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sochi · 09-12-2018, 01:30 AM

XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#d1d1d1', endColorstr='#00000000',GradientType=0 ); } .sochi_text { position: relative; z-index: 6; width: 580px; padding-top: 10px; margin-bottom: -340px; background-color: #0f191fb5; } .sochi_quote { position: relative; text-align: center; width: 80%; color: #9d9d9d; font: 11px 'Jaldi', sans-serif; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1.5em; letter-spacing: 1px; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; border-bottom: solid 1px; } .sochi_message { position: relative; font: 12px 'Times Roman', serif; text-align: justify; color: #d7d7d7; line-height: 1.3em; padding: 10px 25px 20px; } .sochi_name { position: absolute; z-index: 5; text-align: center; width: 100%; font: 60px 'Playfair Display', serif; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 20px; padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; color: #0f191fb5; margin-top: 790px; } .sochi_quotetwo { position: absolute; z-index: 5; text-align: center; width: 100%; color: #3a5261; font: 11px 'Jaldi', sans-serif; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1.3em; letter-spacing: 1px; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 865px; } </style> <center> <div class="sochi_container"> <div class="sochi_gradient"></div> <div class="sochi_text"> <p class="sochi_quote">there is a swelling storm and I'm caught up in the middle of it all <br>and it takes control of the person that I thought I was</p> <p class="sochi_message">

The world is not the same down here.

She sinks and is surprised as the physics seem to shift, as she finds herself more grounded—her weight settling onto her paws, the mud squishing between her toes. It doesn’t feel right though. It doesn’t have the same connection it normally does, her body unable to connect to the Earth, the way that the dirt feels beneath her somehow alien and broken and wrong. It leaves an unsettling feeling within her, an ache she doesn’t understand, an unshakeable feeling that the rope that tethered her to reality had been deftly cut.

Such feelings are only magnified when she hears the voice echoing in her hearts, the instructions cutting through the rage and settling into her bones. <i>Follow the path. Find her heart.</i> The anger that had laced through her is gone now, and she is left with nothing but unsettling fear—the unknown stretching out before her. Part of her wants to disobey. Part of her wants to kick off this cancerous land and find home once more, breaching the surface of the ocean to breath in air that is natural and cold and brilliant.

Instead, she is left with a sickness branching through her veins and an order she cannot ignore.

Her feline head swings upward and then to her right, focusing on the faint, shimmering green light in the distance, the hues of it filtering through air and water alike, emitting a sickly glow. Everything in her tells her that she needs to turn away, that she needs to leave, but she can feel the sickness and she can feel the pieces of earth that have burrowed into her skin, and she knows that there will be no escaping this.

So she does the only thing that is possible, the only thing she can do: she starts.

Each step requires more effort than it should, and she is nearly winded by the simple task of finding and then following the path—unsure where the rest of the chosen victims have scattered off to. It leaves Pangea eerily silent, nothing but the faint echoes of her own footfalls keeping her company as she walks.

It is silent; at least, it is silent until it is not.

The ground beneath her begins to grumble and groan, the mud squelching. Her brow furrows and again she is struck by the desire to flee. But she was not born of cowards. She was not born to turn tail and flee and so she doesn’t. She stays and she watches. She watches as the earth cracks beneath the ocean floor and something entirely alien begins to crawl forward. It is alive, at least as much as this cancerous land was alive. Its limbs are deformed. Its body is bloated. What little mane is left is matted and sticks to its scabbed, peeling neck. It walks the line between life and death, and she should be terrified.

But she is not. Fear drips from her and is replaced by steely resolve and, perhaps worse, hunger. A hunger that takes root and blossoms into impossible hatred. Her lips draw back over her canines and she snarls, roaring as the creature begins to make its broken way forward. It is faster than she had imagined that it would be and suddenly the world, just moments before syrupy in its slowness, is racing forward.

She is rocking back and then rocketing forward, paws outstretched. She is making contact, her claws shredding through the rotted flesh like paper. The horse that is not a horse hits its knees with the impact and then crashes onto its side; she continues with the momentum, flipping and landing on her back. The fall knocks the air out her, leaving her head spinning, but she doesn’t have the luxury of recovering.

Feeling sick to her stomach, she twists, the alien mud working its way deeper into her fur, finds her footing and catapults forward again. She can feel the bones crunching as she manages to pin the horse down, its jaw working as it snaps at the air, eye rolling in its socket, but it doesn’t seem to matter.
She snarls and snaps at its throat and black sludge oozes forth, coating her lips. She gags and drops its neck—giving the monstrosity enough of an opening to snap again, this time finding purchase on her right ear as it yanks with jagged, broken teeth. She can feel the tear immediately, her own blood flowing freely down the side of her head and the anger floods her once more. She would not die like this.

She would not give the dark god that much power over her own story.

Fury blinds her, warping her heart, and she sees nothing but blood. Sochi gives into the predator that howls in her chest, and she is feverish in her attacks. Her heavy paws swipe, and her jaw opens so that she can sink into the mangled flesh, but the thing does not stop. It does not slow. That is until she has had enough. Until she sees the way that its chest cavity breaks open, rotted bones giving way beneath the pressure of her. It is remarkably hollow, black ink and moth-eaten, but she can see the sickly green glow.

The same color that paints the sky.

Without thinking, she reacts, burrowing her face into it, paws still holding the thrashing body down so that she can root through the chest. Animalistic, she tears until she reaches the source of that glow, until she can feel that mangled heart between her teeth. She doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even pause. Doesn’t think until she has torn it out and swallowed it, the congealed blood on her lips and the monster finally still.

Sochi grows dizzy as the realization sets in and she stumbles away, her stomach revolting against her but her body refusing to let her lose the evidence of her guilt. Instead, that sickly heart rests inside of her, and she swears she can feel it twitch, the sound like a clock striking its rhythm. What have I done? she thinks, knees shaking as she looks to the ground, but she knows she can’t stop. Not now.

Not with this sickness now planted in her like a seed.

Trembling, she begins to move once more—begins to find her way back to the twisted path, back to the road lit from afar with the heart that guides her like a northern star. Was it this far last time? She can’t remember. She doesn’t remember how it stretched so far—the road seemingly unending. She doesn’t remember how the mud hardened beneath her and then gave way, dropping out so that she stumbles and nearly loses her balance. She doesn’t remember any of it, but she doesn’t give up. Can’t give up.

With each step, the light on the horizon grows brighter, but so does the beat of that dead heart within her. Her stomach grows more and more uneasy as the hours pass. What first began as a twitch turns into a tick and then a thump and then a roar. Her ear spills freely, but that is not the only thing that bleeds.

She can feel it rising in and through her—this sickness that centers on the pulsing heart. Tears of blood begin to leak out the corners of her eyes. Her gums begin to split. Her nose begins to crack. She can feel her tongue swell in her mouth and she coughs, hacking, desperate for air that never seems to come.

Around it all, she begins to hear the faintest of whispers.

<b>“Murderer.”</b>

No. That couldn’t be true. She hadn’t killed anything. It had been dead before she arrived.

<b>“Murderer.”</b> again.

She shakes her head, coughing as blood speckles the Pangean soil beneath her. She was only trying to protect herself. She was only trying to survive so that she could get home.

<b>“But what about who you killed? Didn’t they deserve to go home?”</b>

Her stomach flips.

Had it been alive?

Had she somehow not noticed?

<b>“She was a mother. <i>I</I> was a mother.”</b>

Sochi is struck with a sudden onslaught of memories that are not her own—dreams that are not her own. A chestnut mare with her nose against her children. A mare curled into the side of a calm-eyed stallion who clearly loves her. The birth of a child. A family. They are a family. Sochi nearly screams.

<b>“I just wanted to go home—like you. I just wanted to go home to them.”</b>

Suddenly, Sochi’s brain is going into reverse, dragging her back to just hours before. At first, it plays out as she remembers it. She sees the ground crumble, she sees the undead monster crawl forth. She watches as she lunges, as they fight, as she finally gives into a predatorily rage and rips the thing apart.

But then—then—it all shifts.

As if a veil was lifted, she watches another version play out. One where she walks up to see a bleeding mare on the ground. One where the mare is choking on death and crawls to her, looking for mercy. One where Sochi lunges. Here, the mare screams and begs and pleads but Sochi is relentless. It is not a fight because the mare cannot fight. The only defense she has is trying to snap and bite to hold off the tigress but this only results in a bleeding ear. It is not enough and it ends with the tiger feasting on her heart.

<b>“Murderer.”</b>

This time, Sochi does scream and she feels the heart that is not her heart expanding in her chest, swelling until she nearly chokes on it. She hits her knees, the illness still branching through her, but keeps crawling forward. She cannot stop. She cannot give up. She gags, the cries of the very much alive mare ringing in her ears, but she doesn’t stop moving. Each step is a battle. Each inch gained is a mile.

Her throat is raw from screaming when she feels the earth give way and she tumbles into the crater.

Her body is nearly limp as she comes to rest near that beating, sickly heart.

Her chest beats with the dual hearts.

Murderer. Murderer. Murderer.
</p> </div> <div class="sochi_name">sochi</div> <div class="sochi_quotetwo">it comes and goes in waves; it always does, it always does <br>we watch as our young hearts fade into the flood, into the flood</div> <img class="sochi_image" src="https://s15.postimg.cc/str7xmp3v/shifaaz-shamoon-300079-unsplash.jpg"> </div> </center>

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