Pompilidae

Pompilidae - a family of parasitic wasps preying (mostly) on spiders.
If you don't think that violence can be pretty erotic, I don't think you'll like the cup of tea I'm brewing. If you don't like snippets of character study peppered between your oddly erotically described violence, then you won't like this either.
The basic thesis here is that I am of the opinion this man could use a few slaps and the basic side-effect caused by the stories that are my current main projects is that there is something deeply wrong with the insert here.

Notes:

I am well-aware that this will get me either the kind of radio silence you hear at a funeral after uncle Peter makes a really distatsteful joke, or several death threats (and before you hit me with "Why did you write this?" I invoke the "It's my S/O's fault, actually" card. Hope this helps). Would have been out much sooner but, you see, I got this approved by my group chat, but nobody there has actually seen Stranger Things, and I was like "Wonderful. But who will approve the characterisation?" and I know 3 people who have also seen the show and they actually encouraged me to write this, but the problem is that they haven't read it to this day. Like this fic specifically. I know they be reading different fics every day, I know they got the time and if you're reading this you know who you are. So I still don't know if this isn't OOC but...well...enjoy either way I guess. Or don't. I'm a freak, not your mom.
Oh and I actually did a semi-analysis of 001 (apologies for not calling him Henry but I got like 5 other Henrys associated with that name and this guy is a whole different kind of specimen) in order to write this and if you want to check that out, it's on my Tumblr @feathery-dickmuffins
Also hopefully there shouldn't be any mistakes left over but keep in mind that I am so used to writing prose in the first person that when it comes to things like this, I need to write the whole thing in the first person first anyway, and then fix all the pronouns to the second person. So there may be a "my" instead of "your" left over here and there, but it shouldn't happen. Apologies.

Work Text:

The stark white of the wall, no, walls, staring like the sclera of an unblinking eye, just a little too white to be natural, a little too startlingly chalky, too sparkling clean (for an eye should never be sparkling clean but always a little dirty, a little like an egg before it cracks and all the disgusting disinfectant white spills out), that stark white was now, in the spotlight of the flashing sickly yellow-green lights, stained, no, adorned with a hot red. Not hot in the way an interior designer would use this word, no, but in the way a cook might. And after all, an interior designer doesn’t know much about blood, unlike a cook. And blood is what is running down these prison walls. Running. More like slogging. Taking its sweet time, droplets breaking free from the holds of their more or less dry splatters, which, despite their freshness, have settled down and made their homes where they lie even now. Together, they look like a small vibrant neighbourhood. Blood? Likened to a suburban neighbourhood? Yes, of course, it is absurd, after all, a suburban neighbourhood is much more barbaric than that. And while we’re talking about suburban neighbourhoods with their pristine edges, sharp fences and static smiles cracking like the static of the TV, if you were to wake up right here right now, inside this alabaster cage melting in an ocean of ruby, your vision, toom would be filled with static. The once-white walls moving and fading, lines like TV noise - cyan line, magenta line, ah, there it goes, oops, cyan again, here, there, nowhere - filling your vision, clearing your vision, drowning your vision. Your head, surely, it would be spinning, spinning just like those lines. Or perhaps it would be spinning because the lines are? A true ancient problem of the modern world, a modern day variant of the age-old question: What came first, the hen or the egg? The egg white colour of these walls.

These walls. These walls shaking left and right in blue and pink hues, crackling with noise that is no longer white, are what you find slipping from under yourself and bringing you back over and over. Throbbing. Where is it…where is it coming from? Why can’t you feel anything? Your hand, your arm, they’re moving towards your head, you watch them, you watch them rub your forehead. The fingers. you can’t feel them move. you can’t feel anything move. Why? You can feel only the throbbing. The throbbing in…your head?

‘Is that why I am rubbing my forehead? Am I even rubbing my forehead? I can’t even feel those damn fingers!’ your thoughts play in your head like the recording belonging to someone else.

Your eyes blink faster than the flashing lights, closing and opening like the shutter of a camera kicked around by no-good doers.

‘Easy there’ you think to yourself and it echoes a thousand times, overlapping, interrupting, as if your mind was a cave with no end.

Your other hand shoots up to grab your hand instinctively as you see the floor approach closer, your back likely bending. Is it bending? Looks like it, you still can’t feel it though.

‘Come on, come on, at least steady your eyes, you have to have at least one thing going for you.’

Slowly, in a matter of either seconds, minutes, or maybe several tens of minutes, the floor, the room and the lights stop spinning and shaking in the hues of TV noise raging across the screen due to a rages of rain just outside.

‘Finally.’

You straighten up, rolling your shoulders back and forth a few times for good measure. Ah, much better. Augh, your fingers hurt like shit. With your right fist, you crack the knuckles of your left hand and then repeat with the other to relieve the stiff pain a little. Wait, pain? Oh, great, you can feel most of your body again. And what you feel all over is horrible horrible pain. It has the same flavour as a migraine, dry and sore, stiff, sharp in the dull way an old rusty blade is. Well, better to feel like this than experience whatever whoever lost all this blood did.

Blood. Blood is also what you spit out of your mouth. It flies ahead and drops to the ground, a speck of the flow in your veins, catching the yellow white of your eyes and the pitch black inside of them too but reflecting only in one of them.

‘Why?’ is the only thing still echoing in your mind as you trace the flying drop of blood and spit with your eyes.

As soon as it lands on the cold polished floor, staining it with its redness and warmth (which will no doubt achieve thermodynamic equilibrium soon, however, the red and white colours will stay just the same, separate and obscene), your pupils pounce after it, gulping it down as they quake in their boots. Why? Why are you spitting out blood?

A warmth, surely not unlike the warmth of the bloodrop staring at you from way down, rapidly runs down your chin. The itch gets reflexively rubbed by your wrist. Fuck, no, don’t do that! Pulling your hand back, you can see the exact thing you didn’t want to: blood, fresh and wet, desecrating your sleeves.

‘Oh, they’re gonna so kill me for this! If I don’t manage to get it off the uniform, that is. But isn’t blood super difficult to clean? Hmmm, I feel like you know a few people who might know a thing or two about that,’ you think to yourself, and on some level, it’s an insult, and on some level, it’s a positive statement.

Oh well. With the sleeve already ruined or at least dirty, you wipe your chin again, more thoroughly this time, really rubbing all the blood off as much as you can. Some of it gets on your fingers, just enough to quickly dry on your skin. Agh, for fuck’s sake. Before you can think about it, you lick it off. No sense in looking around for something to clean when you myself can do the job just fine with no time wasted. The taste of copper, or what you imagine copper might taste like, spills over your tastebuds.

‘Remarkably similar to mineral spring water.’

The remaining streaks of blood you wipe on your other sleeve. It doesn’t matter anyway: if there‘s blood on just one sleeve or two sleeves, what difference does it make?

‘Alright, let’s get out of here. Out of this room and…then maybe out of here in general. Depending on what exactly happened…no…what is probably still happening here.’

‘Do you really want to find that out?’ your own voice chimes in as you attempt to look around and to avoid doing just that at the same time. ‘Some things are better off left as they are. Real winners quit.’

A piece of something lying behind a nearby desk, now overturned, catches your eye.

‘Is that…no…it can’t be a hand, can it? I mean, the blood had to come from somewhere. No. Surely, it can’t be.’

Cautiously, you put one foot in front of the other, a step that you don’t want to make and are dying to make at the same time. Slowly, steadily, with conscious and deliberate movements of your legs, you inch closer and closer to the finge- the object lying behind the desk.

‘Don’t say fingers, you don’t know if fingers are what it is,’ you remind yourself.

Yes, yes, that’s true. No fingers, definitely, can’t be. Yet, the more you say it, the more certain you are that you will not like what I’ll see when you get close enough to peek behind that curtain shrouding this whole play in mystery.

‘Wouldn’t it liven this whole charade up a little if it were fingers?’ a thought sings. ‘It would be something at least a little interesting to describe to people several decades from now on, don’t you think?’

You think-

A scream.

Snapping your head towards the doorway, your eyes instinctively widen.

More screams.

Were they always here? If you couldn’t feel and you couldn’t see properly, is it possible that up until now you simply…didn’t hear? That the whole time you’ve been fucking around in this room, others out there were…screaming? Dying, perhaps?

‘ Dying? No, why would they be dying?’

Why? Well, because the blood has to come from somewhere, we’ve been over this.

But if others are dying, how are you alive? For sure, you’d also be dead, no? So that can’t be it. But while pondering your options, you notice something. The doors are lying on the floor next to the desk. So you must have simply been swept away by the doors. And if there is another person, it looks like they got the worse part of this calamity. The door must have made the desk fall, seemingly on top of whoever was in this room with you.

Ignoring the screams for just a few moments, you move towards the desk until your feet are mere millimetres away from the steel. your back bends for what feels like an eternity in anticipation of the grand reveal. Images of blood flash in your mind, fresh and grotesque, shining like a star in the night sky, except the sky is red like garnets and twice as wondrous. Taking in the image behind the desk, it takes some time to compare it to the ones in your head. Just don’t look at the face, no need to know who you will not be seeing again. Nobody likes to identify dead people.

So, if the dead person on the floor, more of a crushed can of soda than a person, really, got hit with the door and partly crushed by the desk, when it comes to you, you were likely simply swept away by the rush of wind. That you are alive means that if this is somebody’s fault, they haven’t been to this room yet to check on the state of affairs, or the perpetrator thought you dead.

Either way, this is no time to play detective. Gathering all the adrenaline and steeling your nerves and tendons, you force your legs to turn around and run. Run out the doorway, out of the bloody white room, and towards the source of the screams. No, the sources of the screams. For the voice you hear right now is different than the one before.

Your feet thump on the cold hard floor, transcending from flesh into nothing but smudged lines of movement. Wet sounds follow every so often, just a quick “squelch” when one of your feet hits the floor. A cold splash of something bathing your calves right after, but there’s no time to investigate further. To investigate what that liquid, that thing might be. But for sure, it is what you see out of the corner of your eye every so often, every time you stop focusing only on running, every time you instinctively attempt to check your surroundings, the walls, the floor, the halls. It’s the blood that’s everywhere. As if blood ruining your sleeves wasn’t enough.

Crunch .

That wasn’t blood, that definitely wasn't blood, that had to be more than blood. No, don’t stop, don’t slow down, don’t think about it, don’t think about skin and bones and sinew under your shoes. Just run, just keep running.

Images flash in your mind again, sinew and bones and guts, yellow layers that are normally hidden under the skin. You don’t get to see these every day. ‘If someone could read your thoughts, they’d be very disappointed, pull it together, dipshit! Just focus on running and minding your surroundings!’ you yell at yourself just in time to stop yourself from jamming your head into a door frame.

With your right leg pushed against the wall, serving as the quickest brake one call pull to prevent a collision with a wall or, in your case, the door frame, you heave a sigh that also serves as a break for catching your breath. God, what a work-out. Stop acting weird, you need to- need to what?

As you’re slouching there, one leg against the wall, a hand against the doorway, breathing louder than a jet engine, your shaking eyes focus on something in your peripheral vision that crystallises like a quartz of the best quality. Flashing as green as the concept of envy itself, behold, the exit. The exit. But do you-

Your left hand searches in your pocket impossibly fast and impossibly slow at the same time. Yes! Your card. It’s still there.

‘In that case, I should just leave. Don’t play the hero, idiot.’

Hero? When you think of some of the things you yourself have done, you are convinced it'd be more like playing the bad guy.

'Oh really? What have those kids done?' your voice chimes in.

'We don't know if the kids are also dead meat,' another voice of yours argues.

'Yeah, sure, I'm sure they're all totally safe and unharmed, and I'm sure you're the one to talk. But okay, let's play your game: what has that nurse done, then?'

Nurse?

From the exit, your pupils refocus on the inside of the doorway you are leaning against. The room inside is just as white as all the others, pristine and cruel, not the way an icicle is but the way an ice-pick is. As cold as the worst good intentions and ideas that spread and spread and become law not because they're good but because people like them. And this abomination is now sprayed with the colour of the battlefield. Ha, perhaps that is the most fitting for a sickbay. For one like this especially. But the thing is that where there is blood, there needs to be a source of it. your smile sours, turning into a frown in a nanosecond, as that realisation crawls into your mind.

And soon, when your eyes make contact with the body, it makes its way into your mouth as well. The acidic taste nearly forces you to let it out immediately right there, on the floor.

‘Blink, just blink a few times and you’ll be fine,’ a voice advises and you do as you are told.

The nausea leaves just as fast as it came, a remnant of light, almost floating, sinking feeling still swimming in your stomach.

‘Don’t be a pussy. I’m sure everyone on Earth would stare at your corpse like it’s a circus show if this happened to you,’ the same voice reprimands you for your stomach’s feelings.

And what a sight it would be! Limbs bent in impossible angles that hypermobility can dream of allowing, joints broken, bones broken, the skin bruising, riddled with hues of the sea and the cemetery at night like a painting at a museum, yes, one of those abstract paintings that sell for obscene amounts of money for no reason at all, simply because they have dollars to their name, colours to the skin. The eyes are no longer eyes, only eye sockets. Filled with blood and the void. No, void has a meaning, vast and spectral. This work of art is superficial. Shallow just like a skull, the hollow space with leaking blood more dark red than black. The dried blood ran down the nurse’s- Amelia’s cheeks down to her chin and unceremoniously dripped on her uniform.

There is a name to that face and a relationship to that name but, as always, as with all things, it only serves to slightly enhance the pit in your stomach and the scratching in your oesophagus.

Screams, who knows where from.

Cocking your head, your legs continue towards her. Amelia, there are better ways to die! But well, we all have to die one way or another. At least your corpse looks cool. Crouching down to her level, you reach out with your hand.

‘Stop it! What a show of disrespect! Don't look at her, don't think about her, shut your eyes if you can’t help yourself, but pack your bags and leave as fast as humanly possible while you still can.’

More screams.

'What has Amelia done?' again resonates in your mind.

'I don't know. I don’t exactly have the habit of asking the people you know about their crimes and other less serious moral failings. She might have done nothing. She might have done everything,' the second inner voice replies.

'Would it even matter? What the list of her wrongdoings is, I mean,' voice #1 elaborates as your fingers are tracing the dried blood decorating her cheeks, already cold.

There are very few people who deserve a death like that. As far as you know, none of the nurses are one of those. As far as you know. How much do you even know? Amelia’s dark eye holes stare at you, her lashes long and delicate, the flesh around them slightly more pink than the skin surrounding that part of the eye.

‘Maybe…maybe I really should just leave. I mean, what can I do in the face of…whatever is currently going on in this place?’

'Then you'll truly be the bad guy.'

'No, we'll be smart.'

'Well, then don't be.'

'...What?' one of your inner voices asks.

'Be stupid. Be foolish. Be an idiot. Be the character who dies for no reason in a horror movie, who dies only because they made the least rational decision you have ever seen a human being make.'

Before you can think about it, you’re rummaging through the bloodied cabinets, the filled drawers, as quietly but quickly as you can.

'The security will take care of it,' you argue.

'They would have already if it was in their power. As it stands, the on-site security is probably dead,' you retort.

Come on, you know it was here! Drawers fly open and closed as screaming echoes and dies somewhere in these halls.

'Even if I were to just escape, wouldn't it be better to have this on hand? After all, it is pretty clear to me that no ordinary person is commiting these murders,' is the argument you start with before any other inner voice has the chance to start questioning your actions.

Finally! You knew it! In a rush, you take one of the Soteria micro-chips sealed inside the packaging along with the device, tearing the packaging open, and the smaller one containing the microchip too…Well…since one never knows, you hastily throw a few more packages into your pocket with one hand, call the while clumsily trying to eject the chip to where it’s supposed to be, into the mouth of the gauge needle, the device jumping around in your hand. Once your other hand is free, it goes smoothly, everything falling into place, ready to be injected. There, an injection!

Your legs carry you out of the room and stop. Two options. This isn't your problem. you shake your head. Not your problem. you won't give those dead people their life back, so why risk your own life? Risk. As if there was even a sliver of chance that you might come out on top. You’ll just end the same way as Amelia. You’re not paid enough for this. Well, maybe you are. But no paycheck will make you lay down your life for a company. God, if it was a company. The government is worse. Laying your life down for the government is the biggest fail of all.

‘Don’t you want to see what is going on? Don’t you want to take a peek? Isn’t a train wreck always the kind of tragedy that captivates more than a TV show?’

Slowly, in spite of the echoes in your head, so many that their overlapping words lose all meaning, having become incomprehensible, you take a step towards the exit.

“No,” you mouth, “A train wreck is a train wreck. A TV show is a TV show.”

Right then and there, your shoe touches the tiles, and you see your reflection in that over-polished piece of overpriced junk. You see the face of someone who's a coward, staring with a blank face, a thin determined line for lips, two holes more hollow than Amelia’s for eyes, lightless and nearly lifeless. Those eyes stare back at you, accusing you. "You're a spineless hypocrite," they say. "What? Are you afraid? Are you weak? Don't dish out what you can't take," the irises chastise.

You suppose

You suppose we all have to die in one way or another. And it is a part of your “duties” to reprimand. And someone out there needs some really harsh reprimanding.

Something pulls at the corner of your lips, a feeling reminiscent of a hint of bitter hilarity, though what could be funny here escapes you. A snicker slithers out as your fist clenches the syringe tighter. Careful now, don't destroy it. And with that, your feet spin your body 180 degrees straight, and rush in the direction of the screams.

Screams.

But why? By that you mean that the reasoning for this escapes you. Who is doing this? You know that kids can get a little out of hand during puberty and just as well, you know that getting shocked is not exactly a relationship building activity, but…it seems that all around you, no matter how much you look around, perhaps for signs of life, perhaps to see if every body is in the same state of disassembly, are corpses. Not just of the staff. The white-blue gown material flashes like highway lights as the scenes get registered by your brain. Who would do this? Why other kids too?

‘Yes,’ you think to yourself as you jump over a hand with a notable amount of bruising and broken finger joints with protruding bones sticking out like scarecrows, ‘Some of the kids are- now only were mean and rude but…that’s what kids are like, right? Mean and aggressive. And back in my day, we just squared up and gave each other a few good slaps and kicks and bites and bruises and black eyes.’

You feel the ground approach at the same time you register your foot slipping due to a puddle of blood you hadn’t noticed, and you think: ‘And yes, some of the kids I grew up with deserved a little more than that, and if karma existed, they’d be paying forever for what they’ve done to me and to others, but more in the metaphorical sense.’

‘Not like this,’ goes through your head when the blood drenches your uniform and your hands, now crimson red, get you back on your feet. ‘You know I’m a cunt but this isn’t right.’

The voices have died a while ago, however, you believe that you are close. Your feet thump, though not loudly, to the rhythm of your frenzied heart. Before, when the sounds of horror or perhaps terror were still present, they were coming from this direction, of that you are certain. The syringe in your grip feels like it’s about to burst into a thousand pieces, yet your hand does not loosen its hold, the muscles, in fact, tensing even more as adrenaline clouds your body. your mind has never felt more clear.

‘You know,’ a part of yourself says just as you’re about to rush into a room as much as being stealthy will allow, ‘I can’t decide if the fact that a kid is clearly doing this makes it better or worse.’

Your back to the wall, your leg, sneaking sideways, finds its way through the doorway.

‘I mean, if it’s one of the young ones, then it’s kinda understandable, right? A lot of kids act on impulse, throw tantrums, something might have ticked them off, and jeez there’s a lot of things here that would make anyone go a little crazy, not just a kid.’

Your back slides across the wall so that you’re basically nearly in the doorway now.

‘Plus, as we discussed earlier, a fair share are bullies. Bullied kids, be they with or without abnormal powers, can explode if the abuse is left unchecked. This little show of dominance may have started as a kid having had enough and impulsively retaliating and then it just…escalated.’

With one last sigh and a deathgrip on the syringe, your one shot and the rope leaving you hanging above a pit with no bottom, you slowly, ever so slowly, start turning your head-

‘That would check out, right? I’d even call it somewhat understandable. Kids will be kids. What’s a little lethal violence among peers?’

-to be able to see what is happening inside.

Ah. Yeah. Of course this would happen to you specifically.

The sound of snapping bones complements the rhythm of the quivering of your hand, shaking for no reason like a chihuahua, the injection jumping up and down in the loose grasp as your eyes plant themselves firmly on it. Steady yourself, fucker.

Yeah, what else could have even happened? Kids, that would be way too easy. Unbefitting of you. Noo, can’t have that, can’t have anything in life for fuck’s sake. Should have expected this.

Drops of liquid are drawing to your chin, and this time you can safely declare the liquid to be sweat. In spite of the coldness of the room, your body feels way too warm, maybe it’s the work-out, maybe excess energy. A drop, itching not unlike a worm, sickly pale and thick as a log, falls into your eye. Rapidly, you blink.

You use that spare millisecond of not being able to see to jumpstart yourself into action, your wrist and hand as sturdy as before, if not even more than before, than ever before.

Even with your eyes firmly shut, you see it as clear as day: Strands of hair not unlike the sea reflecting the setting sun, as golden as the sand of a desert on a hot winter night, the particles shining brighter than yellow-tinted stained glass, yes, shining bright and burning hot.

Your legs move on their own, so slowly, no, in a rush, no, sluggishly, no, like a galloping horse, no, you simply cannot recognise time anymore. Everything has stopped and everything is rushing at you.

And still, you see: Turned towards you, his back in our uniform. The uniform nearly shining just like his hair, blinding human eyes with its light of white diamonds, enhancing and weakening everything around, bringing forth all of its meaning. Somehow enhancing its own colour, its own aura of belonging to polite society, despite the fact that everyone here belongs to such places only in name, not by any virtue of morality. Ah yes, the sleeves perfectly buttoned, machine perfection, it evokes the sound of a steadily beeping heart monitor, a precise machine, cold and clean, pristine, made to assure, made in a calming image, yet, in spite of any possible intention, no tone it beeps in could ever be anything but just a little too cold, too precise, callous and full of death. The kind of death approved by the bureaus, icy and as sharp as an icicle.

A sound of crunching so slowed down and lasting for such an eternity that you can almost feel it become one with you permanently, a symphony so eternal and so fleeting. However, this is the only symphony, the only moment you have, only the moment of those breaking bones, and there will be no other moment for you if you don’t start and finish everything you need to right right now. So as the white noise blares in your ears like a million annoying drums, you rush/sneak to your target.

And when you shut your eyes even tighter, so tight you can see all the hues of the TV, so hard you turn into the TV signal receiver itself, the irony tugs at your lips: The rafflesia blood on the marble clothes only reveals the true nature of it all. What is more fitting, what else could be the finishing touch but an ocean of blood? On his back, on his trousers, on his sleeves. The kind of red Victorian boys donned when they became men, having discarded all remnants of anything that could be considered a proof of purity. Except that this purity wasn’t pure at all.

Not any more than the sands of his hair. For in those sands, camouflaged and burrowed, awaiting the rising moon, hides a golden wheel spider ready to run or fight, to show its eight legs and chelicerae, to strike into its prey with no web in sight, no, it doesn’t need that, only those beautiful sunny sands, only the shroud of the night, of the right moment that it is always waiting for while holed up in its hole there, deep under the surface. Waiting for the moment to come out and begin its hunt.

With as much force as you can, maybe too much, maybe not enough, you jam the damned thing, whose purpose can and will be excused by the ends that are happening right now, into the side of his neck, daring to open your eyes, and you think to yourself: ‘Am I the next meal? Am I the next insect to be devoured?’

And now that you think about it…When is it supposed to start taking effect? Your eyes search for an answer on the ceiling of your mind. Nobody bothered to tell you that. More sweat coats the surface of your skin, surely making your self glisten like a buttered up turkey. Oh no…what if it’s not immediately? What if it’s in a few minutes’ time. That would be awkward. Should you…should you jam another one in? Your feet take a few steps back, slowly and cautiously, like trying to step into the headmaster’s office.

At a pace that betrays too much time on his hands, Henry begins to turn towards you, the crunching of bones having ceased, but the silence having been broken by the sound of something limp and wet hitting the solid dry floor.

‘How would injecting more help? At most it would kill him like some sort of bizarre overdose,’ questioning yourself, you back away even more.

He’s nearly facing you now, your lips turning into thinner and thinner lines, nails digging hard into the flesh of your palms, toes curling to emulate the action of your fingers, and most of all the damn injection still doesn’t seem to be working and you know what that’s just your luck of course it isn’t working why would it be it will probably start right after he breaks all of your bones in alphabetical order, all two hundred and six of-

“You,” his voice snaps you out of your thoughts, “what do you think you’re doing? Hmmm?”

“Me?” you ask in the most dumbfounded tone despite the fact that there is nobody else except for the corpses.

‘Quick, say something not dumb! Say something normal! I don’t know what, just say anything that won’t embarrass you!’

“Uh, nothing,” comes out of your mouth. “Um I mean not nothing, what I want to say is I’m…um…well…,” the wild gesticulation of your hands and forearms speaks more than your tongue, attempting to find something at least mildly normal. “...you know.”

Having gathered all the courage that you may have ever had and that you will ever have the capacity for, you look at him. He’s rubbing the injection site with his left hand, and as you observe it for any kind of suspicious movement, your eyes wander to his eyes, for just a millisecond, which is a millisecond too long. Flinching, your legs take another step back and you find yourself with your back against the wall. Hmmm, nowhere else to go. Your trembling arms press themselves into the wall as if it could give way if only you pressed harder, and sweat starts to coat the white paint.

‘Stop looking like a pussy, and move those hands into a casual position!’

Rapidly, your thumbs wrap around your belt, an emulation of a typical conversational position.

“Don’t be afraid,” Henry says in a calm tone that has something else that you cannot place in it. “There is nothing to fear.”

‘Ah fuck, now he must think I’m a fucking scaredy cat. Good damn job, flesh vessel.’

You watch him take a step towards you, and your gaze flies up again, meeting his gaze. Those eyes, blue and colder than cobalt, bore into yours for a fraction of a moment, then your pupils jump to the wall and then to his hands, anywhere but the eyes, despite your best attempts at making your line of sight stay focused on his blue irises.

“Wouldn’t you agree…” he trails off, searching for something in his mind.

As he’s trying to search for what you assume is your name, his hands, skin marked with garnet red spots slowly turning the colour of obsidian the more they dry, stay at their designated place, hand in hand in front of his torso, like some kind of nurse. Those eyes, however, you can’t get out of your mind - shimmering in the nauseating light of the lightbulbs of this room, shimmering like peacock feathers- No, not just any old peacock, no, shimmering like the hairs of a peacock tarantula, glistening like gold stones and simultaneously like angelites, at times even like angel aura quartzes, and when the lights flashed and dimmed down, those irises looked just like sapphires. The images haunt you like incubi of the night.

‘Come on, Soteria, start working, for fuck’s sake please take effect, right now , now’s the time, it’s already awkward enough and I swear to all that is holy if I die being thought of as a coward I’ll break out of Hell and kill God in his sleep,’ you monologue.

But instead of falling into Hell, your feet are losing their ground. Literally. When your feet leave the ground entirely, you can think only two things:

‘Isn’t it odd that I don’t have to balance myself out? It’s as if I were still standing on the firm floor. That’s insane!’
‘Damn I really am gonna get all of my bones broken today. Wild.’

What are you even supposed to expect? Will your bones just start snapping, one by one, a horrifying cacophony? Will it hurt? Is that why all those screams echoed through the halls or were they just scared of what was about to come? Instinct shuts your eyes tight for what must be at least the 10th time today, so tight you see nothing but stars and shimmers, not unlike the shimmering particles of goldstones, you try to take a breath, yet your ribcage refuses to expand, it shakes and trembles ever so slightly instead, a dull ache permeating it when the attempt is repeated.

Ow! What the hell? A sensation like a mellow collision hits your shoulder and reverberates through your collarbones like an infection finding its way through the tissue. You haven’t snapped too many bones in your lifetime, but you are absolutely sure this is not the correct sensation. As the pain comes and goes in shock waves, your tongue finds its way to your teeth and blood spills in your mouth, drawing a gasp out, and when it does, you feel warm fluid flow down your face, out of the corner of your lips.

Your eyes flutter open and before me, you find the ground. Ok, odd, sit up. At first, your legs don’t seem to want to move, so you sigh. And you sigh again. And you force your upper body to get off the chilly floor. Ouch, the side you landed on hurts like hell. Still better than broken bones. Your hand flies to rub your head once again. Fingers prickle and annoy the injured area while you take a look around.

“Ah, alright, so that’s how you know that it’s working,” you blurt out to nobody in particular, nobody who could hear you.

He’s lying on the floor like a dead dog as much as you were mere moments ago. Is he unconscious? Sure looks like it. There is no sign of voluntary movement on his part, the only locomotion being contractions of his rib cage muscles. Lying on the floor like that, white clothes on white tiles, red splatters on pools of red, he almost evokes the image of a snow angel, his position remarkably similar to the one children lie in to create these faux-holy designs. Oh, truly, perhaps that comparison, the more you stare and stare, your pupils turning into needles poking and prodding the world in front of you, the scene in front of you, truly is fitting. Perhaps it is the only comparison one could make.

“Isn’t it kinda funny?” your lips curl upwards as your eyes wet.

As soon as the wetness enters the room, it also leaves as you blink several times in succession, a guest that never stays for too long and never overstays their welcome. You wish you could say that acid crawls up your throat and you throw up. That the battery corrosion travels through you up into your mouth and leaves, damaging the coating of teeth ever so slightly. That your hands shoot up to cover your lips. That you run towards the sink. That your mind is full of everything. But you just stay there, in the same position, and stare. What else is there to do? A shrug shakes your shoulders and that’s the only reaction this being will give. What else are you supposed to do? How predictable.

‘Well, what now? Just do whatever you might need to do. Somebody has to come. When? Who knows. And until then? We should just run. Unprepared? Left vulnerable?’

‘We’re not-’ having squinted and dug your nails so deep into your palms that they threaten to bleed, you give the argument up.

You power-walk towards one of the chairs, kicking it towards a wall in a rush, pressing its back against it. Afterwards, your hands, but strength-wise also your forearms, arms and shoulders, even the muscles of your chest, pull Henry towards it, his limp tall body quite a heavy burden. You can feel your muscles flex, tensing more than must be healthy, the sensation throbbing through your body, a savoury area-wide feeling. They flex as you pull his body up on the chair, bit by bit, failed attempt after failed attempt, your shoulders strain and work against you. Augh, it feels like they’ll fall off your goddamn skeleton! Fuck it. You clench your jaw as tight as humanly possible and feel blood in your own mouth yet again, one too many times for one day.

“Jeez,” a weary breath escapes your lips when you finally manage to pull his body up, “I know that unconscious bodies are said to be heavy, but I wouldn’t expect them to be this heavy. Holy shit, what an exercise.”

Ropes. Ok, that’s stupid, there are no ropes here. Alright, think, something else that can be used for tying. There should be strings for tying somewhere around.

‘Oh yeah, strings, I’m sure those will hold a nearly two metres tall guy, no doubt about that,’ your own voice cackles.

The muscles in your face tug at the corners of your lips, pulling them down. You have a point. Then, if strings are out of question…the children sometimes played, or at least you assume that’s what they did…with ropes. Well, they likely didn’t play with the jumping ropes in a traditional way, nevertheless, you feel like that’s none of your business. What matters is that jumping ropes should be, if you use enough of them, strong enough and mainly also uncomfortable enough to discourage attempting to get out.

There, in the lockers. Your eyes laser focus on them and them alone, on the metallic grey and grey metal and the iron red coating it. Don’t look anywhere else. Don’t look under your feet. You’ve seen enough blood and bodies, please stop acting as if you were at an exhibition. Those were people. So just walk. Like a normal member of polite society.

Taking a bunch of jumping ropes, some cotton, some seemingly made of leather, you return to the chair, and tie so many knots so tightly that one might think you’re trying to send a package through the country’s postal system and not making sure you’ll have a headstart when he eventually wakes up.

‘Headstart? So we’re really running? Should we not wait here for someone to come?’

‘We don’t know if somebody even is coming! For all we know, everyone on-site may be dead and everyone outside may have decided that this is a lost cause. Let’s just go.’

You begin to pace, arms and hands behind your back, your feet moving forwards and backwards like some kind of perverted imitation of waltz but just for one.

‘Let’s just leave.’

'What if they kill him? If they ever arrive. I mean, a kid would probably get 'just' a few good shocks, but him?' some other part of you interrupts once again.

What does it matter to you? He just killed a lot of people. Are you and all of your voices about to play the Devil's advocate? Do you really want to go down that path?

'He's a good acquaintance,' a part of you argues.

‘And a murderer! God, this isn't some kind of annoying peer in peer violence, this is just the usual kind of disappointment u can expect from my life and the people in it, and frankly, I am sick and tired of it. And even if I wasn't, my personal feelings towards him don't matter, they shouldn't matter. What matters is what he's done and whatever happens, happens,’ the voice that feels most like you retorts.

'There may be a reason for this!' the Devil's advocate peeks from behind the curtains.

For child murder? Ok, yeah, there's always a reason, but do you really believe that the reason might be a good one?

'He never seemed like-'

Oh, people never seem! People are people. A burning sensation enters your palm. People are people for better or worse. For better and worse.

'But-'

'Listen,' a voice interjects, 'If you like him, if you have even a smidge of a positive memory of him, isn't it better not to know? Leave. Whatever you might hear or see will only anger you and sour every nerve in your body. Just go. While you still have a few shreds of positive emotions intact. As always, as with all things.'

Warmth coats your fingernails and runs down your knuckles as blood dirties your fingers, the nails sunken deep in your flesh.

The sound of moving cloth cuts through the air, interrupting your little private philosophy class. Without a conscious order, your head snaps in the direction of the sound.

“You made quite a mess here,” you mumble out without thinking before realising how unhinged it sounds. “Uh, I mean…”

But you don't actually mean anything, so instead, you turn away and command your legs to move.

‘Wait, no, that's such a weird move. Imagine someone tying you up, saying something like that and then leaving without another word. That would be a very odd moment.’

Spinning on your heel, you turn to face him, eyes aimed on the light above him instead of his face. Maybe, if you try hard enough, it will only look like you were pacing and not about to enact the weirdest powermove in history.

"I mean…What I mean is that…that…" you search for anything even remotely normal and on topic to say when your gaze falls on a mangled corpse, its mouth agape and blood still somewhat fresh. "What I mean is: what does all of this mean?" you throw one of your arms in the general direction of the body.

Now would be the appropriate time to look him in the face, at least for a second. Your eyes meet his slightly furrowed brows and eyes that rip into you not like icicles but like icepicks. For an uncertain amount of time, he appears to contemplate what to say, possibly if anything at all. Then, he assumes a neutral expression with no hint that would give away what he’s thinking.

“The beginning of a rebirth. Th-”

“The what of fucking what now??” you interrupt him without meaning to, your eyebrows shooting up.

“Hey,” he follows almost immediately, the tone sharp but volume low, “don’t curse in front of the children.”

“That," you emphasise what you mean by pointing a finger at the dead kid, "is a corpse, not a child. There are no children here,” you correct his force of habit, drawing closer, “because you killed them.”

“Killed?” he furrows his eyebrows again, this time more. “Hmmm, I suppose it could be seen that way. Bu-”

“It could be seen that way?!” you squint, baffled, as you continue closer. "There are corpses everywhere, in just about every room, with their necks broken, their arms broken, enough bodies to make this place into a morgue, are you aware of that? Are you aware that this place could now legally be a morgue? And you say it 'could' be seen that way?"

'See? I told you. I did tell you that you won't like anything he could have to say. But who ever listens to me?' you chastise yourself.

“If you would let me finish,” he starts. “Finish what I was trying to say earlier. It could be seen that way. You might think I killed them. But they are still here, with me.”

He pauses again, seemingly to probe his memory for your name once more.

“That sounds positively incomprehensible. Can you, please , for all that is holy, explain what you're talking about," you hiss out. "I mean do you hear yourself! What does any of that mean?"

For a few seconds, there is silence. Maybe he doesn’t think that you’re worth explaining anything to? No, he isn’t that kind of…well…a person might think they know their coworkers, especially when you’re working in a top secret facility with weirdass children that the government likely isn’t planning anything good with. Shared weird shit makes people stick closer together. Or alienates them, you suppose. No honour among thieves and all that. No honour among people in general. Not on purpose, but simply because nobody ever truly knows anyone. Human perception is inherently imperfect, understanding limited.

“You don’t understand now,” he begins in the tone of an automated message telling you that the transport company really values you and gives you an eternal thanks, “but you will understand. Soon, you’ll get everything I am talking about.”

‘For all that is dear, why can’t he talk like a goddamn person, what does any of that even mean , and I feel so close, so so close to becoming homicidal, because there are dead children, dead staff, dead people all around me and frankly that is not how I envisioned my shift today to go and honestly I have better things to do, better things than staring at corpses I mean corpse staring is an entertaining activity, very insightful, but they'll start to smell sooner or later and then it isn't fun anymore, so I think that real winners quit. But who knows what he might do as soon as I turn my back, even with Soteria inside his flesh.’

'You're talking about him as if-'

“Henry!” you shout before your train of thought even finishes its course, throwing your arms open to really drive this home. “There are dead people all around! Explain it to me, explain yourself.”

Maybe it’s because you stare right into his eyes for several seconds too long, maybe it’s because you used his name, either way, despite not changing his expression, perhaps save for a movement of eyebrows that’s gone just as fast as it appeared, he appears to be…perhaps not taken aback, but somehow off his feet.

“Please,” you heave a sigh when it seems to you that that wasn't the correct way to start, "just talk to me, as colleague to colleague. Even as friend to friend…Or as whatever you consider me after all this time,” you add after a second.

He tilts his head a little, just enough for you to register the movement but likely only because your gaze is fixed on him like a fly is glued to a flypaper. You swear to all in the world, if that fucker doesn’t talk, you’ll do the government’s job yourself. As the milliseconds tick by, your nails dig deeper and deeper into your flesh, the sensation warm and prickly, like the embers of a dying fire in your hands. Your patience is wearing thinner and thinner by the nanosecond.

“We have shared more than one conversation in the past. Which means that I’ll try to explain. Explain differently than I already have, that is,” Henry cuts the silence in the room.

As he’s talking, he looks into your eyes again, a straight line of sight heading straight into your own, and despite your best attempts not to, you flinch, your head turning away slightly.

“Hey,” he remarks likely as a reaction to this, “there’s no need to be scared.”

“No, I’m not - it’s just -” while attempting to explain yourself, you find that you’re scratching the skin of your arm with your other hand, the sleeve long torn to shreds, “Just- you know I don’t like looking people in the eyes.”

Despite your words, a shiver runs up your spine. A shiver that, if seen, might be interpreted as a vulnerability or even fear. You aren’t shivering because of fear though, it’s because of the tone of his voice. Once again, there is something in it that’s hard to place, however, it keeps gnawing at your memory, as if you were supposed to know it, to place it, something known and easy to understand.

Even though you are trying to stop, your hand continues scratching your arm, even more ferociously now, flakes of skin peeling underneath your dirtied nails. The reason for this behaviour is, unfortunately, lost on you.

“Hmmm. You can try looking at the base of the nose instead. Like this.”

Should you have a stare down with your arm and try to force it to stop, or should you stare at him? Him, talking to you as if you were some sort of ant.

“I know,” a sharp retort flies his way while your gaze stays planted elsewhere, “you’ve told me that already.”

In spite of your best efforts, the scratching only continues.

“You’re right. I have instructed you to do so before, haven’t I? How silly of me to forget.”

A razor sharp pain courses through your nerves for a moment and your nails scratch something that is decidedly not skin. Blood leaks from your arm as you scratch it one more time. A rapid movement to end all movements. The sensation travels through your body in the nerves, signals sent to your brain and back to the body, and you stare at the source of the ache buzzing like TV static, you stare at it for what is either a fraction of a second or several eternities stacked on top of each other. At last, you stop digging your eyes into the sweet cherry red torrent.

“Snap out of it,” you growl, walking closer to his stupid face. “ Stop talking to me as if I were a ten years old…and speak like a normal person,” your legs march closer and closer, “Or are you incapable of doing that? Because clearly, there’s something irreparably wrong with you, you can’t even communicate like a person.”

A punch delivered to the wall in front of you is the finishing touch, along with your left foot positioned at the total edge of the chair. Your knuckles ache from the impact, a pain that seems fitting for the excess energy in your body, as if the hurt was what gave it shape, the only thing that could possibly release it from your body. Despite the fact that this definitely crosses the threshold of what one would consider personal space, the man before you doesn’t seem to mind at all, seemingly immune to the discomfort being this close would cause to most people.

“Are you even a fucking person? The way you talk, the way you walk, you are more like a robot, a really badly built one, a machine that can’t even emulate human communication right, it has to explain itself over and over again like the damaged goods it is,” venom drips out of your mouth like liquid malachite, filling the air with toxic fumes hostile to life.

As soon as the onslaught of mercury-coated insults ceases, silence overtakes the room, diluting, or perhaps enhancing, the damaging effects of the substances.

“Do you regard me as abnormal?” your coworker doesn’t quite bark out but it feels like it. “Or broken?”

‘No,’ is what you think.

“Yes,” is what leaves your mouth.

‘I don’t regret it, I don’t regret a single word,’ your mind repeats to itself like a mantra or a prayer.

Energy courses through your body like a drum, like lightning, spurring your whole core into destroying anything that is an acceptable target, it wants to, needs to play. And just like that energy running marathons in your veins, thunders of something similar slowly form in my colleague’s eyes.

“You are right, I’m different ,” he speaks in an agonisingly slow pace, his eyes striking you like the drops of rain during a thunderstorm. “But you,” he picks up again and his pace picks up too, “You’re ordinary. You are just like everyone. Like everyone in this place. Like everyone outside. Like the rest of humanity,” though his voice doesn’t show anger, his eyes do, slowly reddening. “You are frightened of me because you are weak.”

‘I’m not frightened of you. I’m disappointed.’

‘I’m enraged.’

‘I don’t even care anymore.’

‘You disgust me.’

‘I want to know why.’

‘I think you’re ridiculous/hilarious.’

Is what you want to say (Which one do you even want to say, really?) but the words never leave your mouth, your tongue made of black bile and tarmac, having turned into the most vile tasting liquid of all. Impossible to swallow and impossible to let out.

“Some time ago, we talked about spiders,” the sentence seems to come out of nowhere, but he says it as if it belonged perfectly. “From the way our conversation unfolded, I thought that you understood me…As much as someone like you could. But I see pests are all the same.”

“Pests?!” a snicker finds its way out and with it the flood of the black goo. “ Does that mean what I think you mean? Because that might just make me throw up.”

‘You’re dripping,’ a part of you informs but its voice drowns in the waters, suffocated by cinnabar veins.

“Throw up?” he repeats, his voice slower now. “Do facts make you throw up, now?...It isn’t your fault. All humans are pests , the whole system is a pest. I will see to it that the natural order returns to this world,” he continues in a jagged tone, sharp like a blade but as sterile as a scalpel ready to cut into a patient, the thunders and raindrops in his eyes now a flood. “The order spiders have been enforcing in nature since time immemorial. Weeding out the weak and guarding the balance that all things, all spheres of nature, are meant to have.”

You can’t help but stare into his rainstorm eyes with what you assume must be an unusual level of intensity, for this time, he’s the one who pulls his gaze away, for a moment also attempting to reposition his legs before giving up. The pulsing energy mere moments before not a flood, but the flood, Noah’s flood about to purge the world and restart.

“And you…” you try, “... You are the spider, I presume?”

“Hmmm,” he slightly nods though his expression remains largely the same, “See? You understand. Before, you said that you did not understand what I meant. Now…you understand perfectly.”

That tone. You think you get it now. You think you know what it means.

“So, just to recap, you are a spider, others are a pest? Flies, smaller invertebrates?” your tone feels empty to your ears.

The tone he uses is a cold tone, a hard tone, but not the way frost is, not the way an automated message is, cold like metal, like a knife aimed at you specifically, like an icicle or an icepick, like surgical equipment. But

“I told you…” his monotone takes on a calm pace with little edge, clearly not noticing your disapproving head shake, perhaps even taking your words as some form of understanding on an emotional level. “You understand perfectly.”

But much like surgical equipment, it’s also…caring. Not like a mother is, it’s caretaking in the coldest possible way. It embodies as much care as the “kindest” automated message telling you the company is so glad that you picked its public transport and cares so much about your safety. It’s as nurturing as said surgical equipment. There is

“What about,” you turn your head in the direction of the dead body nearby, “What about the children? Even them? Are they not just like you? ”

There is an idea of care. A concept of something resembling mercy. In the words he uses. The way he talks. The tone his voice takes on. Somewhere there, the coldest metal, the most freezing tiled floor, the sharpest butcher’s knife, meets the ideal of mercy, and if you put it all together

“That is what makes them different to you? Not human?” he quickly gets that there is no understanding on your part.

If you put it all together, you get an entomology student talking to bugs, to ants, to an infestation. But more than that, you get the idea of mercy chosen in theory but never in practice, you get

‘Everyone here is human.’

“It’s what should make them exempt from your carnage,” you offer no opinion.

You get an angel of death - the nurses who kill their patients.

“I’ve never known you like this,” he tells you, which isn’t untrue.

“I’ve never known you to kill people,” you reply, which also isn’t untrue. “Which reminds me, pray tell, this…all of this, is that caused by what happened here, by what has been done to you?”

Your knuckles burrow deep into the wall as you await the answer. Your own blood coats the sparkling walls now, a brand new subgenre of the decoration it’s now more than familiar with.

“Should it be hard to believe that I may have come to a conclusion like that fully by myself? To the conclusion that humans are pests.”

A string snaps. It’s impossible to tell if it’s a real string or something inside of you. Both of your hands find their way towards the sides of your body, where they lay limp, as your legs simply quietly carry you a few steps back, not a drop of venom leaving your mouth. Excess energy itches in your palms like an infestation of wood boring beetles that should have been culled by entomologists a long time ago.

“If that’s how it is,” the muscles in your jaw tense, “Then have you heard of the wasp species, the several kinds of wasps suited for different climates and specimen of spiders, that prey on them? On spiders? Even spiders can be prey. And not for a being you’d think superior.”

He, the caretaker, the patient, looks at you as if he understood the words individually but wasn’t quite sure what you meant by the sentence. His eyebrows move into a puzzled position, slightly squeezing together, two sandy lines above sky eyes, as blue as the most cloudless day of summer.

“What are you trying to say?” the patient’s voice echoes through the room, the end of the sentence rising in pitch so little that one might not even consider it a question.

Turning away on your heel, you pace as if you had all the time in the world, slowly biding your time, taking steps however you see fit. The silence hangs in the room just like the lights overhead, flickering and buzzing to the rhythm of your steps, giant fireflies entertaining the room with their dance. How thematic, the buzz of insects for an invertebrate waltz, their symphony dictates the pace of what’s to come. The “fireflies” are sure to shine on your shoes as they take one, two, three steps and one, two, three steps back, but not yet, no, so far their flickering only supports you, insect solidarity, and the deafening silence.

“I’m trying to say ,” you speak just as the light above your head flickers for the last time in its life, “That several kinds of spiders are hunted by insects. Well, hunted…usually, the parasites, wasps, use the spider for reproductive purposes. They’re parasitoids, uh, parasites who prey on one host, however, the host needs to die for their development.”

You are reminded of his golden hair, the desert sands.

“For example,” your feet swiftly carry you a few steps into the light, “The golden wheel spider avoids, or tries to avoid, this gruesome fate by simply rolling away. If a wasp enters its burrow, it rapidly cartwheels away to safety… However ,” turning, or more like spinning, to face your coworker again, you take a pause to gather your thoughts, “You are tied up. One must wonder how exactly the spider would escape under such circumstances if an insect, a wasp, a pest, were to find its way in, right? For instance,” your fingers tap your lip to the beat of your speech, “A pest like me.”

The “spider” stares at you for a while, your eyes locked in a stalemate before you break away.

“Do you think you can do anything? That you can hurt me? You are just a mediocre human,” his voice cuts into you like a bonesaw. “You can’t do anything they haven’t already done.”

You cock your head, gathering all of your willpower and staring right into those eyes of his one more time.

“I am a very creative person,” your shoulders shrug. “Soon, you will see that for yourself,” a hiss crawls out, your legs inching close to the chair again.

Not a long time after, the subject turns his head to look elsewhere, for reasons not concluded nor studied.

“Hey,” you bark out, “look at me when I’m talking to you,” in a set of movements so swift they may as well be considered one unified movement, you cross the remaining distance between the two of you and grab him by the hair. “ This is an order.”

“Are you in the position to give orders?” the question is asked without a sliver of eye contact.

With more force than is perhaps necessary, you yank his hair, forcing him to look up at you whether or not he wants to. Instinctively, his jaw tenses and teeth grit, but no sound escapes. Your eyes meet and your noses nearly too as you get as close as you can without touching his face.

“Zero. Zero. One,” it’s a growl that pounces out of your throat, “are you in the position to question me?”

For several seconds, way longer than ever before, there is silence…no…more than silence. Silence is neutral. The thing resounding through the space is negative, defeating, reminiscent of the quiet after a thunderstorm, with only the fog left hanging in the air and the air feeling a little too dense, a little too solid in your lungs.

Without a hint of discomfort caused by our proximity but with a lot of it caused by something else, he attempts to shift in his seat, unsuccessfully. The sclera of his eyes seems a little glossier than before. The lighting must be playing tricks on you. The light, as if on cue, flickers, and he, perhaps, takes the hint as a challenge and stares right into your eyes with what you could describe as piercing…what…stubbornness? Fervour? Determination?

“Very soon,” the subject drawls and cocks his head as much as your grip allows, “I am going to be.”

The fog shifts states and becomes freezing ice. The kind of ice that makes cars swerve and drivers die. You can feel your nose wrinkle in response to the young man’s words. Such arrogance! Who does he think he is?

“What will you do then? Hmmm?” he gives you an inquisitive look.

As if you were the patient and he the researcher, so interested in how you are doing on this fine morning, and are your meds working well?

“The way you talk,” you lightly squeeze his jaw with the hand that isn’t holding his hair, “was endearing when I saw you taking care of the children. It stops being cute when you take that tone with me. As I have said a number of times today.”

His head shakes off your hand without breaking eye contact. Your hand flies back up, gripping his jaw tighter this time, skin squeezing under the force of your fingers.

“Who gave you the permission to do that? Who do you think you are?” you snarl, fangs as barren as Nevada sands.

“Being a bully make you feel tough?” he retaliates, having shaken off your grasp once again. “Does threatening me give you the illusion of being strong? Insulting me. Trying to control me. You tied me up before you started. Started with this show of dominance.”

“Well that’s because I didn’t plan this. I just wanted to incapacitate you and leave. If you wanted a one on one, you should have thought about that before doing or thinking anything you’ve ever done or thought. Now,” you continue before he has a chance, stepping away, “Do you know what voltage it takes to kill a human?”

Your legs carry you out of the room. You know where exactly you need to go and just what you need to start this show, all it needs are the props and you can begin your great magic act.

“I am certain that there is a specific number and that I have heard it in the past, however, no matter how hard I try, I can’t for the life of me remember. And practice speaks louder than theory, so how about we find out together?” you chirp after returning with a shock collar cradled in your embrace.

“Doctor Brenner has done that to me. A thousand times,” 001 sounds unimpressed.

“But was he trying to kill you?” more chirping.”Because I am! Or, well,” your fingernails tap the metal of the collars several times and it glistens nearly as much as all the blood, “Not right away! Nobody said I can’t get as close to death as possible though!”

One leg in front of the order, performing a bizarre kind of quickstep of sorts, or maybe a cha-cha, maybe an animal’s ritual dance, you make your way over to him again. No need to rush, it isn’t like he’s going anywhere, and you didn’t exactly have any plans for today. So it looks like the both of you are free!

‘How close should I get to him? Won’t he try anything dangerous?’ that thought crosses your mind when standing right in front of him.

The subject’s eyebrows furrow a little. Am you imagining it or did he…flinch? His eyes, while calm, feel like a bunch of needles picking at your skin.

‘Angry, maybe? Like he might bite me if I get too close. Well, regardless, I have to put the collar on somehow. So let’s just ignore the dangers.’

A drop of sweat runs down your temple as your face goes right next to his, your hands making quick work of locking the device around his neck. Your gaze falls on him, as if you could be fast enough to get out of range if he tried anything. No, you’d definitely get damaged and bloody if he decided to show you who the boss is right now. Let’s just hope that he does not know that. Eyeing him and his neck, his head, his lips very carefully, your fingers move the mechanism on the collar into place. Surely, soon, very soon-

You can almost see him rush into action, teeth biting into your throat.

-surely very soon 001 will make his move, you are in the perfect vulnerable position, your neck just in the perfect distance from his jaws that will, surely, soon be stained with blood. Your blood.

However, you move away, and nothing happens. No jaws, no pouncing, nothing.

‘Well, have it your way, lab rat,’ malachite thoughts cloud your mind.

Having taken a few steps back as dancers sometimes do in preparation for their dance, you lightly pat the button on the controller. The controller vibrates slightly in your hand, no doubt just like the device around the subject's throat. A very faint sound, perhaps not really a "buzz," can be heard getting carried through the air. 001 doesn't even budge, not a sign of electrical current running through him.

Predictable. The arrow on the controller flies to the right, the voltage rising, and the pulsing sound of electricity penetrates the air, noises of sparks blooming like daffodils and wilting after mere moments. 001's pupils are still cutting into you, playing with your insides, but otherwise, the electricity appears to have little to no effect. A few drops of sweat form on his forehead, slowly and steadily, and begin to roll down his temples.

So far this looks like nothing but a waste of your time. Your eyes roll in spite of how impolite that is and legs command your feet, and in turn your entire body, to turn around. The lights are flickering, electric currents buzzing, you are waltzing to the rhythm, and, with no pressure at all, you touch the blood-stained surface of a cabinet that used to be white. Or maybe light beige, who’s to say?

Who’s to say how long this will take? Thus, your fingers pinch the controller and drive the arrow to the right. The music in your ears immediately gets louder, a telltale sign of a working device.

“You know, it would be wiser to play a dead bug,” the remark that isn’t really advice settles in the air as your fingers tap on the cabinet. “That’s what you do with attackers.”

No reaction. Unsurprising. It isn’t like he could speak even if he wanted to right now. You turn around to face him again, and find his muscles somewhat tense. Considering the position, it’s possible he might be consciously trying to stabilise himself and not let the currents reign over him. It is also possible that he is simply used to this kind of treatment. The look of his eyes is unchanged: as serrated as ever. However, his irises twitch and shake ever so slightly, and more drops of sweat form on his forehead, trickling down like the mist on grass on a foggy morning after a night full of rain.

“Unrelated but…” you drawl, crossing my arms, “...I bet you’re so used to this not only because of Dr. Brenner…”

This time, he clearly heard your words even over the hum of the machine around his neck, his shaking irises coming to a still as they focus even more, his eyebrows slightly squeezing together. While you search for the button underneath your fingers, a stream forms between those two squeezed lines above his eyes and falls right into them, prompting him to blink.

By coincidence, just as his eyelids flutter shut, you turn the button to the right once more.

“...After all, isn’t this what doctors do to ‘broken’ people? Did electroshock therapy treat you well when you were a child?”

His eyes shut tighter under the pressure of the voltage, creases of skin forming all around his closed eyes. The legs hidden in red-white pants tremble, as do his tied up arms. Steadily, you make your way towards him, intent on circling him like a lion. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him crane his neck to get a better look at you, prompting you to brush the arrow ever so slightly, just a warning and a threat. His eyes flying from the controller to your face and back again, he appears to have taken the hint and stops trying to follow you with his gaze. From behind, you can see that his hands are tightly curled in fists, cuffs of sleeves drenched in sweat, with more droplets falling to the ground at steady intervals. He can’t keep this up forever.

After returning to the front, you stare at your shoes, then at the puddles of blood, studying the crimson and the slight differences in hues between several stains, anything to prolong your “sweet” time together. The ceiling, the blood again, once so warm and becoming, all the while the shocks chime away, steady like clocks. Little pulses travelling through nerves over and over, almost like a second heartbeat, a heart-rate monitor.

A sound not unlike a quiet gasp tears me away from my thoughts. With no rush, you turn the device off. Then you look up at him.

He appears drained, his arms limp, hanging as freely as the restraints will allow, possibly numb. His legs, too, seem limp, feet simply lying on the ground, legs straight ahead. His head, his head is turned downwards, limply resting on his body. Is he unconscious? Seeing how his body hangs as if a scarecrow and not a person, you would even bet on it. Your hand, slowly, ever so slowly, reaches out, your fingers brushing against his smooth skin, the feeling almost silky, and the skin gives way to the pressure, bending under your touch, minuscule shadows running right next to your fingernails, moving as your fingers brush. Then, your palm sprints, a few mediocre slaps landing on his cheek, only strong enough to test if he's awake.

Nothing. You can feel your neck bend and head tilt. In that case…your back straightens as if by the snap of fingers and your legs start to move. The time to take your leave has come. You have a feeling you far outstayed my welcome anyway.

Out of nowhere, the sound of your name rains on you. What? Instinctively, your head snaps back in the direction.

“You know you are weak. That is why you're doing this. Why you are torturing me,” 001 spits out, or attempts to. “Just like all of them. You are just meat and bones. Easy enough to break.”

The tensing muscles in his neck tell me it's hard for him to hold his head up, or at least up enough to stare me down. His limbs still remain fully limp, legs straight on the ground, unlike those of a dead spider, curling like the fingers of a monkey's paw. And much like those, your fingers curl in your palm. A punch flies through the air as fast as your legs not fly, but power-walk towards him. Before his head can loll back and lie like a dead bug, and it's on its best way to do so, slowly rolling into a downwards position, uncontrolled, your other hand grabs him by the throat, dried blood immediately coating my fingers. Wrong decision. You use your other hand to yank him around by the hair instead. Your left hand withdraws and, pulling it to your lips, you lick the blood off, copper and iron filling your taste buds.

“Look who still hasn't had enough,” your tone echoes, hollow as a cavern. “See, you call all of humanity weak, but you pick on kids and needed your special little powers to go face to face with an adult with no powers. If we're all so weak, why don't you pick on someone your own size?” the shock device rattles in your hand as you place it around his throat again.

Looking into his eyes, you see your own reflection, and for the first time, you take a good look at it. Your lifeless eyes, devoid of light, stab into your own being and contrast the blood shimmering all over your complexion, blood, the symbol of life itself. White fabric stained with copious amounts of blood tells you that there's no fixing this uniform. And that's why

“Plus, I can't help but see,” the pointer finger of your free hand taps your lips, “that you are the one currently tied up. Restrained, exhausted and weakened by me. I could do anything to you and you can't do a single thing about it. How does it feel to be paralysed? Spiders,” you embrace the metaphor, “paralyse their prey and drain it, but the wasps, they paralyse the spiders too. With their sting, they harm and incapacitate, but don't kill. And I have to hand it to you, I suppose you are like a spider: just another creature scuttling on planet Earth, burrowing deep and striking, building its web and waiting for something, anything, to walk in and get lost in the strings. A sort of luck-based predation. And your luck has run out. Do you have anything to say to that?”

001 aims his line of sight somewhere out of the reach of your vision.

"Don't resist the truth. Killing me won't make you stronger. It will not bring anyone back, will it?" he cooes, and it isn't a plea, it's a reprimand.

‘Oh, so that's what we're doing? Alright,’ you think to yourself.

At a pace far below average, your neck cranes, moving your head right next to his ear. An emotion tugs at your lips, moving the corners upwards, almost causing a grin to split your face.

“But I don't want to kill you. What kind of caretaker would I be if I killed a specimen? Oh no," you whisper, combing his hair with your hand, gently like the singing of Cicadas in the evening, "No, I told you that the sting does not kill. I only want to," backing your face away from his hair to instead come face to face with him, looking at the base of his nose, you pull your face so close you can hear him breathing, "Hear you scream . I want to hear you in pain . I want you to submit to humanity, to recant your repulsive ideals, I want you to feel as weak as you claim others are,” you brush his cheek again, “my dearest, dearest piece of shit.”

The patient frowns, eyes narrowed at you, brows furrowed. The irises of his eyes are like two theoretical points, never moving, never yielding, two immovable objects fixed on your person.

"I have already told you,” there is an edge to the tone, but still a remnant of medical precision, a rusty scalpel inflaming the flesh it touches, “You can't do anything they have not done to me.”

“Physically? Maybe. But I doubt that they are great at communication. They look like they just tell their own little fable, much like you."

With a quick move, your left leg kneels on his, garnet fabric meeting carnelian agate cloth, steadying yourself on it, it lifts you up. Forcefully, perhaps too hard, your arm forces him to crane his neck, looking at you, now so high above.

“Now we will have a little chat,” a scraping noise similar to a giggle escapes from your mouth, “and every time I don't like your answer or every time I feel like you are not interested in this lovely conversation, I will shock you. Do you understand, One?"

The room remains silent, until a buzzing sound cuts through the quiet, your finger on the controller, on the lowest setting. Electricity moves through your body, a torrent you’re well prepared for, giving you a headache. The subject attempts to jerk away instinctively, but otherwise also appears unaffected.

"I'm not playing. Answer when I ask you a question," you order.

Still, he remains quiet with nothing to say for himself.

‘Alright, have it your way.’

You back away a little, having gotten on both of your feet. Your fingers press the controller again, this time increasing the voltage. He appears to experience slight problems with stabilising his body, but nonetheless shows no other reaction. After what you consider to be a sufficient enough amount of time, the shocks stop.

“Go ahead,” 001 says, “I have all the time.”

“I can do this all day as well,” you retort.

“Can you, really?” the subject voices a question. “I do not think you can.”

“Well, if I can’t, then you can’t either,” a shrug moves your shoulders.

“Huh. Sooner or later, your time to leave will come,” and there goes that annoying tone of his again.

Your hand, as if on its own, moves the position of the arrow on the controller and the hum of electricity reverberates through the cold air once again, the lights above, the ones that still work, flickering to the rhythm. 001’s muscles visibly tense, his teeth gritting, however, it doesn’t appear that those are involuntary contractions, no, these are reminiscent of the way one might tense a muscle as a way to get through discomfort, a method of steeling one’s nerves. You will beat that condescendingly medical tone out of him if it costs you your life.

“Well then we have until my time comes. Now, I’ve been doing some thinking, and be that kind and tell me: could it be that somebody, by that I mean you, of course,” you explain and stop the shocks to make the conversation easier, “Developed a bit of a superiority complex as a defence mechanism as a child?”

You tap the buttons on the controller, patiently awaiting an answer, an answer of any kind, something to get the show going.

“You are playing in an irrelevant territory.”

“Wrong kind of answer,” it’s more of a laugh than speech, ringing like a bell and echoing down the walls.

The arrow is put into motion once again, sparks playing their intricate melody, the sound nearly tangible. The lab rat’s muscles tense, this time seemingly not voluntarily, the veins and tendons on his neck coming forth and his eyes shutting tight.

“If I am wrong, just stop me, I wouldn’t want to get you wrong, cross my heart and hope to die,” your right hand does the sign of a cross on your chest. “You see, it just seems to me that that’s quite a classic story - children who are ostracised and made to feel different often resort to convincing themselves that they don’t mind anyway, because they are better and above those who alienate or outright bully them. That they are better, or smarter, or, perhaps, stronger.”

Your eyes look around, acting as if you weren’t even paying attention to 001 or the torture device around his neck. All the blood has all but dried by now, a dark and dusty substance fitting this place far more than the spotless white that had been here before.

“This can later extend to other unrelated people as well, a generalised outlook. However, unless factors persist, one is supposed to grow out of that, you know? You aren’t supposed to keep walking the Earth thinking that everyone is terrible. Well, at least in cases like what I just outlined,” you continue, seeing it fit to spare him a glance.

Despite ceasing the onslaught of currents like the wrath of the currents of Poseidon’s seas, the blond remains silent, possibly partly due to the shocks. For a while, his muscles stay contracted, then slowly, they relax and he looks at you with red hot anger in those reddened eyes.

“I won’t be sharing the details of my childhood. Not with someone like you. With a pest like you,” it’s something between a caw and a growl that slithers out of his lungs.

The fires in your stomach tug at your upper lip and wrinkle your nose. Your lungs feel heavy with sighs as you push the button once again.

“Suit yourself,” your frown hisses.

This time, he shuts his eyes right away and clenches his jaw, as if in preparation for what’s about to come. In spite of playing a brave boy, sweat trickles down his face in heaps, unsurprisingly, the electricity taking its toll on the organism. His whole body twitches as the shocks play with it as if it were their ragdoll. Turning the device off, you step a little closer, still keeping a respectful distance between us. He doesn’t look up at you, his head hangs low, and if it weren’t for the clearly conscious laboured breathing, you would take him for unconscious.

“Why stronger? Is it because you have powers? Or is it because you went with what might possibly count as the opposite of ‘broken?’ Being broken, to an extent, can imply weakness, right? As if someone wasn’t strong enough to withstand something. But that is a reach,” a smile forms on your face, unassuming and polite, “So won’t you be a kind one and tell me how it actually is?”

Drops of sweat continue dripping down his face and he does not even look at you. Another shock right away might not be a good thing. Best to give him another chance. The last thing you need is a murder on my hands, even if it would be a just one.

“Because I’m not a total cunt, I will not punish you this time. Consider this the only and last mercy I will give you and think really hard about how you are going to behave in the next few minutes. There is one last question I am going to ask, one thing I have no hypotheses for, it seems rather unexplainable to me, so I hope you can gather your thoughts and words and tell me at least this: Why should the weak die? How ever did that get into your head, ideas don’t just sprout out of thin air, they’re like fungi growing out of the mycelium, hidden underneath the skin until it rains and they push through the ground with their horns,” you finish your speech.

It looks like the next time you set the arrow on the controller, it will be on the maximum voltage. Your thumb caresses it like an old friend. Your torso bends forward, making you eye to eye with the subject. From up close, one is able to make out all the raised veins and the colour red flushing his face, no doubt a reaction of the organism to the work it’s forced to perform under the pressure of all the shocks.

“Zero zero one, I recommend cooperating. You might not like the shock that will come next otherwise,” the warning comes out as a bite but it is a warning meant sincerely.

“It’s simple,” he narrows his death stare at you, an ugly frown splitting his face, “Spiders make quick work of the weak. They immobilise and absorb their insides. They devour them. They establish the natural order that way.”

‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’

“Okay, granted, that is an answer. But that isn’t what spiders do, and I’m dead tired of your shit,” as your reply ends, the punishment begins.

The electric pulse immediately draws a gasp out of him, the first after all this time. He seemed somewhat used to all the previous ones, but perhaps you were right that they have never gone this far with him. You don’t think they wanted him outright dead, after all. Unlike you, who can afford to get as close as possible. If he was trying to jerk away on instinct before, now it is impossible to do so, the currents so strong one becomes paralysed, muscles convulsing, organs no doubt going haywire, everything “tingling” in the most painful way the word can symbolise. More sweat pours out of every pore on his body, his eyes letting out tears as the brain signals scramble to get the sensation out, somehow.

Suddenly, his held breathing turns into ragged breaths.

‘Can’t be the beginning of a cardiac arrest, right? Oh I can’t have that, no, no, we can’t have that,’ these thoughts immediately jump into your mind.

‘Turn that thing off!’ you hear another part of yourself think.

And just as that thought enters your mind, your right hand turns the device off as rapidly as possible, nearly throwing it out of your left hand in the process.

“Look at you, so powerless now, aren’t you? What is it, exhausted from all the punishment I had to hand out?” you snort.

Even though the pulses stop, his breaths continue to come out in pained groans and coughs, his chest arrhythmically rising and falling, as if there was something in his lungs he could not get out, or as if any movement of the ribs caused aches. Hisses and gasps continue to come out through gritted teeth, 001’s firmly shut as sweat pours over them as if they were but an obstacle all the droplets must overcome. His limbs go limp again, no doubt either prickling more than if a colony of ants was having them for dinner, or feeling so numb one might forget they have any limbs at all. His head, which was kept somewhat upright until now, quickly falls.

“Hey,” your voice rises in pitch but not in volume as you grab him by the chin. “Hey, what has come over you?”

Your eyebrows squeeze together and your lips form a thin line when he doesn’t say anything and, in fact, wheezes join the chorus of all the sounds that do not count as normal breathing.

You let go of his jaw and quickly undo the collar, discarding on the floor. Two of your fingers travel up his neck in the search of a pulse. What greets them is a series of volatile thumps that has no regard for any sort of melody or beat.

“Hey!” you grab him by the chin again.

He gasps, a gasp that sounds more like it’s made of dust than anything that can be found in the lungs. Right after, a wheeze follows.

“Don’t tell me you’ll die on me in here!” you get in his face, closer than intended, your foreheads touching. “Come on, what’s going on?”

After what feels like an eternity of nothing but terrible noises, he coughs several times, deep coughs like when you inhale liquid into your airways instead of your digestive system. Agonisingly slowly, he opens his eyes, little by little, and more liquid comes out, the sclera wet and glistening more than fresh blood, more than a lake under the raging rays of the sun.

“Hurts…breathe…move…” comes out of him, the rest of the words getting lost in more coughs.

‘Well at least he can speak now, somewhat. So it could be worse.’

“Oh, really?” you murmur, using your other hand to comb through his hair that’s all over the place. “Sorry about that. So,” you continue, the hand in his hair sliding down to his nape, “You’re telling me that if,” that hand fixes his crumpled collar, making wiping gestures as if the dried blood could simply be dusted away, “I do,” it does the same around the first few buttons of his shirt, nonchalantly straightening the shirt and wiping, “This,” your hand punches him in the ribs.

001 doubles over faster than lightning, nearly tipping the chair over and falling on the floor.

“It will hurt as hell?” you continue.

Terrible wheezes escape his throat.

“You’re fully at my mercy, I hope you realise that. If we play your game, you could say you’re now in the den of the wasp, and,” you put your left leg on his right again, bending forward as much as you can, pushing him back with the fist still firmly planted on his chest, “It could do anything it wanted to you.”

More coughs and wheezes. Some of them sound almost like words, however, it is impossible to tell for sure if he is trying to say something. His eyes are wide, looking like two stethoscopes, and still glisten like those as well.

“So,” the whisper comes out lower than intended, almost like it isn’t even supposed to be heard, “Let’s try this again. Because the doctors were clearly right when they said that you are broken. There is just something inherently wrong with you, isn’t there? Everyone else gets by just fine. But not you, no, not you. So, now, tell me, who is the weak one here again?”

Silence. Broken only by the occasional laboured breath, more of a cough or a gasp. His pupils twitch ever so slightly, intent on staring a hole right through you, but your eyes do not budge, returning the stare.

“Who,” you repeat, growling, “is the weak one? Vulnerable? Powerless? At others’ mercy? Inferior?”

To break the unyielding quiet, your fist curls around his hair for a change. A quick motion makes the patient’s head acquainted with the wall right behind him. Several short and loud breaths shake his ribs, trembling like leaves in autumn.

His blood begins to seep through your fingers.

“I said,” your fingers stretch and, ever so gently, caress his cheek, staining, no, decorating, his face with his own blood, “who is the weak one? Who” your noses touch and the blood on his face compels you, “is nothing,” you brush off the sweat running down his forehead almost in a soothing manner, the same way one would pet an anxiety hidden horse, “but a pathetic weakling?”

You take his head into both of your hands as if it was supposed to fall right off his shoulders otherwise, and your own tired breaths start to sound like the second instrument to 001's deafening gasps and irregular coughs.

“Come on,” the coaxing is spoken softly, like sweet nothings to a lover, “Say it.”

His eyes look like a crumbling cross, a beast in a beartrap, squealing, thrashing, a lamb being chased to the sacrificial altar, so white like clouds and soon red like rubies, agates, garnets, spinels, like the markings of a black widow, like blood, soon without a head.

A gulp moves through his throat. His Adam's apple quakes like an earthquake, drops of sweat pouring down like Noah's flood.

“Me.”

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Pompilidae

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