Prompt Post - Part Ten
I am REALLY, REALLY SORRY about taking so long, guys, and about not being around much recently. I've been busier than I have in a while, and it just kept slipping my mind between uni applications and volunteering and all sorts- for some reason I thought we were much further off a new post.
If there is anything I haven't responded to, as of now, I'm ( Read more... )
/ Apollo - 3
The first time his father forced him onto the bed, he was eleven. He had been seven when it was Jade’s turn.
There is a bed in this room
It was also the first time he went out on an actual mission. Sportsmaster took orders from someone, although Apollo didn’t have the knowledge of who. He’d been so excited. His mother was quietly happy for him, if a little tense, and Apollo hadn’t understood it at the time. He did now. He wishes, always, that he had never gone that day, had never begged to go.
it is his bed
But he did. They crept through Star City, Apollo’s bow notched with an arrow, and his father practically glistening with the amount of weaponry he carried. Apollo killed someone that day.
and this is his first time
He remembers it so clearly-it is a stamp on his mind, embedded within his personality. His first kill shapes almost everything about his character today. Apollo knows that.
The men they were attacking had money that his father wanted, and he went blindly forward, into the fray. Sportsmaster engaged some of the guards in hand-to-hand combat while Apollo waited nervously on the side.
somehow, it is always his first time
His father motioned for him to join in. Apollo took a breath
creaking
and raised his bow
rocking
and pulled his arm back
groaning
and released.
smothering
The man died
caressing
in slow motion,
hurting
the squelching of the arrow
burning
was so loud in his ears
crying
as it went
groaning
through the head.
Are daddies supposed to do this?
His father was so proud. Apollo wasn’t, not really, but did not hesitate to murder again.
Mommy?
Apollo became the puppeteer. He cut their strings off, so all they could do was lay on the ground, lifeless.
Please help, mommy!
He was a child then, and did not understand that they
Mommy!
would never
It hurts!
get up
Please stop…
again.
It hurts.
Apollo knows that now. He also knows what happens, night after night, to him, to Jade, sometimes to his mother, [to Rae], and he hates it. But he cannot stop it, he cannot leave. He does not have the strength or the hope or the intelligence.
This is all I have left.
Where is my faith, again?
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Wait, no, let me try the word thing again.
Apoloooonoooodunhurtmybabies
Closer.
The absolutely awful creepiness of this part was amazing, and I think that officially makes me a horrible person. Where people were talking about the italics in the story? I was silly for not mentioning them before, because they've always added a ton to your narrative.
Except for this part, where they just made something disturbing that we've known about and has always been not-quite in the background and added extra layers of horror and squick super effective and I feel like making Pokemon references makes me even worse of a person.
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And yes. Disturbing was my... intent, here. Apollo and Sportsmaster's relationship is difficult and scary and all I can hope is that I correctly portrayed Apollo's state of mind and why he's so messed up for later on. Admittedly, though, I have never watched or read Pokemon. But thank you very much for the comment. :D
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