swallow
a/n: this is a few weeks old (2012 stuff), just never got around to posting it. i was going to edit it but so much for that orz. not my official first piece of the year yet!
swallow
2,035w; pg-13 (myungsoo/suzy + extra woohyun)
and we will never be afraid again.
The tree stands erect in the center of nowhere. A holy place, she assumes (it’s what she’s heard, though she doesn’t quite understand what holy means). Tall, crooked arms reach to the dreary sky, a tired, fading yellow. Clumsy roots steady themselves on rotting thighs and femurs, base staining the orange dust a fading red. She looks up up up, following the tree’s climb with her eyes, pungent smell of rot and decay flooding her mouth. Death dances on the tip of her tongue.
She spits, leaving a trail of moisture resting above the soot. It does not seep beneath the surface (nothing wet ever does). Stares at the brown spot, waits for the sun to burn that away too.
Plumes of dust cloud her vision as she takes her seat next to the center of nowhere. Lips curl around a dried bay leaf. The horizon is fuzzy, too bright and unclear. She can see no one, nothing.
Waits for no one, nothing, the broken to come to get fixed.
It was not unexpected.
They are brittle, brittle bones, brittle souls, brittle people (if they can have the luxury of that title), brittle skeletons that barely prowl across death, personified through an abandoned wheat field. Nothing but whimperers, Woohyun spat. Saliva wasted, they realize now. Wasted, bones snapped, howling in pain after being unable to howl for weeks. He can feel the sear through their escalation, the desperate cry for help emanated through the lost eyes of a child.
It’s going to be ok, he thinks he says. Or doesn’t say. Vision fuzzy, too bright and unclear. It’s going to be ok, he thinks he repeats.
Gonna get you somewhere. No strength to lift. But you have to, clenched canines. He claws and grabs and holds, dragging Woohyun through the dust slowly, leaving clouds in their wake.
Concave cheeks and fear. Fear (and lots of it). It’s going to be ok. The whisper finally escapes his cracked lips.
And the sun beats down, relentless.
Fixated on the sky. The sun. Their gazes meet, dark brown against reflective, and it burns her pupils a liquid gold. Hurts too, is the absentminded thought, but she doesn’t mind. Ridiculous, her last patient told her. Going to go blind, or something like that.
Maybe she is ridiculous. Traces the veins in a root, calcium chalky on her fingers (it may be dust). How would she know, anyway?
Slowly sits up, spine curling towards the sky like the tree. How would she know, anyway? A dangling finger lifts a snared strand of her hair. She shrugs it away.
Paws heavy. Feet heavy. Everything heavy and he wants to howl in pain, howl to Woohyun, howl for them and himself, especially himself. Corpse dragging a corpse, rust desert leaving their trek in the sand as a permanent reminder of something. Something suffered, he guesses. Pulls the other boy on.
Woohyun’s howls stopped a while ago, in the midst of an endless horizon that blurred every time he blinked. His arm feels like dead weight now, useless and flopping. Might have popped something, but he doesn’t care. They (he) can’t stop, they (he) can’t afford it. Licks his cracked lips once, iron on his tongue. Licks them again, a thin coating of saliva trapping stray dust. Swallows, throat crackling like the desert. Swallows whatever spit is left, swallows the cough that threatens to burst free, swallows the howl burning in his throat.
It’s going to be ok. Blinks once, twice. Bleary, unfocused, focused (or is it?), unfocused again. A silhouette forks through the orange horizon. Blinks again (still unfocused). Squints.
It is a tree.
He hobbles from the sunny side of nowhere, slow steps kicking soot into the air. Or rather, they, they emerge from the clouds that they create, laboriously approaching her hut. She leans on the doorway, tarp rolled up above her head, eyes blank.
“Can you help him?” the hobbler asks, cracked lips bleeding. Canines hide on the sides of a grimace. She stares wordlessly at the boy that he carried (and can carry no more), neck exposed to the yellow of the sky, leg swollen at the knee and bending unnaturally. He reeks, reeks like the tree, and she has to crinkle her nose to keep watching.
Leans more heavily on the doorway. Something jabs into the side of her cheek. The hobbling boy watches her, cracked lips and swallowing.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The girl rests Woohyun on a weave of dried stems. Dead things, he notices, and her house is filled with them. He stands at the doorway (there is no space for him inside), slivers of yellow marring the lulling dark.
Some thin string. A tiny, pointy object. A blade. He watches them as she walks over, small cup in hand. She pries his fingers apart (hands warm, cooler than rust sand and sun) when he doesn’t tear his gaze away from the objects, placing the cup against his palm. Liquid sloshes against the rim.
“Drink this,” she instructs. Her fingers leave his skin, cold imprints fading on his wrist. “You need to swallow something other than just spit.”
It smells putrid. Sallow, he frowns, staring at his reflection in the cup. Just like you. Hollow cheeks stare back at him. He closes his eyes and drinks it, opens them and sees that she is back at Woohyun’s side. The liquid slides down his throat effortlessly, tickling his stomach. Puts the cup down, down on something dead (he assumes).
The blade traces the swollen knee. Something is wrapped up beside her feet, something the same length as his forearm. Inhales.
Freezes. Same length as his forearm, same stench of the tree. Dead things, and her house is filled with them. Dead things, smell of death, dead tree, dead steams, dead dead dead horrid girl. And death and rot and decay emanating from her hut. Blade, blade catches a sliver of yellow, reflective light blinding him. String. String (and lots of it).
Feet carry, feet stumble, feet clumsy. Get me out. Hobbles, hobbles past the tree, past the hut. Gut twists. His gut. Opens his mouth, waits for the acid.
Retch. He coughs instead (one he could not swallow). Coughs, plumes of orange dust leaving his mouth, clouding up the air. Dust, retching dust, passing through cracked lips, released back into the lifeless atmosphere where it came from.
She lies beneath the tree. Her tree. Branches reek of dying flesh. They cover the sun, sky a pale yellow behind it. Sallow. Mouths the word. What sallow figures they all are. Exhales (her ribs cannot take it) and closes her eyes. Hurts too, is the afterthought, but she needs to survive.
The tree laces a hand through hers. Life, and she can feel it radiating from her fingertips. Life through death, life because she, frail, dead-eyed Suzy, sustains it with her little clinging fist.
(He did not hold on tight enough to her fingers and slipped through. Cried, cried dusty tears for his dead heart that the sun burned away too.
She buried him at the base of the tree, on the sunny side of nowhere from which he came. They came. Inhales sharply. What was his name? Soot kicks into her throat. How would I know, anyway? It tastes bitter.
No eulogy, then. When was the last time she had one? Squeezes her fingers around his bony hand once, then once more. For luck. Covers him with rust-colored dust.
Looks to the horizon. They came. Sits over the freshly covered spot. The dust exhales.
The tree is missing a branch.)
He runs on limbs that are his but not his, tight and stiff from lack of use. All fours, canines gracing cracked lips. The sun runs with him, runs but not fast enough. He is faster. Lifts his muzzle into the air. He is faster.
Lust, lust for more, lust for blood to soak his cracked lips, lust to tear, to use, to kill. Lust, lust, lust and he howls, throaty and deep, for the both of them.
He can no longer swallow it.
(he tried, he really did, but the pulsing wouldn’t die and the dust wouldn’t stop trying to kill it. he tried but it is so hard to believe in anything, let alone something, like the words he uttered through lustless lips, “it’s going to be ok.”)
The branch comes back. Replaced, she reckons, the colors different. Pale and bright against the tired yellow sky. Knotted fingers reach for the sky. Clawing at the sun, begging it to come down and succumb to death, just as the boy did.
You did this, the foreign branch accuses. Holds the sun in its hands. Suffocates it through its shadowy grip. You did all of this.
His hands reek, reek of the tree and its stale decay, reek of leftover lust and its brown stains. Drinks some sallow liquid and closes his eyes, trying to succumb to rest. Discomfort echoes through his limbs, limbs that just ran, mouth that just howled, with each breath.
She stands against the doorway, dead eyes on him. He can feel them, dark and blank, staring through him. There is space for both of them inside, but she leaves the empty void gaping open. Yellow slivers and haunting silence mar the lulling dark.
There is space for both of them inside. Stands abruptly. Howls, Woohyun’s. His. Through the cliffs, the spots where they coursed through the valley. Running down the cliffs, stupid, stupid decision, slower would have been better. Slower. Crack came too early. Bad decision, no no no, it’s going to be ok.
Dead weight. Focuses his eyes on the doorway, on her, moving every so often. Death, personified through her tired eyes. Pushes past, drowns himself in pale yellow and rust. Where they came from. Collapses to the ground. Life is fuzzy, too bright and unclear.
They came. Everything here is sallow. Heaving of lungs, tears. Too many, sliding down his concave cheeks and down to the dust, just to sit on the surface. Too many that he cannot swallow, water he will never get back. Too many but not enough, never enough, to cleanse the echoing discomfort, the lust, the howls, the brown stains.
I’m sorry. Uneven breaths break the words. I’m sorry.
(and bit by bit, the howls fade. swallows.
nothing burns in the back of his throat.)
She watches him pick himself up, dust coating the air around him in plumes. Leans on the doorway, tarp rolled up above her head, eyes blank. He stands, a dark silhouette, back towards the sun. Stands just like that, waiting, waiting for something, for a few moments.
Nothing comes his way. Looks up to the sky, sallow skin against pale yellow. His tongue traces over his cracked lips once, then again. Throat still. And then he moves, one foot in front of the other, each step sending up a new cloud of dust. Makes the horizon fuzzy, too bright and unclear. Eyes unfocused.
The dust swallows him with its wide mouth. And then she can see no one.
Nothing.
(stares into the sky. the sun. their gazes meet, dark brown against reflective, burning her pupils a liquid gold. hurts too, is the absentminded thought that she disregards. going to go blind, something like that.
the world rushes, tired yellow sky, blazing sun, chalky dust. clouds of rust surround her, them. past the field of dead wheat, shallow rustling against the ground. feet and paws slapping the sand of the desert, rhythmic pace echoing across the empty expanse. running. to where, she’s not entirely sure. just running, running with the sun, but they are faster.
just her, frail, dead-eyed suzy, and the wolf boy, two sallow-skinned children of the tree, fuzzy and unclear through the glare of the sun. pushing dust down their cracked lips and parched throats, each exhale releasing it back into the lifeless atmosphere where it came from.
and on the cliffs, people will see no one. nothing (they are the blind ones). but they will feel it, life, radiating through their fingertips to the crusted earth, the pale sky, and eventually, the dying sun.)
swallow
2,035w; pg-13 (myungsoo/suzy + extra woohyun)
and we will never be afraid again.
The tree stands erect in the center of nowhere. A holy place, she assumes (it’s what she’s heard, though she doesn’t quite understand what holy means). Tall, crooked arms reach to the dreary sky, a tired, fading yellow. Clumsy roots steady themselves on rotting thighs and femurs, base staining the orange dust a fading red. She looks up up up, following the tree’s climb with her eyes, pungent smell of rot and decay flooding her mouth. Death dances on the tip of her tongue.
She spits, leaving a trail of moisture resting above the soot. It does not seep beneath the surface (nothing wet ever does). Stares at the brown spot, waits for the sun to burn that away too.
Plumes of dust cloud her vision as she takes her seat next to the center of nowhere. Lips curl around a dried bay leaf. The horizon is fuzzy, too bright and unclear. She can see no one, nothing.
Waits for no one, nothing, the broken to come to get fixed.
It was not unexpected.
They are brittle, brittle bones, brittle souls, brittle people (if they can have the luxury of that title), brittle skeletons that barely prowl across death, personified through an abandoned wheat field. Nothing but whimperers, Woohyun spat. Saliva wasted, they realize now. Wasted, bones snapped, howling in pain after being unable to howl for weeks. He can feel the sear through their escalation, the desperate cry for help emanated through the lost eyes of a child.
It’s going to be ok, he thinks he says. Or doesn’t say. Vision fuzzy, too bright and unclear. It’s going to be ok, he thinks he repeats.
Gonna get you somewhere. No strength to lift. But you have to, clenched canines. He claws and grabs and holds, dragging Woohyun through the dust slowly, leaving clouds in their wake.
Concave cheeks and fear. Fear (and lots of it). It’s going to be ok. The whisper finally escapes his cracked lips.
And the sun beats down, relentless.
Fixated on the sky. The sun. Their gazes meet, dark brown against reflective, and it burns her pupils a liquid gold. Hurts too, is the absentminded thought, but she doesn’t mind. Ridiculous, her last patient told her. Going to go blind, or something like that.
Maybe she is ridiculous. Traces the veins in a root, calcium chalky on her fingers (it may be dust). How would she know, anyway?
Slowly sits up, spine curling towards the sky like the tree. How would she know, anyway? A dangling finger lifts a snared strand of her hair. She shrugs it away.
Paws heavy. Feet heavy. Everything heavy and he wants to howl in pain, howl to Woohyun, howl for them and himself, especially himself. Corpse dragging a corpse, rust desert leaving their trek in the sand as a permanent reminder of something. Something suffered, he guesses. Pulls the other boy on.
Woohyun’s howls stopped a while ago, in the midst of an endless horizon that blurred every time he blinked. His arm feels like dead weight now, useless and flopping. Might have popped something, but he doesn’t care. They (he) can’t stop, they (he) can’t afford it. Licks his cracked lips once, iron on his tongue. Licks them again, a thin coating of saliva trapping stray dust. Swallows, throat crackling like the desert. Swallows whatever spit is left, swallows the cough that threatens to burst free, swallows the howl burning in his throat.
It’s going to be ok. Blinks once, twice. Bleary, unfocused, focused (or is it?), unfocused again. A silhouette forks through the orange horizon. Blinks again (still unfocused). Squints.
It is a tree.
He hobbles from the sunny side of nowhere, slow steps kicking soot into the air. Or rather, they, they emerge from the clouds that they create, laboriously approaching her hut. She leans on the doorway, tarp rolled up above her head, eyes blank.
“Can you help him?” the hobbler asks, cracked lips bleeding. Canines hide on the sides of a grimace. She stares wordlessly at the boy that he carried (and can carry no more), neck exposed to the yellow of the sky, leg swollen at the knee and bending unnaturally. He reeks, reeks like the tree, and she has to crinkle her nose to keep watching.
Leans more heavily on the doorway. Something jabs into the side of her cheek. The hobbling boy watches her, cracked lips and swallowing.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The girl rests Woohyun on a weave of dried stems. Dead things, he notices, and her house is filled with them. He stands at the doorway (there is no space for him inside), slivers of yellow marring the lulling dark.
Some thin string. A tiny, pointy object. A blade. He watches them as she walks over, small cup in hand. She pries his fingers apart (hands warm, cooler than rust sand and sun) when he doesn’t tear his gaze away from the objects, placing the cup against his palm. Liquid sloshes against the rim.
“Drink this,” she instructs. Her fingers leave his skin, cold imprints fading on his wrist. “You need to swallow something other than just spit.”
It smells putrid. Sallow, he frowns, staring at his reflection in the cup. Just like you. Hollow cheeks stare back at him. He closes his eyes and drinks it, opens them and sees that she is back at Woohyun’s side. The liquid slides down his throat effortlessly, tickling his stomach. Puts the cup down, down on something dead (he assumes).
The blade traces the swollen knee. Something is wrapped up beside her feet, something the same length as his forearm. Inhales.
Freezes. Same length as his forearm, same stench of the tree. Dead things, and her house is filled with them. Dead things, smell of death, dead tree, dead steams, dead dead dead horrid girl. And death and rot and decay emanating from her hut. Blade, blade catches a sliver of yellow, reflective light blinding him. String. String (and lots of it).
Feet carry, feet stumble, feet clumsy. Get me out. Hobbles, hobbles past the tree, past the hut. Gut twists. His gut. Opens his mouth, waits for the acid.
Retch. He coughs instead (one he could not swallow). Coughs, plumes of orange dust leaving his mouth, clouding up the air. Dust, retching dust, passing through cracked lips, released back into the lifeless atmosphere where it came from.
She lies beneath the tree. Her tree. Branches reek of dying flesh. They cover the sun, sky a pale yellow behind it. Sallow. Mouths the word. What sallow figures they all are. Exhales (her ribs cannot take it) and closes her eyes. Hurts too, is the afterthought, but she needs to survive.
The tree laces a hand through hers. Life, and she can feel it radiating from her fingertips. Life through death, life because she, frail, dead-eyed Suzy, sustains it with her little clinging fist.
(He did not hold on tight enough to her fingers and slipped through. Cried, cried dusty tears for his dead heart that the sun burned away too.
She buried him at the base of the tree, on the sunny side of nowhere from which he came. They came. Inhales sharply. What was his name? Soot kicks into her throat. How would I know, anyway? It tastes bitter.
No eulogy, then. When was the last time she had one? Squeezes her fingers around his bony hand once, then once more. For luck. Covers him with rust-colored dust.
Looks to the horizon. They came. Sits over the freshly covered spot. The dust exhales.
The tree is missing a branch.)
He runs on limbs that are his but not his, tight and stiff from lack of use. All fours, canines gracing cracked lips. The sun runs with him, runs but not fast enough. He is faster. Lifts his muzzle into the air. He is faster.
Lust, lust for more, lust for blood to soak his cracked lips, lust to tear, to use, to kill. Lust, lust, lust and he howls, throaty and deep, for the both of them.
He can no longer swallow it.
(he tried, he really did, but the pulsing wouldn’t die and the dust wouldn’t stop trying to kill it. he tried but it is so hard to believe in anything, let alone something, like the words he uttered through lustless lips, “it’s going to be ok.”)
The branch comes back. Replaced, she reckons, the colors different. Pale and bright against the tired yellow sky. Knotted fingers reach for the sky. Clawing at the sun, begging it to come down and succumb to death, just as the boy did.
You did this, the foreign branch accuses. Holds the sun in its hands. Suffocates it through its shadowy grip. You did all of this.
His hands reek, reek of the tree and its stale decay, reek of leftover lust and its brown stains. Drinks some sallow liquid and closes his eyes, trying to succumb to rest. Discomfort echoes through his limbs, limbs that just ran, mouth that just howled, with each breath.
She stands against the doorway, dead eyes on him. He can feel them, dark and blank, staring through him. There is space for both of them inside, but she leaves the empty void gaping open. Yellow slivers and haunting silence mar the lulling dark.
There is space for both of them inside. Stands abruptly. Howls, Woohyun’s. His. Through the cliffs, the spots where they coursed through the valley. Running down the cliffs, stupid, stupid decision, slower would have been better. Slower. Crack came too early. Bad decision, no no no, it’s going to be ok.
Dead weight. Focuses his eyes on the doorway, on her, moving every so often. Death, personified through her tired eyes. Pushes past, drowns himself in pale yellow and rust. Where they came from. Collapses to the ground. Life is fuzzy, too bright and unclear.
They came. Everything here is sallow. Heaving of lungs, tears. Too many, sliding down his concave cheeks and down to the dust, just to sit on the surface. Too many that he cannot swallow, water he will never get back. Too many but not enough, never enough, to cleanse the echoing discomfort, the lust, the howls, the brown stains.
I’m sorry. Uneven breaths break the words. I’m sorry.
(and bit by bit, the howls fade. swallows.
nothing burns in the back of his throat.)
She watches him pick himself up, dust coating the air around him in plumes. Leans on the doorway, tarp rolled up above her head, eyes blank. He stands, a dark silhouette, back towards the sun. Stands just like that, waiting, waiting for something, for a few moments.
Nothing comes his way. Looks up to the sky, sallow skin against pale yellow. His tongue traces over his cracked lips once, then again. Throat still. And then he moves, one foot in front of the other, each step sending up a new cloud of dust. Makes the horizon fuzzy, too bright and unclear. Eyes unfocused.
The dust swallows him with its wide mouth. And then she can see no one.
Nothing.
(stares into the sky. the sun. their gazes meet, dark brown against reflective, burning her pupils a liquid gold. hurts too, is the absentminded thought that she disregards. going to go blind, something like that.
the world rushes, tired yellow sky, blazing sun, chalky dust. clouds of rust surround her, them. past the field of dead wheat, shallow rustling against the ground. feet and paws slapping the sand of the desert, rhythmic pace echoing across the empty expanse. running. to where, she’s not entirely sure. just running, running with the sun, but they are faster.
just her, frail, dead-eyed suzy, and the wolf boy, two sallow-skinned children of the tree, fuzzy and unclear through the glare of the sun. pushing dust down their cracked lips and parched throats, each exhale releasing it back into the lifeless atmosphere where it came from.
and on the cliffs, people will see no one. nothing (they are the blind ones). but they will feel it, life, radiating through their fingertips to the crusted earth, the pale sky, and eventually, the dying sun.)