Victoria, still breathing hard, has no answer.
“I know the truth, Tori. I wish I could tell you, but no one can tell you the absolute truth. You can only realize it for yourself.”
She wants to scream in frustration, but can’t, because her head is underwater again.
Ican’tbreatheIcan’tbreatheIcan’t-
you don’t need to.
He’s not letting up.
He’s not going to.
She can see it in his eyes, above the shaking, transparent surface of the water.
you don’t need to breathe. not anymore. what are you, truly, tori?
Her mind is hazy.
Her movements grow more and more sluggish.
She’s dying.
She’s drowning, she’s dying, she’s dying-
you’re already dead.
She sees him sitting in her mind’s eye, in his corner, a ball in his hands.
you have been, for some time now.
He tosses it against the wall.
It bounces back into his palm.
the truth is-
Victoria throws her body upwards in one last ditch effort to get back up.
The journalist lets her up with a grunt.
“I need to breathe,” she bellows.
Her voice, louder than she’s ever raised it, not quite as high pitched as before, forceful and almost angry in its terror, booms.
It reverberates off the walls.
The journalist squeezes her shoulders.
“It’s not easy,” he whispers into her ear. “It’s not easy to accept change. To accept metamorphosis. Or…pain. But you will. And this will become much easier.”
She thrashes her head and manages to bite his hand.
He chuckles.
And flicks her off of him as if he were casually waving away a fly.
She lets out an agonized groan, her teeth sore, feeling as battered as though she’d bitten into a brick.
“What are you, really, Tori? Tell yourself. Tell yourself the truth.”
Gently, carefully, he eases her tired body back into the water.
Dazed, in pain, her head buzzing, she sinks back into the water with little resistance.
what are you really tori
She is an orphan.
“You’re going to live with your aunt and uncle now.”
They know she’s alone.
“They’ll take care of you. They’ll love you like your mother and father did. You’ll be ok.”
They know and they pity her.
“It’s a tragedy, it feels like the world is ending, but it isn’t, Tori, I promise, you’ll be ok, everything will be ok-”
“You lied!” Victoria screams, bubbles rushing from her mouth instead of words. “You fucking lied!”
He still isn’t letting up.
But…
Suddenly…
It doesn’t feel like it matters.
nothing is ok.
Nothing is…nothing is…
Everything still hurts, but it becomes a dull ache.
The entire world goes blurry, then dark, in focus, then out of focus, around her, inside of her, far away from her.
She is a single point on a globe, but at the same time, she is the globe itself, because it is contained within her, and if she blinks, she’ll disappear, taking the rest of the universe with her.
She opens her mouth in shock, so completely baffled by this feeling, by this unexpected sensation of being and not being that she feels water rushing into her gasping throat-
But there is no burn.
No panic.
Water is in her lungs and there’s no sensation, no-
The next thing she knows, she’s coughing it up, her lungs erupting, pushing out clear liquid with tinges of pink like a geyser. Her headache has returned, and she’s cold and miserable and frozen, and he’s a madman.
you don’t need to breathe.
“I don’t need to breathe,” she says slowly.
Unhappily.
The journalist lets go of her.
He walks around the tub and leans over, his hands on either side of her.
He smiles.
“You say it, but you don’t feel it yet, I don’t think. That’s alright. We’ll take it slow.”
He splashes her playfully.
She screams at him. But she can do nothing as he claps his hands together and resumes his previous position behind her.
“Now. Tell me your age, gender, name, and…what you really are, Tori.”
28
I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die, he’s going to kill me, kill me, kill me-
it’s not so bad.
Shut up!
It’s bad.
It’s so bad.
It smells horrible.
Her hair is still damp, her clothing still dripping.
She shivers.
“You need time to think.”
“No no no, please don’t do this to me, please, I’m-I’m scared, I don’t want to get in there, please-”
“You can’t have everything you want, Tori. That’s how life is. The realization of that fact is what builds character, my dear. Now get in or I’ll break your arms and legs and put you in, conscious or not.”
you let him tell you what to do.
He was going to hurt me, he was going to kill me, he’s going to kill me, I’m going to die, oh god, I can’t breathe, can’t-
how many times do i need to tell you that you don’t need to fucking breathe?
You’re-you’re no fucking help.
Malek’s shocked.
She can feel his surprise vibrating from his corner.
But she doesn’t care, he’s useless, worthless, no, he’s less than useless and worthless, he’s a pretentious, know-it-all creep, a pathetic, arrogant pig-
“Let me go! I won’t tell! Please, I don’t know anything, I want to go home, please-”
He touches her chin gently.
Strokes it softly with his index finger.
“Tell me more about him. Surely you have more you want to say about your father?”
he was really curious about him, wasn’t he, Malek comments idly. these guys always have such complexes, don’t they
Shut up, shut up, shut up-
In her claustrophobia, Victoria kicks against the inside of the fridge.
Please, please, oh god, I can’t breathe, I can’t-
you didn’t tell him much.
not in the beginning anyway.
but how slippery one’s tongue becomes when they’re afraid.
“His name was Alexander! He was a college professor! Of English literature!”
“Was he a good professor?”
“I…I think so. His students liked him…”
“That doesn’t make him a good professor. Just an easy one.”
he wasn’t good at anything. was he?
Shut up, Revenant. Just shut up about him. You didn’t know him.
but i did. i knew him as well as you. you see, i live in here.
Even with her eyes tightly shut, she can see him.
Sitting across from her.
In a cell.
His legs pulled up his chest.
One hand tapping his temple.
i know everything about you.
i know the real truth.
i am the truth, i am what he wants to get out of you more than anything.
you see, he just wants to understand you. to pull you apart and examine the fabric of your mind, your body, your heart.
what he wants, i was given.
She’s in her room, crying her eyes out.
Muffling her sobs with her pillows, hiding under her blankets, wishing, begging a higher being, making bargains with herself, with anyone.
Let him come back.
Let him be here when she flips up her covers.
Let him pat her shoulder, her back, comb her hair again.
Let him be there when she em
erges, there to hug her and kiss her and take her to the park to feed the ducks.
the dead don’t come back.
No, they do! Victoria says vehemently back. But only the ones who should’ve stayed dead.
the other kind don’t stay dead either, though, do they?
he’s still there, over your shoulder, every day.
haunting you worse than i ever could.
She can’t tell anyone.
She can only hold in her tears as her new family, her aunt, uncle, and cousin eat calmly at the table.
She can only hog the shower for hours, wishing the heat were enough to take away the chill of her heart, the boiling water enough to burn away the grief clinging to her skin like oil.
She feels like she’s sinking to the bottom of an endless ocean, and if she screams for help, she’ll only drown faster.
you were scared.
“Now, Victoria.”
She’s back in the tub again.
He’d held her down for so long.
For five minutes.
She comes up, gasping for air, and he shakes his head disappointedly.
“It doesn’t have to hurt, Tori. You’re making it hurt. You’re making yourself need to breathe. I just want to help you, my dear. We Revenants need to stick together.”
She pants nonetheless.
He sighs, but does not reprimand her again.
He holds his hand up and she flinches.
“Oh dear, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to show you something.”
not a particularly special pulse. not the best i’ve seen.
He flexes his hand, admiring the curved, slick black spikes coating the back of it like the armor of a porcupine.
They crawl from his hand to his forearm to his shoulder in a wave of sharp needles.
“Let’s exchange truths, shall we?” he says kindly. “I’ll tell you how I became a Revenant…and you tell me how you became one. Ready?”
Victoria takes in huge gulps of air.
She needs to breathe.
No matter what Malek says, no matter what the journalist does to her, she still feels the need to bring oxygen and life into her lungs, to exhale carbon dioxide and stave off death (for just a little longer).
Even if there’s nothing living left within her.
there is no air in here. if there was, it’s gone by now. you can’t breathe.
She takes another deep breath.
“I am a journalist, you know, I actually am. As a human, I followed politics, public policy, the occasional scandal. I wouldn’t call myself a muckraker, but I was a very idealistic young man back then. I believed in exposing the truth wherever possible, the consequences be damned. And to some extent, I do still believe that. Lies may spare humanity for a decade, but the truth could save humanity for good.”
oh my. he really is a writer, isn’t he, all words, no substance.
“But I stuck my nose somewhere I shouldn’t have. The local government was looking the other way while the established mob of this city was smuggling weapons in to wage their private war with the Revenants of the Pravus. I spoke to some police friends who owed me some favors and they gave me some confidential details about the types of weapons used at crime scenes, the names of suspects, everything I needed to make a trail. I called in some favors with some of my disreputable friends too, the ones who held grudges, had dirt against everyone, and had dabbled in…extralegal activities in the past.”
the revenants of the pravus.
and the mafia.
those were the days…
“But I went in too deep. I wanted to reveal the government’s complacence with organized crime, with corruption. I wanted the public to be outraged, to force the politicians to act. But I didn’t just want the truth, I wanted the power associated with it. I wanted my name to be held beside it, a glorious, shining example of virtue, of dedication to the end of exploitation and violence.”
and then they killed that squealing little snot-nosed, silver-spoon-fed dickhole, didn’t they
“I had to confirm for myself that the inventory was where I had traced it to and that the people I suspected were involved. I went with a police friend of mine. He watched and waited while I went in alone.”
Victoria twists uncomfortably, trying to make herself slightly less painfully squeezed into an awkward position.
But it only reminds her of how horrible her conditions are.
And how trapped she is.
She whimpers helplessly, frustrated, fearful tears once again cascading down her face, soaking her eyelashes and cheeks and chin. Snot drips from her nose, joining the rivers down, down, down her chin and onto her chest.
“But he was working for them. I don’t know if he was a traitor from the start or if they found him at the last moment and he sacrificed my life for his. I think he might’ve told me which it was, when I hunted him down and decapitated him in Lima, but I don’t remember what he said anymore. The end result was clear anyway. They took me. And for days, they toyed with me. Left me in a closet, with a sack over my head for days without food or water. Only dragged me out at intervals to feed me, then beat me until I puked. Drugging me, keeping me hooked up, letting me heal between brutal sessions so that I wouldn’t allow myself to die before they were ready for me… they were very unhappy with my journalistic method. And when the time came, oh I wish I had died before then. I would’ve preferred to choke on my own vomit after they were through with me…”
poor guy.
Malek’s mocking her, of course.
Mocking her pain by acting as though that monster was sympathetic.
Laughing at her for ever believing he was a decent person.
A man who would never hurt anyone.
But he’s a Revenant, not a man.
And that’s all Revenants know how to do.
“I don’t know how long they tormented me. It must’ve been at least two weeks. But when they finally ended it, when they lowered me into a barrel of boiling oil and lit it…it was a short-lived relief I experienced. I didn’t want to die. I still had hopes that I could escape, live again. But as soon as it started, I knew…death couldn’t come quickly enough.”
He flexes his arms.
He slips his hand under his shirt and pulls it deftly off of himself.
The black needles spread like a wildfire over his hard, thick-muscled abdomen.
“And it didn’t,” he sighs softly. “It took its time.”
boiled alive! that’s worse than my death. when you think about it, Vicky, you got lucky. all you got was a bullet in the skull.
Victoria screams with all of her might against the weight of the refrigerator, the impenetrability of its interior, the hopelessness of her situation, the sheer unfairness of it all, and yes, against her luck as well.
If only she hadn’t gone into that house.
If only she’d left the damn book where it was.
If only she could erase her father’s handwriting from its insides.
If only she could-
you know why you’re really here, tori?
not because of misfortune.
but because of weakness.
you just can’t move on from him, can you?
you just can’t.
you went after one of the last pieces of him you possess because you just couldn’t let him go.
and look what happened.
those who live in the past, die in the present.
hm, he pauses prolifically. i’m the real writer here, heh heh-
Victoria moans and kicks viciously and fruitlessly against her airtight cage.
“I hate you, I hate you, I fucking hate you, get me OUT of here! You CAN, can’t you, you bastard, why won’t you get me the fuck out of this hellhole?”
She kicks until her ankles ache.
Until her teeth hurt from being clenched so hard. She curses until the words mean nothing. She screams until her lungs begin to cramp, until her throat hurts.
&n
bsp; And Malek just watches.
Intrigued by metamorphosis.
29
She was always alone even though she never allowed herself to be alone.
All of those nights she went to places she didn’t want to go with people who didn’t like her, and yet every single one of them, she still felt as empty inside as if she’d stayed home and spoken to no one.
All of those days too, where she forced herself to go outside so that she wouldn’t have to stay even a moment alone inside of their apartment, were as bleak as the nights.
All because she was scared.
Scared that she would sit on the couch.
Stand in the kitchen.
Lie in her bed.
And the lock would be broken.
A man would rush in.
He’d find her.
And he’d do what he’d done to her father.
She can’t be alone in their apartment.
And yet, even when she’s away from it, even when she’s at school, at the mall, at the park, she’s still inside the apartment.
Waiting.
Feeling afraid, isolated.
Vulnerable.
She’ll always carry the feeling with her, so it seems.
“Are you just sad?” her therapist had asked. “Do you fear being alone because you don’t want to be left alone with your sadness?”
Yes.
But first and foremost, she is frightened.
Terrified of being shot and killed. Just like Daddy.
She misses school.
She misses the stupid, smelly cafeteria filled with spiteful brats.
Misses the daily embarrassments of high school life, sitting in the wrong place, wearing the wrong outfit, having the wrong accessories in one’s hair, saying the wrong thing in class.
There was one time when she was late to class and didn’t have time to switch out of her gym clothes, so when she raised her hand, everyone made fun of her sweaty pit stain.
Torrible-Smell.
Torri-ential downpour.
There was that time she farted while sitting on the hard gym floor, and the noise seemed to slap against the wood, sounding like a faulty motorboat engine. Everyone sitting around her, listening to the teacher ramble about the rules to football, turned to look at her accusingly.
To pull a Tori: when one embarrasses one’s self socially in a highly noticeable way.
Victorian Tale Page 8
