Hecatoncheires
un jour je serai de retour près de toi
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YOU WHO WOULD EAT WILL BE EATEN
1.1 (2nd Draft)
1.1 (2nd Draft)
There's an old line attributed to Genghis Khan that I discovered recently, which goes a little something like "there is no good in anything, until it is done". As a writer who never finishes anything he starts, I've taken this as both a personal attack and as something of a call to action.
You Who Would Eat Will Be Eaten is an Action Body Horror story drawing inspiration from Castlevania and Nechronica, as well as my attempt to actually sit down and try and get a project hammered out start to finish. It's also one of several ideas I have floating about (the joys of an easily distracted brain that prefers the whimsy of the idea to the difficulty of 'make idea into actual story'). I'm envisaging it as something I could write as a Web Serial, requiring concise but regular updates to try and keep my own writing momentum going. Before I commit to such a plan, however, I need to know if the story's actually, y'know. Not awful.
That's where you (hopefully) come in.
This is the opening section of the story, so I'm curious to know whether it hooks anyone in or if it falls flat. I'm open to whatever feedback you've got, so please don't feel the need to pull your punches: I'm (reasonably) certain my ego can take it. In addition to that, I'd also love to hear your thoughts on a few specific things:
You Who Would Eat Will Be Eaten is an Action Body Horror story drawing inspiration from Castlevania and Nechronica, as well as my attempt to actually sit down and try and get a project hammered out start to finish. It's also one of several ideas I have floating about (the joys of an easily distracted brain that prefers the whimsy of the idea to the difficulty of 'make idea into actual story'). I'm envisaging it as something I could write as a Web Serial, requiring concise but regular updates to try and keep my own writing momentum going. Before I commit to such a plan, however, I need to know if the story's actually, y'know. Not awful.
That's where you (hopefully) come in.
This is the opening section of the story, so I'm curious to know whether it hooks anyone in or if it falls flat. I'm open to whatever feedback you've got, so please don't feel the need to pull your punches: I'm (reasonably) certain my ego can take it. In addition to that, I'd also love to hear your thoughts on a few specific things:
- Are the Body Horror elements too much, or not enough? I find I can't really trust my own judgement on this one. For one, I'm a bit of a gorehound when it comes to films and books. Yet I've read stories that other people proclaimed to be "too much" that struck me as quite tame, and other stories that got under my skin (pardon the pun) didn't seem to hit as hard for other people. A fresh pair of eyes would be ideal.
- Is Piper's condition coming through properly? I can't quite decide if the setup for Piper's mental fugue is too much, or not enough. Or even if it works at all. Does it intrigue, or frustrate?
"The fairy tales warn you:
Do not go in,
you who would eat will be eaten."
- Jane Hirshfield, 'Amor Fati'
Do not go in,
you who would eat will be eaten."
- Jane Hirshfield, 'Amor Fati'
I awoke amidst the fog with a pounding headache, a burning itch beneath my skin, and absolutely no recollection of how I had found myself in such a desolate place.
Less than five minutes later, I was also convinced that something was following me.
I couldn't put my finger on exactly how I knew this. It was a scratching, nervous feeling that had me looking over my shoulder as I drifted through the fog, some ancestral instinct lingering from a time when humanity was not the dominant species on our planet. It had me moving, plunging through the gloom, even before I'd had the chance to get my bearings.
Then the screams began. That told me I had to run.
They sounded almost human. That was the worst part. Like some half-remembered song I'd listened to years ago and then forgotten, I could catch some familiar notes amidst those howls. Yet they were shifted, altered to a pitch and strain that made me recoil. No human being ought to be capable of making those sounds. They dogged me as I fled across unfamiliar moorland choked by fog, my eyes glued to the ground as I tried not to lose my footing amidst the gloom.
Even the ground was alien, bare earth and grass seemingly desaturated of all colour to leave only the whites and greys. As the screeches continued behind me, I focused my attention on a sparse thicket of trees I could just about make out through the incessant fog. It didn't look like much, but it was at least something I could take cover behind if I got there before my pursuer. I couldn't keep my fingernails from scratching at my skin, even as I ran. Nothing brought relief: this was eczema on steroids.
Panic lent me speed, and my pursuer fell behind by degrees even as the fog began to thin. Bounding down the hill I launched into a sprint, somehow managing to keep my footing on the uneven ground. My breath was coming fast as I finally reached the thicket's perimeter, ducking under branches to make my way within. Whatever the hell that thing behind me was, I had absolutely no wish to meet it in person. Every step through the undergrowth was accompanied by brittle snaps, as though I was walking across a bed of bones. I winced, trying and failing to keep the noise down. In the end I decided that speed trumped stealth. Crouching and weaving, my leggings and jacket catching on gnarled branches equally as devoid of colour as the ground, I tucked myself behind the thickest tree trunk I could lay eyes on. The screeches warbled through the fog behind me, but it could not see me now. I just needed to keep my head down and wait for it to move on.
But I didn't keep my head down. I instead made the horrible mistake of looking up.
Up through the last vestiges of mist that had been obscuring the world around me until now. Up through the spidery tree branches to the skyline above. Up to the shape that had been looming there all this time, waiting for me to notice it. Before I could wrench my eyes shut or turn my head away, I looked upon the Castle.
It reared out from the earth to fill the skyline, stretching up beyond the point my neck could strain to. Even though I knew I was looking upon stone or metal, my first thought was that I was gazing at some gargantuan tree with myriad branches stemming off from the main trunk. Only upon closer inspection could I not deny that I was looking at towers and spires jutting outwards to hang in the air, nothing but a thin connecting passage seeming to hold them in place. It was impossible. Cognitive dissonance made manifest in stone and steel. Yet there it stood, in defiance of conception and the laws of physics. The shape that lurked behind it, backlighting it in grey shades, could not be called a sun. Nor a moon. It was a void, a burning black orb that seemed to swallow all colour and light around it.
My mind reeled, desperately reaching for something, anything, to justify the sight before me. To explain just where in the hell I had found myself, shivering and beyond any frame of reference my head could conjure. There was nothing. My brain was empty noise, a television tuned to a dead channel. Images and sensations flashed through it as my panic grew, devoid of context or meaning. The exterior of a university building, all sleek glass and metal. The sliding sensation of a train carriage drawing to a halt. Had I been a student there? A visitor? The memories and experiences needed to make sense of it all were just out of reach, no matter how much I strained and searched. I was aware of them only through their absence. Lost, in the truest sense of the word possible. Both to myself, and to the world around me.
Then the screams came again.
A nervous jolt forced me to sit up. They weren't a memory echoing through the damaged recesses of my head, but tangible. Echoing through the trees, and closing fast. My pursuer was just outside the thicket, bearing down on me in spite of my hidden position. Had it seen me going in? Had it just got lucky? Hunters do not track through sight alone, something told me, and my heart sank. It could smell me. With a curse, I threw myself onto my feet and started moving. Had I waited another second, I never would have moved again.
Something tore through the section of tree I'd been slumped against, embedding itself into the trunk. I had the briefest flash of a pale, writhing shape, then I was past it. The sound of bark splintering behind me mixed with an enraged, guttural howl loud enough to make my ears vibrate. My pursuer was back, in force. How was it moving so fast? Just minutes ago it had seemed a lurching, ungainly thing, but suddenly it was inches from taking my head off. Fear spiked, pushing me forwards through branches and underbrush to burst through the opposite side of the thicket. You'll never get far enough if it has your scent. The thought rippled through my mind even as I fled out across the moorland again. The Castle loomed down upon me from the darkling sky, mocking my every step. The itching beneath my skin spiked: there was blood beneath my fingernails as I scratched.
You have nowhere to run, that same rogue thought insisted again. I ignored it. Pushed forwards. What else was there to do? Fight or flight had me in their grip, and the latter was winning the argument. The only way out is through, Piper. That caught me off guard, the panic losing its grip on me slightly. Was I losing what little of my mind I had left? Or did I just have an overactive subconsciousness making its presence known?
Yet there was something else starting to drive at me through the fear. A scent wafting from behind me, from my pursuer. Sharp and cloying, coppery yet somehow warm. It stirred something within, something that made my skin crawl. Another voice spoke. Another instinct making itself known. No words, nothing so tangible. It just pulsed, hot and violent. Resonating with the scent. Despite everything, I could feel myself growing angry. Something was making me angry.
My pace was slowing without me even realising. I knew I needed to keep moving. To keep running. That thing would be on me any second now if I didn't. But with every heartbeat my rage was growing. With every hit of that scent in the air, something else was beginning to develop. Something disturbingly close to hunger. It was a craving that did not belong to me, and yet it still made my stomach lurch uncomfortably. I had the horrible sense that I was losing control of my own body.
I was not alone inside my head. Nor was I the only one calling the shots now.
Arms burning with every motion, I found myself twisting about to face the thing that had dogged my footsteps ever since I awoke. It was charging at me like a maddened berserker. All sense of self-preservation lost to it. From the legs up it could pass for human, clad in the remains of a business suit. A tie even dangled uselessly from it's neck. That thin scrap of fabric acted as the border between ordinary man and horror. Where it's head should be, something had erupted. Fleshy, tubular segments flailed madly as it came, stretching longer than the full length of it's body and ending in a puckered maw. A scream erupted as the mouth opened, revealing layers of fangs that retreated beyond sight.
This was insane. Beyond sense. Any ordinary person ought to be screaming and running. But the smell was too much. The hunger was relentless. A call to action.
The things beneath my skin were more than willing to answer it.
They pushed through my torn skin pores, swelling and distending as they came. Tangled coils of white, writhing worms that began to weave themselves around my arms like the hand wraps of a boxer. Forging themselves into the imitations of flesh and sinew, of muscle. Within seconds my limbs had swelled to inhuman proportions, stretching out to brace against the oncoming creature.
Another scream tore itself loose from the flailing horror rushing me. This time, it was met by another. A roar of challenge and fury spilling from me before I could stop myself. That wordless impulse inside of me taking control of my very voice.
Us or them, Piper, something whispered.
I decided at that moment that it sure as hell wasn't going to be me.