#malxfide

THIS SACK SMELLS like potatoes. Actually maybe it’s just dirt. It’s hard to tell; his head has been in it so long that nothing feels real anymore. He’s not exactly sure how he ended up here; he was at a bar, a seedier one than usual, and he’d taken a shot, and now he’s here. Where here is remains to be seen in the most literal sense. It’s some kind of warehouse, he thinks, the industrial kind with big hooks and chains and shit; he’s tied to a hook or something like it, arms extended above his head, barely able to keep on his toes if he tries hard enough.

IT’S GETTING HARDER to try. He’s shirtless and cold and he’s been flogged five times now with what feels like a cat o’nine tails type thing like it’s the seventeenth fucking century. They’ve stopped hitting skin and started hitting muscle, he thinks; he’s so far removed from his agony now that it’s getting easier to parse what’s happening to his body, and it’s not good.

HE DOESN’T EVEN know why this is happening. Red room situation, maybe; they might be asking him questions, but he doesn’t understand them, and halfway flaying him isn’t exactly helping with his comprehension of the situation.

HE HEARS FOOTSTEPS and his body tenses in preparation of what’s to come - except what comes is the bag getting ripped off his head, and he’s squinting against the light at the man before him.

✦✦✦ ─────── HOW DOES BLOOD SMELL LIKE TO A VAMPIRE? Depends on who you ask, Howard thought. Oxygen-rich arterial blood is bright red and smells to him a rich bouquet of satiating, fangs-jittering excitement -- coppery bite smelling of the body it possesses, what it had last consumed, and the last thoughts the body had before the blood was expelled from it.

Once exposed to air outside the body, the hemoglobin rapidly loses oxygen and darkens as red cells oxidise, leading to a brownish or purplish colour the further it dries. This smelled rancid to Howard, almost a repulsion that increases over time, preventing vampires like him from imbibing dead creatures. It leaves an aftertaste if consumed--death that reeks within the body, rotting, decaying actively as if it was taking the vampire along with them.

It was this horrible scent that had led Howard out of his determined hiking path further and further into this southern nowhereness of the States, ambling amidst humid trees and murky rivers, towards a clearing in the depths of the wilderness.

Bodies lay in a pit, and though freshly dead, had already begun to churn from within, bloating and decomposing--bacteria and gas now finding their way to survive a cold carcass, trying to escape.

He dropped his duffel bag onto the ground next to a tree, walking closer to the carnage cradled by the earth below. A few hours maximum, he thought. A human killed them, he noted, though the methods were still hard to determine from beneath the stench of death, which by this point did not stir Howard away.

Something warm beating in the dead of night; large, thoughtful, full of conviction. Not a bear, at least, or any animal for that matter. Howard straightened up, drifting his eyes in the dead darkness warily, watching and waiting for a telegraphed movement.

"Hello?" he called out. Of course he would. "Is anyone there?"

In the heavy, wet heat of the afternoon, she watched him for awhile. A man dressed too nice to be from around here. Polished the way the doorknobs and candlesticks of the old church had been before time rubbed them dull and neglect had left them rusting at the edges. The place wasn't exactly abandoned. People still came around when they needed somethin' bad enough and prayin' in the megachurch a county over didn't deliver. She'd gone once and never again, not after the collection plate being passed around left her fingers stinkin' like old pennies. All that money and places like this, towns left behind by progress and good fortune, never saw a lick of it.

"You one of those developers tryin' to turn places like this into condos or data centers?" Fox called out, after a while, from where she leaned against what had once been the church's sign-post. It was missing it's center and was now just two, rotting pieces of wood jutting up from the ground. Waiting to give splinters to the unsuspecting. "Floods pretty bad over here, swamp comes right up the road. Give it an hour or so. Storm's coming." It was boiling on the horizon. A dark, foreboding wall cloud inching its way east. "You'll see."

Thank you for sending this in, and sorry for sitting on this for weeks! (I wanted to space them out a little bit 🥰)

𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 & 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

Asked here too but I love this question so much so I'm hoarding them... My answer this time would be Howard's personality, and other characters would describe Howard as amiable and gentle.

Very rarely do threads open with Howard being on the full offensive for no reason, and if he did, the reason is almost always because he's hangry. Howard is the guy you'd hear people describe as a guy who wouldn't even hurt a fly. He's friendly, polite, and are always trying to get to other muses' good side even if they're insufferable (or in your case, literally a murderer!)

Psychology Sentences, Vol. 8 || Always accepting @malxfide, thank you for sending it in!

There was nothing.

For a little while -- or for an eternity, he couldn't quite tell -- there was only the void. Darkness so deep all it was, was empty.

A flash of light. There had been a massive flash of light, blinding. Pain, too. It all scrambled together in the black hole that was his mind... And then--

Then he took in a breath. Wheezing, pained. But he was alive, he suddenly realised. And as he forced his eyes open, it all suddenly clicked back in place together. It all made sense again. He remembered what happened. Or at least enough to understand why he was laying on the ground, in a puddle of his own blood -- he thought it was his own blood at least...

He'd been shot. He'd been fucking shot. Point blank. In the goddamn head. He had always been incredibly lucky when it came to avoiding lethal blows, but even his luck couldn't save him from that.

... Why was he alive? It should have blown his brains out...?

But try as he might, he couldn't remember much else than the blast of the gun, the ringing in his ears... Momentary pain and then... Then light -- overbearing light, a ray of it piercing the skies -- before it all turned into darkness.

He blinked out of his jumbled thoughts, when he abruptly realised he wasn't alone. There was a man there, and what he said drew him back to the moment at hand, rather than what led to it.

He gave a pained, croaky groan, before he managed to find his voice, squinting at the guy. "... Wha--?" He coughed a little, shaking his head and attempting to sit up, only to freeze up when he managed.

There were-- a lot of things to see. To say the least.

There were a lot of scorch marks around them. Like something had just exploded. Even more worryingly, some of them were painting the shape of wings in negative space around him. Numerous wings. What the hell--? And was that-- were those bodies? Bodies of his assailants maybe? Burnt to a crisp? So deeply blackened their features were forever lost...?

Serik felt sick.

But he felt even worse when he realised it all seemed to come from him. Like he was the one who had fucking exploded.

Fuck.

He turned his attention back on the other person there, thankfully looking alive and un-burnt. He had to, even if this was a complete stranger, lest he give into the rising panic that was trying to take over the shock. This could not be happening, and if he didn't think about it, maybe he could keep on believing it didn't happen.

"W- wha' d'you mean it's... Nothin's felt real to you for a while... You mean- All that's feelin'--" a helpless snort left him before he could stop himself. "All this is- feelin' real to you, now?" He glanced at the wing-like marks again. Fuck, he thought he might be sick.

rome is never quite aligned — rooms slip out of numerical order, snack machines kick to life with no warning, and rumors yellow and age wallpaper like smoke. the storm doesn’t help. static licks at her and goosebumps raise on her skin, despite thick, honey-sticky air.

the rumbling of thunder announces his arrival. teresa’s eyes move from the storm in the sky to the one that settles in her parking lot. he closes his door, and on cue, the sky cracks louder. she watches him watch the swamp for a while — its maw hinging wide, the gaping dark throat open and inviting, before finally walking toward her.

・ @malxfide + vincent silvanus › “the devil himself lives out there.”

teresa would never admit to being superstitious … and yet she holds her breath when passing cemeteries, knocks on wood, and throws salt over her shoulder (just in case). today she has no interest in playing matador and tempting fate’s anger.

she wouldn’t consider herself religious either ... but his words bite through divine warning. her index finger and thumb find the tiny silver cross around her throat briefly before her arms cross back over her chest. amusement hesitates, but not for long.

“the devil got bored fuckin’round here long ago,” crass words are punctuated by a strike of lightning that make the buzzing lights over them flicker, “whatever that is, ain’t him — just some kinda thing that learned how to wait.”  

"hm." Isaiah muses over this, over what it means for Vincent. What it might mean for Isaiah's home. There's a lot to wonder about, but Isaiah doesn't make a point to ask many more questions about that. Instead, he answers the one posed to him.

"suppose i did," he says, slowly, "but it brings up an interestin' question, i guess. does someone ever really get outta the place that raised them?"

He motions the bartender for another drink and sets his empty glass down.