Ch. 3: First Blood: Postmortem (II)

Each step splits the wind —
her bones crack beneath my heel:
her hull ribcage,
her deck spine.
Each footfall fractures thought —
it weeps, it burns, it bleeds.

My body tears with every pace,
faint fatigue gnawing at the edges of my soul.
But it’s this perspiration,
these stubborn, soaked rags, that anchor me down.
Each ivory eye folds into the refuge of my lids.
My limbs —
no,
my nervous system, each bone,
conceding to this cemetery pursuit.
Every trivial movement...
six feet under.

Almost like hands reaching for me,
this holy light spills across my eyes —
and I take the bait.
It’s painful,
unbearable,
warding.

Heaven’s gold, so truthful —
yet it’s light that repels me,
casting me from futures not yet lived —
as if I’m chained to guilt,
to sins unborn, but promised.

Still, I must know —
is Silas,
my brother, waiting?
Waiting on the railing, like before.
I hallucinate a version of him in my mind.
He holds a soft color.
He’s healthy.
He’s safe.

But the closer I crawl,
the more the morning dew — her saliva — clings to me,
acidic and deliberate,
stripping my naïve bones to marrow.
The more the nightmare bleeds through.
My veins turn black,
coursing with
these visceral, hollow, crimson sickle cells
she calls blood —
exploring, conquering,
colonizing my reality:
my nightmare of guilt.

It stings.

It masquerades:
symbols, sanctums, static —
orbiting the black hole of my mind.
It’s ambiguous.
It’s precise.

Written in blood —
it’s a warning.

Her hollow soul —
maternal instincts,
unintentional.

She asks me to leave.
To go back to bed.
To forget.

Still... I need to know.
I need —
to protect him.

Because even if...
even if I’m bound to sin —
to sins inherited,

I am a man.
I breathe.
I walk.
I do.

But before all that —
I am a brother.
I care.
I choose.
I protect.

Because if I can’t even do that —
if I can’t protect him...

who do I have?

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

This light —
drunk on white and yellow,
too clean, too artificial.

Is it a conspiracy?
Or just another lie
stitched into the sky?

Everything hums with unease.

Then —
color begins to leak.

I hear the shudder of waves,
the wind scraping against skin,
a choir of creaks in the hull, sharp and hollow,
wet corners squishing beneath the weight of rats.
Everything becomes clear.
A final farewell,
Heaven and Earth whisper in my ear:
Open your eyes.
Hold my hands.

And suddenly, I see.

The clouds part —
a mirror to some holy citadel.
A place so far from me.

I see it —
the heartbeat of this world.
The gold buried in the blue,
the sea,
each sea animal unknown to the cruelty of men.
Our remains never reaching the hollow bottom —
not even the souls.

Every animal in the ocean
reflected
across the inverted heaven.
Those are the ones unknown to God,
to grace,
who follow a simple path —
a generational heirloom cycle.
Dancing in Heaven,
evolved into angels.
There you'll find them,
those persistent fireflies blushing in the quiet sky,
swimming across my cosmic dreams,
for another day.

But in my dreams,
the masts — satanic, skeletal — begin to move,
untouched.
And from way down here,
it’s so serene.

Beyond the grave, the masts —
Autonomous.
Watching.
Breathing.

But the closer I walk,
the less I want to know.
The higher I get.
My body, unable to function fully —
a reverend of dread,
a foul omen.

It’s these cacodominant hands of faith —
or fate —
that pull me deeper.

On this funeral pyre, I beg:
Holy Mary, Mother of Mercy — should I go on?
But it's only the British Raven who caws in acknowledgment.
The Tower ravens scream an elegy for the damned.

Then they flutter away —
undisturbed, righteous, black birds
migrating from a sudden commotion above.

My steps quicken.
They become stomps —
a march toward unknown confrontation.

Suddenly, the gates of Heaven close.
I'm detained —
I'm sent to a stone, silent purgatory.
It’s when his massive back assaults my vision —
eclipsing heaven with effortless bulk.

Tanned skin — too tanned —
patches peeling,
revealing a raw, red undertone.
He was human.
Once.

My gaze trickles down his grotesque frame:
a hideous white apron, stained and stiff,
cinched tight around a stomach
that has never known hunger.
Never felt starvation.
Never felt.
Never.

His posture —
slouched,
weighted with apathy or regret.
God forsaken.

But was it the rats that festered around him?
The way he stood —
like a monument to something forgotten?
Or was it the dangling, stripped corpse,
swinging from his meaty hands —
that finally made me break?

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

Finally, I’m left there — displaced, unmoving, broken — my stone heart pumping a dreadful desertification through every nerve. The sand moisturizes my heart,
decorates it like a grave.
My scorned heart.
My effort, my blood, my fatigue —
it plucks me dry, leaves me weak.
Rips the soul from my corpse —
and even then...
it’s not enough.

Garden of Eden,
and the fruit was rotten —
rotten from the start, though I took the bite.
Worms writhed beneath the skin,
and now they gnaw at my heart,
a toll for needing to know.
They force my eyes open
to my brother —
his golden smile defiled,
his body mangled,
clothes torn away,
limp and repulsive,
bleeding like a sacrificial lamb.

First, it was his neck that turned —
slow, deliberate — unnatural.
His jugular veins pulsed,
straining beneath the weight of that grotesque smile.
Then his head — soaked in sweat and blood — leaned in,
closer, closer.
His hair: damp, tangled,
grey strands no longer hidden.
And those eyes —
pinpoint pupils framed by the folds of that smile,
each wrinkle carved with purpose.
Precise.
Haunting.
Furious.

It’s all followed by a euphoric, blood-chilling laugh.
He drags Silas’s limp body across the splintered deck —
his head thudding against the blemishes on her face.
The laughter continues,
a narcissistic mating call.
The rats — festering — join in.
A ritual of desecration.
Innocence was not just lost — it was devoured.
His smile stretches wider.
And with each step, the stench of rotten cherries.
And with each stomp, the smile widens.
And with each march, the hunger grows.

Until we're so close...
He could hug me like he did to Silas,
Or prey on me just the same.

His hot, animalistic breath rubs down:
my neck, my spine, my back.
His predatory eyes trace my body —
lingering, hunting, devouring.
They lock with mine again,
searching for obedience.
But mine refuse.
Too surreal.
Too horrific.

Chef Bastian's mouth opens —
widening that unnatural smile into a wound.
His tongue curls, and out spill words,
sticky and sweet like poison sap.

“Say… Calder, was it? You know...”
He hoists Silas’s limp body up like a marionette —
lifeless arms flopping, head lolling —
a grotesque puppet for his theater.

“This could’ve been avoided.”

A pause.
His voice softens, mocking empathy.

“You could’ve protected him.”

Then the grin returns, stretching taut.

“See… I was bored.
So bored.
If you had just followed me...”

He leans in, childish and menacing,
tilting his head with giddy amusement.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have misbehaved.”

My mouth tightens —
a gag reflex,
his oral fetishes still fresh behind my teeth.
I won’t allow it.

My gaze drops, unwilling —
to his crotch.
His buttoned fly was undone. On purpose.

I drag my eyes back to his.

He smiles — he knows.
Then he leans in, breath hot against my ear.

“Your brother tasted so good...
But I guess I play too rough.”

His smug smile,
Each fang burns into memory.

But it's been burning.
It's an inferno.
All these promises I can't keep,
They bubble up:
'Protect Silas,' I say,
'Be Human,' I say,
'Live,' I say.

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

But it all collapses into one. Not scripture.
Not sanity.

It may sound insane —
but it began as just a prayer,
torn from my chest:

Saint Michael, Archangel — leader of God’s army, purger of Satan —
still, it’s not enough.
Saint Joan of Arc — who heard fire and marched into it —
still, not enough.
Saint Olga of Kyiv — blood-mother, martyr of vengeance —
please.
Please.

Then a desperate, human act:

I charge.

My shoulder crashes into his chest —
that satanic slab of flesh, soft and slick with sweat.
It hits.
He jolts — surprised.
Not ready.
He’s drowsy.

He stumbles.
Step.
Step.
Step.

Then —
a human trip.

He tries to stand —
to revolt.

But suddenly the ship shudders.
Her bones creak around him.
Waves crash against her body.

This mortal man — Chef Bastian —
is sent to his own purgatory.
A rupture in the fabric of duality itself.

And suddenly, he’s rejected:
He stumbles.
Trips.
Reaches out to me —
but he’s too far away.

He tries to hold the smile —
that smile that used to haunt me.
But from here,
he just looks pathetic.

The more he drowns —
in blood, sweat, and sheer mass —
the more he mocks me.

It’s ironic —
this man, this weak man —
was able to...
abuse.
Torture.
Molest my brother.

Then it comes to me:
I allowed it.

Suddenly, Silas’s bloody, bruised body pulls on me.
He’s alive.

And somehow,
his suffering is a mercy to my guilt.
Seeing him like this...

The thought won’t form.
I can’t let it.
His suffering has no right to live in my mind.

I was supposed to protect him.

And seeing him like this —
it stains the version of him I carry.
His legacy.

My eyes return to Chef Bastian’s display —
and something catches.

White pills spill from his pockets.
He’s crawling, dragging himself back
into this pile of blood, sweat, and fatigue
just to retrieve them?

The pills scatter,
rolling into the crevices of her skin,
masked in red.

It's a mortal
dependence,
addiction,
His parasitic love.

Suddenly,
the human rats surrounding us
only stare.
They too once feared a man so big —
bigger than life,
his body a monument of brute force.

But now,
so suddenly,
he seems smaller.
So much smaller.

All he can do now
is crawl —
slowly,
pathetically —
to me.

So I point.
I point:
to the blood,
the sweat,
the pills.

I point:
to his crawling,
his drowning,
his trembling remorse.

I say nothing.
I just point:
to my broken brother,
my broken soul,
my broken voice —
fractured.

This gesture I hold —
it reaches toward the heavens.
It crosses the gates he once guarded.

The golden sun glistens on the dew around us,
his back turned to the light.

And this pointing finger —
it reveals the mortal truth.
It breaks through.
It speaks for me.
And finally,
it speaks to his
empty husk.

His ignorance hides it.
His embarrassment cloaks it.

The rats he once ruled —
they’re laughing at him now.

So he simply laughs louder…
but it can’t match
the thunder
of his former footsteps.

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

Chef Bastian’s crawling intensifies.
His smile — twitching, reclaiming territory.
His belly drags across the floor,
meaty palms shredded by her cerebral recoil,
his contorting frame inching forward,
closer to me.

But they’re like white blood cells now —
the ship, the floorboards, the very air —
cleansing the infection.
Every nail.
Every crevice.
Every blemish.
This parasitic love
consumes itself.

And it’s all contained in this simple point —
this gesture.
My gesture.
Unshaken.
Unmoved.

His eyes cling to it —
desperate for meaning.
But each time he slips,
his smirk fractures,
and the crawling halts.

Suddenly —
he’s not masking resentment,
or humiliation,
or even lust.

He’s masking...
fear.

His gaze lifts —
not at me,
but past me.
Above.
His grotesque form,
so bloated with former power,
now reaches forward like a child.
He begs.
He prays.
He pleads —
for mercy?

No.
There’s more.

His mouth fires a scatter of words —
slurred, cracked, half-swallowed by exhaustion.
But I make them out.
And they aren’t meant for me.

“F-F-Forgive me! I cook! I clean!
It’s not me —
I serve unrelentingly!”

He throws his arms to the sky,
each arm pointing past my finger,
crying in a voice drowned in delirium.

“I am your success!
I am your people!
I was right! I—”

Then —
his voice is sliced clean,
severed by a sudden metallic ringing.

A sound like judgment —
purging the man,
a purification.

The seventh trumpet wails —
longer, deeper.
Final.

But it’s a phenomenon.
Maybe I hallucinated it.
Maybe it was his final will.

His hands glide across the wound —
not frantic, but reverent.
And slowly,
his posture shifts.
He straightens.
Stands — just for a breath.
And smiles.

Blood seeps upward,
weaving into his hair,
his beard,
pooling behind his gums
until his teeth shine red.

Then —
a laugh.
A final standing ovation for his theater.
He tips backward,
arms spread,
as if greeting the void.

And when he hits —
the crimson spills wide,
his mortal blood claiming the floor,
proving, at last,
he was human.

Above —
it was Captain Vexmoor.
He purged the ship of this insect.
He exterminated it in holy precision.
With elegance.
And I —
I mirrored the barrel.
His gun.
I became part of the execution.
That ringing?
It was my first word.

My organic soul corrodes the metal —
the metal that surrounds my heart.
My gears fall apart.
I break free.

Both hands tremble as they reach —
to wipe the blood from Silas’s face.
I scrub the blemishes,
desperate
to see his smile again.

But it’s pointless.
The damage is done.
I already failed.

I want to scream,
to refute,
to speak —
but I already did.
I said a word,
through my righteous vengeance.
Through my violence.

I'd like to fly.
To touch the heavens.
To feel something pure again.
But I know —
I know how limited I am.
I see how mortal my bones are.
My grave suddenly becomes too vivid.

I was human as well.
I will choose.
I will protect.
I will live.

I clutch Silas’s knife —
this crucifix.
A relic of guilt.
A symbol of love.
A weapon reborn.

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

Suddenly, Chef Bastian’s body takes the stage again.
That smile.
It follows me.
It gnaws at me.
It reminds me of the pain.

And every time I stare, its beauty steals my breath.
So abstract.
So distant.
Yet it bleeds.
Unconditional.
Undeniable.

The lights flicker across the blood —
his epilogue.
His follow-up series.
The grotesque encore.

It’s melancholy.
It haunts me.
That vulture smile — still feeding.
Still living.

Even in death, he’s performed.
And now the silence applauds. Mocking me.

The rats scurry away, but I still hear them laughing beneath the boards,
beneath my thoughts.

I grip the crucifix tighter. Not out of rage. But resolve.

Not vengeance. But memory.

I whisper:

"Never again."

And as I hold Silas close, his weight against my chest,
I feel the faintest flutter —
a breath,
a heartbeat,
a second chance.

Innocence was long forgotten.
This postmortem sorrow, it's dreadful pheromone bleeds into me.
Symbiotic tissues attaching to mine.
It chews, it gnaws, it controls me.
I want to let go of my skin, my bones, my mortal shell.
I want to become bigger, to overcome that smile.
To chew at its facade, and suddenly —
I’m walking towards it, letting go of Silas's body.

I conclude: "Don't worry Silas. I will protect you."

Suddenly,
my footsteps echo with weight, with a satanic footfall.
A mutual relationship with her body  — the ship.
I understand it, my place in the story.
My purpose.

He’s already dead. But that smile —
it’s still there.
Mocking me.
Haunting me.

I want to let go of my skin,
my bones,
my mortal shell.
I want to become something bigger.
Something that can bite back.

And suddenly —
I’m walking toward him,
leaving Silas’s body behind.

I whisper:
"Don’t worry, Silas.
I’ll protect you."

He watches from above,
Vexmoor,
elegant, silent, judging.
But I’m only human.

My muscles scream.
My skin splits.
My blood burns.
But I run.
I chase.
I hunt.

I lose something.
Sanity, maybe.
But I trade it.
It’s worth it.

My steps shift —
they’re not mine anymore.
They belong to something feral.

I lunge.

The crucifix — Silas’s knife —
sinks into his already-rotting gut.
It splits the skin.
It teaches.
It helps him understand:
my starvation,
my hatred,
my vengeance.

It’s my compromise.
And I smile — giddy, wild.

I speak again.
Two words.

The blade pulls free,
but it’s hungry.
It bites again —
chewing what’s left of his chest.
His lungs cave inward —
wrinkling like spoiled fruit.
Blood slicks my arms.

He’s dead.
But I’m still cutting.
I rip through him —
dissecting his unfaithful corpse.
Mutilating him.
Making him into Silas.
Into my grief.

I pull upward —
a crunch.
Ribs snap like rotted wood.
My hands reach into his gut.
I tear the small intestine,
then the large.
I slice his stomach in two.

This postmortem act —
it divides him.
Rips through his liver,
severs the chambers of that hollow heart.

It startles me, briefly —
the bruised colors.
Its humanity.
But it’s not real.
Not to me.
The blood was never moving.
I make sure it never will.

The blade scrapes his spine,
grating bone —
until it reaches his larynx.

Suddenly,
his smile splits in two.

Seven words.

I return with a barrage of punctuation —
bones crunch beneath my hand,
a heavy thud from the wooden body
that once supported this sacrifice.

I lunge upward,
then drive the knife into his mouth —
just beside the gunshot wound.
I rupture his esophagus.
Teeth shatter,
blood follows.

It’s a fountain of vengeance.
My success reeks of iron.
The scent rises thick.

My rags soak in deep crimson.
The puddle forms around me —
grotesque,
gorgeous.

How mortal this is.
But he’s dead already.
This serves no purpose.

I’ve never had a purpose.
I simply continue.

Twenty-six words.

It’s only animalistic,
my movements —
too human
even for someone as quixotic
as me.

But I continue.
I need to.
For Silas.

Now my knife burrows under his skin.
The dirt that once sheathed the blade
withers inside his flesh.
He’s mummified in blood,
flecks of meat dropping onto her deck —
her skin.
They decorate her.
She moans with every stab,
as if I’ve finally made her proud.

Forty-eight words.

Suddenly,
they hear me.
The rats re-fester around my ankles,
disgusted.
Fearful.

And it brings me joy —
they finally see me.

Seventy-three words.

My movements quicken.
His smile is gone.
His body is a puddle —
mass and matter,
frame and posture erased.
He is no longer human,
just a grotesque mulch of blood and bone.

He’s skeletal —
but I can’t tell
which of us is more human.

Because now I feel it —
worse than before.
Lesser.

I’m so little.
So basic.
So low.

I am only an animal.

One-hundred-nine words.

The knife breaks.

It no longer speaks of Silas.
No more warmth.
No more memory.
Only brutality.
Only murder.
Only insanity.

The metal remains in his chest —
a crude flagpole.
I’ve conquered him.
I’ve won.
I’ve protected Silas.

But to what end?

To become this.

An animal.

I resort to fists.
To grabbing his organs —
or what’s left of them.
Stretching them.
Tearing them.
Pulling until I hear a quiet plunk —
the valve detaching.
A pop of triumph.

Our flesh contorts.
Wraps.
Grinds.
It reminds me of my past.

Please stay awake.
Please.

Because now I’m reaching into his gut.
It’s not holy.
It’s not righteous.

It’s survival.

Grotesque.
Instinctive.
Final.

Life or death.

My hands carve deeper — not just into him,
but into everything he took.

My arms quake with sacred vengeance.
His ribs crack — a wooden altar splintering.
My fingers slip inside,
wet with his rot,
and I rip.

Stomach, liver, intestines —
all severed.
Every coil of him unspools
like scripture I was never allowed to read.

I don’t stop.

I am an animal.
I am a brother.
I am hunger with a name.

His spine grates. His chest caves.
Blood pools, thick as confession.

I lean over what’s left —
the hollow cage where cruelty lived —
and with trembling hands, I take.

A handful of meat,
half-lung, half-sin.
I raise it. I bite.

It bursts in my mouth —
hot, coppered, divine.
The taste?
Revolting.
Rapturous.

A communion of vengeance.
A sacrament of rage.
I chew.

Each swallow binds him to me.
His power, his violence —
no longer his.

My throat burns.
My stomach revolts.
But still, I eat.

I eat until his smile is gone.
Until his body forgets how to mock me.

Until I forget what I’ve become.

I stagger back —
blood on my lips,
my chest heaving with revelation.

The rats around us freeze.
They don’t scurry.
They watch.

And in their tiny, twitching stares,
I feel it:
recognition.
Fear.
Respect.

Then it hits.
A wave, a rupture —
my stomach folds.
I lurch toward the railing.

And I vomit.
Red.
So red.

Blood not mine —
not anymore.
Just remnants of a god I destroyed.

I wipe my mouth.
I glance back.

The body?
Ruined.
Holy in its ruin.

I look for Silas.
He’s there, broken, still.
But breathing.

I look for meaning.
Only the sea answers.

Then a hand — warm, gold, quiet —
touches my back.

I turn.

Captain Vexmoor.
Unmoving.
Watching.
Accepting.

In his gaze,
I don’t see judgment.
I see inheritance.

I reach out —
not to kill,
not to beg —
but to be held.

My body collapses.

And in the silence that follows,
I dream:

He, the father.
I, the son.