Elliot's Story - 1/?emmramMarch 9 2011, 05:02:25 UTC
(Forgive me if I'm getting a few - well, a lot of - details wrong. I missed a few chapter recaps in between, and don't really feel like catching up right now, sorry.)
Elliot can never forget the night he was Marked.
There are times now when he's not sure of much else, when the days blur dizzily into each other like a sort of blood-tinged kaleidoscope, but he doesn't forget the night that changed his whole life. He can't.
He wasn't terribly special Before - he was an average student in an average school living in an average neighbourhood with average interests. He had a little sister, he remembers, and they would just as viciously fight over video games and the last slice of pie at dinner as they would commiserate later, when she would come into his room at night, whispering that she was afraid of the dark, asking for a story, sharing every little detail of what happened at school with all the sincerity and seriousness of discussing current world affairs. He remembers his parents, just as ready with a warm embrace and soothing words as they were with the sharp words they threw at each other behind closed doors as Elliot and his sister listened, scared and trembling.
Then that night, on the way home from football practice, he saw the shadow against the streetlights before he even saw the vampyre, and when he did - when his vision was consumed by a pair of bright blue eyes and the crescent-shaped Mark atop them - when time froze and his whole world was nothing but the searing pain that started from somewhere behind his eyes and exploded in his head and shot down his spine - when reality slipped its axis and the word vampyre set up a twisting chant at the back of his mind - he knew everything had changed.
-
He could barely hear the sound of his parents arguing over his own relentless coughing and his sister bawling, but he registered the resignation on his father's face and his mother's features pinched in worry as they bundled him into the back of their old SUV with blankets and his old inhaler from when he used to get asthma attacks as a kid, just in case. His sister sat with him, holding his hand, her eyes shining with a sort of heartbreaking bravery even as he continued to cough, his chest heaving with every laboured breath.
He got better as they approached the House of Night. He could sit up, his chest didn't feel like his lungs were imploding and sharp blades were no longer lodged in his throat. However, it only seemed to increase the sense of gloom within the car, and as they got closer and closer to the school, his mother dipped her face in her hands and began to cry.
He wasn't sure what to say - except, shut up, Mom, couldn't she see that it was making his sister upset? - but when his father snapped at Mom, his voice rough and hands shaking even with the white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Elliot was suddenly terrified. This was - this was - this was real. This was happening.
He'd heard a lot about vampyres - about how they were the bastions of society, about how so much high-brow culture owed itself to them, but all that was the propaganda they stuffed kids with at school, at meetings and on TV. When people talked about vampyres? They talked about these blood-drinking creatures that stole their children away from them without warning, sequestered them in total secrecy where most of them either turned into vampyres themselves, or were never seen again. It was the kind of nightmare every parent hoped never to face, the kind of scary story that kept kids awake at night.
And it was happening to him, right now.
Elliot took his sister in his arms and began to cry along with her.
Elliot's Story - 2/?emmramMarch 9 2011, 05:32:01 UTC
He thought he could stay here forever, just like that, his mother's arms around his shoulders, her warm breath on his neck, his father's hand on his head, his sister clutching his arm. But it wasn't to be: when his mother finally let go and he turned to the beautiful vampyre lady - she'd called herself Neferet - he knew forever was going to have a completely different meaning, and it didn't involve his family.
Neferet looked at his parents with a sort of measured indifference. "I assure you," she said, "you can leave him here with no worry. His destiny has called him here, and it is here he will meet his full potential."
His parents paid her no attention; his mother kissed him on the forehead with one last, "I love you" while his father ruffled his hair and his sister clutched his arm harder, pressing herself to his side.
And when they left, when Elliot watched their retreating backs even as the world blurred and shifted, all he wanted to do was curl up in a corner and cry himself to sleep. He felt Neferet place a hand on his shoulder and he flinched, but she didn't let go.
"You will learn to forget them, Elliot," she said, and when he turned to look at her, she was smiling. "They are but normal humans. You're special, Elliot, special enough that you are here with an eternity of success and glory stretched out before you." Her smile widened until it seemed to stretch from one end of his contracting world to the other, and Elliot could only shudder.
-
He quickly discovered that the vampyre school was nothing like he'd imagined.
They learnt things that Elliot couldn't imagine learning in his old school - fencing, horse-riding, sociology, drama classes where they pretentiously strutted about, delivering speeches about a higher culture and a life of endless refinement. He struggled through his classes, never quite understanding the obsession with highfalutin posturing, but going along with it anyway, because it didn't really seem like he had any other choice.
The other kids - fledglings, that's what they called them, and if Elliot wasn't already feeling like a test animal in a weird experiment, he sure was now - were mostly bewildered at first, but seemed to take to the lessons and the routine with more and more enthusiasm. They continued to learn more about the long history of vampyres, about their beliefs and goddesses and rituals, about how much human society owed them, about how much of a privilege it was to be sitting there, about to live a life of immortal glory, but all Elliot craved for was his family, and nothing they gave him seemed to compare to being able to come home to safe, nondescript, human life, where he was accepted and loved for who he was, and not what he was meant to be.
Clearly, a concept that the vampyres entirely disapproved of.
He'd tried phoning his parents the first night at school, and discovered his cellphone didn't work. He'd tried to find a telephone elsewhere in the school that would let him connect, but couldn't find any. The older students had laughed at him, told him there was no use or reason to connect to his old life; the teachers had insisted he forget his "human trappings" - after all, wasn't it more healthy in the long run, when he'd far outlive them?
Elliot had cried himself to sleep that night, shaking and utterly terrified.
The other kids seemed to adjust to this alarmingly well; they couldn't understand why he remained terrified and angry, and he couldn't understand how they could forget so easily and vowed to himself that he would never forget. He wouldn't.
He ploughed through his classes, determined and friendless, until the day that he met Rick Stanley.
Elliot's Story - 3/?emmramMarch 9 2011, 07:40:28 UTC
He wasn't sure how he'd never noticed Rick before; after all, the tall, dark-haired boy with a nose-ring and a giant tattoo of what looked like a dragon-horse hybrid plastered over his forearm was kind of tough to ignore. But Elliot had pretty much given up on connecting with his classmates, and they him, so when Rick unceremoniously dumped his books on the desk where he was sitting, Elliot was more than a little surprised.
"Hey," Rick said, grinning, and stuck out one beefy hand. "Name's Rick. Don't think we've met before."
Elliot cautiously returned the handshake. "Elliot," he said.
"Oh, oh yeah, I know your name, don't worry," Rick said with a rueful smile. "You're, uh, kind of well known around here."
Elliot glared mutinously and looked away. "Well, yeah, if you're here to just rub it in, you can get lost."
Rick put up his hands. "Hey, I didn't say I agreed with them, did I?" Elliot looked at him again through the corner of his eye, and Rick's face looked so open, so honest, that he couldn't help but believe. A little. "This is just - it's a crazy place, y'know? Kind of hard to hold on to a sense of perspective when everybody around you is behaving like they've got into some herd-mind thing. I have to admit, it could be refreshing to know someone who doesn't think this whole shindig is the greatest thing ever, yeah?"
Elliot allowed himself a smile. "Yeah. It could be."
-
He quickly discovered that Rick was nothing like the others; he couldn't care less if he didn't excel in his classes, and unlike Elliot, made sure that people knew that he didn't care. He would lounge in the back bench of the classroom and take gleeful delight in telling the increasingly-annoyed professors that he had no idea about what they were asking him, and that he didn't give a shit that he did.
More than anything, Rick was utterly unawed by the adult vampyres or the things that they claimed they did, leave alone the Dark Daughters and the other student cliques.
Elliot asked him about it one night, as they hovered around the dinner buffet table. "You do realise they're brainwashing us, don't you?" Rick said, raising his eyebrows. "All this stuff about Nyx, and these rituals, and the constant emphasis on how great vampyres are - it's all just propaganda, man. They're trying to convince themselves of being something they're not - like they're god's greatest gift to the world, except they're just, like, two steps above being blood-drinking child-snatching monsters."
"But --" Elliot frowned. "You - we... are going to end up like - like them, one day, aren't we?"
Rick stopped shovelling potato salad onto his plate, his smile abruptly fading. "I know," he said. "I guess - we just, we'll have to make the most of what we have right now, yeah?"
-
They were in Sociology class, playing rummy under the table when it happened.
Elliot didn't ever remember being happier since reaching the House of Night; he still wanted his family and his old life back, and the craving was like a physical ache in his chest, but being with Rick was so much fun, he was beginning to think he might be finally able to adjust to this life. He and Rick were becoming notorious for their carefree attitude to the dictates of vampyre life - there were quite a few mutters of how could Nyx allow this - and sometimes, when fooling around with Rick, Elliot could allow himself to think: maybe I can do this. Maybe I can be different. Maybe -- maybe I can get something good out of this.
Then, it happened.
It started off innocently enough, with Rick sniffing and coughing into his sleeve, Elliot telling him off for getting snot and germs all over the cards. Then the coughing began to get more intense; as Elliot watched, horrified, Rick dropped the cards, hugging himself, leaning forward as he heaved for a breath. The teacher was by them instantly, pushing Elliot away and bringing Rick to his feet even as he gave an almighty shudder and began coughing up blood.
The teacher waved off a very curious class and Elliot's increasingly desperate entreaties as a stretcher was brought in, and Rick was wheeled away.
Later that night, Elliot learnt that Rick had died not long after.
He'd never felt quite as alone as he did that moment.
Elliot's Story - 4/?emmramMarch 9 2011, 10:25:47 UTC
You could die.
There was nothing else on Elliot's mind as he stumbled to class the next morning. He could die, anybody could die, just drop to the floor coughing their insides out like Rick did the previous day, and there was no telling who it would be, when it would be --
It could be you, next, some of the older students had told him with a sort of malicious glee. Y'see, we think Nyx is just taking out the sort of people who will be useless as vampyres. People who're nothin' special. First it was that loud-mouthed friend of yours, so, yeah, I'd be careful if I were you.
When he finally reached class, Neferet was already there. She looked at him with a weird expression on her face, caught somewhere between pity and disgust. He couldn't blame her; he must've a looked a mess, with his uncombed hair and snotty nose and red eyes and oh god why am i even worrying about this now oh god oh god--
She gestured for him to get inside quickly, and then delivered a speech to the class about how the goddess had taken one of them and how Rick's memory'd stay in their hearts forever. She then requested a moment of silence while they presumably prayed to the goddess to ensure that Rick had a safe passage to the afterlife, while Elliot stood and trembled. They don't really give a damn, he could hear Rick saying, almost as if he was standing right next to him. This sort of thing happens all the time. We're like cockroaches, that way.
Life went on, and Elliot's fear grew with everyday that passed.
He didn't know what eventually happened to Rick's body; they told him it'd been given to his parents for cremation, and Elliot had toyed briefly with the idea of requesting to meet them - any human contact, any at all - but had decided against it, figuring that there was nothing he could say to them. Could he be sorry that he was the only friend that their son had ever had, and still all he did was sit back and watch him die?
Everybody else was remarkably unfettered by the incident. Par for the course. Run of the mill. Nyx just picking the wheat from the chaff. And Elliot was sure exactly which category he'd end up in.
(i don't want to die oh god i don't want to die i don't)
A week after Rick's death, he met Aphrodite.
-
"What do you expect me to do?"
She stood before him, beautiful and resplendent and High-Priestess-to-be, and all that consumed Elliot's thoughts was desperation and anger. "I need - I need to know if, if there's way. For, uh. Nyx to forgive me."
Aphrodite tossed her hair and smiled at him. "It isn't so easy to ask favours from the goddess, you know. Once Nyx has something in mind..."
"But we can at least try!"
She raised a delicate eyebrow. "We?" She laughed. "Oh, that's cute. You expect me to ask the goddess to change her mind, for you?"
Elliot could swear he wasn't far away from getting on his knees and begging at that moment. He just - he needed to - he needed to get out of here, see his family and friends again, before he died alone and unmourned, surrounded by strangers who didn't really give a damn. "Please," he said. "Please."
Aphrodite stared at him for a long while with narrowed eyes before a slow smile curved her lips. "Well," she said. "I suppose there's one thing we could try."
Elliot's Story - 5/?emmramMarch 9 2011, 13:32:30 UTC
They made him sit at the centre of the elaborate ritual, pulling a loose black cloak around his shoulders. There were more symbols on the cloak, he noted, woven in silver threads at the hem and around the collar, twisting and dancing in the flickering candle-light. Aphrodite came to him, pushed a goblet under his nose. "Drink," she said.
Clear, sweet-smelling fluid swished inside the cup. He blinked up at her. "Why? What is this?"
She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, now you're starting to ask questions?" When he continued to stare at her, she let out an exasperated sigh. "This will make what we're going to do easier - on you, on me, on everybody. Now, go on. Drink." She pushed the goblet forward again.
He hesitated for a second more, a billion what ifs fluttering around inside his head, before deciding that he had nothing left to lose, so he might as well go for it. He took the goblet and drained its contents in one gulp. It tasted just as sweet as it smelled, and there was already a strange warmth spreading through his chest, a pleasant buzzing in his head, as he handed the goblet back.
"Wonderful," she said, smiling widely. "Enyo!" she called. "If you'd do the honours."
Already Elliot was beginning to feel numb and light-headed; when another girl approached him, the light glinting off the blade of the long knife in her hand, he could do nothing more than blink blearily at her. The ever-present smoke in the room was making things hard as well, muddling his thoughts and messing with his vision even more.
The new girl - Enyo, Enyo, he's got to remember these things - grinned at him and grabbed his arm, stretching it out. She positioned the knife over his wrist and brought it down and across in a single, quick movement. Elliot flinched involuntarily, waiting for the pain, but he felt nothing more than a swift pressure and a burning sensation before the blood started to well and dribble. Enyo gave a delighted little laugh, plucked another goblet out of nowhere, and stuck it under his bleeding wrist. "This is going to be so good, Elliot. Just you wait."
He didn't hear anything else she said as the words began to blend into each other, and the world dissolved into a moving, organic mass of colours and confused patterns. The only time he was ever brought into a brief bout of coherency was when they cut his other wrist, but he remained suspended in that weird limbo until somebody was pushing his head back, forcing his jaw open, trying to get him to drink something.
"-- c'mon, just swallow already --"
"-- maybe we took too much for a first time --"
"-- nsense. He'll be fi--"
He sputtered and gasped, forcing his eyes open. Aphrodite it was, trying to get him to drink the contents of yet another cup. She smiled tightly at him. "You did great, Elliot," she said, tipping the cup against his lips. "But you need to drink this."
He wasn't really in the mood - or the condition - to be resisting, so he opened his mouth and drank. This time, the drink was bitter, burning his throat as it went down. He coughed and hacked, but Aphrodite was able to coax more of the liquid down until he'd finished it all.
He was able to focus better, most of the feeling of having cotton balls stuffed in his head gone, but this also meant he was no longer immune to pain. He curled around his heavily-bandaged wrists, hissing and squirming as the pain hit him with all the gentleness of a two-ton sledgehammer to the face.
"Elliot." Suddenly Aphrodite was crouched beside his face, her fingers running gently down his jawline, brushing away the tears he didn't remember shedding. "Hey, listen. We made good progress today, okay? I think the goddess is accepting your penance. But it's not over. She's asking for more."
Elliot trembled and moaned. "How -- how much more?" he forced out through clenched teeth.
"We don't know yet," she said. "I'll help you find out, but Elliot? You can't tell anybody we're doing this. It'll ruin everything."
Elliot closed his eyes, felt more tears seep out. "Okay," he whispered.
Re: Elliot's Story - 5/?charlie2cuteMarch 30 2014, 14:55:46 UTC
This was a great, very dystopian take on the House of Night, series, I really liked it. It doesn't really fit with the canon perfectly, but whatever, still - amazing. It reminded me of Uglies. I think you should read that trilogy, I think you'd like it.
Elliot can never forget the night he was Marked.
There are times now when he's not sure of much else, when the days blur dizzily into each other like a sort of blood-tinged kaleidoscope, but he doesn't forget the night that changed his whole life. He can't.
He wasn't terribly special Before - he was an average student in an average school living in an average neighbourhood with average interests. He had a little sister, he remembers, and they would just as viciously fight over video games and the last slice of pie at dinner as they would commiserate later, when she would come into his room at night, whispering that she was afraid of the dark, asking for a story, sharing every little detail of what happened at school with all the sincerity and seriousness of discussing current world affairs. He remembers his parents, just as ready with a warm embrace and soothing words as they were with the sharp words they threw at each other behind closed doors as Elliot and his sister listened, scared and trembling.
Then that night, on the way home from football practice, he saw the shadow against the streetlights before he even saw the vampyre, and when he did - when his vision was consumed by a pair of bright blue eyes and the crescent-shaped Mark atop them - when time froze and his whole world was nothing but the searing pain that started from somewhere behind his eyes and exploded in his head and shot down his spine - when reality slipped its axis and the word vampyre set up a twisting chant at the back of his mind - he knew everything had changed.
-
He could barely hear the sound of his parents arguing over his own relentless coughing and his sister bawling, but he registered the resignation on his father's face and his mother's features pinched in worry as they bundled him into the back of their old SUV with blankets and his old inhaler from when he used to get asthma attacks as a kid, just in case. His sister sat with him, holding his hand, her eyes shining with a sort of heartbreaking bravery even as he continued to cough, his chest heaving with every laboured breath.
He got better as they approached the House of Night. He could sit up, his chest didn't feel like his lungs were imploding and sharp blades were no longer lodged in his throat. However, it only seemed to increase the sense of gloom within the car, and as they got closer and closer to the school, his mother dipped her face in her hands and began to cry.
He wasn't sure what to say - except, shut up, Mom, couldn't she see that it was making his sister upset? - but when his father snapped at Mom, his voice rough and hands shaking even with the white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Elliot was suddenly terrified. This was - this was - this was real. This was happening.
He'd heard a lot about vampyres - about how they were the bastions of society, about how so much high-brow culture owed itself to them, but all that was the propaganda they stuffed kids with at school, at meetings and on TV. When people talked about vampyres? They talked about these blood-drinking creatures that stole their children away from them without warning, sequestered them in total secrecy where most of them either turned into vampyres themselves, or were never seen again. It was the kind of nightmare every parent hoped never to face, the kind of scary story that kept kids awake at night.
And it was happening to him, right now.
Elliot took his sister in his arms and began to cry along with her.
-
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Neferet looked at his parents with a sort of measured indifference. "I assure you," she said, "you can leave him here with no worry. His destiny has called him here, and it is here he will meet his full potential."
His parents paid her no attention; his mother kissed him on the forehead with one last, "I love you" while his father ruffled his hair and his sister clutched his arm harder, pressing herself to his side.
And when they left, when Elliot watched their retreating backs even as the world blurred and shifted, all he wanted to do was curl up in a corner and cry himself to sleep. He felt Neferet place a hand on his shoulder and he flinched, but she didn't let go.
"You will learn to forget them, Elliot," she said, and when he turned to look at her, she was smiling. "They are but normal humans. You're special, Elliot, special enough that you are here with an eternity of success and glory stretched out before you." Her smile widened until it seemed to stretch from one end of his contracting world to the other, and Elliot could only shudder.
-
He quickly discovered that the vampyre school was nothing like he'd imagined.
They learnt things that Elliot couldn't imagine learning in his old school - fencing, horse-riding, sociology, drama classes where they pretentiously strutted about, delivering speeches about a higher culture and a life of endless refinement. He struggled through his classes, never quite understanding the obsession with highfalutin posturing, but going along with it anyway, because it didn't really seem like he had any other choice.
The other kids - fledglings, that's what they called them, and if Elliot wasn't already feeling like a test animal in a weird experiment, he sure was now - were mostly bewildered at first, but seemed to take to the lessons and the routine with more and more enthusiasm. They continued to learn more about the long history of vampyres, about their beliefs and goddesses and rituals, about how much human society owed them, about how much of a privilege it was to be sitting there, about to live a life of immortal glory, but all Elliot craved for was his family, and nothing they gave him seemed to compare to being able to come home to safe, nondescript, human life, where he was accepted and loved for who he was, and not what he was meant to be.
Clearly, a concept that the vampyres entirely disapproved of.
He'd tried phoning his parents the first night at school, and discovered his cellphone didn't work. He'd tried to find a telephone elsewhere in the school that would let him connect, but couldn't find any. The older students had laughed at him, told him there was no use or reason to connect to his old life; the teachers had insisted he forget his "human trappings" - after all, wasn't it more healthy in the long run, when he'd far outlive them?
Elliot had cried himself to sleep that night, shaking and utterly terrified.
The other kids seemed to adjust to this alarmingly well; they couldn't understand why he remained terrified and angry, and he couldn't understand how they could forget so easily and vowed to himself that he would never forget. He wouldn't.
He ploughed through his classes, determined and friendless, until the day that he met Rick Stanley.
-
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"Hey," Rick said, grinning, and stuck out one beefy hand. "Name's Rick. Don't think we've met before."
Elliot cautiously returned the handshake. "Elliot," he said.
"Oh, oh yeah, I know your name, don't worry," Rick said with a rueful smile. "You're, uh, kind of well known around here."
Elliot glared mutinously and looked away. "Well, yeah, if you're here to just rub it in, you can get lost."
Rick put up his hands. "Hey, I didn't say I agreed with them, did I?" Elliot looked at him again through the corner of his eye, and Rick's face looked so open, so honest, that he couldn't help but believe. A little. "This is just - it's a crazy place, y'know? Kind of hard to hold on to a sense of perspective when everybody around you is behaving like they've got into some herd-mind thing. I have to admit, it could be refreshing to know someone who doesn't think this whole shindig is the greatest thing ever, yeah?"
Elliot allowed himself a smile. "Yeah. It could be."
-
He quickly discovered that Rick was nothing like the others; he couldn't care less if he didn't excel in his classes, and unlike Elliot, made sure that people knew that he didn't care. He would lounge in the back bench of the classroom and take gleeful delight in telling the increasingly-annoyed professors that he had no idea about what they were asking him, and that he didn't give a shit that he did.
More than anything, Rick was utterly unawed by the adult vampyres or the things that they claimed they did, leave alone the Dark Daughters and the other student cliques.
Elliot asked him about it one night, as they hovered around the dinner buffet table. "You do realise they're brainwashing us, don't you?" Rick said, raising his eyebrows. "All this stuff about Nyx, and these rituals, and the constant emphasis on how great vampyres are - it's all just propaganda, man. They're trying to convince themselves of being something they're not - like they're god's greatest gift to the world, except they're just, like, two steps above being blood-drinking child-snatching monsters."
"But --" Elliot frowned. "You - we... are going to end up like - like them, one day, aren't we?"
Rick stopped shovelling potato salad onto his plate, his smile abruptly fading. "I know," he said. "I guess - we just, we'll have to make the most of what we have right now, yeah?"
-
They were in Sociology class, playing rummy under the table when it happened.
Elliot didn't ever remember being happier since reaching the House of Night; he still wanted his family and his old life back, and the craving was like a physical ache in his chest, but being with Rick was so much fun, he was beginning to think he might be finally able to adjust to this life. He and Rick were becoming notorious for their carefree attitude to the dictates of vampyre life - there were quite a few mutters of how could Nyx allow this - and sometimes, when fooling around with Rick, Elliot could allow himself to think: maybe I can do this. Maybe I can be different. Maybe -- maybe I can get something good out of this.
Then, it happened.
It started off innocently enough, with Rick sniffing and coughing into his sleeve, Elliot telling him off for getting snot and germs all over the cards. Then the coughing began to get more intense; as Elliot watched, horrified, Rick dropped the cards, hugging himself, leaning forward as he heaved for a breath. The teacher was by them instantly, pushing Elliot away and bringing Rick to his feet even as he gave an almighty shudder and began coughing up blood.
The teacher waved off a very curious class and Elliot's increasingly desperate entreaties as a stretcher was brought in, and Rick was wheeled away.
Later that night, Elliot learnt that Rick had died not long after.
He'd never felt quite as alone as he did that moment.
-
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There was nothing else on Elliot's mind as he stumbled to class the next morning. He could die, anybody could die, just drop to the floor coughing their insides out like Rick did the previous day, and there was no telling who it would be, when it would be --
It could be you, next, some of the older students had told him with a sort of malicious glee. Y'see, we think Nyx is just taking out the sort of people who will be useless as vampyres. People who're nothin' special. First it was that loud-mouthed friend of yours, so, yeah, I'd be careful if I were you.
When he finally reached class, Neferet was already there. She looked at him with a weird expression on her face, caught somewhere between pity and disgust. He couldn't blame her; he must've a looked a mess, with his uncombed hair and snotty nose and red eyes and oh god why am i even worrying about this now oh god oh god--
She gestured for him to get inside quickly, and then delivered a speech to the class about how the goddess had taken one of them and how Rick's memory'd stay in their hearts forever. She then requested a moment of silence while they presumably prayed to the goddess to ensure that Rick had a safe passage to the afterlife, while Elliot stood and trembled. They don't really give a damn, he could hear Rick saying, almost as if he was standing right next to him. This sort of thing happens all the time. We're like cockroaches, that way.
Life went on, and Elliot's fear grew with everyday that passed.
He didn't know what eventually happened to Rick's body; they told him it'd been given to his parents for cremation, and Elliot had toyed briefly with the idea of requesting to meet them - any human contact, any at all - but had decided against it, figuring that there was nothing he could say to them. Could he be sorry that he was the only friend that their son had ever had, and still all he did was sit back and watch him die?
Everybody else was remarkably unfettered by the incident. Par for the course. Run of the mill. Nyx just picking the wheat from the chaff. And Elliot was sure exactly which category he'd end up in.
(i don't want to die oh god i don't want to die i don't)
A week after Rick's death, he met Aphrodite.
-
"What do you expect me to do?"
She stood before him, beautiful and resplendent and High-Priestess-to-be, and all that consumed Elliot's thoughts was desperation and anger. "I need - I need to know if, if there's way. For, uh. Nyx to forgive me."
Aphrodite tossed her hair and smiled at him. "It isn't so easy to ask favours from the goddess, you know. Once Nyx has something in mind..."
"But we can at least try!"
She raised a delicate eyebrow. "We?" She laughed. "Oh, that's cute. You expect me to ask the goddess to change her mind, for you?"
Elliot could swear he wasn't far away from getting on his knees and begging at that moment. He just - he needed to - he needed to get out of here, see his family and friends again, before he died alone and unmourned, surrounded by strangers who didn't really give a damn. "Please," he said. "Please."
Aphrodite stared at him for a long while with narrowed eyes before a slow smile curved her lips. "Well," she said. "I suppose there's one thing we could try."
-
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There's more to come, because this story's kind of taken a life of its own. I'm writing furiously in between study sessions.
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The next part is up!
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Clear, sweet-smelling fluid swished inside the cup. He blinked up at her. "Why? What is this?"
She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, now you're starting to ask questions?" When he continued to stare at her, she let out an exasperated sigh. "This will make what we're going to do easier - on you, on me, on everybody. Now, go on. Drink." She pushed the goblet forward again.
He hesitated for a second more, a billion what ifs fluttering around inside his head, before deciding that he had nothing left to lose, so he might as well go for it. He took the goblet and drained its contents in one gulp. It tasted just as sweet as it smelled, and there was already a strange warmth spreading through his chest, a pleasant buzzing in his head, as he handed the goblet back.
"Wonderful," she said, smiling widely. "Enyo!" she called. "If you'd do the honours."
Already Elliot was beginning to feel numb and light-headed; when another girl approached him, the light glinting off the blade of the long knife in her hand, he could do nothing more than blink blearily at her. The ever-present smoke in the room was making things hard as well, muddling his thoughts and messing with his vision even more.
The new girl - Enyo, Enyo, he's got to remember these things - grinned at him and grabbed his arm, stretching it out. She positioned the knife over his wrist and brought it down and across in a single, quick movement. Elliot flinched involuntarily, waiting for the pain, but he felt nothing more than a swift pressure and a burning sensation before the blood started to well and dribble. Enyo gave a delighted little laugh, plucked another goblet out of nowhere, and stuck it under his bleeding wrist. "This is going to be so good, Elliot. Just you wait."
He didn't hear anything else she said as the words began to blend into each other, and the world dissolved into a moving, organic mass of colours and confused patterns. The only time he was ever brought into a brief bout of coherency was when they cut his other wrist, but he remained suspended in that weird limbo until somebody was pushing his head back, forcing his jaw open, trying to get him to drink something.
"-- c'mon, just swallow already --"
"-- maybe we took too much for a first time --"
"-- nsense. He'll be fi--"
He sputtered and gasped, forcing his eyes open. Aphrodite it was, trying to get him to drink the contents of yet another cup. She smiled tightly at him. "You did great, Elliot," she said, tipping the cup against his lips. "But you need to drink this."
He wasn't really in the mood - or the condition - to be resisting, so he opened his mouth and drank. This time, the drink was bitter, burning his throat as it went down. He coughed and hacked, but Aphrodite was able to coax more of the liquid down until he'd finished it all.
He was able to focus better, most of the feeling of having cotton balls stuffed in his head gone, but this also meant he was no longer immune to pain. He curled around his heavily-bandaged wrists, hissing and squirming as the pain hit him with all the gentleness of a two-ton sledgehammer to the face.
"Elliot." Suddenly Aphrodite was crouched beside his face, her fingers running gently down his jawline, brushing away the tears he didn't remember shedding. "Hey, listen. We made good progress today, okay? I think the goddess is accepting your penance. But it's not over. She's asking for more."
Elliot trembled and moaned. "How -- how much more?" he forced out through clenched teeth.
"We don't know yet," she said. "I'll help you find out, but Elliot? You can't tell anybody we're doing this. It'll ruin everything."
Elliot closed his eyes, felt more tears seep out. "Okay," he whispered.
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