Implode [edited version]

o3 Implosion

[ o3 Implosion ]

News spread fast, especially of a certain kind, like wildfire. It picks up on a small spark, ignite the foliage around it. Pretty soon, it’s all that can be seen for miles, raging on and destroying everything in its path. News of this kind was just like that, overriding all other chatter with a wave of intensity and heinous whispers. Just the mention of the star quarterback in is newly mangled and bedridden state was enough to set everyone talking. It was a disease, threatening to infect even the most oblivious.

It didn’t help that the police couldn’t identify whatever it was that did it. There was a guess that it was an animal, but that explain the sophisticated manner of his legs being broken. Ground into a pulp; no, no animal they knew of could do that. The images were already surfacing on the internet, posted by some ghoul on the police force. They hadn’t been identified either, but they weren’t being stopped. It still didn’t matter; people ignored the reality of the situation and created stories to fit the occasion.

Matt was in a coma, induced by the doctors. He’d been screaming too loud and struggling too hard for them to properly set any of his wounds. His girlfriend, Delilah, was there watching over him, waiting for signs of him waking. Apparently, she’d barged her way in, playing the bargain of the sweetheart. Of course, that could have very well been a lie generated by a momentarily attention hungry orderly at the hospital and corroded by the high school grape vine.

If the blank expression on her face was to anything to go by, Exodus had many thoughts on the matter that left her in the same place. There had always been a particular hostility between her and Matt, but she had never wanted to harm him. Not even when she had been with him, in his worst times, had she had the mind to wish death upon him like most couples could have the misfortune of saying they wished. While this animosity, for which she knew not the source, had broken their relationship, she had always thought that it had simply been her excuse for avoiding what she had already seen: a failure. Their relationship had been shallow, so expecting it to last was like a cracked wish in a well.

She jumped slightly, cool hands on her wrist as her vision was wrenched towards a concerned Laurisse. The blonde’s eyes were wide with a terrified daze, darting back to the canvas that had been sitting in front of Exodus. She knew something was wrong, very wrong. There had been a time when her art had taken a particularly dark turn, but the look on Laurisse’s face was not that of sympathy or empathy as it would be.

When she allowed her eyes to trail over to the previously blank canvas, she felt her blood run cold. Her hands were still poised at the canvas, as if waiting for an order to continue their work. Her fingers were slick with red and black paint, her paintbrush abandoned on the floor. The now covered canvas was obscured by large archaic symbols, a hazy familiarity hovering over them. They were like a long forgotten dream, underestimated and displaced. They were foreign to her, but still familiar enough for her to know what they meant.

One down

It was the same message set on repeat, different sizes and shades. The symbols were jagged and beautiful, like they could cut if they were removed from their canvas home. Jaw clenched, Exodus stared down at her hands, in an attempt to avoid looking at the symbols she understood, but didn’t know. This proved futile, because she could see the weavings of the same symbols around her wrists in thin sharpie, peeking out over Laurisse’s fingers on her skin.

“You just started moving on autopilot,” Laurisse whispered hurriedly, “like you were possessed or something. I tried to get you to stop, but you weren’t listening. I don’t think anyone –”

Her assumption had been wrong, the two realized. The hiss of whispering around the room grew to a deafening crowd of satanic spouting, and she couldn’t take it. The rebukes and shrieks, the taunting and insults all seemed to be too much for her at this time. She threw herself from her chair, heading for the bathroom.