#faultedcrime

INCOMING BRICK TO MY FACE DETECTED, HOLY SHIT: @faultedcrime

FROM   THE   SECOND   YOU   WERE   RAISED   FROM   THE   DIRT,   gasping   &   inhaling   cold   martian   air,   you   have   known   that   your   life   is   nothing   but   currency   to   buy   time   for   others.   you   die   for   those   who   cannot   get   back   up.   your   spilled   blood   is   a   sacrifice   for   the   safety   of   all.   and   it   has   been   this   way   for   as   long   as   you   have   been   a   guardian,   before   that   word   was   used   to   describe   people   like   you.   it   has   been   that   way   for   untold   centuries   that   blur   together   in   a   sea   of   red:   your   hands   are   filthy   with   the   blood   of   literal   gods.   and   you   ,   ever-dutiful,   have   considered   it   an   honor   to   pay   that   price,   even   if   it   still   hurts.

(   but   how   long   has   it   been   since   someone   has   knelt   over   your   body   and   wept?   )

throat   burns   with   unshed   tears,   instinctively   flinching   as   the   convict's   voice   rises,   righteous   &   angry,   even   as   you   sit   there,   shell-shocked   &   numb.   he's   so   human,   it   burns.   it   burns   because   it's   rightfully   upset   over   your,   quite   frankly,   cavalier   attitude   towards   your   own   death,   how   quickly   you   throw   it   away   for   others   because   of   how   long   you   have   been   casually   violating   the   boundary   between   life   &   death.   until   it   was   blurred   with   your   blood.   until   death   became   just   the   cost   of   doing   your   job.

"   .   .   .   yes ? "   it's   all   you   have   to   offer,   hesitant   &   shell-shocked   as   your   eyes   bore   into   its,   defiant   despite   the   tears.   voice   stays   even,   horrifically   calm   despite   everything   as   you   explain,   "   dying   is   part   of   my   job   as   a   guardian.   it   has   been   part   of   my   job   for   centuries.   so   yes   ,   it's   pretty   normal   ,   &   no,   people   don't   really   .  .  .   "   light   ,   how   do   you   explain   it?   any   of   it   ,   to   someone   who   has   no   frame   of   reference   ?   the   emotions   bubble   in   the   back   of   your   throat   ,   tasting   like   ash   &   blood   as   you   curl   inwards   ,   still   sitting   on   the   cold   ,   metallic   floor   -   hugging   knees   to   pulsing   chest   &   unable   to   look   at   simon   any   longer.   (   the   cold   biting   into   what's   left   of   your   skin   reminds   you   that   you're   still   here.   )

"   i'm   sorry.   "   it   comes   out   as   a   mumble:   quiet,   ashamed   for   being   so   callous.   despite   other's   lives   being   sacred,   yours   has   lost   such   meaning.   it's   just   currency   now.   it's   your   job   to   die.   (   slowly,   you   raise   off   the   ground   -   gaze   falling   on   it   fully   ,   now   cast   in   a   soft   light   of   blue   as   scarred,   human   fingertips   extend   ,   reaching   to   close   the   trench   between   them   &   him.   )   "   i   shouldn't   have   said   you   were   overreacting.   i   -   i   didn't   think   about   --   "   an   exhale   rattles   in   your   chest,   shoulders   sagging   with   the   gravity   of   centuries   as   your   hand   falls   back   to   your   side.   "   .  .  .   i'm   .  .  .   not   used   to   people   giving   a   shit, simon."

Send in ✏️ and I’ll use this (improved) incorrect quote generator featuring both our muses!

Maelle: I'm going the fight the next person who insults Simon. Simon: I hate myself. Maelle: Alright, square up.

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Maelle: iuegrukfhoeuhfeoruhf Simon: What is that? Maelle: it’s a keyboard smash Simon: How do I do it? Maelle: just press anything Simon: 7

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Simon: No more making fun of me when I misuse dated cultural references, alright? Are we cowabunga on this? Maelle, sighing: Fine. We're cowabunga.

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For the past few hours there has been a strange feedback on the comms, the occasional sound like someone was trying to make contact but couldn't quite finish the connection. Perhaps the sound is lost to Simon, to the hallucinations and voices that permeated this bloody ocean. What would not be lost is the sudden lurch of the submarine, the sound of metal scraping on metal and then silence.

Everything is still.

The welded shut hatch starts to glow, growing hotter from the other side, trailing along the welding. It's slow going but eventually the entire outside circumference is unsealed.

Rook took in a deep breath to steel his nerves, hands hesitating on the other subs hatch wheel before he turned it a few times and heaved the metal hatch open. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken to an actual human, not just the voices that the being loved to torment him with. Hopefully whoever was within the other sub was still alive, or still mentally present.

He leaned down to peer into the sub, blinking a few times.

something stupid this way comes / @faultedcrime

a pause : glowing , emissive eyes blink once , twice - slow and owl - like in the dark - now lit up in electric - blue haze. "don't be biteable then, genius - " the undying light deadpans - the very air around them reeks of petrichor , of ions.

( at least this time , they're just going to - slowly . . . carefully . . . press the tips of their fangs into their victim's arm. )

this isn't right.

the blood slips within its gills. giving it life. awareness. changing what it once was as the last of its kind. now it has become the first. its agony is infinite. endless like the black that grows and spreads and devours all.

its home of earth vanished with the rapture of silence. and so it was brought here. to a new ocean. one that is red. warm. iron replaces salt.

a massive eyes stares back at a small metal submarine as its camera flashes.

its gills pulse in the ocean of blood. open. shut. open. shut. their lone, bulbous eyeball regards the thing. the new thing. the strange and alien thing with almost a hint of curiosity- the first emotion to bypass their pain.

"WHOWHOWHOWHOWHOWHOWHO?"

The Consolidation of Iron's garden feels cold and dead. Metal floors, rows of make-shift planters with barely enough soil to grow anything, let alone the tree they expect Morel to summon, seemingly, from thin air. They've been providing them with clippings of the Last Tree, stolen from their brothers who have been sent to a bloody grave. One has been used --- nothing has grown from it yet. Morel keeps the rest of them tied around their waist, and refuses to use them until they know something can grow from them.

They tend to their garden all the same. Every so often something intriguing comes up from the ocean; roots, they'd heard. Springing from the blood itself. A sample has been given for them to study. How exciting! This is where they sit now, in their make-shift lab/office, turning the little vial of blood around in their hands.

They look up as the door opens; and there stands the Butcher. Morel smiles.

Perhaps it was rude to stare, it most definitely was, but curiosity killed the cat, as people often liked to tell her. (Satisfaction brought it back.) But there was nothing quite as eye-catching as someone who's probably seen better days sitting across from a teenage girl. It was asking to be interrogated, but for Maelle's part, she'd managed to hold back the questioning for as long as she could.

[ BLOOD THEMED PROMPTS. ACCEPTING. ]

Simon crouches before his other self, heart hammering as he tries desperately to shake him awake. This version of him seems younger, yet unmarred by the horrors of the ocean. He's been trying to guide him; help him succeed where he'd failed. If he can just hold on a little longer, maybe he'd get his freedom. Simon remembers this part of his journey as a haze of coordinates and camera-flashes, hours merging into days of non-stop navigation as he attempts to find his way out of the cave.

"You gotta hold on a little longer, buddy. You're not dead yet. Or... well, you are. i am. It doesn't matter, just---" He tries to pull his double up from his spot on the ground, to little avail. He's dead weight.

Being one with the blood ocean is an odd thing. He fights for the control he has: individuality slips away easily, when everything is one. But Simon has never been one to fade away easily. After what happened to him in the Iron Lung, he is a force to be reckoned with. Followed by rough seas and stormy weather. He reaches for this influence now; the blood ( perpetually dripping from his barely-human form ) seeps into the floor, through the grates, through a welded-shut seal until it reaches the rest of itself. With a thought, the ocean moves. The submarine jolts forward, sending the other Simon tumbling, head smacking against the wall.