HEART.

✟  »  STATUS  …  CLOSED ✟  »  LOCATION  …  SAINT MARLOWE (THE GROUND FLOOR) ✟  »  SURVIVOR(S)  …  NICOLAS BARRA  [ @deathvotion ]

the notion of personal space came naturally for most. the ability to understand and respect one's breathing room. it's a given. or so drew thought at first. personal space did not exist at saint marlowe. if one managed to find a quiet spot somehow, it was certainly short-lived. it's not that having someone nearby wasn't appreciated. it was crucial for everybody's survival. possessing numbers. the more the merrier, as they say. however, everything had its price. and the price in this situation was one's sanity, or what's left of it by now. the culprit? some would say there is no one to blame. just... unfortunate circumstances. well, in this very moment, drew found themselves in a very regrettable position. today's assignment was to reinforce the ground floor's windows with what was left of the furniture. precisely drew's course of action for the past five or so hours, and somehow, fate seemed intent on playing tricks on them. ❝ you must be joking. ❞ drew muttered under their breath the second their eyes landed on a painfully familiar figure at the end of the hall.

It is midday,   and the room suffocates thanks to the closed windows.     You curtain it, now, with plank after wood-plank. They are dense in parts. You knock your knuckle against it to find its weaker spots. A toothpick could pierce that rot, and a nail would splinter it into limp chunks. Oh well. Make do with what you have. You know a thing or two about worm-food. As if following their cue, a stuttered pace enters the room. Drew. Their vocal lament. Lobbed at him rather than the situation in which they now find themselves. Open-hearts and their quirks. His thumb circles the nail, ensuring the head is flush against the wood. After a short sigh, his head turns to give them a cursory nod. A side-long glance.

       #EXCLUSIVESTARTER.       open to @deathvotion.                         ⟢  LOCATION.       cordelia's greenhouse.

HE SHOULD BE WATCHING THE HALLWAY. In fact, he should be sleeping, but one of the not - too - bad soldiers asked him for a favour and, hell, who was he to deny it? Tatum needed to stack up favours, to be friendly enough to some guards and guarantee their surface level friendship — so yes, when one of them asked him to watch out the hallway for five minutes because he needed to pee, Tatum just nodded and made it official: no problem, man, you owe me one. Curfew hit the clock and all he could think about was … tomorrow. Rest was not guaranteed anyway, and tomorrow could be his last day on earth — and what did his therapist say about such thoughts again? Maybe he just needed some sleep. A quick close of his eyes, arms crossed against chest, the eternal wait for a guard who apparently had a really bad stomach ache. The nap ended after two minutes — or was it four? —, the heavy steps waking him up in a frenzy, hand reaching for where his gun used to be, several blinks to focus on the threat. “ What the hell was that? ” He looked at the man’s boots, another couple of blinks to restart his brain. “ They selling earthquake shoes around here? Need me a pair. ” Tatum looks around. Where’s the guard? Where’s everybody? “ You should go meet your bed, sir, it’s curfew time and I'm just watching out till the man comes back from his diarrhea break. ”

At such a late hour,   the hallways should be silent.     Bed-bugs tucked away, windows screwed shut, heart palpitating. Within your chest, and your temples. That’s how they used to describe it, you need to be awake in your sleep. So what has disturbed him? A hunt-worn dog snores softly, breathes harshly. Wounded lungs without a cut nor bruise. The air in them is too heavy. It travels, jam-thick, up your throat. Don’t mistake it for phlegm, either. You can’t cough this wheeze up. Regardless, the snared breath cracks his eye open. He is not groggy; his muscles are still warmed for eased, quick movement. Onto braver heights, then.

THERE WERE NO SIGNS OF LIFE HERE.    Neither fruit flies hanging above rotten apples nor ants beneath floorboards, buried in light switches. Marta found a radio set tucked away in a cabinet, the bygone of a bygone—and was almost pleased to find it warm. She shook it, but no noise came; in two months even the roaches nesting there must have gone cold. She stepped outside the house, Judge stepping in pace with her. A foot out the door, she contemplated going back inside—in this last house among the row before the highway began, nothing of value was left but a bed to sleep in. But Marta stepped outside anyway, feet trailing her back to the fields to the side of the highway.

A familiar path lay there, just beyond the trees. Better the devil you know.

The sun had long since sunk. Eager to leave a fruitless day behind, Marta followed an unmarked trail, her and Judge’s shadow long and pointed against the moonlight. It was Judge who braced first, who let out a bark akin to a shriek against the silence of the night. It was an instinct she had hoped to stifle, lest it attract the wrong crowd, lest she be marked again with blood.

Yet no harm came. Instead she found a pair of eyes staring back.

Hungry for more than what you offer,   the night-slab forces a sum of two parts.     A ritual must be witnessed. The line of her relinquishes nothing to digest. Nothing but air. Past the point of purpose. Without pretense. She is empty-handed but not empty-heeled. This unmarked variable that will warp the timeframe of your eventual return; as yet, undefined, in the four-yard long interval between it and its fixing limit. Hm. Everything in him slows. Overlooked by the moon, the wolf cannot howl, for its kill draws a far needier appetite. In the market of establishing entrance- and exit-wound, of peeling its tongue back to finally, finally rouse its tastebuds. Or for warmth to flood and empty their stomach at once. From this distance, he can’t enfix those limits, can he?

STATUS ⸻ CLOSED STARTER @deathvotion LOCATION ⸻ COMMUNITY 02: SAINT MARLOWE, SECOND FLOOR.

𝙾𝙿𝙴𝙽    𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙴𝚁    …    ꒰    𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍   𝗂𝗇𝗌𝗂𝖽𝖾   𝗍𝗁𝖾   𝗉𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗆𝖾𝗍𝖾𝗋   𝗈𝖿   𝗌𝖺𝗂𝗇𝗍   𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗅𝗈𝗐𝖾   𝗆𝖾𝖽𝗂𝖼𝖺𝗅   𝖼𝖾𝗇𝗍𝖾𝗋,    𝖺𝗇   𝗁𝗈𝗎𝗋   𝖻𝖾𝖿𝗈𝗋𝖾   𝗌𝗎𝗇𝗌𝖾𝗍.   ꒱ 

                  𝙼𝙰𝙶𝙶𝙸𝙴   𝙱𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙺𝚂   𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙳,   trying   to   clear   the   exhaustion   that   weighs   heavy   on   her   eyelids.   this   had   become   routine   —   with   daily   tasks   wrapped   up   and   the   evening   meal   not   quite   ready,   she   finds   herself   outside.   sometimes,   if   she   was   feeling   creative   enough   that   day,   she   could   pretend   she   was   free:   surrounded   by   flowers   on   a   mountain   range,   listening   to   the   roar   of   the   pacific   ocean   as   it   sent   mighty   waves   crashing   against   the   shore,   feeling   the   warmth   of   a   loved   one's   touch.   these   only   existed   in   memories   now,   and   on   days   like   today   her   imagination   isn't   quite   powerful   enough,   spirits   not   quite   high   enough   to   muster   the   effort   pretending   would   require.   she'd   spent   the   night   before   tossing   and   turning,   halfway   between   nightmarish   slumber   and   even   more   nightmarish   consciousness.   at   the   very   least,   maggie   remains   grateful   for   the   evening   breeze,   the   warmth   of   sun   of   skin   as   it   begins   its   descent   over   the   mountain   ranges.   the   military   personnel   usually   leave   her   alone,   both   empathetic   and   otherwise   occupied.   can   tell   that   she's   lost   in   thought,   unreachable.   but   that   doesn't   mean   her   fellow   survivors   do   the   same   …   and   sure   enough,   maggie   can   feel   a   community   member's presence nearby.                      “   𝙸𝙵   𝚈𝙾𝚄   𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳   be   anywhere   right   now,   where   would   you   want to be   ?   ”   she   asks   them,   not   bothering   to   tear   her   gaze   from   their   nightly   scan   of   the   surrounding   streets.   “   i   always   thought   there   would   be   more   time   to   travel,   to   see   the   world.   nope   !   now   i'm   stuck   daydreaming   about   it.   forever,   probably.   tell   me   about   somewhere   else   —   anywhere   but   here.   i   need   new   material.   ”

Within the periphery,   warm and hungry,   anywhere is the same as everywhere else.     Outside of their jurisdiction, for example, there would be an earthen shroud of silence. Artful. Its throat-soft brass is louder without the plebian percussion. Beyond the bird-caging branches landscaped for the hospital, and the spare rabbit-foot not yet burrowed away from his nocturnal gaze. Empty sidewalks. Amplified silence: you could hear nature’s hum. Every journey leads back to roads, and birds, and leaves, and breath, and fruit, and water. Looking heavenward to the moon, then back to earth, upon its plaiting reflection in the interlocked ocean waves. It’s all the same, everywhere. His eyes don’t skirt far from the corner of his eye. Her gaze is glossy with the promise of rest.

And that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? She isn’t everywhere, and neither is he. No view outweighs the multiplicity of a person.

THE CRUCIBLE x KELLY AKASHI

Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1953)