The Village Witch Of Whump

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

✨Playlist✨

October is just around the corner, and I've decided to subject myself to Goretober yet again. Feel free to join me! No need to credit or tag (though I'd love to see everybody's work if they decide to try out any of the prompts)!

I don't know if I'll make it through every prompt, but my goal to at least do a simple sketch or a short written piece for each section.

If you have any questions, feel free to hit up my ask box.

Bonus 💜🖤💜s for all 3!

TWS: drugging, death, thoughts of death, impalement, hand injury, back injury, cuts, carving into skin, claustrophobia, suffocation, ritual sacrifice, throat trauma, knee injury tw, broken bones, familial violence and murder

“How did it happen?”

“What?”

It was so silly, playing a game of tag like they were back in grade school as part of a field trip for a college level course. She couldn’t stop laughing as she ran past the huge stone pillars, ducking behind one that was green with moss. Lungs burning with the chill of the evening air she paused a moment to catch her breath. Back pressed against the soft moss-covered stone, the damp seeping in through her jacket as the mist in the air clung to her eyelashes. She pushed away from it and made to run back towards where she’d last seen Aya. When a dark figure jumped out in front of her, Leia shrieked and jumped back. Tripping over her own feet, she would have fallen if it weren’t for the warm hands that caught her own and tugged her forwards. She looked up into Vanya’s warm dark eyes and laughed as the other girl’s hair ticked her face. Leia stepped back as her cheeks flushed, ducking her head against the sunlight of Vanya’s smile.

Her hands were still clutched firmly in Vanya’s and she laughed again shaking their joined hands lightly in a mockery of trying to pull away. “You caught me.”

Vanya’s laugh was quiet and lovely, and her tawny cheeks flushed prettily as she nodded “Yes I have.” She leaned forward a bit, back into Leia’s space “Lucky me.”

“More like lucky me, I would have fallen if you hadn’t caught me.”

“Well I’m always happy to come to your rescue.”

Leia broke into laughter and Vanya joined a moment after. It felt like a Fairytale, Leia thought. The emerald green of the tree’s and the moss-covered pillars, the evening sunlight refracted through the mist. Then again even a study session in the library felt like a fairy tale when it was Vanya’s beautiful dark eyes glittering across from her.

She caught herself leaning forward and cleared her throat as her cheeks heated “So, what is it that you’re supposed to do once you’ve caught me?”

It took Vanya a good moment to respond, those beautiful dark eyes never leaving the blush on Leia’s cheeks. She blinked after a moment seeming to come back to the conversation, with a quiet laugh she let go and pulled a marker from her pocket. Holding her own wrist out to show the symbol drawn there she said “I’m supposed to draw this on your wrist and then we’re meant to head back to that area with the big creepy stone table.”

“Nice” Leia said with a giggle as she held her wrist out for Vanya to draw on.

“Man, your hands are cold.” Vanya said after she finished drawing the symbol.

“Yours are warm.” Leia said with a giggle.

Pocketing the marker, Vanya held Leia’s hands between hers as she began leading them back through the maze of stone pillars towards the ritual table.

“How did you die?”

“I—I don’t—I—I’m not—”

There was something in the air, cloying and thick. It stole the breath from his lungs and clouded his vision. Was it smoke?

He needed to keep running, he had to run. If he didn’t—if he didn’t. Someone was crying and he wanted to go to them, but he couldn’t see where they were for all of the fog. Was it fog?

It felt like his head was floating away from his body. The crying had stopped, and he needed to do something, he needed to—to run. But his feet were made of lead and the air was thick and painful and he couldn’t fight the poison. Was it poison? Was he supposed to be moving?

The ground was hard and cool against his aching skull. His heartbeat pounded in his temples in time to the sound of chanting. It was loud, louder than the endless white cotton that pressed into his ears and his mouth and blinded him with its prickly aching touch. He needed to be doing something he—someone was shouting, and they were crying, and the chanting was so loud.

He needed to run, he couldn’t, he could barely even breathe. He’d tried, he’d tried when she’d left them alone. They all had, they’d tried to run, they’d tried, and they’d failed, and now the air was cloying and thick and he was drowning in it.

There was white in his lungs, in his eyes, a melody of dread aching in his ears to the beat of his slowing heart. Even when his eyes slid shut all he saw was milky white.

Waking was a violent thing.

The sounds of blood curdling screaming piercing the fog in his ears. He coughed the fog from his lungs and gasped in air that tasted of smoke and blood. Terror replaced the blank suffocating nothing that had crushed him into unconsciousness. His eyes snapped open and instead of white-nothing he saw the stars above him clouded by a thick black smoke. He tried to sit up, but something cut into his wrists, jerking him back down onto the cold stone slab. Looking down at the chains wrapped tightly around his wrists and ankles, he struggled and shouted in a panic for someone to help, help me pleaseI A frenetic buzzing of terror raced through his veins, as he whipped his head around desperately looking for Kellan, for Leia for someone. What he saw instead was his whole class surrounding him, all chained down to stone slabs just the same as him. they were all arranged in a circle around a massive bonfire where professor Hawthorne stood chanting in a voice that sounded less human the longer, she spoke.

His head was pounding from whatever he’d been drugged with and he couldn’t seem to catch a full breath for the panic pressing down on him. He struggled fruitlessly against the biting chains holding him down. The bonfire was growing hotter and he felt the heat stinging against his face as the flames shot higher and higher into the sky, spitting sparks of bright unnatural hues. Professor Hawthorne’s chant was getting louder and louder as she shouted it to heavens with a manic kind of intensity.

More of his classmates were waking up and crying out. They hadn’t yet realized there was no one to help them. That they were bound and alone with the monster that had taken them here. The shouts died in Alex’s throat as he realized they wouldn’t survive this. He saw Hawthorne staring into the heart of the fire like there was nothing in the world but the heat of the flame and the nonsensical words she was chanting, and he knew that his life, that all of their lives, meant less to her than the wood feeding the flames.

He was frozen in abject terror as he watched her kneel down and grab something from the base of the bonfire. When he saw what it was, he redoubled his fruitless efforts to break free from the chains, pulling and kicking at his bindings despite the way the chains dug into his flesh bruising and tearing at his wrists and ankles. He barely noticed the added pain for the fresh wave of terror that overcame him.

Hawthorne held the dagger she had pulled from the flames up to the sky. The blade glowing red from its time in the fire. She seemed to see the students then, as she approached them with the burning blade in hand and her chant having reached its crescendo.

“Now, now, it’s alright. It’s understandable.”

“Wh—but—”

“It’s entirely understandable. You see it’s even expected.”

Mak skidded to a stop as he nearly ran into the wall of fire before him. That damned fire had been herding them and he hadn’t known towards what, but he guessed they’d arrived since the flame had twined-itself around the pillars and trapped them inside the circular stone arena.

He stumbled back from the fire, gasping for a breath of air that didn’t taste of smoke and blood. His injured hand pressed protectively to his body he frantically searched the space for Vanya. He’d lost her in the chaos, and he needed to know she was okay. Spotting her across the circle he jogged over to her panting out her name. She whipped around and he saw the tears in her eyes and the blood on her shirt from her injured palm, and then she was throwing her arms around his neck. He hugged her back mindful of the gaping wound in his hand. Clinging to her in relief, he tried to hold back tears of relief, and pain, and terror.

“What’s happening?” She whispered shakily as she released him form her vice like hug.

He let go reluctantly and shook his head speechless in the face of what was happening to them.

There was a crack like thunder crashing and he whipped around searching for the threat, throwing his good arm out in front of Vanya in a bid to do something to try and keep his best friend safe.

He sucked in a sharp breath and stepped back with Vanya at his shoulder. It was Hawthorne, she’d appeared at the center of the circle sending everyone skittering away from her, back towards the fire. She’d done this to them, Mak had no idea if she was some kind of witch or how she’d managed it, but she was controlling all of it.

“What do you want?!” He shouted at her, anger and fear lacing his voice as Vanya squeezed his shoulder.

Hawthorne didn’t even look at him to respond “Silence,” she said, sharp and cutting as she held her arms out as if to conduct a symphony. She began chanting again. That awful monstrous sounding chanting, and he felt it then. Something tugging at him, like an invisible hand had dug its fingers into his chest and pulled. He screamed as he was dragged forward, Vanya’s hand left his shoulder and he could hear her screaming too.

His feet dragged over the rubble and loose stoned until he was centered over one of the broken tiles that had once had a symbol carved into it. Hawthorne shouted something with finality and slammed her hands down, and in that moment the force pulling at him changed. He felt like Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders slamming him down to his knees.

He felt something in his left knee crack and he wailed in agony as his weight continued to press down on the broken bones in his leg. The invisible force had slammed him down on that broken tile, landing his knee on a sharply uneven lump of shattered rock.

He thought he might black out from the unrelenting pain that had overtaken his knee. He barely heard what Hawthorne said next everything felt muffled in comparison to the screaming pain he was feeling. Then he saw something metallic glint in the light of the surrounding flames. Hawthorne had pulled a dagger from her coat and she was heading towards Alex.

“Eh—it’s expected?”

“Yes, I mean, there’s precedent at least from the research we’ve done, that this can happen.”

Vanya sobbed in relief when the invisible force keeping them on their knee’s lifted and she could stand. Every nerve in her back felt alight with agony, she felt hot blood dripping down her sides from the ragged carving that had been done. She cried out as she pulled herself to her feet, every movement tugged at the ruined flesh of her back and she wanted to lie down and give up. But she couldn’t she had to move, she had to run. There was an opening in the flames and they had to move the fire was moving in fast closing the distance quickly enough that she’d seen one of her classmates catch fire before their friend had pulled them from the fire to keep running. That’s what she needed to do, run.

She scrambled back a few steps about to run before she remembered Mak, the way he’d screamed when he’d been forced to his knees. The awful crack she’d heard from his leg. She needed to find him, he needed help. She shouted his name, stepping back towards the fire and past her running classmates. Someone crashed into her running past her and she stumbled as she screamed barely managing to keep herself from falling on her shredded back. Clutching her bloodied hand to her chest she kept moving and shouting his name.

“Vanya!” She bolted towards the sound of her name being called, weaving through the last of her classmates to avoid being crashed into again. Her breath caught in her throat, Mak was limping dragging his useless leg as he tried to hurry, agony writ clearly on his face every time he put weight on his bad leg. The flames were nipping at his heels, and she grabbed his arm and hauled him away from the flames with a kind of terrified desperation she’d never felt before.

It was agony to pull at him with the way it tore open her back even further, but she couldn’t stop. She just sobbed through gritted teeth as she sling his bad arm around her ruined shoulders and half dragged him as fast as she could away from the fire.

She was moving on adrenaline alone as every ounce of movement and pressure sent fresh waves of pain into her back. But they would make it. They had to make it. There was no other choice.

They were chased out of the paths of stone, and onto the grassy ground. She heard screaming up ahead and pushed herself a little harder. The ground gave way to soft earth and she stumbled as her feet sunk into the muddy ground. Mak slipped from her grasp and they both went crashing down into slimy earth, she couldn’t even scream, all the air having been cast from her lungs, and what felt like every nerve in her body screaming in pain.

She’d almost given in to the sweet lull of unconsciousness and the quiet black at the edges of her vision, when she realized something that sent another jolt of terror through her. She was sinking, the earth was opening like a grave and she was sinking.

“Wha—what’s happening to me?”

“You’re floating my dear.”

Leia bolted over to where she’d seen Aya milling about the table, waiting for the rest of the class to trickle in. She bounded up to her and jumped up and down as she lightly shook her arm “Ayaaaaaa!” she half shrieked.

Aya yelped and then burst into laughter at the state of her best friend “Leiaaaa! What’s got you so hyper girl?”

Leia stopped bouncing to lean in and whisper shout “Vanya held my hand!”

Aya gasped and grabbed Leia’s arm “OH MY GOD. Tell me everything.”

Leia nodded hugely “Okay so—” she was cut off by a sharp whistle that made her and Aya jump.

They both whipped around to see the professor standing at what could have been the head of the large round stone table. “Alright, that’s everyone back now. Let’s circle up! Everyone! Come on now!”

Leia leaned over to Aya “I’ll tell you later.”

“You better, oh my god.”

Leia and Aya found a spot on the opposite side of the table from Professor Hawthorne as she continued to speak “Alright now everyone take a look at the table. You see the carvings?”

Leia looked down at the old mossy stone, the way that swirling carving about the size of her palm ran around the edge of the table. Each leading to a deep spoke like divot in the table that led to a bowl like indent in the center of a table. It reminded her of a wheel, or a sun.

“Right now, we’re going to focus on those spirals, now I want all of you to lift the hand of the arm that has the symbol drawn on it. Right, now you’re going to put your palm down on the spiral in front of you okay. I want you to focus on the way the stone and the carving feels under your skin. This is what they would have done at the start of the sacrifice. Think on that while I read you a primary source. Now it’s not in English so don’t try to understand it. Just listen to the music of it alright? And keep your hands on the spiral. Contemplate how it would have felt for a sacrifice back in the day.”

Aya leaned over to whisper in Leia’s ear “That’s morbid isn’t it?”

“Very.” Leia stifled a giggle as she tried to focus on the way the stone felt under her palm. It was rough and nearly crumbling, the edges of the carving sharp and jagged.

Then Hawthorne began to read, but it didn’t sound like a normal recitation of a primary source, it almost sounded like a chant. And the language was strange, unlike anything she’d ever heard before. Hawthorne’s voice seemed to rise and rise in volume until she was nearly shouting, the pitch of her voice growing more and more frantic.

Leia felt the ugly coil of fear begin to grow in her gut and she looked to Aya to see the same worry on her face when suddenly pain was exploding from her palm and all she could do was scream.

The table had—had changed, she’d felt the shift happen half a moment before the pain hit. The scratchy crumbling stone solidifying and warping sharpening, as a razor sharp stone spike rose from the center of the spiral, stabbing through her palm. It happened in a handful of seconds the warping and then the agony of the impalement. She screamed high and desperate, nausea roiling in her gut at the sight of the bloody stone protruding from the back of her hand. She watched sickened as her blood dribbled and pooled out of the injury and into the spoke like divot in the table. Hawthorne was still chanting at that manic pace in such a strange language. And the blood seemed to move of it’s own accord. Sliding down the indents in the stone towards the bowl in the center. It was happening all around the table blood streaming unnaturally to the center of the table, filling the bowl, swirling like a whirlpool of scarlet. The screams and sobs of the students nearly drowned out by the shouted chanting of professor Hawthorne. The blood glowed, and caught fire, and Leia screamed as the fire shot upwards in the bowl and arced out over everyone’s heads, surrounding them with walls of flame. The spikes receded back into the table then, drawing forth another agonized scream, as the stone dragged back through the already ragged wound.

She stumbled back clutching her wounded hand to her chest shrieking as she felt the heat of the fire at her back. Her mind was clouded with abject terror as her classmates began rushing past her all desperate in their search for an opening in the flame. She pressed close to Aya desperate not to lose her in the chaos. The fire encroached closer and they cried out as they huddled closer together, terrified the flame would wash over them like a tidal wave.

Hawthorne shouted another word in that strange inhuman language and a section of the flame fell away. The whole class of twenty people bolted for the opening as the fire behind them encroached further. Leia desperately tried to keep track of Aya in the chaos as they ran. Someone cracked into her shoulder from behind and she cried out as the jolt nearly sent her tumbling to the ground.

Aya caught her sleeve with her non injured hand and yanked her back to her feet as the fire licked at their heels. She gasped out a thanks as they kept running. The adrenaline of the terror distracting her from the agony in her palm.

Her lungs burned with a need for oxygen, and it felt like they’d been running with hell on their heels for hours, before they were herded into circular stone arena surrounded by pillars. The fire washed over the pillars and cracked back into itself, trapping them again in a circle of flames.

Leia reached out for Aya wordlessly as terror sealed her lips. Aya’s good hand found hers and they linked arms, determined to face the flame together.

“I—I’m Floating?”

“Yes, through your memories.”

“My memories—I—why?”

Vanya clawed at the dirt above her. She wasn’t dying like this she refused. Shock or adrenaline or sheer stubbornness letting her push through the agony of movement, of the earth touching her myriad of wounds, she dug. She fought, she clawed, she would not die like this. She would not die choking on mud and surrounded by the all consuming pressure of the earth. She felt air on her fingertips and the hope that bloomed In her chest was so bright and explosive she would have screamed if there had been air enough for her to manage it. She made it to the surface and pulled herself free of the mud and rocks, she slumped to her side and coughed up all of the dirt that had been smothering her only moments prior. Gasping there on the ground she’d never appreciated the open air more.

Forcing herself to sit-up she looked around and seeing what pearled to be most of her classmates she crawled towards her best friend. Clasping hands with him she looked around and noticed something that made her shout with joy, causing Mak to flinch.

“She’s gone!” She croaked, coughing into her shoulder.

“Wh—“ Mak looked around and seeing she was right he let out a whoop of celebration himself “She’s gone!”

Others seemed to be realizing this too as they came back to themselves from their brief stint buried alive. Small groups began to form as everyone began talking over each other trying to figure out, what to do next.

Vanya spotted Alex and Kellan hobbling towards them, Alex doing his best to support Kellans weight as he limped on what looked like a broken ankle. The pair collapsed down next to them. “The fire—the fire and—and Hawthorne they—they’re gone.” Vanya repeated managed through a coughing fit, still trying to get the last of the dirt from her lungs.

“Is it over?” Came Leia’s voice from behind her, as she and Aya joined the group on the ground.

“I don’t know, I—I—hope.” Vanya managed looking around for the others. She spotted Kellan and Aya few feet away and nodded to them as she tried to speak louder “We need to run, get back to the bus, get our phones call—call for help.”

Kellan nodded “We, we’ve lost too much blood.”

“We can—we can make it” Leia said shakily.

Vanya nodded seriously “Mak and Kellan hurt their legs, they need help walking. Leia can you help me with him? Aya help Alex with Kellan?”

The girls squeezed each other’s arms in goodbye and nodded.

“Okay, let’s get the hell out of here then.” Vanya said with some enthusiasm, dragging a few exhausted chuckles from the group.

Leia slipped Mak’s other arm over her shoulder, whimpering at the way it put pressure on the cuts on her back. Mak whispered his apologies but Leia brushed them off “It’s not your fault. Let’s—let’s get out of here. Once Aya had Kellan’s other arm around her they all began to walk. Slow but steady back to the bus. Most of the other students having had similar plans they resembled a hoarde of zombies bloody and lumbering.

The mist was back now that the fire was gone and it was getting thick, so thick it was getting harder to see in front of her. She was beginning to lose track of people outside of their group as they got too far into the mist. “Stay close” she gritted out.

She didn’t hear, Aya, Alex or Kellan make any noises of agreement and she realized with a start she couldn’t see them anymore “shit” she blurted, feeling light headed as the mist seemed to get even more cloying and thick.

“Where are they?” Leia asked voice thick with worry.

“I don’t—“ Vanya started.

“What was that?” Mak interrupted.

“What?”

“Something’s in the mist it’s moving.”

“Whe—“ Her voice died in her throat as she saw a shadowy figure dart past them from within the fog.

“Oh fu—“ the figure suddenly crashed into them causing Vanya to lose her grip on Mak. She crashed to the ground and with the air knocked from her lungs for a second time she let out a silent scream at the agony of landing on her ruined back. Her eyes were rolling and the fog was so cloying she felt her grip on consciousness slipping even as she fought it. It was so hard to even think like this. She needed to get—to get up to—to find… something. No someone. She had to find them to—to…

“Well you see, from our research—”

“Your research? On—”

“Yes, on individuals who’ve gone through what you have. We’ve found that floating is simply your new state of being.”

Her feet pounding against the grass and the soft earth sent vibrations through body and she wanted to scream from how much it hurt as with each step fresh waves of pain washed through her back. She could feel the heat from the fire that herded them ever forwards on the raged cuts and it just made her run faster. Leia was just behind her and they were going to make it, they were going to get away from this. They had to. She resolutely focused on getting enough air into her lungs. As ragged and painful as those exhausted breath’s might be at this point. She could scream later. She could cry later. She could rage and break things and break down, but now she needed to run. Run. That was lol that mattered one step in front of the other, and just keep breathing. In and out as the beat of her heart matched the pounding of her feet on the ground and the vibrations of agony in her back. She had to make it. She risked a look back to make sure Leia was still there. Seeing she was she turned back to the front and kept her mind on one breath after the other even as a little voice screamed and wailed in the back of her mind at the unrelenting agony of her body.

Then it happened. The soft muddy earth beneath her feet began to give, her feet began to sink and she screamed. The ground was opening like a yawning, gaping grave ready to swallow her whole. She screamed and she fought clawing at the earth and ignoring the way the earth dragging against her gouge in her hand made her nauseous with the pain. She kicked and tried to climb, to drag herself back upwards as dirt began to brush her cheeks. She screamed loud and ragged as she realized she was going under. Taking one final deep breath, her head went under and she didn’t stop fighting.

She didn’t stop clawing at the thick muddy sludge that intermingled with soft fresh earth pressing down on her and burying her deeper. The wounds in her back were on fire with irritation as she struggled against the earth, but the agony had taken a backseat to the abject terror she felt at being buried alive. She hated the claustrophobic crush of it. The terror of earth at every side at every movement slowing her and crushing her into stillness. She was a creature of movement and freedom. She was meant to dance atop the earth and glide through the water. She was meant to be free, and she thought her heart might stop at how horrifying it was to barely be able to move for the awful smothering pressure all around her. She could hear nothing but her own panicked heartbeat pulsing in her temples and she wanted to scream.

She was not meant to be still, not meant to be rushed in the dark, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. She let loose a primal scream of terror and anger as her lungs felt like they might explode, and the earth spilled past her lips and she still couldn’t breathe.

With one final burst of energy as the weight of unconsciousness began to teasingly pull her under she fought to claw her way back to the surface, and it was as if the spell had broke. She felt the earth give easier under her movements, pull away as she clawed at it, she was going to make it. She was going to make it. She inched upwards clawing and dragging with all her might and when her bread broke free she gasped and coughed the earth from her lungs and the air had never tasted sweeter.

“What—but I—I can’t—I can barely think—how—”

“Oh goodness no! Don’t worry, the disorientation isn’t permanent, you’ll stabilize eventually. Right now, you’ve just been through the last in a long series of rather bad shocks.”

Pushing at Alex to keep running Kellan looked behind them at the ever encroaching fire he stumbled a bit as the stone pathway gave way to uneven grass. He recovered and kept going, crying out at the way the movement tugged at his back. He knew he’d lost too much blood already. He knew they all had, they needed medical attention and fast. He heard someone scream up ahead and he looked for the source terrified of what could have befallen them when his foot slipped into a divot in the uneven grass and caught on a rock. The rest of him kept going forward and he heard the crack before he felt it, and when he did it tore an agonized scream from him. The combination of agony from the cuts in his back being pulled farther open from the movement, his impaled hand slamming into the earth as he’d tried to catch himself and the snap of his ankle had him seeing black spots. It was the most pain he’d ever been in and he could barely think around the shape of it in that moment.

He heard a muffled voice at his side saying… saying something… his name? ”KELLAN.” He flinched but finally looked and saw Alex knelt down beside him “Kellan! Come on—come on we need to go!”

“My—my leg I—“

“I’ll help you.” He looked back “the fire’s coming we gotta go,”

Kellan nodded and tried to avoid hurting Alex as he slung arm over his friends shoulders, he apologized as Alex flinched at the pressure on his cuts.

Alex shook his head “Don’t apologize yet,” he said as he hauled Kellan to his feet. He cried out at the drag of his ankle, and cursed as Alex started to pull him forward. He limped forward as fast as he could, giving half his weight to Alex.

He cursed under his breath as the fire only seemed to get closer.

“We’re gonna make it,” Alex panted.

Kellan pushed himself harder, nodding as they finally managed to get some distance in between and the fire “Yeah, yeah, we—we’ll make it. To what though? He couldn’t help but think, it’d only been one hell after the other, and he couldn’t imagine that Hawthorne wanted them to live after all this.

He pushed those thoughts away, tried to push away the unrelenting pain shooting through his body, and kept going. What else could he do? They had to at least try.

“Shocks?”

“Yes, shocks. Now once you’ve calmed, the disorientation will fade, and you’ll gain more control over the floating.”

“It’ll stop?”

Alex was resolutely trying not to hyperventilate as the agonizing pressure summoned by Hawthorne shoved them to their knees. He heard someone scream and he flinched at the sound watching in horror as Hawthorne took a long thin dagger from her coat. It glinted in the light of the fire, looking razor sharp and deadly, he lost the fight to not hyperventilate when she stepped towards him with it. “No! no! no!” he tried to jerk away as she moved closer “Please, please don’t! Please!” Kellan was shouting next to him, telling her to stop, to leave him alone. Hawthorne had started chanting again in that strange inhuman sounding way. He was light headed from terror as he begged her to stop! Wait! Please!

Her expression never changed from calm resoluteness as she moved to stand behind him. She sliced through the back of his hoodie as easily as if it were made of tissue paper. She didn’t bother with his T-shirt, just began carving through it and straight into his skin. It hurt more than he could have ever imagined it would. She went deep with the cuts, gouging into his flesh. He screamed, broken and ragged and still pleading with her to stop. But there was no hesitation in her movements as she carved the intricate symbol into his back, careful to get the details right and unafraid to keep cutting a little deeper.

He thought he’d pass out from the pain, as he sobbed out another plea for her to stop. He realized he wasn’t the only one screaming, Kellan, Leia, Mak, the rest of the class. They were all screaming and pleasing just the same as him, and as he saw blood dripping over their shoulders he had an awful realization that somehow they were getting carved into the same as him.

He didn’t have much time to ruminate on how that was possible as Hawthorne brought on a particularly acute agony with the next cut that crossed over a few previous ones. He wailed in hopeless agony as she dig her fingers into his shoulder to keep her canvas a bit more still for the next part.

“Stop? Oh, it won’t do that. But it’ll get easier to manage.”

“Is this… is this a memory?”

Hawthorne was gone, so was the fire, thank GOD, Kellan thought, but their odds weren’t great. They had no idea where Hawthorne was, if she’d come back. If she’d taken the bus, if she was waiting at the bus. They didn’t know. They had no way of knowing if any choice they made would be safe. They needed a hospital, all of them. Those cuts had gone deep, and Kellan knew at least some of his disorientation and light headed ness had to be coming from the blood loss. Not to mention being buried alive, and the broken bones and added injuries some of them (himself included) were sporting. He was deeply worried they weren’t ever going to get the chance to make it back to the bus, let alone the hospital with the shape they were in.

He agreed to Vanya’s plan anyway, there was nothing voicing his fears would do aside from scare the shit out of Alex and everyone else anyway. They had to try. They had to. People had come out of worse and still made miraculous recoveries. Like that lady who fell out of an airplane and landed on a mountain without any broken bones. They could make it. They could.

With his arms slung around Alex and Aya’s shoulders, he felt more like they would actually make it. But he was so dizzy, and so cold, and he knew what that meant. He felt the slow drip of blood down his back, down his fingertips, it was thick and sludge like from the first and mud, but the blood still flowed and he was cold. So cold, with the ever encroaching chill of the fog eating away at what warmth he had left. He felt himself stumbling more and more. The pain had even begun to succumb to the numbness treading at the edge of his mind. He knew what it meant. He knew, he just needed to keep going, just keep carrying as much of his own weight as he could. He could do it. But then the fog was so thick and cloying. It was almost as suffocating as the earth had been. It was cloudy in his eyes and his mind.

Something heavy knocked into them and he went down hard. He’d been with people hadn’t he? He should get up. They needed him. No… he needed them… he—

“Oh, eventually it will be. But for now, it’s just what’s happening. You see, you don’t have a finite number of memories my dear, you’re always making new ones, and you have quite literally countless years ahead to make thousands and thousands more.”

Mak was lost. He was surrounded in white. For a moment he thought he must be in the clouds. But he couldn’t be, he felt the ground beneath his feet still. There was something dripping down his fingers, the only source of warmth he could feel. He lifted his hand near his face so he could make out more than the shape of it through the fog. The dripping was red, and it was coming from a jagged wound in the center of his palm. He remembered the pain then, remembered to feel it. He gasped at how it hurt, putting his hand back down to hopefully forget again.

He thought there might be something else that he’d forgotten. Had there been other people here? There…there had to have been. He lifted his hand again, he’d changed his mind. It hurt but he didn’t want to forget. He didn’t like the unsteady feeling blooming into being inside his chest.

He was—he was bleeding. There was earth between his feet. He was somewhere, and there—there had to have been people here with him.

They were—they were his friends. Right? That’s who he was looking for? Who else would he be looking for?

They weren’t here though, they were gone. They were gone and he was alone. He was alone and he was he was, there was something else but there was the ground beneath his feet.

He was alone and—-and he didn’t know why. Had they left him? Had they meant to leave him behind? No… no surely they hadn’t meant to leave him, why… why would they have.

He was alone, and there was the ground beneath his feet.

He was afraid and he didn’t know why. No, no he was alone, that was why. They’d left him behind and he was alone and there was something wrong with the fog.

He was alone and he was laying in the grass and he was floating in the clouds, and he was alone.

He was alone.

He was—-

“But—but you said…”

“That you’d died? Yes, I’m afraid you have.”

“But—but how?”

Aya screamed when she saw Mak get throat slit. She screamed and she shouted every threat and obscenity under the sun at Hawthorne, begging and praying to whatever god would listen that she would stop, that she would just stop for one moment and have a little mercy. She yanked at the chains that bound her to the stone slab with all of her might. She didn’t care how many bruises or cuts it added to the list, or how the movement tore at her other injuries, she screamed all of her pain, all of her grief out into the heavens above and nobody listened.

She wished she could get out of these damn chains and throw Hawthorne into that damn fire. Mak was her friend, he was her friend damn it. He’d been over to her and Leia’s house for study sessions and he liked to build things. He was good and he was kind and she’d just slit his throat like it was nothing. She was going around the circle and cutting everyone’s throats like it was nothing. Like she wasn’t stealing their lives, their hopes, their dreams, everything they ever were or ever could be.

Aya would not die today she would, get out of this and she would kill that bitch for doing this to them. She screamed and struggled against the chains grimly hoping, when her wrists started to bleed from yanking at the chains so hard that her blood would let her slip her wrists out of them. But they were too tight. Nevertheless she kept trying kept kicking and yanking and shouting. Alex and Vanya were gone too and she screamed and fought for them, because they were drowning in their own blood and they couldn’t scream for themselves.

Hawthorne just kept moving down the line dragging the knife across their throats as if it was as simple a task as breathing. The blood sprayed across her face and her shirt but she didn’t even pause a moment to wipe it from her face. She stepped up to each slab with blood anew dripping down her front and she barely blinked an eye at the begging and the screaming, at the pleading.

Aya felt something give a little in the chain at her right foot, she concentrated all of her energy into kicking at it. Kellan was right before her and as Hawthorne walked up to him she kicked and she screamed as hard and loud as she could. Kellan was her friend, he was kind and so, so smart and determined and she wanted to see his kind eyes every day for the rest of her life and she could not lose him before she even managed to tell him that.

The knife drew across his throat and the weak chain on her ankle broke as she tugged and kicked with all her might. She had to make it.

“That’s what I’m asking you. How did you die?”

“I—I…”

Leia had screamed herself hoarse as she watched Hawthorne slit the throat of everyone before her. She’d kicked and struggled and fought as much as she could, but the chains were too strong and too sturdy. Her heart had shattered and re-shattered over and over, as she watched them die. Her friends, her brother, the girl she was falling for, all of them drowning in their own blood unable to scream.

The chain on Aya’s leg had come loose and Leia screamed for her to keep fighting, to keep going, but Hawthorne just stepped out of the path of the broken chain that Aya whipped at her. Leia begged her to stop she begged with everything she had but the knife still came down on Aya’s neck and Leia felt what was left of her heart shatter as her best friend began to choke and drown on her own blood. She let out a high piercing scream of grief that tore out of her throat like she was a woman possessed.

As Hawthorne walked up to her she cursed at her, she swore with all the rage and the grief still inside of her “Someone will find out—someone will know and you—you’ll die for this! You won’t get away with it!” She spat out the words with as much force as she could. She didn’t know if she believed it but she had to wish justice for her friends for herself. She hated Hawthorne in that moment more than she’d ever thought it possible to hate someone. She hated that this monstrous human being was her birth mother. She hated that for the past few days since finding out she’d agonized over whether or not she wanted her in her life. She hated her and she prayed to anything that would listen for justice. For this awful woman to get what she deserved.

Hawthorne didn’t pause a moment in her chant or her mission for Leia’s grief and rage filled curse upon her, she just brought the knife down a final time. It hurt worse than she’d thought it would. The knife sliding across her throat, her lungs slowly filling with blood. She was just afraid then, the anger having faded. She was just scared and alone and hurting, and she wanted it to stop. Blood spilled from her lips and she her struggled began to slow, and she wondered if she’d go where her friends were now. It hurt so much and she missed them so much and she hoped— she hoped—

“It’s alright. Take your time, take a breath. Now, one more time. Do you remember how you died?”

“She cut my throat.”

“And then?”

TWs: blood is mentioned but this is all comf though I promise

Soft music drifted through the dim living room, ivory tower candles on the coffee table as the only light source. Throl hummed along with the melody, a smooth bass supporting the singer’s whispered words as he drew his fingers through lively orange curls. Holly had finally dropped off into sleep, exhausted from the terror that had gripped her since she appeared in their living room, bloodied and haunted.

She wasn’t ever a small presence even though he towered over her, but the way she curled against him on the couch just made her feel unsettlingly tiny. All the cuts were wrapped and her sprained ankle had been cushioned with a pillow between her feet. All the rainwater had been dried from her hair with a towel, and she was swamped in one of Gabriel’s tees and a pair of his sweatpants. With her head on his lap, Holly was finally getting the rest that the deep bags under her eyes said was so urgently needed.

Even still, she looked like she was trying to escape to safety.

Her fingers curled into Throl’s sweater like he might disappear if she didn’t hold on tight enough. She scrunched her nose if he shifted, even just to lean to get anything. She whimpered when the air conditioning kicked on, rattling away. Her nerves were just about shot.

The hand in Holly’s hair slid down her shoulder and along her bicep, starting a slow circuit up and down from elbow to shoulder. “It’s alright.” He said, watching how she pressed her forehead against his leg. “You’re alright now, Holly.”

She shivered in her sleep, pulling her knees up closer to her chest. With a rustle of feathers Throl manifested his wings, one of them stretching out before settling down over Holly. It curled around her, the wrist resting on her shoulder to envelop her more securely.

The black feathers fluffed out, trapping warmth against her ever-chilled body and pulling a tiny sigh from her. Slowly, slowly, the world-hopper started to relax. Between the music, the soft lighting, and a new self-warming weighted blanket, the shivers that slid down her limbs began to die down. Throl began stroking her hair again, smoothing it back from her freckled face.

“There we go.” He said, a smile warming his voice further. “You can sleep as long as you need. You’re always safe here.”

That means possibly months of being unable to do everyday human things like walk from her bed to the bathroom, make herself food, play with her niece and nephew.

Every one of those activities is legitimately dangerous for my sister to perform without active heart rate monitoring and assistance. And her service dog is sick enough that an alert was missed and my sister passed out yesterday for the first time since she got Ellie the service dog. Four years without serious incident. Gone.

I don't know how to make shit like this real for other people. If your activism ignores disability, if your world view doesn't include people with chronic illnesses, you can get right the fuck away from me.

This is a real and valid point and something a lot of folks don’t realize about service dogs.

But your sister, specifically....do you think perhaps we could crowdfund the money for her new service animal? That’s no way to live. If all of my followers donated $2 each she’d have her new animal with some left over.