mmmmaniacal (insania) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2011-05-20 13:28:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | mania |
Who: Mania [Narrative]
Where: An apartment in Brooklyn
When: Wednesday evening
What: Don't drink the water, kids.
Mania rises at the crack of dusk. The bedsheets cling to her bare skin, sticky with sweat and spittle; she hugs them to her chest, breathing in the sour body odour (the lingering stench of panic, the heart-pounding, mind-rending, maddening ohgodohgodsomebodypleaseno--) before letting them drop and slipping naked from the bed.
Her host doesn't even flicker a glance in her direction as she stands, nor does Mania bother to excuse herself. Perhaps she's already forgotten about the girl. A broken toy is of little note to her, and it's been hours since this one did anything interesting - hours since she did anything at all but hug her knees and stare through glassy eyes at a mildewed crack in the opposite wall.
Mania pads out into the kitchen, humming tunelessly. She trails an idle hand along an empty benchtop, peering around at the small stove, the photos and scribbled reminders stuck to the refrigerator with various novelty magnets, the remnants of last night's (or was it the night before's?) dinner lying scattered on the floor by the sink.
Why her eye alights on the glass, of all things, is anyone's guess. It alone seems to have survived the interrupted meal, sitting undisturbed on the kitchen table. There is no reason why Mania should notice it; dining has never held much interest for her. It's not often that she even remembers to eat or drink, and when she does-- well, what Mania classifies as edible does not necessarily conform with the majority's view on the subject.
She eyes the glass, lips pursed.
"Water," she muses aloud, and the word seems to stir something like a memory within her. Something someone had said to her not so long ago. Several someones. They'd seemed to think it was important.
She picks up the glass. Sniffs it. Flicks it with a fingernail. Frowns. Raises it to her lips. Tests its edge against her teeth. Then she takes an experimental gulp.
and it tastes--
--strangebadwrong--
and it slides down her throat--
--slitheringsnakelikevenomouslyviscouspoison--
and Mania shrieks her rage, and she's scrabbling, clawing at her neck, her face, but the taint is already inside her, scorching, devouring, corroding from within. She staggers wildly, sending cooking utensils crashing, and her howl is that of a wounded, rabid beast
and then
the voices
just
stop.
All of them. Every gibbering, hissing one; every echo of her own insanity… even Lyssa, her sister in blood and in madness, whose mind is in some senses a second home to Mania - even she falls mute.
And the cacophany, the madness that has been her constant state for all of Mania's long, twisted, bloody existence retreats into deafening silence.
And suddenly she's a very small daimona inside a very large skull. And it's cold and she's not wearing anything and her head is starting to ache. And there's a putrid stench in the room that's something like dumpster and rotting flesh and she thinks it might be her, and her scalp itches and her eyes sting and she--
--she--
She's not sure precisely how it is she winds up on the floor. The lino is cold and none to clean, but she presses her cheek to it, digs her ragged fingernails in, clinging to it like an anchor as her world bucks and shudders--
(And in the bedroom, the girl hugs her knees even tighter to her chest, and her eyes never move from the crack in the plaster-- can'tlookawaydon'tlookawaymustn'tlookawa
--and the whimper that escapes Mania's lips does not sound like the daimona at all. It is the sob of a small child, lost, lonely, paralysed by fear and indecision.
It is getting dark outside. And for the first time, Mania is afraid.