[STC] Dirty Business (Anton)

[Nira'lia]

“It… it is a shame,” replied the Konti. Along with Anton, she stared at the man before them. Her own thoughts led her to miss the strangeness behind the child’s words. While they seemed to be full of empathy, they were also nothing but a hollow shell of cruelty. And if she had noticed, she would have realized that there was certainly something odd about the kid. The Konti heard his questions as well, and while they seemed to swoop right past her, her mind picked them up. After a few seconds of thinking to herself, she finally addressed his question. Nira’lia raised her right hand, showing him the back of it. All the while, she kept her curious eyes transfixed on the man on the bed. ‘I wonder what his name is…?’ There was an iridescent lily mark on her hand. It was the blessing of Avalis, the Goddess of Divination. “Like many in my race, I was born with Mother Avalis’s blessing…. Through her, I can see the past if I wanted to. That’s how I can get answers if I will it.” She put her hand back on her lap and finally turned her head to look at the boy. He looked so innocent, and his words were laden with naivety. Despite the gruesome image of a man in front of them, it was refreshing to listen to Anton’s questions. “A Konti is a child of Laviku and Avalis… Laviku allows us to live in the water if we wish to, and Avalis allows us to see things,” she explained, not really sure if she was being comprehensible. Nira’lia was not very good at teaching. At that point, she decided to again attempt to know more about him. “Have you never met a Konti before? I suppose there isn’t a lot of us in Alvadas… have you been anywhere else aside from this city?”

[Anton]

"No."

And he thought he might have left it at that. But the truth was she had been nothing but genuine and nice and kind, and he had taken in that kindness and repaid with deception, and in a short while's time, the guilt of having lost a patient under her care. In truth, underneath it all, was a small part that regretted this -not the killing, not this time, there was no remorse for this one, quite the opposite- but the idea that he had to overplay the fact that he was a kid infront of her, and that she, in turn, had to patronize and talk down to him -as was wont with adults- was as frustrating as it was necessary. At least for this to work. She was a pretty lady, and a very special one - A konti, a child of the gods, and a vision person, she said- and he wanted to impress her in any other situation.

Any other situation but this.

And she said she could see the past. That was a problem...

For later.

Because he decided-

To be real, for a change. For awhile, anyway. To gush. It felt wrong to leave wearing a full mask.

"I want to. Someday, maybe. They say the houses and streets out there stay still, and everything is just, well, everything. Without the illusions. Without the Maw. Without the Womiyu to protect us from them." A small chuckle, a genuine one this time. He turned to face her, gesturing slightly with his good hand, trying to capture the sights and the sounds in his dreams. "That's so weird. But I think I'm excited about it, and it's a really, really, really big world. I've seen the maps, parts of them anyway. The city in the lake, the moving city of cloth, the city in the trees." He took a deep breath, enthralled by the make-believe wonders of what those places could look like. The man was all but forgotten. For now. "And the place where nobody tells you what to do. Sundenia, I think?"

The air in the room suddenly felt abit chillier, but it might just be him.

[Nira'lia]

‘The Womiyu?’ Nira’lia knew the term. She didn’t know much about the city yet, but she at least knew who governed it. The concept confused her. It was much too different from what she had become accustomed to in Zeltiva. For this reason, she couldn’t help but ask him about it. “I don’t really understand what the Womiyu is. Maybe you can explain it to me?” She felt nostalgic as she listened to the rest of his answer. Nira’lia had known nothing apart from Sunberth and Zeltiva, and she had only left the comfort of her mother the season before. She knew how it felt to be curious of what else was out there. For that reason, she smiled. He was young, and he already had so much curiosities. He also had so many years before him to explore them. That was good. However, his last sentence emitted a foul feeling from within her. He had mistakenly called it by another name, but she knew he was talking about Sunberth. “Sunberth is an awful place,” she muttered in reply. Her smile was lost now, replaced by a blank expression which she used to hide the anger and fright within her. “Where nobody tells you what to do…? Now, where would you get that idea? A city with no laws doesn’t mean people are free,” There was a lot of bitterness in her voice. “Don’t go there. There’s nothing good about that place.” The Konti attempted to brush away her hatred of the city. As a habit, she forced herself to think about better things. “You know where you should go? You should go to Mura! The isle is the epitome of peace and beauty!”

[Anton]

He looked at her like she had just slapped him in the face, threw a mug of water at him, and then told him those things on her chest were secretly hiding Ionu inside. Could they be detached, he wondered. Were they part of some ceremonial clothing that grown women wore? Because he didn't see any of the girls in his old classes have them. It was so perplexing.

But more importantly...

What self-respecting citizen of Alvadas hadn't heard of the Womiyu, of the people who had pledged their lives to defend the city? Of the terrifying power of the silencers, of the all-reaching ears of the speakers, of the pitying laughter that the people gave when the speakers tried and failed to be entertaining?

Unless...

"You haven't been here long, have you?" His face eased up, and he was smiling again. "Most of the Womiyu protect the city. They consist of two branches, and a third that has no worth. The listeners hear for threats, and the silencers act on them. The speakers? They talk. Alot. And then get paid. It's not very fair, I think. Not very fair at all. W-the silencers and listeners risk their lives, and the speakers simply prattle in comfort!"

Ans something in her face, or rather, the lack of anything in her face after he had mentioned sundenia - Sunberth- screamed at him she had been dealt a little bit of unfairness.

But he wouldn't push it.

Because the moment of small talk was soon to be over and done.

He had a job to do.

And questions -personal questions- to ask. But not to her.

"Mura? I'm- You look tired, Nira'lia." His voice laced with the the sweet taint of hypnotism. He was not very good at it, but it was late, and he had to try his luck. "You should catch a short nap. I'll watch over him and call you if anything happens." His smile grew surer, more confident, and he drew on something he had seen other kids done before. He extended his good hand towards her. The one with the mitten. "Pinkie swear?"

[Nira'lia]

The Konti listened to him intently, taking it all in. He had hit home—she certainly had not been in the city for long, and she had no idea that asking such a question would make it evident. Nira’lia had heard the people speaking, had seen some of them walking around in their uniforms, but she had never really thought about it until now. Until now, the Konti had also not known how important the Womiyu was so the city. Apparently, they were very important. Nira’la also noticed his negative disposition towards the so-called speakers. She wondered why a child like him would have such strong opinions about them. To her, children should be out in the streets playing games. They weren’t supposed to be complaining about politics. All the while, she failed to notice Anton’s small slip. He had almost given away the reason why he knew so much, and why he had such opinions—he was more part of it than she thought. “I am tired…” she replied softly, blinking. Nira’lia’s body clock was not accustomed to night shifts. The panic that the night had brought upon had caused her to forget this. But now, when they were watching over an injured man and conversing like this, the fatigue made itself known as well. Her state didn’t make it difficult at all for him to convince her to rest. His offer sounded good to her, though she hesitated to let a child who didn’t work at the hospital watch over the man. How would he even know what to look out for? But even then, she fought to keep herself awake, and she couldn’t help but stifle a yawn. ‘I suppose a cat nap wouldn’t hurt…’ Seeing that he wore a mitten, she knew it would be safe to touch him. Nira’lia reached out and hooked her pinky with his. It was a somewhat childish action, but it made her giggle. She liked childish things, and she found the boy amusing. “Alright… anyway, I’ll be right here if. Be sure to wake me up even at the slightest thing. Okay?” With another yawn, she leaned over and rested her arms on the foot of the injured man’s best. The Konti glanced at the man one last time before burying her head in her arms. Sleep took over her almost instantly, and she had no idea what a horrible mistake she was doing in trusting the innocent looking boy.

[Anton]

Be sure to wake me up even at the slightest thing.

No, that wasn't right.

An altered echo, then, stealing away the one word that had changed everything.

Be sure to wake me up at the slightest thing.

Better.

That promise he could keep; there was nothing slight about what he was about to do.

"Okay," Anton said. "Goodnight."

And then he waited.

And when he was certain she was truly and deeply asleep, he went to work.

...

It started with the nick of a scalpel on an open palm.

And the faintest little humming...

The man's eyes flashed open at the pain.

There should have been more to that sentence, but the words stopped short.

Because there was nothing more.

Just pain. No startled jump. No instinctive attempt at a yelp through his broken throat. No frantic darting of eyes smouldering with fear. No violent struggling or flailing upon finding himself waking up in a very, very unfamiliar location. And when it came down to it, no dramatic reaction. Just pain, and the eerily calm, almost indifferent way he acknlowledged it.

Maybe, in his own way, he even welcomed it. Maybe he hurt others so much that suffering became a kin to him, a brother that found life in a broken arm or a shattered spine, that strengthened their bond with each life they took.

That...wasn't how it was supposed to begin. He was supposed to be scared; frightened out of his wits, trying to say sorry for his sins, trying to beg and grovel his way out of death with a voice that wouldn't come no matter how hard he tried. This...

He entered in a position of power; now he wasn't too sure whether he should have entered at all.

The man then turned this head to face him, and inexplicably and without expression, winked.

He winked.

He had the audacity to wink, like everything that mattered was some secret joke they shared.

He felt the white hot heat rising up, felt it hiss and burn and melt away at the banks of a decade of discipline being drilled into his head.

He should have exploded then.

He could have exploded then.

Instead, he decided-

He turned to look over his shoulder at Nira'lia, the doubt and hesitation and that little half-baked wall she put up all lost in her slumber.

-that it could wait.

"Hello, mister." Anton said, his level voice surprising even himself. "Would you like to play a game?"

No response. Just the same, blank stare. Anton pressed on.

"You're going to answer some questions of mine, and if you don't give me the answers I want, I'm going to have to do something. Something really mean Now, I know you have trouble speaking, and I think-" All of the sudden, his tone grew cold and harsh. "-that's your problem. The burden of my understanding is solely on you. Shall we begin?"

Again, the blank stare.

"What's your name?"

And without even waiting for an attempt at an answer, Anton touched the little cut on his palm and smeared something all over it.

There was a moment somewhere in there...

Then he started to hurt.

He could see it in his eyes now.

Then he started to hurt alot.

Because the cut then birthed into a trickle, and then rivulets, then a small cascade of red...

Because what he smeared was liquid res

Because it was purposed was to attract water.

Because 82% of blood consisted of water.

Add these 3 facts together...

The hand was spasming wildly now, as blood struggled to break free of it's prison of flesh, to surge through the tiniest hole to freedom. All at once. Violently. Ripping itself out to join with the res. For a moment, it looked like the hand was about to explode from the within...

And all through it, the humming noise...and that same blank stare, even though his eyes betrayed his pain...

Then it stopped; a short reprieve, no doubt.

"Oops, too slow. Let's try something else." The scalpel came down again, this time drawing a fine, thin line over the man's forehead.

"Why did you do it? Why did you do it like that?"

Another blank stare.

"I will do it."

No change.

"You will tell me, mister."

The indifference in his face was practically a dare now.

"Okay. I'm Sorry."

He reached out, and it took everything he had to keep his hand from shaking. Was he actually about to do this? The hand was one thing, but...

"May I ask you a question in return?"

Anton's eyes widened in horror; it hadn't been him who said those words.

And the man...

It was the man.

"Why do they call you silencer? All you do is talk."

He took a few steps back...

And the man spoke again, but this time, while his mouth did open to form the words, the sound came instead from everywhere.

And nowhere.

I tire of this.

This...

He tried to call for Nira.

But nothing. The words were there, but nothing came out. He shouted and shouted and shouted, but...

Nothing.

Nothing.

NOTHING.

He looked at the man again.

And through that blank expression emerged...

A smirk.

Confident. Smug.

Predatory.

Again, he winked.

And then opened his mouth.

And loosed an otherworldly screech of pure spite.

And either the world went black, or he did.

[Nira'lia]

Images fluttered before Nira’lia’s eyes. This wasn’t a dream, and she knew it. It was another vision that came involuntarily. Seers sometimes looked into the chavena without meaning to, and this was happening to the Konti at the moment. To Anton, she seemed asleep, with her silence and her head buried in her arms. However, her eyes were dazed as she witnessed a gruesome scene before her. It was the same scene she had witnessed before… when she had touched the man. No, he wasn’t a man. He was a monster disguised as one. She could see and hear it more clearly now. And before the monster got his hands on the men around him, before he ripped off their throats and windpipes, the people screamed his name. Wailer. And the monster proceeded to rip their chests open and feast on their lungs. Back in the present, beds shook and glass shattered. A painful, piercing screech ran through the hospital, and the noise grated into Nira’lia’s eardrums. She painfully bowed down and tightly grasped her head, and it was as if the noise itself vibrated throughout her whole body. When the noise was finally done, she found herself on her knees, her head still wrapped in her hands. The boy! “Anton!” she called out as she fought to regain her composure. The bed she had been resting her head against had ricocheted away from her… and when she looked at it frantically, she saw that her dying ‘patient’ was no longer there. There were more painful shrieks. It seemed to be coming from one of the hallways, and glass shattered and objects vibrated from its direction. The wailer was wounded—its shriek was weaker, but Nira’lia didn’t know that. The other patients were attempting to get up, confused and horrified. Nira’lia crawled over to the boy. “Are you okay?” she asked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know… I’m going to go look for help. Come with me. I’ll keep you safe.” No, not really, she didn’t know how to fight—but he was just a boy in her eyes, and she didn’t want to frighten him further.

[Anton]

She cannot hear you.

But you will hear her. At my pleasure.

And you will hear me.

We were the things that shrieked in the night when your kind found comfort in crickets and toads.

We were there when the old ones dwindled to nothing. When the godlings left for the stars. When the walking dead were few in number.

We were there when The Burning God visited destruction upon your empires and kingdoms.

They all went away.

You all went away.

And we rose up.

Opportunity. We took it. Here we are. Thriving in sound.

We remember everything.

And I remember this.

Your words, silencer: Let us play a game.

Your words, silencer: Let us play a game.

YOUR WORDS, SILENCER: LET US PLAY A GAME.

I am making noise. You stop me.

Or stop breathing.

The pale one sings to me.

She has offered herself up in penance for her sin.

First.

Then you.

I confess to wounds.

Wounds you have inflicted in a stroke of luck.

My sound is limited.

I tell you this.

Because.

Nothing has changed.

You are still...What do you call the white ones? The ones you slaughter for meat and warmth?

Ah.

A lamb.

WInk.

...

Tethering on the brink of consciousness, Anton found that the only thing that was clear and real in the world of darkening black was Nira's voice.

And so he clung onto it with a dead man's grip, in the hopes that focusing on her would drown out the thing in his head.

The thing that spoke with his voice, his own fluttery, softer-than-thou voice, but with words of venom and spite and a sense of dread ancientness that permeated every single thought-syllable.

The thing that refused to be ignored, that rose in tempo even as he tried, in vain, to take in only Nira.

And slowly, as it went on, it started to make the most horrible kind of sense.

A Valterric.

Those who came with the great fall.

He must have tapped into his auristic sight, because the darkening world faded for an instant, and in it's place, a world of sound and color was ushered in. Nira's aura moving, on all fours, towards him...

And another waiting in what should have been the dark.

And...

The fever was gone.

But that was the least surprising change.

Because the aura wasn't an aura; not like any he had ever seen ever.

It was fragmented; like someone had glued the auras of different creatures together to put together this patch-work piece of nausea. To look at it was to look at wrongness itself, to stare into the heart of things that weren't meant to be in a world that was right and sane and just.

But the world wasn't right and sane and just.

And it still didn't deserve to exist.

And through it all, that endless humming...

And a shriek, trailing weakly into nothing...

And a whisper, one that the shadows danced for:

Scream for me.

And then the darkness did creep back in, as his auristic sight faded away.

And so did he.

[Nira'lia]

Anton was unconscious. The Konti had been talking to a passed out boy all this time. Careful not to let their skins touch, she leaned down and put her ear close to his face—yes, he was still breathing. No, there were no wounds. Had he passed out because of fright? He had been much closer to the monster. The shriek had probably been more painful for him. The Konti grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him across the floor. She called for the other patients, and those who could move came over and told her they’d look after the boy. And on the other side of the hospital, there were more screams. To Nira’lia’s horror, it wasn’t the strange shrieks that the monster had emitted. It was from the other patients, the few who had been resting on further inside Ionu’s Mercy. The wailer had reached them. Nira’lia remembered what she had seen. She saw it ripping out throats, vocal chords, lungs. The horrifying image was still fresh in her mind. In an impulsive and possibly dim-witted decision, she reached over to her bag which was resting on one of the tables. Nira’lia pulled out her suvai, a weapon she didn’t have much skill in, and went after the monster. The noise was coming from one of the narrow hallways, and the hallway itself was dark. Most of the oil lamps which were hung around the hospital were shattered and useless. The Wailer was breaking them with his screams. The Konti grasped the weapon in her hand and squinted her eyes, making use of the little light that she had. She could hear footsteps and a faint, wailing sound. It was coming from the right hallway. Frightened but determined, she turned the corner. It was darker than the previous hallway, but she could see some movement by the end of the corridor. It was hunched over and practically unmoving, but the faint wailing sound was coming from it. Slowly, Nira’lia started to creep towards it. She kept her footsteps light and attempted to breathe as quietly as she could. The figure still wasn’t moving. With shaking hands, she raised her suvai—she readied her aim, wanted to pierce it right at the back of its neck, then it turned around and squeaked. It wasn’t the monster. It was one of the patients, cowering in fear. Gaping, the Konti put her hand back down on her side, and realized that the wailing sound couldn’t be heard anymore… but she was positive that it had come from this direction. And suddenly, she was thrown aside. A heavy hand, injured but still strong, swiped at her and her back hit the wall painfully. It wasn’t the patient, but the monster, and he had come from behind her—opposite from where the noise had come from. It could manipulate sound. The pain throbbed through her spine, but she was able to see the monster coming right at her. As quick as she could, she grasped the suvai again and acted as quick as she could. It was mostly instinct and adrenaline, and the will to survive. She raised her weapon and swiped blindly, and it was a lucky strike, but the three blades pierced its chest. It staggered away and gave another scream, and Nira’lia bowed her head in pain. She couldn’t tell how long she clutched her head. Everything seemed to go dark at that point. And when she opened her eyes to the dark scene, the patient was passed out in a corner, and the monster was gone yet again.

[Anton]

Pale one

You have a name

Nira'lia

It will do

I'm hurt, Nira'lia.

Help me.

Help me.

Help me.

Help me.

I love you, Nira'lia

I hate you, Nira'lia.

I want you, Nira'lia.

Is that okay, Nira'lia?

Is that okay, Nira'lia?

Is that okay, Nira'lia?

Is that okay, Nira'lia?

Why, Nira'lia?

Am I hurting you, Nira'lia?

I'm so sorry.

I'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorry

I'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorry I'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorryI'msosorry

I'm leaving, Nira'lia.

I don't want you to hurt anymore.

I'll leave and never come back.

I love you.

Nira'lia.

And I think you love me.

We shared something.

Goodbye, love.

Be safe.

From the shadows, in silence...

A hand ran through her golden hair; a lover's caress.

And then the jaw clamped down on her shoulder.