From the House of Atreus Drabbles
I've been rather prolific with random drabbles instead of the actual stories the past few weeks.
Character death:
Between blinks the world disappeared. The taste of his coppery blood faded from his mouth. The pains wracking his body, throbbing with the beat of his heart, went silent and still. He opened his eyes, vision no longer cloudy and uncertain, and picked himself off the ground, the dirt beneath nothing but ash. It crumbled to fine powder in his fingers and floated away on the still air, like small flakes of feathers.
He stood in a sunless land, the earth a massive array of grays, black clouds streaking the sky with no hint of light or stars, a perpetual twilight in a place that went on for eternity. He tried to draw breath, but his chest wouldn’t expand, and it didn’t burn with need for oxygen.
Somehow, he expected death to be something more.
Somehow, this fit much better.
He dusted off his hands and started walking.
Eyewitness, Anonymous Psychic
“What you don’t understand is that that family was legendary for us. You called them terrorists, you called them criminals, you called them dangerous, but they helped us. They protected us. When the world went to hell and friends and family turned on us, THEY were there to help and make sure we had somewhere safe to go.
“Zander was kind of a monster, yeah. I didn’t know him personally, you won’t find many living that did, but I worked around him and his when they were in the camp. He did right by us, but when you got close you didn’t need a psychic to tell that he was messed up. The world fucked him and his over royally, and he wasn’t all there a lot of the time, but he never turned on us.
“He never laid a finger on any of us.
“So, when you go about writing your damn article or whatever, you just remember this. He killedand he did awful things, but he never visited violence upon anyone that didn’t strike out at him and his first. If you did him a good turn, he had your back. If you fucked with him, he fucked back and left you worse for interfering. That’s the way they all were, and with how the world went sideways, it wasn’t exactly surprising.
“So you keep that in mind when you go about gathering your damn stories. Not one psy or barcode that he helped is ever gonna think of him as anything less than a goddamn hero. He made sure we kept breathing, and he gave us a life to look forward to. That’s more than the fucking government ever did.”
Valkyrie, psychopath:
Blood stains Valkyrie’s teeth and hands. She rubs her fingers together, rolling the congealing mess and spreading the stain. She doesn’t take her eyes off Nola, who thinks she’s safe right now, standing by the trees, wings spread wide, sunning herself.
She squishes the blood until it runs thin. Nola is defective, too soft. Nola does not deserve to compete in the Trials to see who will make the Flock. Neither did Jon or Freckle. The Flock must be comprised of the very best.
They must be worthy to fight beside 4-16.
Survival of the fittest is the rule of nature, and it is the rule of the Apollo. A worthy Apollo knows this.
Valkyrie never forgets.
She curls her other hand around the jagged rock, slips up behind Nola, and draws it across her throat.
Warmth spills over her hands, Nola struggles in her grip until her muscles go lax. Valkyrie breathes in the metallic scent and pats Nola’s blood splattered cheek. The Trials would not have been so kind to her.
She looks to her right, sees 4-16’s shadow in the tree line. He nods just once. Valkyrie smiles and scents out the next one her list.
Three down, two to go.
She saved Gina for last. That was the real challenge of the exercise. 4-16 needed absolute loyalty, and expected absolute obedience. Valkyrie could give him both.
She knew what Gina would say. She’d say 4-16 twisted her up. He got into her head and screwed with her settings.
Oh yeah. He twisted her up good. She could still taste that kiss and feel his mind in hers. It felt like standing in a storm. It felt like touching lightning.
She loved Gina.
But Gina didn’t feel like lightning. Gina was like butter; warm, soft, defective.
Gina would never survive the Trials. It was better like this.
Escape, Wes POV:
They started their trek again. Each step sent his ribs and spine to throbbing in time with his heart. And his head…there were no words to describe the pain in his head. The only thing he could compare it to was a scooped out melon, which was kind of exactly what they did, leaving him all empty and raw and praying his stomach didn’t decide to spew, because that would really put him over the edge.
“Looks like,” he said through clenched teeth.
“What’s going on with him?” Melody asked in an undertone. They skirted around another dead body- good God, how could anyone manage to kill so many in so short a time span? And, whoa boy, there went his stomach doing somersaults again.
“Nothing’s going on with him. He’s actually normal now,” came a quiet voice behind them.
That startled them to a stop. Wes threw a glare over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, did we speak to you, asshole?” he snarled.
The boy was probably Zander’s age, maybe a bit older, though it was really hard to tell. He just had one of those faces, where if you looked at it from different angles he either looked older or younger, depending.
Wes couldn’t fathom why he was following, why Zander- that thing, he amended- hadn’t killed him already. Not that Zander actually needed more blood on his hands, whether he was in the driver’s seat or not, but this one…
Despite his head feeling like a squished grape, Wes remembered the two of them showing up at the house, Darius supporting Zander, who was half past dead on his feet. The moment came almost a day later, when hell came raining down on the house, and Darius looked at them with apologies in his eyes and a grim set to his face, and Wes didn’t need Zander’s mind reading abilities to know who called the goon squad.
“I just…this is how he is,” Darius gestured to 4-16’s retreating back. “Whatever was wrong with him before, whatever made him go soft, they fixed it and he’s back to normal now.”
“Yeah, well, when we want your opinion we’ll ask for it, okay? Good. That’s settled. Now, shut the hell up until one of us says otherwise,” said Melody as she tugged on Wes’ arm again.
Character death:
Between blinks the world disappeared. The taste of his coppery blood faded from his mouth. The pains wracking his body, throbbing with the beat of his heart, went silent and still. He opened his eyes, vision no longer cloudy and uncertain, and picked himself off the ground, the dirt beneath nothing but ash. It crumbled to fine powder in his fingers and floated away on the still air, like small flakes of feathers.
He stood in a sunless land, the earth a massive array of grays, black clouds streaking the sky with no hint of light or stars, a perpetual twilight in a place that went on for eternity. He tried to draw breath, but his chest wouldn’t expand, and it didn’t burn with need for oxygen.
Somehow, he expected death to be something more.
Somehow, this fit much better.
He dusted off his hands and started walking.
Eyewitness, Anonymous Psychic
“What you don’t understand is that that family was legendary for us. You called them terrorists, you called them criminals, you called them dangerous, but they helped us. They protected us. When the world went to hell and friends and family turned on us, THEY were there to help and make sure we had somewhere safe to go.
“Zander was kind of a monster, yeah. I didn’t know him personally, you won’t find many living that did, but I worked around him and his when they were in the camp. He did right by us, but when you got close you didn’t need a psychic to tell that he was messed up. The world fucked him and his over royally, and he wasn’t all there a lot of the time, but he never turned on us.
“He never laid a finger on any of us.
“So, when you go about writing your damn article or whatever, you just remember this. He killedand he did awful things, but he never visited violence upon anyone that didn’t strike out at him and his first. If you did him a good turn, he had your back. If you fucked with him, he fucked back and left you worse for interfering. That’s the way they all were, and with how the world went sideways, it wasn’t exactly surprising.
“So you keep that in mind when you go about gathering your damn stories. Not one psy or barcode that he helped is ever gonna think of him as anything less than a goddamn hero. He made sure we kept breathing, and he gave us a life to look forward to. That’s more than the fucking government ever did.”
Valkyrie, psychopath:
Blood stains Valkyrie’s teeth and hands. She rubs her fingers together, rolling the congealing mess and spreading the stain. She doesn’t take her eyes off Nola, who thinks she’s safe right now, standing by the trees, wings spread wide, sunning herself.
She squishes the blood until it runs thin. Nola is defective, too soft. Nola does not deserve to compete in the Trials to see who will make the Flock. Neither did Jon or Freckle. The Flock must be comprised of the very best.
They must be worthy to fight beside 4-16.
Survival of the fittest is the rule of nature, and it is the rule of the Apollo. A worthy Apollo knows this.
Valkyrie never forgets.
She curls her other hand around the jagged rock, slips up behind Nola, and draws it across her throat.
Warmth spills over her hands, Nola struggles in her grip until her muscles go lax. Valkyrie breathes in the metallic scent and pats Nola’s blood splattered cheek. The Trials would not have been so kind to her.
She looks to her right, sees 4-16’s shadow in the tree line. He nods just once. Valkyrie smiles and scents out the next one her list.
Three down, two to go.
She saved Gina for last. That was the real challenge of the exercise. 4-16 needed absolute loyalty, and expected absolute obedience. Valkyrie could give him both.
She knew what Gina would say. She’d say 4-16 twisted her up. He got into her head and screwed with her settings.
Oh yeah. He twisted her up good. She could still taste that kiss and feel his mind in hers. It felt like standing in a storm. It felt like touching lightning.
She loved Gina.
But Gina didn’t feel like lightning. Gina was like butter; warm, soft, defective.
Gina would never survive the Trials. It was better like this.
Escape, Wes POV:
They started their trek again. Each step sent his ribs and spine to throbbing in time with his heart. And his head…there were no words to describe the pain in his head. The only thing he could compare it to was a scooped out melon, which was kind of exactly what they did, leaving him all empty and raw and praying his stomach didn’t decide to spew, because that would really put him over the edge.
“Looks like,” he said through clenched teeth.
“What’s going on with him?” Melody asked in an undertone. They skirted around another dead body- good God, how could anyone manage to kill so many in so short a time span? And, whoa boy, there went his stomach doing somersaults again.
“Nothing’s going on with him. He’s actually normal now,” came a quiet voice behind them.
That startled them to a stop. Wes threw a glare over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, did we speak to you, asshole?” he snarled.
The boy was probably Zander’s age, maybe a bit older, though it was really hard to tell. He just had one of those faces, where if you looked at it from different angles he either looked older or younger, depending.
Wes couldn’t fathom why he was following, why Zander- that thing, he amended- hadn’t killed him already. Not that Zander actually needed more blood on his hands, whether he was in the driver’s seat or not, but this one…
Despite his head feeling like a squished grape, Wes remembered the two of them showing up at the house, Darius supporting Zander, who was half past dead on his feet. The moment came almost a day later, when hell came raining down on the house, and Darius looked at them with apologies in his eyes and a grim set to his face, and Wes didn’t need Zander’s mind reading abilities to know who called the goon squad.
“I just…this is how he is,” Darius gestured to 4-16’s retreating back. “Whatever was wrong with him before, whatever made him go soft, they fixed it and he’s back to normal now.”
“Yeah, well, when we want your opinion we’ll ask for it, okay? Good. That’s settled. Now, shut the hell up until one of us says otherwise,” said Melody as she tugged on Wes’ arm again.