Black Webs

Dead Things

SLIGHT TRIGGER WARNING: It isn't anything major, but there are implied sexual connotations in the way Void talks to Lydia at certain points in this chapter. also i take this top-of-the-chapter warning as a way to remind you guys to constantly comment your feelings as you read bc your author is bored and sad and gets cheered up everytime she reads your in-line comments <3.

xxxxx

"How does a monster become a monster?"

It starts with love,
always love,
and they ate it in greedy handfuls,
back when they were whole
and beautiful
and the light waltzed on
their skin like stars.

It starts with sin,
always sin,
like fingerprints on the spine,
like a devouring,
like singing while Eden floods,
like singing with fists in their mouths.

Before a monster is a monster,
it is swollen with love,
it presses sin flush against the wall,
it pretends that it knows
what to do with its hands.
And then the love vanishes,
it is plucked right out of their mouths,
and the monster is desolate,
and the monster is withering,

and all that is left is sin
and a gaping hole
where the heart should be,
overgrown and abandoned,
stars spilling out.

- Emily Palermo, {starredsoul on Tumblr.}

xxxxx

I will be here
When you think you're all alone
Seeping through the cracks
I'm the poison in your bones
My love is your disease
I won't let it set you free
Til I break you

t w e n t y - t w o:

L y d i a

There's nothing here. Nothing but void and darkness. The empty vessels of eyes, the spirits that roam the underworld, what happens when one is let free?

The sun has been swallowed by shadows, there is only darkness now and forever.

So much... So much darkness...

Muffled unfamiliar voices.

Lydia. Lydia, I'm so sorry. I don't... I don't know where I am. It's so dark where I am. And cold. I can't... I think I might be dreaming, or sleep walking. Or both. Lydia. Please. Please find me. The city... The city needs me.

He's coming! Lydia, hurry! He's coming!

No. NO. NO. No. NO!

Lydia!

What's happening to me?

I'm losing my mind.

A muffled familiar voice.

The voices were heavy, sorrowful choruses, like the sick beat of war drums pounding against her ears, like a thousand screaming souls collaborating in song for her ears only.

They were all around her. There was no escape from them - and he was following her.

She could feel him watching her. She could feel him behind her back. His footsteps muddled the hissing, foreboding echoes of the shattering whispers in her head.

Lydia's every heartbeat was laced with fear as she dashed out of the club and into the narrow, dank alleyway that led back into the outside world. She had hoped she would've lost him in the sea of people, but he'd found her, somehow, he was connected to her.