Whump my Beloved

Ethynoé; May 17th, 2002: 4:21pm

026 hated the color of dried blood. It reeked of old iron and death: and occasionally, it got the cops called on him. He especially hated how it looked on the floor of his shower, because it reminded him of the slimy strings he could still taste in his mouth. Goddamn laced drugs.

Mornings had always been his worst enemy, and whether he hated them or his sober brain more was a subject of constant debate. His only clue to what had happened the previous night was the hole in his wall.

Another hiss of acid seeped through the crevices of his brain, accompanied by a rising pressure, and the familiar seizing of his muscles as his organs exorcized another round of saliva and blood through his mouth. They gave out a moment later, and his sternum hit the floor a moment before his bruised jaw.

Sour warnings stained the back of his tongue as he scraped his right hand beneath him, using the last of his clarity to spread his fingers slowly open like a blooming flower. The warm tiles met the blisters on his palms, and the pressure sent half of the muscles in his body another panic signal for contraction. “Agh-! FUCK!"

026 sat still for a moment, cursing out Eilene as the bruises screamed, and he propped his forehead against his wrist, gasping for air—a single breath would have been enough. He managed to roll onto his back, leaving him to stare up at the flickering bathroom light, buzzing at him like a disapproving horsefly. He closed his eyes to beat out the dizziness.

Right now, the mornings were definitely winning.

In truth, this was progress from the past two hours he spent slumped over in the shower, too hungover to move. The headache remained, begging him to close his eyes and surrender to the void. He was close to obeying when it pulled the knife.

4:58pm

026 was propped up on the sink when the nausea took its final toll, rippling up his shuddering arms and producing a strange, unholy sound from between his gritted teeth. What followed was a dry heave and a groan, sending the fibers of his being into an unsteady tremble as he leaned over the dirty counter, teetering on the edge of humanity.

Skin shed into raw flesh, and saliva dripped in crystalized blood which stained the plug of his sink. He was sick on an empty stomach—sick on cravings. His eyes found the mirror. Eilene’s face stared down at him from the rapidly-dimming light, her gaze probing his face judgementally. He shrank away from her as his lungs heaved a protest, and his nerves danced in a dizzy butterfly-stumble beneath his skin.

026 clung to the sink for dear life, trying to identify the feeling as his head spun like a frisbee and his organs struggled against one another like worms in a gladiator arena. Several intact bones complained about being broken, and bruises that hadn’t been there last night pulled at his brain like a parasite curling into the darkest corner of his heart.

“You’re better than this,” she said.

He gripped the counter until his knuckles turned white, forcing himself to lock eyes with his own reflection. Dull black irises stared back at him: stained in hatred, exhaustion, and pain. They begged for a reprieve; they would get none. Long unruly locs of hair veiled his twisting, agonized expression from view like a blackout curtain.

He turned away; it wasn’t enough. He still felt dirty: as if there were a spotlight on him that announced every single mistake he’d ever made. There was, at most, a single moment of hesitation before he pulled the mirror open and rifled through his collection of mostly illegal medications. He told himself painkillers couldn’t hurt anything. He knew it was a lie, but right now he didn’t care.

It clicked against itself like a plastic latch opening, and the contents tumbled free into his hand. They almost looked like pearls, or beads of some sort; only, of course, they were duller. The stark contrast between the pills and his skin tone was startling: like ink spilled over a pristine white canvas. He deliberated over the choice for a moment. It wasn’t long enough to stop him from outdoing the recommended number by three.

The second thing he grabbed from the mirror was a hair tie.

5:30pm

The sour taste remained on the back of his tongue even after he’d brushed his teeth four times. Scrubbing everything into a presentable state worked better—that was if you ignored the bloodstains, wrinkles in his clothing, and discarded needles everywhere that had accumulated throughout the past several months. Normally, cleaning those would have been his first priority; right now, however, 026 was perched on the kitchen counter, scraping off Prince with a dirty old sponge gripped between his left thumb and little finger. Those two were the only fingers he had left—as the other three were laying next to his thigh on a ratty old towel.

026 cursed under his breath as he dropped the sponge into the sink on top of an old plate that hadn’t been cleaned since God-knows-when, and started scraping at the dried blood with his thumb nail instead. He’d already contemplated using his razor, but he liked his remaining seven fingers, so he decided against it.

Cautiously, once it was done, 026 slipped off the counter and limped into the main room in order to grab his other weapon—an AR-15 named Princess. Both of them had needed oiling anyway, and now seemed like the perfect time. He was as sober as he would get outside of an impromptu overnight session with Eilene, and it was still raining despite the sunlight sparkling through the city streets. 026 remembered passively that he’d once heard this weather called ‘the devil beating his wife’. It felt ironic, but in a way, he couldn’t place.

Regardless, it fit: how the sound of the rain faded into the background as it hammered down on the window like pinstriped silver needles, pooling just on the lip of the window before toppling over the edge and falling five stories to their demise on the cold concrete below. There, rippling in those comatose puddles, it would become victim to the deception of spilled oil: defiling it before it even knew what it was. Maybe that was the irony.

Either way, he didn’t give a shit.

026 lasted longer on his feet than he expected to, but that didn’t change the fact that the pain flaring through his jaw tasted like blood and dust; nor did it stop the dizzy floor from spinning beneath him as his fingers tingled like static. Shifting his weight down onto the tattered mattress, 026 reached behind him with his good hand. Once he had the toolbox, it took only seconds for him to get to work: pinching the rubber grip with his left hand and delicately maneuvering the metal utensils with his right, making sure each movement matched a precise measurement.

Of all the possessions he’d ever been allowed to keep, these were customized: tailored to his hands and approved of by Eilene. They were what made him special. Just like the extra range he’d added to the sights and modifying the inner mechanisms just enough to feel comfortable—embodied by everything these guns were to him: weapon extensions.

He tried to fold his leg, but in an instant, his shin rolled to support his body, and he cried out in pain, dropping his tools. “Shit! Agh… ow, you bitch!” He’d forgotten about the bruise.

There was a long pause that followed as he collected the pieces of Princess, musing about the sorry state of his apartment to distract himself from the pain and frustration of his mistake. Nothing in his kitchen worked: not the fridge, nor the oven, or even the microwave. He’d smashed the smoke alarm himself with Princess’ stock one night while in a drug-induced delirium because it pissed him off. It was a miracle anything in his life was still operational, but he’d gotten this far; it didn’t matter what Eilene said.

He winced at the thought of her. Who was he kidding? She was the only thing that made living bearable. Striving to please her was his purpose. Even if she broke everything he owned and chained him to the floor, he probably hadn’t done his job; he deserved it. The particular memory of shouting at her twinged at the back of his mind.

“God, 26, get ahold of yourself!” he said, shaking his head and pacing despite the nausea. He took a break near the sink to splash his face with cold tap water. He had to think straight, think right. She hadn’t really taken anything that mattered. All he cared about anyway were his guns and his rice cooker. All three had been named, and they were the only things he owned that worked—the rice cooker he was particularly fond of.

He’d named it ‘Creature’ when he bought it, as the name amused him. If he could count on anything to be loyal and consistent: it would have to be an appliance he’d actually bought himself and understood how to fix. Eilene had always loved to remind him that if he wanted something done right, he had to do it himself. Creature simply sat there vacantly on his counter. Dust particles drifted through shafts of light around it, showing off its blue coloring, as bright and clear as the sky. 026 decided he would rather shoot himself than eat anything.

His thoughts were interrupted by a rough knock on the door.

A moment of annoyance came over him at the sudden intrusion into his routine. He grabbed his favorite leather jacket off of his windowsill, pulling it over the discolored sores on the underside of his arms as he stalked toward the door. Once he reached it, he straightened his shoulders, shoved the pain out of focus, and kicked as many of the various needles and trash items out of view of the door as he could. If he was to be recognized by anyone, he would have preferred it to be any one of the girls or drug dealers he’d screwed over at 3am on some random Friday. However, recognition was still recognition, and he hated being noticed.

His neighbor was on the other side of the door—the annoying one.

026 dropped his fake smile. “What the fuck do you want?”

“I came to ask if you’re okay, man.” Joel crossed his arms, peering down at 026 in barely-veiled skepticism. Despite the fact his neighbor was larger than him, 026 had no inhibitions about fighting the man.

“Go fuck yourself.”

He was rewarded with a brief scowl. “You screamed. I heard it through the walls. They’re not very thick.”

“And I can hear your goddamn music every time you bring a new bitch home with you, but I don’t go making that any of my business now do I?”

This time, the frown was much more real; it stuck, and Joel took a small step back, the pause sharpening into angry shards of glass as he muttered under his breath: “Sorry I asked.”

“Damn right you are. Now leave me the hell alone!”

026 slammed the door in his face and retreated inside. The moment the conversation had started, he’d already given up trying to stay aware of the world around him. It wasn’t too hard to find a solution to the cravings problem, and once he found it, he spent the waiting time trying to scrape the taste of rot off of his tongue.

It didn’t work.

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