"Boring," I say, pushing his nose. "Is that all? So, boring."
I get off of him, and look away into space… his room was boring too.
"You got ropes or tape?" I ask.
"W-wait, I thought you were going to let me go. Please… let me live," he says, and I could hear his trembling even… what a waste.
I sigh loudly, and feel him pause breathing for a moment. "What's the point really?"
"I-I… I have a girl! Someone I'd wanna start a family with. Please."
I scoff. I knew clearly. "Oh what a pity."
"Everyone says she wasn't found. But… that means she might as well be alive. She is a smart one. She went there with pre-"
"-you wanna meet her?"
"What?"
"What?" I ask, looking back. "You don't wanna see your lover?"
He doesn't say any words… but his tears seem to have stopped. I see confusion in his eyes… but he wasn't clearly disgusted at the fact of meeting his lover.
"Then tell me wherever the hell I can find some bloody tape here."
I quickly but neatly tape the holes on his broken closet. It wasn't that big even… poor bastard. All he had was love. And he… doesn't even question sitting inside the closet, with me. How blind… love is.
As the white light hits our eyes, I walk him out of the closet… at this point he was speechless. But follows me… he knew he was dead anyways. But he had to know…
"Hmm," I say, bending down. "This peacock ornament does seem familiar. It is hers… right?"
I look back, holding the ornament above my head. His eyes recognise… but they stay at the ground. I look towards the ground too and find the guy's portrait staring back at him. A stunning and impressive piece of hand art… resembling him correctly.
"Ah, in case it isn't obvious… that is her blood," I say, getting up, yet still staring at the art. "What was it you wanted, to be one with her? How poetic… this is practical."
"God has a place for you in hell," he says in a numb way.
"This place will be yours. Welcome to Noah's hell."
The chain of the pendant nicely wraps around my palm, as the peacock feathers in the ornament piece - sit above my fingers, from between them.
*
I slowly clap, while comfortably still watching the show – no care in the world. The main player seems to stop because of me being noisy… but only huffs and puffs while looking down at his opponent.
"Ah, how rude of me to interrupt."
He loosens his grip on the pendant and looks at its new form – while holding it by its chain, on his finger. It was better looking now. Why didn't I think of that? But having seen the boy's face before it got… beautiful, this was more meaningful to do.
"I should tip my hat. This merely was her request, in her lover's memory, even in last breath. But for you to form her lover on it… pretty good, I must say."
"Bright," he breathes, and looks towards me… that wasn't human. I had seen enough humans inside out, to know that. I had seen someone like him before, with the want for blood. His eyes seem to fear my form.
I pause for a moment, but smile. "An artist knowing me?" I say, and get up, while holding my knees. "Am I famous? Must I feel honoured? I was feeling that just with your presence. Or must I say… longer presence?"
"We are alike," he… it, says, as I take a step forward while grinning uncontrollably. It doesn't move its own legs, but puts its hand forward.
"Are we now? I'd like to feel that."
"The way you speak… you already know that I bring you people here. Sometimes," it says, and tries to find my eyes. "We could be allies."
"Oh but you could make good art."
"I don't want to… kill you."
"Nothing dies in here, in case you didn't know. Make it hell if you can."
But I stop, pondering… such a thing, couldn't just be a simple art. There were enough art here anyways… That I'm unsure what to make. I was losing it. But… there were enough incomplete art.
I simply turn back and start walking. It was nearby. Looking back, I find it following me. Good.
We soon reach my favourite piece of art… the eyes piled together. Being here, makes me brush the sides of my pendant, as slightly as possible. And I feel as if the pendant twitches.
"He doesn't like this, you know," I say. "He claims his art pieces are better. Blood… is disgusting to look at. I don't get people who want to… see blood," I feel tingles behind my ear, and rub my neck.
"You aren't him? He left one alive?"
"Ah… it won't be any use fooling you. We could really be allies."
"Blood…" it continues saying, and I give it an annoyed look. "You are that kid… oh how much the Barber went through."
My throat dries, and I feel myself gulp to feel some itch in my throat.
"How… what? How do you know him?"
"Oh he didn't get quite famous. He went for another kid, and then some infant and everything… oh but he couldn't witness… well…" it says, and its lightly forming smile fades and it looks at me. "Allies?"
I feel its eyes linger on my brother's eye in my pendant. "Bright's eyes… believe me, would complete this art. That will be the final chapter of Noah's Hell. All those deaths-"
"Why'd I ever stop them?" it asks, while shaking its head in a way to form art on the floor with its eye and head movements. "You have no idea what… one goes through, for a perfect plan."
I look at it weirdly… and it continues.
"To make… a plan. To… want something great. There were lords like Farzer… they DIED for power. Betrayal. And all… they dusted out of HISTORY. WHICH THEY MADE! But we… you know they were chosen?"
I move aside, and it kneels on the floor next to me, and embraces the eyes gently.
"They… they are mere… potential of what could be. Li-like Romairan. Vile. The kid. The… EVERYTHING. And then Bright gets one of you and… and… I don't get how you'd betray your MASTER. I could never betray mine. His ideas… Bright is someone who bluntly gets it. That is why he gets this… dimension. This beautiful… heaven."
I ready my knife. It was right there. It could mix down in a full embrace. The way it cleans the dust off the eyes… it deserves being here.
"You cannot… dream. You cannot dream bigger? A whole ship suffered for my lord. These eyes… all these people, at least don't know death. They sate your lord… how Romairan let Farzer be sated… that is my purpose. I'm Romairan," it says, breathing heavily. "And you just… A KI-!"
I don't expect to, but I feel the skull of it crack below my knife. I push out my knife to go for another blow… but only my hand slides away from the handle.
"Scream, scream, scream," it says.
"What? No… what the fuck? Where is… you don't… bleed? That is… unfair."
"Oh your lowly screams."
"NO, FUCK YOU AND THAT BARBER!"
I punch its ugly face.
"Pretty, pretty, pretty," it says, having made to look down to the floor.
"FUCK!" I scream, holding my hand – as it rots and degrades as if I have touched acid. When I look back, it holds the knife from its skull… I see it when I move my eyes to see to my right… only the handle.
"The blood from your veins."
I feel my stomach in my throat… everything trying to rip out of my chest and my mouth. Blood… smelled bad. I hated it. Especially my own… I could differentiate the smell.
But it is fine… I couldn't die. Even if my eyes tear. Even if I feel tired… it's ok. I turn my feet, as it just looks at me with no expression.
"Cunning, cunning, cunning," it says instead.
I run. Through all the gore art, the erotic art – where I spent most my time. I avoid certain slippery parts here… I couldn't slip. It wasn't following me yet. So I had to get as ahead as possible.
The once vast white… now had my many, childish, drawings. Bright always just looked at with a serious glance and never approved or said anything. He never even came here, he only watched me kill, and attempt to draw… he barely looked forward for the final piece.
One time… I had killed a horse. But… its legs are in no condition of moving… then what is this sound from? Another horse.
"EVERYTHING TRYING TO HUNT YOU," I hear a deep voice.
I look to my side to see something… something on its four. But those… above the legs were tentacles, sharp… and some face… some fangs… some… I don't fucking know.
I trip and fall, finally. I try to move forward and get up… no way in any he'll I could outrun it, but… I couldn't stop. But I see a tentacle wrapped around my leg.
"No… this… is unfair. No. Don't," I say, kicking the tentacle with my other feet… but the monster just waits patiently with its closed mouth and other waiting tentacles. "Please."
"Bleeding, crying, dying," it says in a more normal voice.
The tentacle lets me go, but the sharp edge pierces toes and drag me closer. Just a little. Then another tentacle comes out of the back of my foot. Drags me just a little. Another goes more above, piercing and dragging me a lot more closer, making me punch at the floor and cry.
"But don't panic."
Then the last tentacle goes inside my knee… just doesn't come out. I feel it… suction… digging deeper… but also plunging me closer. Very slightly. Very, very… slow. I could feel it go each centimetre… while it feels like it has already wrapped around my throat.
"Have patience."
My femur breaks apart, digging into my thigh muscles. My left leg was still fine, all along, as my right leg died down… making me want to tear down my own leg.
My testicles… the ecstasy, masochists claim… perhaps. This was it. I don't know if it was an orgasm, but… this was it. Where my penis was, now there was a tentacle. And I could feel my butthole swell and ache… but I only throw up in a numb… insomniac state.
I hear intestines… even after a surgery, are just put in and they realign by themselves. Bodily wonders. But… my intestines straighten out, I feel them. Then no, I wasn't numb.
It pierces a hole in stomach, and puts back the tentacle from wherever it took it from. Then the tentacle inside me makes me lay sideways to pour out my acids.
I see the tentacle moving… I couldn't even look at a doctor pierce a needle in me… it made me uneasy. But I was gone. No begging. No crying… I was already covered in blood. Perhaps bled it all out. It stinks.
I feel pressure on my ribs.. the tentacle seems to expand in size. The beating of my heart… travels into… it vanishes. Bright told me that one could feel every detached part of themselves here… but my heart…
"Your turn is here. How cruel that someone like you holds a heart… which is beautified as things pure."
"I understand how my brother felt."
"I'm glad I could help you see it."
*
I first thought it was Bright. How naïve of me. I wanted to stall a bit, do as much harm before trying to escape… or he'd have destroyed my route back. But now… I'm gone.
"Your turn shall come too…" the kid says, before I break down his voice box.
He wanted to bear with the Barber… imagining the chaos the Barber could cause. But… how ironic that he became worse? How stories are connected…
I grab the pendant from the kid's neck.
"His eyes seem to want mercy. But you only made him watch… and now he had to watch you go too… well, not go. How cruel… this place is. I understand now."
"Do you pity everyone you brought me here then?" I hear a voice which gives me goosebumps… but I don't look towards it.
"Would it send them heavenward?"
"What is the point? They are least have meaning here."
"You… are Bright, I hope? Unless you adopted more than one nutjob."
"He made me see how wrong I was to have someone by my side. It isn't a family job…"
I see the kid's eyes move… in an attempt to call out for the way Bright was saying it.
"What is this place, I wonder."
Bright takes a deep breath, and I hold mine – as he gets closer. But he merely picks up the kid, also grabbing the pendant… and starts walking.
"Noah was to make sure species were preserved… but everything is mortal. So how can something remain but a memory?"
"Immortality?"
"Perhaps… whyever did humans believe that becoming immortal meant they'd be put back, heal… not be… it only means to not die. So if it were the case to not die as we are… do you see how cruel that'd be?"
"I do now."
"Perhaps Noah showed this to those species which he saved… which might've pleaded to him, for immortality. Do you wonder he killed a few here?"
"Did he?"
"Perhaps it is a myth… this vast place… it is infinite. But for all I have searched. I only find random doors now and then."
"Some possibility of something enclosed to end up to be preserved here… forever. Hide out here, as an immortal coward – who can feel pain but never die."
"I like how you think. Yes."
Bright puts the kid's head on top of the pile of eyes. His remains go into some other pile where there were many such remains… all torn down. Fresh of a little blood.
"Can I leave?" I ask, and Bright looks at me.
"How lame I'd be to not make an art of you…"
"I killed him. You owe me."
"You think I couldn't have?"
"Then why didn't you?"
"He wasn't worth it… but you…"
"I am strong enough to face you."
My hand gets severed, as a red thread forms out of Bright and strikes it.
"Think again… I told you, I looked far and wide here… I found the very thing which killed Farzer."
"Fascinating…"
"Simple… too easy."
"Then… could you… release it to the world?"
"Hmm?"
"If you are oh so strong… and you hate this… just let it go. Leave it. If Farzer couldn't defeat it… those heroes out there."
Bright scoffs. "The superheroes are annoying, aren't they? So many good for nothing organisations."
"Even the nameless hero will have a hard time."
"Varon Rihler…" Bright says, thinking. "What do I… get in return?"
"Me."
"Very well."
He releases the red energy into the door I had come through… and when it was gone for good, he breaks the door.
"I'll make good art of you. Please give me your lowly screams."
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Author's note:
1. Yes, 13 - Mermaid Occupation, is skipped for now. I'll be posting it later on. I'll first post the ones I can post as I've CLEARLY exceeded the initial deadline
2. This marks the connection of Lowly Screams and '(Speed) Pack', which is a superhero story and not horror
3. Yes, all the "if there are superheroes, why didn't they help find the missing people and everything" question will be answered soon (actually in 13 - Mermaid Occupation) so please hold onto that thought
4. Do show (Speed) Pack some love and check it out!