Saltwater & Ink

19. Here Be Monsters *quod me nutrit me destruit*

   The police sirens wailed in the distance, red and blue lights illuminating the darkness. A lone searchlight strobed across the sand. Inky was a small, dark figure on the beach, invisible to the eyes of the world. A uniformed officer was taping off a crime scene, and several detectives were conferring in the distance.
   Slowly, Inky came back to reality. She was crouched down behind a large boulder that protruded from the sand, the contents of her briefcase strewn out across the beach. Her research papers, some diagrams and information- all floating sadly in the tide pools or swept away by the wind. She looked down at her hand, at the deep gouge in the left palm. So that was real, Inky thought.
   She attempted to gather the salvageable remnants of her paperwork, blood on her hand smudging on her research papers. She'd probably have to get stitches  -the cut looked fairly deep and she did not entirely remember how much blood she'd already lost. There was a deep greyish bruise growing on her wrist below where she'd cut her hand with the glass. Inky wandered back up the beach, not noticing the police presence farther up the other side. She held her injured hand to her chest, feeling numb.
   The Red Void had filled her mind with such terror it was hard to function, she felt like she'd been drained of all energy and will to live. The last time I was able to escape it, thanks to Thorn, she thought. Inky wondered what would have happened if he had been there with her. Worse, if he had been alone like the countless times before. That sickening voice from the void had made her feel so alone. It had told her she was alone, trying to break her mental fortitude, drag her screaming into the void with its other victim. There was a mental wall keeping her from remembering the end of the vision, like her mind had chosen to repress the horrors it had witnessed.
   Inky forced herself to go back to her studio, despite the nagging fear of the creature waiting for her patiently in the dark. The abomination might not be done with her yet, and with a fleeting hope, she wished that Thorn was there to help her drive this monstrous being back from whence it came. She walked slowly up the concrete steps, feeling faint as she noticed she was leaving a trail of blood drops from her injured hand. Inky pulled herself through the sliding metal door, not taking notice that it was already unlocked. Leaving her work and briefcase in a pile on the floor, she hunted around the room for something to wrap her hand in.
   The apartment was dark inside, the sculptures she was working on cast in a strange moonlit glow. The figure in the back was still covered by its shroud of drop-canvas, seemingly innocent to the night's events. With a faint sense of shock, Inky noticed she was not alone in the room. Thorn sat in the metal chair at her desk, barely moving when she walked in. He looked defeated, hands hanging by his sides as he regarded her with a relieved look.
   "I tried to get here as fast as I could," he told her. "I didn't think they would try to come back so soon."  Inky held out her bloody hand, a gruesome slash opening the skin of her palm. Thorn looked away, shame in his dark eyes. "You shouldn't have had to do that- I could have stopped them..."  Inky remained silent, the two of them staring intently at each other across the room.
   Thorn stood up, carefully inspecting the cut on Inky's hand. The blood smeared between their fingers and onto the floor. She was worried that she wouldn't stop bleeding, she didn't imagine that the cut was that deep. "I think you're going to need stitches," he said quietly, holding her hand up so that the moonlight shining through her window made the blood appear black.
   Thorn found a needle and thread in the small first-aid kit that Inky kept in her desk, and Inky quietly watched as he stitched close the cut on her hand. He had instructed her to look away, yet she watched in morbid fascination as the sharp needle and black thread sealed up the blood flowing from her hand. She barely felt the pain, her mind was so dissociated from the encounter with the Red Void. Thorn had given her a small silver flask, the straight gin like undiluted turpentine, the harsh burn of the alcohol making her feel as numb as any anesthetic.
   Inky tentatively tried to flex her hand, the gauze now wrapped around it making it hard to move. Thorn grabbed her wrist. "Don't. You'll rip the stitches,"  he demanded. Then quieter, he asked, "Are you going to tell me what happened?" Inky shook her head, hand still in his. "I don't remember everything. I was walking on the beach, and it just happened without warning. I just- I cut my hand- and eventually it just stopped. I felt so alone -it told me I was alone, Thorn." Her voice sounded desperate in her mind.
   He shook his head, pulling her closer. "Don't believe anything it tells you," he insisted. Inky could feel his heartbeat against her cheek, his hand warm on the back of her neck. She took a deep breath, trying to exhale the bad memories of the night. "Will you stay here with me tonight?"  Inky asked him, eyes silently pleading. The last thing she wanted was to be left alone again, especially now. She wasn't sure if the state of her fragile mind would allow it right now, and was still unsure if the danger had passed. Thorn's soft hair brushed against her face as he leaned down to kiss her, and Inky slid her hands up the back of his shirt, feeling the warmth of his bare skin against her fingers.
   Just as before, she felt the magnetic pull of their connection, the way he looked at her with his dark eyes making her feel like she was slowly sinking into dark, calm water. Inky did not protest when Thorn pushed her up against the wall, their bodies pressed together in the small room. "Is this what you really want?"  he asked, the dark tone in his voice sending shivers down her spine. "I want you,"  Inky replied in a low voice, their eyes meeting in the darkness of the room.
   They shed layers of their dark clothing like flower petals around Inky's apartment, the small studio feeling almost claustrophobic with their intense energy. There was a dark edge in Thorn's personality tonight- the darkness that she'd been intimidated by when they'd first met. Again, Inky found herself drawn to this darkness, wanting it to block out the maelstrom of terror she'd experienced earlier in the void. Together they felt inseparable, invincible even. She felt like she was falling into the darkness with him, and the dark part of her mind didn't care if the Red Void swallowed up the whole world, as long as they were together.
   Inky accidentally leaned against a tube of black paint, the contents spilling onto the floor around them. She laughed softly, smearing a handful of black paint across Thorn's back. He stared down at her, a solemn look in his eyes as he trailed a line of the dark paint over her collarbone and down her shoulder. She pulled him closer, the two of them getting black paint handprints all over each other and the rough drop-canvas layering the floor.
   Thorn held her wrists slightly above her head, and she gave in to the darkness inside her mind, his other hand carefully tracing black paint sigils across her body. Inky closed her eyes, feeling almost as if she was outside herself looking in, at this strange, unfamiliar person, lying in the darkness with Thorn, their skin marked  by the dark paint and each other's handprints. She allowed herself to follow him into the darkness, hiding the terrible visions inside of the places in her mind where she dared not look.
   It was easier this way, how she let herself lose control when they were together. Somehow now she was able to block out the nightmares, the only thing on her mind was the way Thorn's skin felt against hers in the dark, that they were the last ones left who could make sense of the abomination. Lately, the only times that she'd felt truly alive, aware of the world around her, was when they were together, as if all of her senses were heightened in his presence.
   Inky slowly realized that for the first time in her life, somebody else understood her, and stood with her, unafraid of the monsters.