short form whump

The Whumper bangs their fist against the metal door, making the Caretaker wince. The Caretaker’s fists clench in the cuffs behind their back and their shoulders tense up defensively, even though they haven’t been struck yet. The Whumper hisses in a last drag of a cigarette as the door begins to loudly unlock, then drops it quickly and blows and wafts the smoke back up the alley stairs as if worried they’ll get in trouble. The door opens inward, then the Whumper grabs the Caretaker’s arm and shoves them inside. The door shuts again, trapping them all in. “Thought you quit,” says the person that opened the door. The Whumper looks at them indignantly. “Oh you thought? Keep it to yourself,” they say back. “That’s the curse of the day, isn’t it?” says a frustrated voice from deeper into the bunker. The Whumper pushes the Caretaker forward again until they are both standing in front of a dimly lit part of the room. There stands a bigger Whumper towering over a beaten Whumpee. They lie helplessly on the ground, awake but barely, and look like they’ve been through hell. The Caretaker takes in the scene with silent horror. “Someone keeping their thoughts to themselves. Keeping a lid on it. Not cooperating. What an utter pain in my ass,” the big Whumper says with a kick at the Whumpee’s back. The Whumpee makes no noise when they curl away from the pain, keeping up their silent streak. The big Whumper points a menacing finger at the Caretaker. “You.” The Whumpee blinks away their pain as they turn to see who’s there, straining until their eyes focus on who the Whumper is pointing at. They realize that it’s the Caretaker. “No, no, no,” the Whumpee starts to say. This just makes the Whumpers laugh. “See? Already more talkative,” the first Whumper says. The big Whumper keeps smiling. “Let’s keep it up, shall we?”

The door in front of the Whumper pushes open, revealing a room brighter than the dark hallway. The other Whumper steps in then turns and holds it open graciously, nodding at their counterpart to enter. The first Whumper walks in slowly. There’s not much to see except the square walls, massive undressed window letting in the late afternoon sun, and of course the Whumpee who is sat on a wooden chair in the centre of the room. “Happy promotion day,” the second Whumper says as they gingerly shut the door with them all in the room. The first Whumper walks around the back of the Whumpee, recognizing them immediately but still soaking it in like a first impression. The Whumpee seems barely there, awake enough to hold themselves upright but not making eye contact. “Docile,” the first Whumper observes. “Especially for a fresh catch.” The second Whumper folds their hands behind their head and stretches. “What can I say?” they say, then drop their hands with a shrug. “I guess I’m persuasive.” The first Whumper looks the Whumpee over. The Whumper breathes in and savours a mounting feeling of power - that they’d been given over this person, that it was against every rule to have them, and that they were the one in control. They look back to the second Whumper and acknowledge the gift, “You shouldn’t have”, then they let the weight of the words echo in their own head. “You really shouldn’t have,” they say again with a smile.

The Caretaker flicks a cigarette onto the damp city sidewalk and gets into the back of a car. They nod at the Whumper who is driving, but don’t get acknowledged in return. Classic. The night sky turns from a drizzle into a pour and the sound of rain tapping the car’s roof becomes a quickly complemented by the hum of their movement and the dull thumps of the windshield wipers. The Caretaker is sitting in the back seat in the seat across from someone else. They look over at the other person, the Whumpee, whose head is having trouble staying upright as they sit. “What the fuck is this?” the Caretaker asks their friend the Whumper, who responds in a decidedly unfriendly way: “None of your business.” The Caretaker looks at them up and down with a poor man’s diagnostic scan. Poor in knowledge, at least, but not poor in concern. The Whumpee is obviously unwell, their skin pale, and hair wet and dark from either rain or blood. Under their jacket they have a tie and vest on over a button down shirt - the Caretaker instinctively reaches over to loosen all three. “They high or something?” the Caretaker asks, their eyes trying to track some kind of breathing that seemed even semi-normal. It’s not even close. “Don’t fucking touch them!” the Whumper says harshly with a slam of their hand on the dashboard. At this, the Caretaker takes their hands but not their eyes off the Whumpee’s increasingly limp - but not done fighting - form. In the quiet of the rainy drive, the Caretaker just shakes their head as they rub their rough cheek with the back of their hand. “Why is it feeling like ‘none of my business’ is suddenly on its way to being my fucking problem?” they ask aloud, half to the Whumper and half to themselves.

The Whumpee’s arms jerk against the rope that’s binding them behind the chair. Their flinch is not when the Whumper closes their scissors around a chunk of their hair, but when they first grab it between thumb and fingers. The Whumpee closes their eyes as they hear a snip, taking sharp breaths through their nose above their taped mouth and feeling surprised at how softly their hair is being held, not pulled. The Whumper, meanwhile, is practical - not artful - about the way that they start to cut away parts of the Whumpee’s hair. Not to humiliate. Not to change their appearance. Just to take something, and to feed their own soul with an act of absolute power. When the Whumper is done, they drop the scissors and leave the Whumpee for a minute to sit with a hanging head, their eyes looking up at the new jagged ends of their hair that reach their eye and brow. The Whumpee lets out a shaky breath from their nose as their eyes close again. Just then the Whumper throws a bucket of water across the Whumpee’s head and shoulders. The Whumpee lets out a startled yell that fills their throat but can’t get past their gag. They lean hard into their bindings to try and escape dripping water from their face. The Whumper sets the bucket down with a hollow thud on the ground and spends a moment to watch the Whumpee struggle. They step forward eventually and run their hand lightly through the Whumpee’s hair to help shake off some of the water, but as with their constant oscillation between softness and aggression, they find that their fist closes around the wet strands and they hold the Whumpee’s head still. The Whumpee feels soaked and heavy on top of being immobilized, and can only brace themselves for whatever’s next. They realize that the most violating part of it all is not the certainty of their powerlessness, but the painful uncertainty of how it will be met: hard or soft.

The Whumpee knows it’s a nightmare. The world around them has all the markings of it. The clouds above are a dark purple gray like a storm is rolling in, and yet the sky below the cover of clouds is pitch black. That blackness flows seamlessly into that of the lake water that their boat is floating on. The lake’s waves start to get white caps as they roll over themselves in their rush to reach land. It’s a familiar nightmare, and the Whumpee’s boat is the ultimate tell as to why. The banged up interior, the broken oars, the ancient outboard motor: they’re sitting in their big brother’s boat from twenty years ago. The Whumpee closes their eyes in their dream, knuckles braced on the edge of the boat as it starts to tip to each side with the waves. It’s coming. The bad part is coming. The lake makes a low moaning sound as the wind picks up around the Whumpee, throwing their hair around and making their breath hard to find. The Whumpee opens their eyes and finds themselves leaning over the edge of the boat with their forearms submerged under the water. Another pair of hands is holding theirs from beneath the surface. The underwater hands are flimsy, and every time the Whumpee grabs them and pulls them up, they cease to belong to a person and become floppy, dislodged reeds. “Come on!” the Whumpee growls as they reach back in. The water relentlessly slaps the side of the boat and sprays them every time they reach back in. “Come on!!” It’s here that the Whumpee startles awake. They are disoriented, no longer floating and drenched from sweat. They’re on a couch in a room that has the light of a flickering TV and the quiet sounds of the Caretaker absently playing video games. The Whumpee tries to clear their throat, but they can barely eke out the noise. The Caretaker takes a long sip from a beer bottle as the Whumpee watches. “You didn’t miss a math test and you are wearing pants,” the Caretaker says. The Whumpee lays back down and stares at the ceiling as the Caretaker lets out a subdued burp. “Just covering our bases in case it was another type of dream.”

The Whumpee’s breaths start to come in and out in heavy gasps as they sit in their chair. “I remember,” they say, struggling to stay connected to reality as they get to an impossible part of their story. “I remember being… pinned down.” The words come out as anvils. The therapist Caretaker watches them from their own chair, trying not to let their face show anything but stalwart presence. It’s clear the story can’t continue for now. The Whumpee’s eyes keep checking where the Caretaker’s hands and knees are in between glances at the door. Everything and nothing is staying still as they panic in that contained room. The Caretaker makes a slow and deliberate move to grab the keys that are clipped to their belt loop with one hand while the other is raised in the air. They throw the keys across the floor, and they slide into the side of the Whumpee’s shoe. Both of their hands are now raised. “Those will get you anywhere in this building. Absolutely anywhere. Without me.” The Caretaker emphasizes this last part as the Whumpee keeps their eyes trained on them. “I am staying right where I am. You don’t have to stay here at all. I will be in this exact spot whether you decide to go or not.” The Whumpee’s breaths now come as quiet groans through a veil of slow moving tears, their mind trying desperately to override their biology and programmed fear response. The Whumpee uses their palms to wipe at their cheeks before reaching down and snatching the keys. They tense their muscles like they are going to stand up… but they don’t. They just hold the keys tightly in one fist while the other rubs their own brow. The two sit across from each other in a stalemate and in the heavy air of disclosure. The Whumpee nods at the Caretaker’s pant loop on the other side of where their keys were. “Not offering me the gun though, are you?” the Whumpee asks half-jokingly through shaky breaths. The Caretaker shrugs lightly with a raised brow and ventures to joke back with their old friend: “i mean… I said you could go, not go nuts. Be serious, pal.”

The Whumper looks over their shoulder to see the abandoned house’s front door fly open. They sit at a kitchen table that hasn’t seen life or warmth in years, and it makes an achy creak as the Whumper shifts their weight against it. They see the other Whumper step into the dusty house first, with heavy steps that are unapologetic and even a bit jovial. Then they see the Whumpee get pushed through the door from behind, falling hard onto their knees. The force of the fall shakes their hair forward over their face, obscuring it yet making them all the more recognizable. The Whumper near the door waves someone else off, then kicks the boots of the Whumpee hard and slams the door behind them. It’s then that the Whumper looks at the one in the kitchen and sees… well they’re not quite sure what they see at first. Just a glance, they think, but one that lasted a little too long. They lean down and pick the Whumpee up by the collar and drag their scrambling form towards the kitchen. Now the other Whumper averts their gaze as heavy steps mixed with the scuffs of boots resonates across the old wood floor. The three of them are next to the table when the arriving Whumper points at their peer’s face. “What the fuck was that?” The first Whumper wipes a finger under their nose and stares coldly back at them. “What was what?” The Whumpee, still held by their neck, takes in choked breaths that threaten to spill out the truth. The Whumper holding them takes a knife out of their waistband and holds it still in their grip before making a sudden pull of it to the Whumpee’s neck. The Whumpee closes their eyes and can do nothing but pull at their tightened shirt collar, while the original Whumper looks on with a faint brow furrow and flinch. “That,” the other Whumper says, using the tip of the knife now to point accusingly at the other’s face. “That right there… that little look. What the fuck is that?”

The Whumper meets the glare of the Caretaker dead on. The two are seated across from each other - one freely and the other not. The Whumper can tell how desperate the Caretaker is to know more about the Whumpee. Despite being captive, they beckon the Caretaker’s desperation with every fibre of themselves. “You’re dying to know, aren’t you?” The Caretaker bangs a hand on the table between them to let out the energy that doesn’t know where to go. The Caretaker has exhausted every outlet they could and now wishes they could put the bound Whumper on like a suit, if only to see through their mind’s eye at the Whumpee’s location. They are seething that they can’t. “Ask me,” the Whumper says, categorically and absolutely unafraid. “Come on. Ask me and I’ll paint you a picture.” At their smile, the Caretaker gets up and strikes the Whumper hard across their temple. The Whumper’s smile remains in the wake of the blow as the Caretaker struggles to compose themself. “You want to know what he said when I did the same thing?” the Whumper asks. “Shut your mouth,” the Caretaker warns. The Whumper pauses as if to think. “What were those words that came to his mind and mouth when he saw me coming?” The Caretaker’s soul is at risk of leaving their body as they begin to picture the Whumpee in the same seat and binds as the Whumper, imagining their hands in helpless surrender and hair stained with blood. They imagine the face of the Whumpee, dulled by fear with their eyes imploring them for help - although it’s the Whumpee’s face that they are picturing, it’s the Whumper’s voice that comes out of their mouth: “Please. I can’t do it again.” The dissonance of their vision makes the Caretaker wipe hard at their face and eyes to try and scrub the image from them while the Whumper watches on, drunk on the power of holding the truth despite their position. It doesn’t even have to be the truth.

The Whumpee lies on a table and battles for awareness. Everything feels heavy except their head. The Caretaker’s hand on their face doesn’t register, nor do their words, but their friend’s presence swirls near them like a warm front of air. As they lay there like a scale model of a mountain range, a cold front also flows in from the opposite side of their body. The presence is painfully familiar, and they know it to be the aura of the Whumper. The Caretaker doesn’t. “I still don’t get it,” the Caretaker says aloud as they study the discolouration around the Whumpee’s throat. “What’s to get?” the Whumper asks bluntly. They wear the same uniform as the Whumpee but the resemblance stops there. They lean their weight into their hands braced on the table as they watch the Caretaker examine the Whumpee. The Caretaker shakes their head and frowns. “There’s no way it could all be self-inflicted. Somebody can’t pull themselves around like this. Just doesn’t add up to me.” The Caretaker meets the Whumper’s unwavering eyeline, something that chills them unexpectedly. “People are capable of just about anything if compelled enough,” the Whumper says darkly, “It would be naive to think otherwise.” It’s then that the Whumpee manages to stir slightly, their body now reacting to the storm brewing above them between friend and foe. The Caretaker goes to step forward when the Whumper slowly and deliberately pulls a knife from their pocket and lays it on the table next to the Whumpee. “You’ve done enough,” they caution the Caretaker. “I implore you.”

The Whumpee sits across from the Whumper in a room that can only be described as professorial. In place of walls are endless book spines, and the floor has piles of binders standing like stalagmites. The Whumpee meets the Whumper’s eyes, staring coldly but defiantly. The Whumper observes them - as is their job to do. “Scale of one to ten - how angry are you right now?” The Whumpee has enough bruises to know a trick question when they hear it. The Whumper waits for an answer, then brings the nail of their thumb to their own lip and drags it across slowly. “Maybe that’s the wrong question. For someone like you, that is.” They lean back in their own chair as the Whumpee watches. “Someone like you might not know how to feel angry. Or anything at all. At least that’s what we know from that ‘unfortunate accident’ as you like to frame it. Although I’m not sure that’s what everyone would call it.” The Whumpee doesn’t break their defiant gaze. They know they need to bear this to be let out someday. “Maybe the only feeling you can access isn’t anger. It’s shame. Because how did we even come to know each other? You found me first, didn’t you?” The Whumpee lets out a sharp breath through their nose, looking down finally and using a hand to rub their own brow. Still they are silent, but the Whumper stands up as they continue. “That’s right. You found me. Like I was the ticket out of a certain kind of hell. But you’re coming to know that I am not a rescuer. Or a helper. Unlike others, I know someone like you really needs a teacher. Someone to teach you the lessons you’ve avoided.” A fiery sense of shame starts to shroud the Whumpee’s head and brain like a storm cloud as they squeeze their eyes shut. The Whumper gets closer and closer until they’re standing over the Whumpee in their chair. They reach out and grab the Whumpee roughly by their chin and stare them down, forcing their eyes to meet again on their own terms. “My god,” they say. “I fucking love pushing your buttons.”

The Caretaker almost misses the chair when they go to sit down, their eyes so unable to settle between the Whumper and their guards that they’re effectively blind. The dimly lit hotel lounge is abandoned except for the Whumper and their affiliates, and the Caretaker even sees a guard discreetly close and lock the front door. The Caretaker clears their throat as the Whumper lifts just one finger from the hand holding their glass to point at another one poured and waiting for a guest. “You drink whiskey?” The Caretaker shrugs affably. “I think I do now,” they say with a nervous laugh and take a sip of it. The Whumper just watches as they lean back in their chair, then run the back of their own hand across their face thoughtfully. “You have any tattoos?” they ask. The Caretaker pauses only briefly before finishing what was left in their cup in a few gulps. “Ahh,” they say hoarsely with a wince and a nod. “I do.” The Whumper stares at them clinically. “What does it mean?” The Caretaker gives a small thoughtful frown. “I mean… are you asking to see it?” The Whumper shakes their head no, prompting the Caretaker to clear their throat and continue. “It’s a… it means… it means what it says. It’s a line from The Dead, and that’s that story about a dinner party that ends with someone looking out a window at the snow, thinking about someone that’s died, and it has both a sense of… sadness and peace to it.” Someone leans over and refills both of their glasses from a liquor bottle, and the Caretaker waves a hand to invite a little extra pour into their cup, then take a quick sip when it’s done. The Whumper cocks their head a bit as they ask, “Do you think I asked your friend about theirs?” The Caretaker nods. “I sure do. And I’m hoping I get to compare stories about that pretty soon.” The Whumper leans forward and speaks in a low voice. “You wouldn’t find it fittingly bittersweet if you came all this way only to find that you can’t?” The Caretaker takes in a deep breath, their eyes settling on a streetlight outside the window before landing back on the Whumper. “I don’t want any games. I just want them back,” they say plainly. The Whumper leans back in their chair and prompts them both to finish their drink. They stand up and pull their jacket closed with one hand. “There’s a tab to pay for room 1914. Settle it at the bar, would you?” they say cryptically before leaving.

A few drops of icy rain hit the Caretaker’s face as they step out of their car. Dark clouds loom overhead as the evening sun retreats into night, itself hiding from worse weather to come. The Caretaker frowns as they push their car door shut and hold their coat closed. The car about twenty feet in front of them is stopped after having peeled off the road and has a figure unmoving in its front seat. The Caretaker looks around and sees barely anyone around that could help if things go south, knowing instantly that it’s a risk they’ll have to take. The rain picks up its pace as their shoes crunch in gravel towards the stopped car. It’s making pattering sounds on the car as they reach its front door. The window is lowered and rain is making its way down the interior and arm of the driver. The Caretaker leans down and looks inside. The Whumpee sits there almost frozen, looking blankly at the rain that’s falling on their front windshield. Their face has lost all its colour and their muscles are shaking as they hold the wheel, their whole self quivering as if they’ve lost all their strength. “I couldn’t do it,” the Whumpee says weakly and without recognizing their friend. Their mind is not present in the moment. The Caretaker goes to grab the driver’s side door but stops when the Whumpee recoils violently. “Don’t take me, don’t take me back there, I’m sorry,” the Whumpee sobs. The Caretaker desperately wants to help but can’t tell what to do next. They notice blood on the hands and shirt of the Whumpee, and horrible gashes on their forearms. The rainwater from the open window turns it into red fast-flowing rivers down their skin. “I’ll do whatever you say,” the Whumpee says weakly and to someone not there. “Don’t take me back.”

The Whumper strikes the side of the Whumpee’s head. Blood streams through their scalp and into their ear. “Tell me what I did,” the Whumper says. The words are muffled, and the Whumpee is disoriented. Still, they obey. “You hit me,” they say. The Whumper does it again, and the sting of the same wound being hit again makes the Whumpee cry out as they fall to the dirt. “Tell me what I did,” the Whumper insists, this time pointing a finger at the ground like they’re about to put the Whumpee in it if they say the wrong thing again. The Whumpee tries to stand but can only make it to one knee. “I don’t know what… you want me to say,” they say breathlessly. The Whumper steps into them and reaches out to grab them by the collar, a gesture so swift that the Whumpee can only lift their hands by their head to shield any oncoming blows. “I don’t want you to say anything. I don’t want you to see a goddamn thing. I want you to know something.” The Whumper pushes them down to the ground and steps their boot heavily onto the Whumpee’s hand, pressing it into the rocks in the ground. “It’s not going to matter what you say happened here. As far as anybody knows or cares, it’s just a story. They’re going to check and see if your body matches the story. Innit something? As real as this is, they’re going to start by not believing you.” They take their foot off the Whumpee’s hand, and the Whumpee can only weakly reach for it with their other one. “They’re going to say, ‘why would they do that to you? It doesn’t make any sense’. They’re going to say that to your fucken face,” the Whumper says. The Whumpee can’t find reprieve from any pain while they’re on the ground, they can only take in air and force themselves to feel glad for it. They look up at the Whumper who has paused and looks off into the distance, the wind blowing through the dry, dead grass of the remote and rocky field. “You need to know that’s how it’s gonna go for you.” Their words are suddenly softer now, like it’s all been some kind of favour. “Nobody’s ever gonna know it the way you do.”

The Caretaker stands next to the preoccupied Whumper. They nervously go between running their tongue over a split part of their lip and wiping the back of their hand across their cheek, effectively checking for whether they’ve stopped bleeding. The Whumper ignores the captive Caretaker even though they’re standing quite close. They look down at a lamp-lit table and disassemble several pistols, holding them up to the light to get a closer look at each piece. The Caretaker watches them, nervously looking around as they keep fumbling at their own face. “I… I’m sorry. I don’t… I don’t know what I’m here for,” the Caretaker starts to say. The Whumper finally looks up at them. “Please,” the Caretaker implores. “I don’t know what you want from me. Can you tell me what you want?” The Whumper smiles and the glow of the dim light of their work table distorts their face as they do. “You talk for a living, don’t you?” the Whumper says. The Caretaker nods slowly. “You talk to a mutual friend of ours, don’t you?” The Caretaker shrugs. “I don’t know your friend and I couldn’t tell you even if I did.” Their response triggers a round of laughter in the room from those that had taken them. The Whumper takes their finger and pushes it firmly against the Caretaker’s chest. The sweaty pieces of the Caretaker’s hair visibly quake as the Whumper glares at them. “You’ll talk to who I tell you. And it won’t be for a living - it will be so you can live.” The Whumper opens their hand so that every finger touches the Caretaker’s chest, and they hold them there without closing their fist. “First things first. Where oh where could our little friend be?” the Whumper says, alluding to the Whumpee.

It’s not the kind of weather to be outside in. A cold rain stings the hands and faces of both the Caretaker and the Whumpee, but they suffer through it to make the most of their brief time together. The Whumpee takes drags from a cigarette as they pace across the barely lit patio outside a hospital. “I read something recently,” the Caretaker says, their own hands now jammed in their coat pockets. “About how kids would sooner blame themselves than blame their parents when they’re not loved enough.” The Whumpee nods as they look up at the sky, their dart resting gently on their lips as they too put their hands in their pockets for reprieve. “Yeah sure, you read something. They make tik tok into a book now?” The Caretaker looks off in the distance at the warm white smoke that spills out the top of nearby buildings. “Said that the stakes are too high for a child to think that the people looking after them - their ticket to survival - could be bad people, and it’s safer to think of themselves as bad, unlovable, or whatever instead.” The Whumpee laughs bitterly. “You’re insufferable when you’ve got a point to make.” The Caretaker looks at the Whumpee, fighting the intrusive thought that this person couldn’t possibly be their friend. Their real friend is somewhere back in the time before they ever encountered the Whumper. The Whumpee sees their pained, pitying look and frowns. “Go on with it. Tell me I’m the kid. Some sad, misguided, unloved kid that tried to off themselves over it.” The Caretaker looks at the dark puddles on the pavement and the dim lights that reflect off of it and shakes their head. “I’m saying even kids will say any dumb shit to themselves to survive another day.” The Whumpee smiles as they take their last drag of their cigarette before tapping it out. “I’ll take that under advisement, doc,” they say before heading back inside.

The Whumpee can’t tell if they’re dreaming when they hear the sound of nylon zipping against itself. They feel drowsy and unable to come completely into awareness, but can tell that they’re in a small space - and they’re not alone. “Did you see that?” a familiar voice says. They feel a tugging at one wrist and then the next. “Tried to take a swing at me. Can’t be helped.” Then they feel something draped across their chest that turns into a tugging, then into a tightness. “Can never be too careful around these violent ones.” The Whumpee feels constrained and fights through the fog to open their eyes. They are in a gurney in a room so small that it has to be an ambulance with its doors closed. Their eyes find some focus on the face of the Whumper that is one of two people hovering over them. Before they can react, the Whumper reaches out and places their fingers on either side of the Whumpee’s mouth and holds their head in place. The Whumpee tries to lift their hands, but finds that they can’t as they quickly reach the end of a tether at their wrists. Their breathing picks up as the Whumper raises their other finger to their mouth to indicate that they should stay quiet. They speak with a low tone. “There there,” they say in a mock soothing voice. The Whumpee jerks their body and hisses a breath in, which makes the Whumper’s hand pivot to cover the Whumpee’s whole mouth this time. Only their ankles can shift freely as they lay and stare up at the Whumper. “Do me a favour, and don’t escalate,” the Whumper says slowly. They pull their hand away from the Whumpee who complies. “What is this?” the Whumpee asks, panicked. The Whumper swiftly pulls and rips a piece of tape that they press onto the Whumpee’s mouth. They look at the other person they’re with and gesture at the Whumpee with their thumb. “See? Tried to bite me too.” The other person scoffs. “Animal. Absolute animal.”