said that to me>.”
She realised her mistake a moment too late. “Okay,” Kihri said, turning to Orae. “Hey, you. Blow me.”
“You have the maturity of a five year old.”
“And you have the bone structure of one. So nyeh.”
Orae took a deep breath through their nose. “So basically, we have no idea what any of this is or why it’s happening.”
“Yeah,” Kihri confirmed, “Pretty much.”
“So did we gain anything useful from this? At all?”
“I mean,” Kihri said, “having a little bit more insight into the thing that is threatening to erase my fucking personality is probably a good thing, even if some people aren’t treating it with the appropriate caution.”
Orae tilted their head. “First time I’ve ever seen someone be passive-aggressive about themself.”
“Then you haven’t met many Pashti parents,” Kihri shot back. “But-” She hesitated, in a way that seemed a bit uncharacteristic. “No,” she continued slowly, “nothing of immediate use.”
“Wonderful.” They took off their glasses, pinching at the bridge of their nose. In the brief second after opening their eyes but before putting the frames back on, Zarah saw that the bottle-glass green of their irises were almost entirely ringed with aggravated, red veins, in a way that made Zarah think they hadn’t been sleeping. “Another complete waste of time.”
“Not a complete waste of time,” Kihri said. “Just, you know. Mostly.”
“Oh, well, that’s much better.” They looked down towards the corpse. “I suppose we ought to do something about this.
“David,” Zarah said. “His name was David.”
“How could you possibly know that.”
“Ohhhhh,” Kihri said. “We never actually explained that part, did we.”
Zarah leant back on one hand, and waggled the fingers of the other at Orae. “Magic.”
“You know,” they said after a second, “it’s actually kind of impressive, from a certain point of view. You have two wildly different personalities, and they’re both awful.”
“Don’t,” Kihri cut in, before Zarah could reply. “Just leave it, Z.”
“<Give me something foul>.”
“What?”
“<Something unpleasant to say to them in Brecht.>”
“Go set yourself on fire and roast goat balls over it?”
“<Mm, too convoluted.>” She turned back to Orae. “Go fuck yourself up your own ass.”
“Five out of ten,” Kihri said. “Good intensity, but the grammar stumble weakened it rather than intensifying.”
“<Yeah, well, you can go fuck yourself in the ass too.>” She turned back to Orae. “We should not leave him here.”
“Yes, that’s rather why I asked. I’d prefer not to be seen carting a mutilated corpse around the streets, either.”
“Damn,” Kihri said, “if only we knew someone with some kind of automated mobile vehicle. Wouldn’t that be convenient.”
“I’m not putting that thing in my car.” They huffed. “It’s a rental.”
“His name,” Zarah snapped, “was David.”
“That’s what you’re focusing on here?” Kihri said.
“David,” Orae snapped, “is not going in my car.”
“It’s not your car. It’s a rental.”
“He is not going in any car that I’m driving. Especially when I want to get my deposit back.”
“Don’t know what that means, don’t care either. I’ll drive, then.”
“…you know how to drive?”
“Can’t be hard. You manage it.”
“Honestly,” Kihri added, “I’m still kind of amazed you can reach the pedals. Do you have to tape blocks down there or something?”
“You,” Orae said after a second, “are just trying to get me angry so you can trick me into putting the dead body in my car.”
“Not just,” Zarah corrected.
“Well, too bad. Next suggestion.”
“Get Remy to throw it as far as he can,” Kihri said.
“Don’t be r-” Orae paused. “Well,” they said, “maybe.”
“Could land on someone,” Zarah pointed out. “The impact would kill them.”
“Eh,” Kihri said, “I’m sure he can aim it.”
“I can’t believe we’re considering this,” Orae muttered. “Auclair, would you-”
Where he was sitting, propped up against the wall, Remy had fallen asleep. At least, Zarah assumed he was asleep – he was as still as a corpse.
“Great,” Orae said. “Just fucking wonderful.”
Zarah was already moving, launching herself off the ground to catch Orae’s hand as it emerged from their jacket holding their pistol. She twisted it, sending the gun clattering to the ground as they yelped.
“What is wrong with ow ow ow ow.” Lifting their arm, still twisted, until it was just below their chin did a solid job of cutting off their protests.
Zarah leant in until her face was only a few centimetres from theirs. Their ever-present glasses were a blessing, letting her stare them down without actually having to make eye-contact.
“Do not,” she hissed.
“Let go of me, you fucking psychooowwwwwwwww! Fuck! You bloody bastard!”
“Do not,” she repeated, “do that. Ever again.”
“Do what?” they demanded, voice shrill. “Fire a gun? You’re being ridiculous.”
“Do it again,” Zarah said, “and I break it in half.”
“You’re insane- fuck! Alright! Now unhand me!”
“‘Unhand me’,” Kihri snorted. Zarah let them go, and watched carefully as they retrieved their pistol. If they lifted it again…
It went back in its holster, and Zarah let herself relax. Slightly.
Orae stalked over to Remy, muttering angrily under their breath, and shook his shoulder a few times. “Wake up, you useless lunk.”
His head lolled to one side. “…les beletti, je prome que je serai de la custer,” he protested, the words slurred, eyes still closed.
29-9
Orae didn’t have a shade to her sight – they just had Lucel. Given that the hound was outlined in red the same way that hers was yellow, it hadn’t been a complicated assumption from there.
After a second, Orae mumbled something under their breath.
“What?”
“I said,” they snapped, “I don’t know, okay. Not for sure. I think so.”
“You don’t know?” Kihri asked through Zarah.
They scowled. “It was not a priority at the time. And I’ve hardly had a great deal of informational content available to me since.”
“A great deal of informational content,” Kihri echoed in a silly voice.
“I’m not repeating that,” Zarah said flatly.
“We had a deal.” Kihri poked her finger through Zarah’s cheek, sensationless. “You do not get to censor me.”
Zarah sighed, then looked up at Orae. “A great deal of informational content,” she repeated, imitating Kihri’s intonation to a note. “Sorry,” she added onto the end, as Orae spluttered and her sister cackled. “We made a deal.”
They scoffed, turning away. “Ridiculous. No, I don’t know for sure. I think so. But I don’t know how most of- this,” they waved a hand around vaguely, “works to begin with. So I can’t say with any confidence.”
“How does that happen?” Kihri asked. “You just tripped over a crack in the pavement and ended up with a ghost dog?”
“How did you happen?” they shot back. “You’re basically in the same situation.”
“Tripped over a crack in the pavement,” Zarah said. She steeled herself, then opened her arms wide. “Pspspsp,” she intoned, imitating the noise she’d heard Remy make early. “Good d-wrk.”
Before she’d even finished the sentence, Lucel had tackled her, bowling her over onto her back. The hound let out an enthusiastic bark as it planted its paws on her chest. This time, Zarah was ready, and closed her mouth well before the onslaught of licking began.
While Lucel was distracted, Zarah focused again, repeating what she’d done before with her hand. She reached up, hesitated, then rested her hand on the dog’s flank.
Nothing.
She let out the breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding.
Lucel’s tongued assault finally petered out, and she started making a whining sound and nudging Zarah’s chin with her own head.
Zarah sighed, and moved her hand to scratch behind the dog’s ears the way she’d seen Orae do sometimes. Seeing as she was already there.
Lucel whined happily, kicking a back leg repeatedly at nothing. One of her front paws, as she shifted position to compensate, came directly down on Zarah’s left breast.
Lucel tumbled to the ground with a yelp as Zarah shot upright, hissing in pain and clutching at her chest.
“Fucking <dog,>” Zarah snapped as Kihri and Remy laughed. “Ow. How does that hurt as much?”
Lucel whined, and rolled over onto her back, presenting her belly.
“It’s okay,” she told the dog. “Sorry. Accidents happen.” A moment later, she realised she’d genuinely just apologised to a dog, and spent a few moments reflecting on the choices in her life that had brought her to this point.
“What was that about?” Kihri asked. “You a dog person suddenly?”
“Testing. Got nothing.”
“You-” Kihri blinked. “You tried it on the dog?! Didn’t we just-”
“It’s a dog,” Zarah said, cutting her off. “<Safer than a person. More obviously different memories. Besides, it didn’t work anyway.>”
“Yes, but did it not work because it’s a dog, or because of something else! You can’t just-” She covered her face and screamed, muffled, into her hands. “Why?! You know how awful it is now, and you still just- you don’t get to make that decision for both of us!”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry?! That’s all you have to say?!”
“What else should I say.”
Kihri’s jaw snapped shut noiselessly. “Explain back to me,” she said slowly, “in your own words. Why what you did was wrong.”
“I didn’t say it was wrong, I said I’m sorry.”
“That is the problem, yes!” Kihri took a deep breath, then pressed her hands flat together in front of her mouth, the sides of her index fingers against her lips. “Don’t ever even try to do that memory shit again without asking me first. I am no longer fucking asking. Are we clear?”
Zarah looked at her, expression flat.
“I said,” she snapped, “are we fucking clear?! Because if we’re not, I promise you I will make your life a living fucking hell for as long as I am fucking able.”
“<Are you sure you said> fucking <enough? Want to throw it in there one more time for good measure?>”
“Fuck you, there’s your one more time!”
Zarah sighed. “I promise to not try it without telling you first.”
“Asking. Without asking me first.”
“<Same difference>.”
“It is not-”
“As entertaining as this is,” Orae interrupted, with a tone that Zarah assumed was meant to indicate they actually didn’t, “would you mind explaining what exactly you tried to do to my dog?” One of their hands was resting on their hip, near the jacket of their suit sat slightly askew due to the knife sheathed underneath it.
“It would not have hurt her.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“Can’t believe I’m saying this,” Kihri added, “but Shortstack is right. You don’t know what it could have done, you’ve never tried it on something living before!”
“<Is it a negative or a positive to you if the person you don’t think is real is agreeing with you?>” Zarah asked Orae.
“What?”
“<Never mind>.”
Remy was useless, as far as further investigation went – he seemed to be another thing entirely. Kihri was… non-applicable. She wasn’t a viable option.
“<If the dog is a shade, then what made this time different?>” she said aloud, musing to herself.
“Maybe because you were touching the… node?” Kihri clicked her tongue a few times. “I had something for a second there. The…”
“<Root,>” Zarah murmured.
“Root?”
“<That’s what it felt like, to the touch. Like a tree root>.”
“Huh. So maybe there’s… something about the root. It was right at the back of the throat, right?” Zarah nodded. “That’s… close to the brain. Hey, Remy, you seem like you’ve killed people.”
no update today
bad week and i didnt want to start chipping into my buffer just yet. instead, have a quick sketch of the twins in a soul eater au. because i wanted to.
29-8
“Corpse? That’s dead, right?” She ran over the sentence in her head. “Put your hand in the corpse’s mouth?”
“I understood you fine, but I’m not sticking my hand into a corpse’s mouth,” they said, tone flat. “For all I know, Auclair is just going to bump the jaw closed and make it bite my fingers off.”
“I’m not going to do that! Anymore.”
“This is important,” Zarah said. “Remy, go stand over there.”
“Is ‘stand’ or ‘over there’ the important part?”
“‘Over there’.”
“Okay, cool.” He proceeded to drag his rear end across the floor over where Zarah had indicated in a way that made her think of a dog cleaning up after themself. “Didn’t want to get up.”
Orae was staring at him, mouth slightly agape, so Zarah snapped her fingers until their head whipped around.
“Come here,” she repeated. “Important. Back of the mouth, where you would find… I don’t know the Brecht word. It’s throat testicles, in Pashti.” Really, it was more the other way round, but it didn’t seem productive to bring that up.
“…tonsils?!”
“Sure, maybe. Just come feel.”
They frowned, but crouched down next to her, sticking their fingers in the corpse’s mouth as she held it open. It was easy to tell when they reached it, because they flinched back just like she had, whipping their hand back out and shaking it like they’d touched something hot.
“Eugh. What was that?”
“You felt it?”
“I felt something. Like… sticking my hand into a soup made out of someone else’s soul.”
Zarah frowned. “No memories? Nothing about an instrument?”
“No. Is that what you saw?”
“Think so. Felt like a memory.” She gestured at the body. “Maybe theirs?”
“Hm.” Orae gritted their teeth, then stuck their hand back in again. “No,” they said after a second. “Just the feeling of… someone else. Like a distinct… otherness.”
“Hm.” Zarah braced herself, then reached back in. Once again, that same memory, same hands on the same instrument. This time, though, she thought she caught an underlying current of… some kind of emotion. One of those complex ones that she had never been good at putting a name to.
“Not sure about otherness,” she said to Orae. “Hold on.” Both times previously, she’d instinctively flinched away at the foreign sensation, so when she went back in again, she held her forearm with her other hand, putting her body weight behind it to try and keep the contact maintained.
This time, she was able to get a sense of the actual song – slow but bouncy, as well as… contentment? Maybe? Something calm and… satisfied. The feeling of lying down after a good meal. He didn’t have much in life, but he had his guitar, and he could play, and when things were nice, that was enough to get by. Here, under this bridge, the sound bounced pleasantly off the concrete, filling his ears with the sound of “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!”
David jerked back, hand jerking away from his mouth the corpse’s mouth. He put one She put one hand to her move, breathing heavily, and looked over at his her sister. Her sister. Zarah Vyas, in a building, not David the dead man playing a guitar under a bridge.
“<Don’t yell in my ear like that,>” Zarah said between breaths.
“Don’t fucking do-” Kihri gesticulated incoherently, still half inside the floor. “That! Don’t fucking do that!”
“<What happened to staying outside?>”
“Answer the fucking question!” Kihri half-screamed in her face, eyes wide and twitchy.
Zarah flinched away despite herself.
“Zarah,” Remy asked. “You okay? You’re acting weird. Well, weirder than usual.”
Zarah held up a hand towards him. “<Kihri, what are you talking about?>”
“That! Whatever the FUCK you just did!”
“<You… you saw that too?>”
“Saw it?” She laughed, a little manic. “Thanks for once again showing you have NO IDEA what ANY of this is ACTUALLY like. No, I didn’t fucking see it, Zarah, I-”
“<-was it,>” Zarah murmured. “<Realer than my own memories, my own identity. Feeling more like him than I’ve ever felt like myself>.”
The wind came out of Kihri’s sails, her posture slumping. “…I mean, not that last bit,” she said after a few moments, “we should probably talk about that another time. But- yeah. You felt it too, that time?”
Zarah nodded. She still felt a bit outside herself, catching her thoughts tilting towards the wrong identity. “<That was… horrible.>”
“You’re telling me.” Kihri sighed, drifting upwards out of the floor, slowly rotating herself until she was upside-down from Zarah’s perspective. When she was in the grip of emotion, she had all the appropriate physiological reactions, but they faded unnaturally quickly – even as Zarah watched, the puffy eyes and tear tracks down her cheeks faded away into nothing. “Fuck. I really want to be mad at you.”
“<I swear, if I’d known it was affecting you, I never would’ve->”
Kihri waved it off. “I know, I know. It’s not like you had any way of knowing it would happen. Really wish I could hit something right now, though.”
Zarah racked her memories. “<Did I ever touch Paose’s shade? With my bare skin?>”
“Fuck if I know, dude. I wasn’t there, remember?”
“<Right. Damn.>” Most of her memories of that night were fuzzy. Bold splashes of colour, tinted with emotion and tactile sensation. Details, not so much, and she didn’t have the best memory for that in the first place. That was more Kihri’s thing, the encyclopaedic lists of facts and random details. And she hadn’t been there because she’d run away like she always did, even though nothing could even-
Enough.
Orae had been waiting, arms folded, growing increasingly impatient as they talked. Or from their perspective, as Zarah talked to herself.
She turned to them. “Lucel, she’s your shade, yes?”
The others had described Zarah’s own shade to her – for some reason, she couldn’t see it in a mirror. A cluster of broken concrete and bent rebar outlined in gold, sticking out of her shoulders and neck, apparently.
29-7
The colour wasn’t ideal, but it was enough to get a better look at the back of the throat. The inside of the mouth appeared to be mostly still flesh, albeit unnaturally well-preserved. But beyond the dangly bits that Kihri would probably know the name of, there was… something. The glowstick made it hard to make out the colour, but it appeared to be ghostlight based on the slight translucence; a thick, tangled knot of gnarled, root-like twists, dipping in and out of the throat as it continued vertically and horizontally and eventually disappeared inside the flesh entirely.
Though…
Zarah glanced back at the rest of the corpse, which confirmed her feelings. The roots had a weight to them – it was the only way she could think to describe it. Just a little bit more real than the rest.
“Whoa,” Remy said from beside her. “Spooky.”
She hummed in agreement. “Hold this?”
While he held the glowstick in place, she used one hand to hold the jaw open as far is it could go, and reached two fingers down the throat.
The angle made visibility awkward, but after a few passes Zarah managed to see her fingers pass all the way through one of the roots near the front.
“Hm.”
She adjusted her position and tried again, this time focusing on her hand the way she had when fighting Paose. It was hard to describe when not running on instinct, but it felt like she was drawing something down into her hand, solidifying it on a level beyond the physical.
On the next pass, she felt her fingers brush across the gnarled, uneven surface. As she did, there was a flash of- something.
She flinched back, knocking her elbow into Remy’s mouth. Which, all in all, probably still hurt her more than it did him.
“What?” he asked as she winced and clutched at her elbow. “Did it bite you?”
Zarah shook her head. “I… saw something. When I touched it.” Looking down at her hands as they played some kind of stringed instrument. Except- they hadn’t been her hands. She’d seen them as if they were, but they were large and pale and smooth, with unfamiliar dark hair across the back. “I think… a memory?”
“Yours? Or theirs?”
“…I think theirs.”
“Spooky.”
Silently, Zarah agreed. It was spooky. Logically, she knew the memory wasn’t her own, but it was right there, just like everything that was. It-
“That’s kind of like what Kihri does, right?” Remy asked, beating her to the conclusion.
“It… is. I think. But it hasn’t happened before.”
“Maybe because she’s not here?”
“…maybe.” She wasn’t sure she liked the implications of that. “You try touch it.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“I think… a shade? Maybe?” She gestured to her own as she did, or where it was. It was annoying, seeing it in the corner of her vision all the time, so she usually tuned it out. Like unfocusing her eyes without actually moving them.
“Huh. Alright, sure.” He handed her the glowstick, then reached his fingers down the throat, with significantly less caution than she had. “Ooh, squishy.”
“No memories.”
“I remember touching a slug once, but that one’s definitely mine.”
“And no feeling anything else?”
“Squishy!”
“No, not feel-touch, feel… like smell?” She waved a hand vaguely around the side of her head. “Magic.”
“You have a magic sense?”
“…you do not?”
“Nope! Sounds cool, though.”
Zarah sat back on her haunches, looking at him. Questions had been brewing in her mind for a while, and they seemed more pertinent than ever. “…how do you do the things you do?”
Remy shrugged. “I’unno. They do some stuff when we’re kids.”
“‘They’?”
“The clan. Oh, and I guess we’re not really supposed to talk about it? But I don’t really remember much anyway.”
“Is it, do you know, the same as…” she held up a hand, focusing, and drew together a few wisps of gold before letting them dissipate again, “…this?”
“Eh… I think so? There’s the… thingie.”
“‘Thingie’.”
“Yeah, the thingie. You know,” and then for a second it felt like all the air had been sucked out of her lungs, like she was standing at the bottom of the ocean with the water pressing down on her, “the thingie.”
“…sure,” Zarah said weakly, still trying to get her breath back. “Thingie. You can touch shades, as well? Does that connect?”
He shrugged.
“Don’t know, okay. Not sure why I asked.” She glanced down. “…you can take your hand out now.”
“The word you’re looking for,” came a growl from behind them, “is should. With an additional or else.”
Remy extracted his hand from the corpse’s mouth. “Just a bit of light petting, promise.”
“I said one thing. One thing not to do-”
“Hst.” Zarah cut them off with a raised hand. “Not important. We found something.”
“Not important-” They pinched the bridge of their nose. “Fine. Fine. What is it.”
As Zarah explained, Lucel came bounding up behind her master, tongue lolling out the side as she moved. For a second, it looked like she might be setting up to charge Zarah again, but then Remy intercepted her, opening his arms for a hug and promptly getting bowled off his feet.
“Cuddles!” he exclaimed from the floor, arms wrapped around Lucel’s torso.
“Auclaire, let her go.”
The dog, who had until that point been straining to get free, instantly changed demeanour at her master’s words. She relaxed into Remy’s arms, stubby tail wagging, and started licking his face.
“She doesn’t want me to!” Remy protested.
“No,” Orae snapped, “she’s just being a contrarian little twat.”
Zarah stared flatly at them. “The dog. Contrarian.”
“Oh? Watch this. Lucel. Stay where you are.”
Lucel started kicking her leg happily as Remy scratched behind her ears, and didn’t move an inch.
“You’re just trying to make me look bad, aren’t you?” Orae said.
She whuffed happily in response.
“Very cute. Orae, put your hand in the corpse mouth.”
“…what?”
29-6
“What is wrong with you?!” Orae snapped, grabbing her by the shoulder and pulling her free. “Don’t touch it!”
Zarah slapped their hand off her shoulder with enough force to knock them back a few stops. “You don’t want me sick, you don’t want paying attention. Make up your mind.”
“There is a considerable amount of distance between ‘paying attention’ and sticking your hand inside- Auclair!”
“I did not-” she glanced over to where Remy was now imitating what she’d been doing seconds before. “-touch Remy. Okay.”
He glanced up. “Spooky, right? Do you think if I touch it, it’ll collapse?”
“Oh for- touching it is worse,” Orae snapped. “Do you want to die?!”
“You know, you could say I’m already dead,” Remy offered, missing the point as spectacularly as ever. “But I didn’t really have a say in that, so I’m not sure if ‘want’ applies.”
“Nobody. Touch. Any. Corpses.”
Zarah slowly reached out, and poked Remy in the shoulder. “Whoops,” she said, completely monotone.
Orae held a closed fist up to their mouth and made a noise that sounded like… a truck gargling rocks, or something equally descriptive. Their cheeks were flushed dark, and Zarah took an inordinate amount of enjoyment from knowing she’d pissed them off.
“I,” they said after a few seconds, “am going to do a perimeter search of the rest of the floor.”
Remy mouthed ‘perimeter search?’ at her, and she gave a shrug back.
“If I get back,” they continued, “and either of you are touching the dead body with your bare hands, I am going to throw you out a window.”
“Try,” Zarah noted.
“What?”
“You are going to try to throw us out window.”
“Ooh, can I volunteer? I’ve kind of always wanted to jump out of a skyscraper.”
Zarah waggled her hand ambivalently. “Between the donkeys and the sheep. Good rush, not so fun landing. So,” she amended, “probably good for you, then.”
“Oh, definitely,” he agreed. “So Orae’s gonna do a perimital check, and then they’ll throw me out the window?”
Already walking away, Orae made an obscene gesture over their shoulder.
“That’s a no, right?”
“Probably.” Zarah glanced over at him. “Shall we touch corpses now?”
“Oh, let’s.”
“So,” Remy asked conversationally, “where is Kihri, anyway?”
Zarah titled the corpse’s head, trying to get a better angle for the light on her phone to illuminate its teeth. “Away.”
“Oh, no, I mean like, physically? Can you tell? Through your twin bond.”
“We aren’t identical. Only identical twins get a bond.”
“Wait, really?”
Zarah spent half a second waiting for Kihri to interject before remembering. “Some twins apparently feel the pain of the other, I think. Nothing to do with identical or brotheral, though.”
“And not you two?”
A handful of times, Zarah had wondered-
“No. Not us two. Don’t know where she is, either. She will come back when she does.”
“What if she gets lost?”
“I-” Zarah paused, and slowly removed her fingers from the mouth. “…I haven’t asked. If she can. Ever. Hm.”
“No time like the present, right?”
“No time but,” Zarah agreed. “And on that hand…”
She lifted the corpse’s jaw again, tilting it to the side. There was definitely something unusual going on with the teeth, but it was hard to actually make it out without a better light, and removing a tooth was unacceptable. Touching the corpse was the kind of sacrilege she had gotten used to, but there were still lines.
There had to be.
“Remy,” she asked, lifting her phone’s pitiful camera light up to the mouth again, “do you have a phone? Or a torch?”
“I have a glowstick?”
“Sure,” she said, distracted. “I think… hm.” There was a soft crack, and a bright green glow appeared in the corner of her vision. “Thanks.”
so. whoops. shockingly enough, its been a bit of a shit time!
to people who’ve been talking about blacklight while it was gone, thank you. you were a major motivation to pick it back up again.
i was planning to finish the chapter before posting it all at once but i think i was just self sabotaging with that tbh. lets try 1000 words once a week and see how we go from here.
spectrochroma.wordpress.com 