MABEL
She openly accepted the vices, the potential for violence. The youth bore no shame in it, even though she couldn’t possibly know what it entailed. Just the blunt, hard-edged glory of it. Just the lines of blood streamed upon the floor. Just the ghostly howls and bellows during LongNight. Just the intrepid, decayed, withered contortion of it all; when she so willingly presided and courted death. She thought nothing of how this might have tortured him; he was an experienced warrior, she was an ignorant fool. Both could bend and learn. Both could be sated.
And so she absorbed, took in the endless information, the way serrated fringes faced spines, imagined the cool embrace of its flicker against her throat. Wondered what it would be like, to simply cut and maim there, have it all be over and done with. No suffering. Satisfaction.
Between bones. Over napes. Alongside ribs, to and through heartbeats, within lungs so they couldn’t scream, so they couldn’t beg for mercy, so the world wouldn’t hear them shatter upon cobblestones. Her arm was lifted, and she tilted her head to watch, not the least bit bothered. Enamored, twisted, drawing the information and motions in like a moth to a flame – all of them contorting into her brain to use. To exploit.
Then he wanted her to turn the knife on him; and that was a wonder too.
She didn’t hold any rage for him.
So Mabel clenched her jaw, and followed through, steeling, forging, pointing the knife against his neck to start, like a recitation – barely pressing into his skin, mimicking the move he’d slid along her flesh. “Hold the knife so its flat. Stab into the center. Then forwards, slightly to the side.”
And so she absorbed, took in the endless information, the way serrated fringes faced spines, imagined the cool embrace of its flicker against her throat. Wondered what it would be like, to simply cut and maim there, have it all be over and done with. No suffering. Satisfaction.
Between bones. Over napes. Alongside ribs, to and through heartbeats, within lungs so they couldn’t scream, so they couldn’t beg for mercy, so the world wouldn’t hear them shatter upon cobblestones. Her arm was lifted, and she tilted her head to watch, not the least bit bothered. Enamored, twisted, drawing the information and motions in like a moth to a flame – all of them contorting into her brain to use. To exploit.
Then he wanted her to turn the knife on him; and that was a wonder too.
She didn’t hold any rage for him.
So Mabel clenched her jaw, and followed through, steeling, forging, pointing the knife against his neck to start, like a recitation – barely pressing into his skin, mimicking the move he’d slid along her flesh. “Hold the knife so its flat. Stab into the center. Then forwards, slightly to the side.”
If you dig under my feet
You will find things that you don't want to see
You will find things that you don't want to see
