Hydrus Keeto
Kelso"The surface seemed to be quite undisturbed
and as he had left it. It was from within,
apparently, that the foulness and horror had come.
Through some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin
were slowly eating the thing away. The rotting of a
corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful."
He was unsurprised to find that he was walking haltingly down the hallway. The puppet master that strung him along was no doubt working again. No rest for the wicked, or for anybody else, either. It reeked of antiseptic and piss. Ever since his mom died, he hated hospitals. When he'd drunkenly wrecked his first new car, he wanted to just patch himself up. That was how averse he was to those hellish places. That was kind of funny in present circumstances, but he didn't feel like laughing anymore. He wasn't sure if the overworked staff in the underfunded urban hospital were just ignoring him or not, but he didn't want to find out. He hated trying to make up excuses while his legs dragged him along. It was hard to be the person he used to be -- impeccably dressed, handsome, ahead of the curve. Knew what he was worth just by looking at him. He looked down at himself, watched his pinstriped pants-covered legs swing like automatons. Though he was still wearing his several-thousand-dollar suit, it felt like a mockery. Sell my soul to the devil for a stiff drink, he thought, and that was funny, too.
"Mommy... Look... it's an angel!"
He blinked, mildly surprised to be confronted by a little kid in mismatched clothes. What was she, dressing herself? Her misguided words meant that the white aura of his puppetmaster was all about him. It was close, then. Scowling, he looked up to see a bandaged, bloodied woman, probably not yet 30, though she looked used-up as all hell even under the damage. The three were alone. Even if they hadn't been, he couldn't have stopped what happened next. Black bruises blossomed up and down his chest, and lacerations parted his skin with tender grace. His new immensely sore muscles and the coming pressure on his left side made him sure that she'd been in a wreck, too. Somewhere inside him, something went crack and he blanched. It was lucky he had the cane; he felt grateful he didn't fall on his ass and look stupid in front of the kid. That would be unbearable.
"Real angel!" Apparently, she didn't notice what was happening to him. He sucked in lungfuls of air, felt like he couldn't get enough. Blood was welling up underneath his teeth. Surely, it won't make me do another one after this...
He reeled with anger, trying to beat back the rising tide of pain. The angel was the one that just put all this hurt on him.
God damn BRAT! He yelled at her, spitting blood like a snake spits poison, and she started sobbing immediately. This would get published in some tabloid, probably, the kind of paper he'd avoided so adroitly in life. The most up and coming new money, and didn't you know that he was on his way to the top? Tragic.
"Mommy," she wailed, and her mom already felt good enough to lift a hand and cradle her close, "Mommy, the angel..." she trailed off into disgusting, snotty gulps of air.
He was moving again, body screaming all the way as the language not of man but of immortal souls called to him, as it always did. His vision went white, and he followed the light at the end of the tunnel to his next personal hell.
"I represent to you all the sins
you have never had the courage to commit."
-The Picture of Dorian Gray
In Heaven
Everything is fine
You've got your good thing
And you've got MINE
