chapter 1 excerpt (unfinished) 𖦹

This is the very first snippet of what would be the first scene of the first chapter. Not my favourite, but it's good to start at the beginning, right? besides, I'd urge you to take notice of the difference between how Alastair is described here, and how he's described in chapter 4 :) enjoy! 

CW: kidnapping, loss of control, threats of bodily harm, implied violence (nothing too extreme in this one, just mildly creepy)

A glimpse of a pale man is the last thing Iosif sees as he walks down a street before it all goes black.

When he eventually comes to, everything feels dull, dim. Painfully slowly, his eyes slide back into focus, at which point he realises his surroundings really are dim, it isn't just his impression. As his vision slowly joins him again, his body does as well; with it, the throbbing, numb discomfort all over him.

He gives a slow attempt at moving.

A shard of panic shoots through him, piercing through the fog.

He can't move.

He tries to lift his arms, he finds they're tied behind his back; the same with his legs, tied to the legs of a chair—a chair, that's where he is. He's sitting. He's tied, sitting.

He tries to stay calm, sifting through what he knows and doesn't. His gaze flits around the room, trying to understand his surroundings. It appears to be a basement, or storage room of some kind. It’s weakly illuminated by a lightbulb that hangs overhead, making the shadows thrice longer than they would be. He looks around. There’s a staircase, which appears to lead up. There are no windows. On one wall is a desk, with drawers and stacks of books. Beside it is a cabinet, seeming to hold assorted tools. It’s too dark to be able to discern what they are.

His heart stops in his throat.

There’s a man.

He’d been sitting so perfectly still Iosif hadn’t noticed him. Staring. Iosif stares back, petrified. The man is sitting on an old, closed piano. He doesn’t look human. That’s the first thing that strikes Iosif. The man is spindly, like a skeleton that simply got a suit of skin put over it. Pale. His hair is like oil or ink; dark, smooth. It falls down to his waist, covers part of his face. Iosif’s stomach feels like it’s wrung dry when his gaze finally falls on the man’s face. His eyes. Even in the dim light, they’re the most appalling feature. They’re dead. That’s all Iosif can think. They’re dead, this man is dead, I’m looking at a corpse, he isn’t alive—

The man stands up. Iosif instinctively recoils, despite being a good distance away from him. His senses all rush back to him at once like a slap of cold water, his body feels clammy and too hot and too cold, his breath comes fast and shallow.

The corpse of a man walks close, and with each inaudible footstep Iosif feels like he’s going to suffocate, everything about the horrible creature, because he cannot bring himself to see that as a man, feels viscerally wrong. He stops at arm’s length from Iosif. He leans down, eye to eye with the trembling lamb for slaughter before him.

“Hello.”

Iosif fears he’s going to be sick.

“I would offer words of reassurance, but I am afraid I have none.”

The voice— it’s hideously monotone, some part of Iosif expected mania, sadism, satisfaction, anything. That voice is simply dull. Void.

The man’s hand reaches for Iosif, who tries in vain to turn away, his eyes wide and horrified. His hand brushes Iosif’s cheek, cupping it in a disgustingly intimate gesture. The hand touching him is frigid, hard, making Iosif’s heart lurch twice over. He meets the cold’s gaze for a split second and wishes he hadn’t, because now he really does feel like he’ll be sick, because the rapt way the man was watching his reactions is the caricature of a nightmare.

Then the man pulls away and straightens up, leaving a burning cold feeling on Iosif’s cheek. Iosif isn’t stupid enough to be relieved, but he does feel like the tension is sucked out of his shoulders, making him sag against his restraints.

His eyes stay trained on the man, trying to gather up a semblance of control over this terror.

“Who— who are you? Why am I here?!” Iosif tries to shout, but the words come out wispy and broken. He swallows a lump in throat, his chest strains rhythmically against the ropes with each shallow breath he forces in and out.

“Neither of those matter,” the man replies simply, turning heel and walking away from him. Iosif watches in confusion, before feeling a burst of indignation flare up in his gut, momentarily overriding the fear as adrenaline set in.

“Hey! You can't just ignore me, I asked you something! You’ll end up in jail for this, you know!” he called out.

There was a quiet huff in… amusement? as the man looked through something at the far end of the room. A desk, it seemed? Iosif couldn't quite see.

“Indeed. If I am found out.”

This only fuels the anger in Iosif.

“You will be! You will be, when I get out I'll make sure you are, you—”

He cuts off when he sees Alastair walking back to him, feels ice slide down his spine. He tries to scramble away when he sees the glint of metal in Alastair's hand, his breath coming quick and shallow and horrified again.

“What are you doing? What— get away from me, away—!” Iosif's voice rises in pitch as the glint of the scalpel gets closer, his legs cramp from the sudden attempt to frantically push against the ground and move him away. Unfortunately, the ropes hold fast, and his feet don't quite reach the floor properly.

It's remarkable, how unceremoniously the pain starts.