In other news, this deserves a heap of trigger warnings but I can't even list all of the implications, really--if only because I'm thinking of HAZE as a whole and all the more shadowy bits are sort of peeking, even if you might not notice some of the horror stuff in here. Basically, if A Clockwork Orange or Shawshank Redemption squicked you out, do not read. Basic warnings? Implications of slavery/servitude, implications of varying types of abuse, insanity, there's a bisexual character (sort of?), and beserkerism.
This, on its own, is probably (definitely?) not worse than, say, The Hunger Games, which is unrelated to the HAZE series if only because it's not really a future, it's now and people are just monsters for no particular reason other than they can be--they aren't the rulers of a society, they're just fringe freaks who manage to avoid coming in contact with the rest of society. However, the rest of the HAZE series? Prepare for some Child 44-style shiz. That is all. (I promise there's nothing wrong with my brain, I just write horror. -waits for tomatoes to be thrown, anyway-) If I need to raise the rating for this short story, I can. But, really, nothing happens in this. It's all implication and your own suspicion. I'm just paranoid as per usual.
Word Count: 1,357 words
Genre(s): horror, science-fiction (but it's sort of literary-ish? so listing genres is odd)
Type: character-driven
Attempted mood: strained acceptance (it is a mood; according to me)
Metaphor level: Probably low, but I'm not sure if I'm being straight-forward with any of this because Blaze makes me want to pull my hair out, so I don't know.
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Life in Flame
I’m glad I picked Bull.
Maybe that was a bad thing to say. I don’t really know. All I know is that Viper is worse. Viper is a mad dog and like all mad dogs he is full of rot. Sure, that would eventually kill him, or someone would put him down, but he could share it while he was still kicking.
I wasn’t really sure how that worked, either; mainly because Viper is human, even if his humanity was long since shot. Maybe he did actually have rabies, but I had been watching him for months. He should be dead, shouldn’t he? The poison in the saliva that sometimes dripped right over his lower lip should have rotted his insides, right?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know a lot of things, actually. I didn’t know why eating newspaper helped with whatever it was, or why Jacksin suggested it in the first place. How could he have known? Had he been here before? Was him pretending to be just as shocked as me a ploy?
I didn’t know the answers to those questions, either, but those questions scared me the most.
If you wanted to know, most chose Viper. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe they realized choosing Viper was directly related to a quicker death? Of course, they tended to bash their brains out against the concrete wall, so--well, I really don’t know what to say about that. Some of the stuff was just too horrific to mention. They found a way to quell their insanity one way or another and they usually took someone down with them; I’d seen the pit fights between a pair of Viper’s brood.
We were all berserkers, but they made what I dealt with look like child’s play.
I assumed in reality it was because Viper looked somewhat okay, if you ignored the clear madness in his eyes and smell of death that clung to him. Viper was lean, not too muscular, and he had one of those average, friendly faces--the sort of face that could result in your mother being scammed of her retirement, but not even realizing it. I suppose that’s what people called an honest face. It made you feel warm and safe and made you ignore the yellow tint to the guy’s eye whites and the two canines he had in his mouth filed to points. Viper was also rather pretty, in a horrific, grotesque sort of way, I guess. Compared to the stocky, harshness of Bull--who had a full mouth of sharp teeth.
I wasn’t a very good judge, though. Jacksin and Heather both looked good to me, but I wouldn’t get near either of them, if only because they made dewy eyes at each other all the time and slept in the same bed. Both were past my reach, same as everyone else. Of course, Jacksin always had been, same as anyone I had known before. They liked me, hung around me, came towards me like a moth to a bug zapper, but never got close enough to wonder about my mental state or anything.
I had to wonder if most people chose Viper because Bull and Blaze--me--were so similar. Not our names, but that fact--the fact we both seemed to have barb-wire and infinitely strong fine net force fields around us at all times. We sure as Hell hadn’t set them up, or at least that was true in my case, but we got blamed for them all the same. Told us we’re too aloof, too frightening, and too worrisome; told us we scared children and dogs, all in a tone of mild fear and suspicion. Well, that was what was said to me. However, I’d deny the dog thing; most dogs like me eventually, even if they sometimes try to bite me first.
Maybe they chose Viper because they knew Bull was a bad man. Bull liked young people--boys, strong-willed women, if only because he knew he could hurt them worse. Nothing to do with anything else; sort of like The Sisters from that Stephen King movie, I suppose. Bull was a sadist; pleasure was one of the few emotions he showed, the socio. But I had long since accepted that. But Bull had always been a sadist; I could tell. He was the sort who went around stomping on fallen baby birds, setting fire to cats, and stealing things from his ailing older neighbors. Viper was getting sicker and sicker mentally as time wore on. Viper didn’t have a limit; Bull did.
By the time anyone realized that Viper had gone Oracle-crazy, they’d be out of luck.
I’m not sure what Viper would do and I wasn’t sure then, either. Bull had a reputation as a person who wanted to knock you down several hundred pegs; he’d humiliate you, cause you pain, and do whatever The Monster told him. Sometimes he tried to do all three things at once.
Bull didn’t kill you. That already made him a step above Viper. Viper was an executioner, the horror of his job hidden under the gauzy, fake veneer of putting people out of their misery. He killed people by accident, too, pretty often. Bull just hurt you. He’d scar you, maybe. Burn you some. Send you into the pits more often. You didn’t die from any of that. Well, unless you were a dope that couldn’t figure out how to fix yourself or take care of yourself and you hadn’t somehow wound up in a death match. The Monster had cleanly, clearly stated this was all about survival of the fittest. Sometimes you had to stop waiting for someone to come (no one was coming, The Monster was too good) and rise to the challenge. It was the only thing you could do.
So that’s why I chose Bull. Bull, with his scarred and tattooed muscular body and amber eyes on fire; a man who could twist people built like me in half, probably. I had prided myself on being masculine, or trying to be--fights and cigs and all. Bull made all that look like nothing. I was relatively okay with that. I could have Bull as a guardian, I guessed. I still didn’t know what the proper word was, or combination of words. I supposed gladiator-tamer would work. Maybe the term for a person who trained fighting dogs, if there was a word for that. That was pretty much what I was, though; a gladiator. We both sort of were, Bull and I. Only, Bull had paid his dues and stayed, whereas I would pay my dues and leave.
I didn’t care what The Monster said, what he always said; some sort of variation describing the fact that society would never take us back, that it hated battered things and things with issues and dark things and wanted to mock and destroy us. The Monster didn’t realize that sort of threatening didn’t work well on me, didn’t cause me even the emotional distress it so clearly caused Jacksin.
See, society had never liked me in the first place, so I was golden.
Or, at least, that’s why I tried to convince myself of as I lay in the hard bed, covered ratty blankets that smelled, and watched as Heather and Jacksin shifted on their bed, curling closer to each other and content as I bled on my own, blood dripping down my nose still an hour after my fight.
I wanted to curse them, but I really couldn’t.
I needed them, so I had to keep acting nice, even if their--Jacksin’s--constant minor betrayals left him cold and hurt.
The physical was at least worse than the emotional; that way I didn’t go crazy. I couldn’t become Viper. I’d been so careful.
Thankfully, I’d picked Bull. I wouldn’t go crazy. Couldn’t--because even if I did, they others wouldn’t tell me and I’d just die without even knowing I was going in the first place.
I couldn’t go back in a body bag. That’s what everyone expected. Golden. Wishful thinking did wonders, right?
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A/N: I consider the whole series (this is a spin-off, I guess, of the first book--Jacksin gets POV in the first book) YA. I don't know, either.
So, tell me what you think, I guess, if you noticed any typos, or grammar-errors, you think it is quite dark and will be perfect (wishful-thinking), or if you just want to say it's good or terrible. Please no flames, though. I know everything relating to HAZE is pretty controversial (especially Bull), but, yeah. I don't pretend to be free of my own perspective so if something offended you, just say and I might add another warning or something?
Also, for those of you who want to try your brain--Bull did an off-scene cameo in another story of mine. If you want, you can go try and find him and PM me/post on my wall if you do?
