“Get him inside!” a voice echoes out over the sound of pouring rain, sounding as if it were miles and miles away from him.
Casper's vision swims around him, smearing the world like oil on a canvas as his head lulls limp on his shoulders.
With every slow beat of his heart, Casper feels the blood pump out of him, spilling in violent gouts into the mud beneath his feet, or maybe someone else's feet?
Voices, some screams, some cries, call to him as he moves through the town, each one trying to rise above the roar of wind and crack of thunder, until eventually they fade as the ice cold air outside is replaced by the warmth of hearth fire.
Casper feels his body drop onto something soft, a bed maybe, as he is made to look upwards towards an unfamiliar ceiling.
He can hear the sound of people speaking about him, to him, but he can’t make out the words or the faces as his head continues to throb, each pounding beat of it threatening to send him into unconsciousness.
People be damned, he needed to heal himself, he needed to work the mark through his body to close the wounds.
Casper closed his eyes and grit his teeth, trying to steady the world and will his body to heal itself.
Thump, thump, thump.
Each beat of his heart, another sputter of blood that soaked into the material under him.
Thump thump thump, three more steps closer to death, as his body refused to heal.
Casper felt the pressure of hands on his side, the smeary blur of a human over him, pressing their hands to try and stop the blood from leaving him. Another joined them, grabbing at his leg, tightening something around it.
By the fucking fates did it hurt. He wanted to scream, but the only thing to come from his mouth was a gurgle as blood worked its way down his throat.
“We got you, hang in there boy we got you!” the same distant voice, underwater, so far away yet right next to him at the same time.
Casper tried to turn his head to look, but a third set of hands steadied his head and made him look upwards again. Close enough to make out only faint details, Casper felt the tickle of her hair on his cheek, as she held open one of his eyes to look into it.
She was… beautiful he thought, he wanted to see more of her, but she pulled away quickly to shout some things at one of the other voices.
Even her shout was beautiful, he wished she would keep talking to him instead of the other voices trying to get his attention.
“Help-” Casper managed to mutter out between split lips and flem filled blood.
“We won’t let ya die boy, we won't let ya die, just hang in there lad.” A reassuring voice spoke.
Casper tried to force his vision to steady, to force the world to come into focus, but the more he tried the more it slipped away. Further and further until he sunk under the weight of the ocean that felt as if it was above him.
The first sense to return to Casper was his hearing.
Gentle rain pattering outside, a crackling fire not too far away. Shifting murmurs in some distant room elsewhere. The sound of his own heartbeat in his ears slowly subsided, being drowned out by the ambience of the wind and rain, interrupted by distant cracks of thunder.
The next sense to return was his vision. His eyes flickered open to the unfamiliar room. The entire space was bathed in blue light from the window above him. It was small, barely large enough for the bed that occupied it. Pale sheets draped over him, spotted with stains of red from here his blood seeped through the bandages that adorned his body. A faint flickering of orange was visible under the door on the far end of the room, interrupted by passing shadows as someone walked by.
Then it was smell. The scent of the rain and mud leaking through the small gap in the window. The smell of something cooking in the room beyond, smelling of meats and vegetables. The coppery tang of blood, still stuck in his nose and mouth.
Casper tried to sit himself upright.
A lance of pain burned through him as he moved, sending stars into his vision enough to force him back down into the strange bed. He tried to catch his breath from the sudden shock, finding himself panting as a stain around his stomach grew darker through the bandages.
The orange glow under the door became obscured then.
Casper watches as the handle turns, and the door is opened.
Firelight backlit the shape of a young woman, framed in the doorway. Long brown hair draped over her shoulder in thick waves. She carried a basin of water in both hands, steaming slightly in the cold air of the home. She looked like a painting, he thought, her pale skin turned blue from the light of his window, catching the color of her eyes and turning them into tiny torches in the all the blue.
“Best not to move yet…” She spoke, closing the door behind her as she entered the room.
“Couldn’t if I wanted to.” Casper said softly, the act of speaking alone causing incredible pain to ripple through him.
He watched as she approached the side of his bed, kneeling down near his face, and with two gentle hands, took his arm.
Her hands were calloused, he realized. Dexterous, and delicate, though it's clear that had seen years of hard use.
Casper studied her movements, watching as she plucked at the bandages around him. Slowly unwrapping the length around his wrist and hand, exposing the raw skin to the cold open air, only to be warmed by the woman's touch.
For a moment, Casper panicked, watching as his skin became exposed, the mark became exposed, but found himself replacing the panic of being found out, with a different kind of anxiety, as the mark was no longer there. Instead, there was only pale, scarred skin, now marred with fresh wounds.
“How…” he began to ask, watching the woman as she soaked a cloth into water, and dabbed at the cuts.
“My father found you, stumbling about in the forest. He said he saw the remains of a hunter by you…” She explains, her tone as gentle as her touch, and as sweet as honey.
Flickering memories surfaced then. The crunch of bones under the force of powerful jaws. The mark, leaking from his body, the fear, the panic, of realizing that the mark alone wouldn’t be able to save him…
The warm water she dabbed onto his skin brought him back to reality. The warmth of it felt so incredibly good on his body. Casper allowed himself to soak up with the heat of the warm water, watching with tired eyes as the woman before him tenderly traced his hairline, moving down to his cheeks and chin. She removed the bandages around his neck, pressing the towel to the wounds that still stung there.
This woman was gorgeous, he thought. Studying the calm expression she wore as she tended to him, and finding himself smiling as she noticed him, and blushed.
The rain faded in time, and the sun set beyond the horizon only to rise again the next day, and the day after, and the day after as well.
Each new sunrise brought with it a new set of bandages, a new meal, a new conversation with the woman as Casper lay in bed.
He felt himself getting stronger, the mark slowly returning to him, and the effects of having used it…
Casper found his hand reaching out to hers, as she dressed his wound on the third night.
He felt his fingers tangle around hers, stopping her from leaving the room.
The woman turned to watch Casper, her eyes following the length of her arm to where their hands met in one another's.
Casper felt the warmth of her over him. The sweetness of her breath mingling with his own as their lips locked, hungry and pleading.
He remembered the shape of her, caught in the sliver of moonlight as she sat above him. The movement of her chest as she breathed. The small bumps on her skin from the cold air around them.
He had felt the eagerness of her, around him, through him, over him, as their bodies moved in the night. Slow, gentle, caring, and tender.
The moans that filled the air, the panting breath, the heat, the need as he took hers, and she took his.
The faint trickle of blood from her soaked into the growing red stains of him, but he didn’t care, and neither did she.
They were lost in each other, truly and utterly until the room grew warm, and the night grew long.
Casper found himself waking that morning, the pain gone, the wounds closed, and sensation of dread that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
The room was empty, the girl gone, along with the bandages that had held him together up until the mark returned to heal him.
familiar blue light saturated the room as the sun tried to break through the overcast sky outside.
The flickering orange light from the hearth in the other room bled from under the crack at the bottom of the door, interrupted by the shadows of the family who walked around just outside it.
He could hear them now, the marks power filling his senses. The whispered panic as the woman explained what she had seen. The wounds healing.
The anger in the fathers voice at the actions of his daughter, the actions of Casper, were second to the growing dread of realizing a marked person was in their home.
Casper's stomach opened up like a hungry pit, flooding every ounce of his being with panic, as he heard them talk, as he heard the man who had save his life grab a blade from the kitchen, the woman he slept with hide a knife, the woman who accepted Casper into her home, inch her way towards the door, muttering to herself about warning the others in the town.
As the feeling mounted in Casper’s chest, twisting his heart as if it was going to be pulled from his chest, he felt in his dream-like state, as he became an observer to the memory, a ghost in this dream.
“No no no no no…” Casper begged, trying to shout at himself, at his body that felt as though it moved beyond his control, moved with the power of the mark the flowed through him, poisoning his mind, convincing him of the threat, begging him to get his release.
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“Please! Stop!” he cried, watching from above, as he slid himself from the bed, and approached the door with measured steps.
In his dream, outside of his body, he moved to the family on the other side of the door, unaware of what would happen to them next, ignorant to the lengths Casper was willing to go to, to protect himself.
He floated towards the man, and tried to shout at him, scream at him to just forget it, to let Casper leave, that he wasn’t a monster, he wouldn’t hurt them, he didn’t want to hurt them, he didn’t want to have to do this, any of this.
The man in Casper's dream didn’t listen to his please, what was about to happen was already written in blood and there was nothing he could do, even in his own mind to stop it. \
The door opened, and Casper saw as the family turned to look at him. Outside of his body, he could tell the difference between what the mark wanted him to believe, and what had actually happened.
In the pit of his mind, poisoned by the mark, he felt the threat they posed. Saw the grip of the mans hand around the blade, and thought it was meant for him. Saw the unease of the girl he slept with, and convinced himself it was because she had something to hide. He watched the woman of the house leave, and imagined it was to tell others of his presence.
As the spectral observer in his own memory, in his dream, in the logic center of his brain suppressed by the mark he saw the scene before him as it really was.
The knife in the mans hand, was to butcher the foul for the meal they would have, the unease of the girl, was the fact that she had but hours ago given herself to him.
The woman of the house, was leaving to gather fresh bread.
The fear, in all of them, the unease, was the worry of anyone else in the town, learning their daughter had been with a man, a man she had told them she cared for, a man they were ready to accept as one of their own.
Casper didn’t see that thought, not as the mark filled his blood and muscles, not as the mark yearned to consume, suppressed his mind to the base instinct of an animal who thought it was cornered.
A monster… a monster who wanted to be cornered, so it had an excuse.
Casper woke in a cold sweat, the traces of a shout leaving his lips. His reality bleeds away from the nightmare, the memory, to the present.
Wind and rain pattered on his skin. The sound of thunder and whispering grasses carried his cries away along with the memory. Looking around, Casper found himself several hundred feet from the camp, back near the base of the hillside.
Collapsing to the ground, Casper stared down at his hands as they shook violently from the memory.
His body shivered, and he let the rain hide the tears that streamed from his cheeks as he sobbed.
Panic wracked his body, the fear, the guilt. Everything shook, everything hurt.
Casper cried as the rain soaked him through, cried as he stared down at his hands, black for the mark that worked its way through every fiber of his being.
Is that who he was…? He thought.
It wasn’t who he wanted to be…
Who is anyone, but the actions they take?
Casper watched the rain pool into his hands, watched his hair matte to his skin as she curled into a ball in the mud.
The mark ate at him, consumed him, drove him.
Even now, in the throws of guilt and the crushing horror of what he had done, the mark begged him to give him.
He could feel its pull, feel its hunger to consume, to kill, to take.
The night in the woods with the nameless girl, something like that had happened before he realized.
He could still feel the nameless girl's small throat in his hands, squeezing, tightening, as she begged for him to stop.
Would he have done it? Would he have killed another person who didn’t deserve it?
Was he really so weak? So weak he couldn’t fight the marks call?
Casper's body pulsed with power, as if the mark itself challenged him then, as if the mark itself spoke, to tell him he couldn’t fight it.
Casper punched rain soaked earth under him, driving his fist into the mud and grass as she cried into the soil.
He didn’t want this… he didn’t want to be marked, he didn’t want the power if it meant it came with all of this horror.
He'd rather be bedridden and sickly, if it meant his family would still be alive, his friends would still be alive.
If he wasn’t marked, that girl would still be alive…
“If you weren’t marked, none of us would be alive.” the nameless girl's voice whispers from his side.
A small hand rests on the small of Casper’s back, as he remains hunched over on the ground.
“I'm, a monster.” Casper spoke softly into the rain.
“Maybe…” the nameless girl admitted, bringing herself to kneel in front of him, though Casper didn’t look up to see her.
“But maybe you aren’t.” she offered, taking Casper's chin and forcing his head up to meet her gaze.
Her soaked through clothes stuck to the girl's thin frame. The rain matted her now short, yellowish dyed hair to her skull. The moon behind her gave the nameless girl's body a halo of pale light.
“Who are we, but the things we do?” she echoes, calm, comforting.
“I…”
“You are no less mortal than anyone else. To count your sins and weigh them is for the gods, not for us.” She offers a faint smile, as she brings a hand to Casper's cheek, resting the weight of his head in the palm of her small hand.
“If you believe you have done something to make you a monster, then you must do another to slay the monster you created.”
“How do you know…” Casper asks, finding himself searching the nameless girl's eyes.
“I can see the future, Casper.” She smiles. “The future where you tell me your nightmare, the future where you kill me, the future where you don’t. I can see the paths you might choose to walk, but I believe I know you just enough, to know you will walk the right one.”
Casper lets her words settle in his mind, listening to the howl of wind and falling rain, pattering against their clothes and skin and the grass at their feet.
“I can feel the mark, eating me. Driving me, i can feel it wanting.” Casper lets the words fall from his mouth, desperate and hurting.
“I know, I know it does. I feel it too. You have used so much, so much for the sake of others.” Casper finds himself leaning into the woman's touch, as she traces her thumb along his cheek.
“I know you don’t want to hurt anyone… so use me.” She offers kindly.
“I. I can’t do that. I shouldn’t…” Casper recoils, only for the nameless girl to place her other hand upon his cheek as well, holding him in place.
“I bear the mark, the same as you. Let me help you… let me relieve you of the effects, please.”
Casper’s breath catches, as he desperately searches for an excuse, a way out. Tracing his eyes over the girl's thin body he can still see where his hand pressed into her throat. He used her once before, but…
“Casper.” She whispered his name, with the same husky tone she did the night they spent together, her voice easing his mind, her touch warming his skin.
“Use me, let me do this for you… for us.” She offers, inching closer to his lips with her own. “The mark will consume you if you don’t get a release. With the others around us, you can’t fight, you can’t kill… you are too moral a man to use any of them.” She reasons. Moving his body to rest his back in the rain drenched grass, moving to be on top of him, so that her body blocks the rain falling around them.
“Are you… sure?” Casper asks.
“I am. Please… let me help you.” she begs.
Casper brings his hands to caress her thin frame, feeling her ribs through her soaked through shirt, feeling the fragility of her muscles under the pressure of his hands.
“I don’t want to hurt you…”
“You won’t.” She assures him, as the mark begins to flow through her. Increasing the strength of her bones, her muscles, her skin.
“Are you sure you want this…” Casper asks, his blood pounding, his body aching, the mark calling.
“I want to help relieve you, give the mark release… give you, Casper, release.” she whispers, bringing her mouth down around his, her hips to rest against his crotch, her hands to tangle the mess of wet hair as she opens her tunic to allow her breasts to rest against his chest.
Casper's thoughts bleed into one another, congealing into one incomprehensible mass of emotion.
A part of him craves her, craves the release she promises to bring.
Casper traces his hands along the length of her body, basking in her allure, her pheromones. He needs to feel that connection again, the spark and heat of their bodies connecting.
Another part of him can't stop seeing her covered in blood. Flashes of his own hands covered in what would remain if he only gave in just a little.
Was this his desire or the marks?
Did he want this or did the mark?
Was this his mind? Or that base animal that hid itself deep inside.
Every fiber of his physical body pulled towards her. Needed her.
But who was she? why did he desire her to fully?
…
The mark wanted this… the mark wanted him to want this.
Casper stopped himself, letting his hands find rest on her hips.
His mark wanted this, which meant hers did too…
“We can't.” Casper says, trying his best to catch his breath and calm his heart.
With one smooth motion he lifts her up from atop him, and brings her to rest in the grass beside him.
The last time he let the mark sway his mind, gave in to Its desires, it's perception of what needed to be done. He hurt people.
“We need to fight it… We need to not give in” he pants, fighting against himself, against his own desire for her.
The nameless girl searches his face, her own a mix of confusion. “We've done it before, we..”
“We need to be stronger. The mark, it wants us to kill, consume, fuck… why?” He asks
The nameless girl says nothing, and only watches as the rain continues to saturate them both.
“It has its own desires but it can't work on its own. It needs us to do the things it wants. If it wants us to… if it wants us to be with one another then it can't be good… nothing the mark wants is good.” Casper bites the words out, as the pain of his dream still claws at his conscious.
The nameless girl parts her lips to speak, but closes them again just as quickly.
“If we don't receive a release it will only build…” She says softly.
“I know, I know, we can still be practical.” He offers, unable to fully deny the aching pull of the mark.
“Yes… practical.” The nameless girl moans as she slides Casper's soaking wet shirt over his body in one quick motion.
Casper slides his thumbs into the waist line of her pants, and pulls them down effortlessly as he lifts her hips and legs from the ground.
She matched his movements, working his already erect member from his own pants, exposing them both in the open air.
Casper begins to orient himself lower, to pleasure her the way he had done before, but she stopped him.
Before Casper could understand what it was she was doing, she channeled the mark to force his body down.
Pinning Casper on his back, she mounted him with a hungry look in her eyes.
“Practical! We cant!” Casper quickly tried to remind her, echoing the words she had spoken to him their first time together.
“I know, I know” the nameless girl panted.
Casper watches she mounts his cock, letting the lips of her womanhood slide around him, but not letting him inside.
“This is dangerous!” Casper tries to reposition, to get his member away from her entrance, but quickly loses the will as she begins to grind back and forth rubbing the inside of her lips against underside of him.
It sticks at first, but as she grinds and slides she coats him in her love and the sensation quickly becomes divine.
“Fuck.” Casper finds hands moving to her hips, following the motion as she slides back and forth, and and forth, back and forth, along his length in intoxicating rhythmic motions.
She continues to Grind, back and further over and over, until eventually she repositions herself slightly. planting Her hands firmly on Caspers shoulders she reangles her hips so that the most sensitive parts of her rub against him.
Casper pants and breaths to try and catch his breath for the pleasure She brings him. He listens to her deep impassioned moans as she rubs herself on his cock, lost in the throws of her own pleasure as she moves faster up and down his length.
the rain drowns out the sounds of the breathy moans, the sounds of their slick bodies grinding and sliding against one another.
The showering water catches the light of the moon. The nameless girl looks to he a statue carved of marble as light works around the gentle slope of her small breasts, her ribs, her collar bone, her neck.
Casper can feel his cock threaten to penetrate her as she continues to work her hips down.
“Careful!” Casper whispers as he pulls her in. Resting his head against her chest and basking in the warmth And thump of her beating heart.
“Yes… Yes…. yes…” she moans, bringing her fingers to knead at his hair. Pressing him further into her as she moves along his length.
Casper can feel himself building to climax, as she moves faster, grinding harder, consuming his manhood with every slide.
“I'm close” he moans. Bringing his arms around her. Holding her.
She moves ever fast then. The lips of her womanhood wrapped around either side. Her entrance and pearl sliding against the underside of him.
“Casper~” she moans, and just as Casper reaches his breaking point, so does she.
Orgasm flows from his tip and onto his stomach as she continues to grind and rub against him. He can feel her saturate his stomach as well as she too orgasms in time with his own, her sweetness spraying over him only to be washed away in the pouring rain.
Her hips slow to a methodic, exhausted pace, working his length until the sputters stop and the hardness leaves him.
The nameless girl let's herself fall forward. Her bare chest against his, her hands still tangled in his hair.
Casper basks in her warmth. Until the mark leaves their bodies cold in the rain that shows no sign of stopping.
Resting his hands on her back, he feels her vertebrae of her spine, counting them to himself.
“I still don't know you… I don't even know your name” Casper says softly, some part of him raising with guilt.
“and you feel guilty for doing this with me, when you have feelings for another?” The nameless girl asks.
“How did you know?”
“I can see the future Casper, the future Where you tell me…” She teases.
Casper exhales a breath, wondering just how much she knew if him, from seeing the futures where he tells her his secrets.
“This isn't wrong… This is practical. This is for our health, moreover it's to prevent us from acting out...”
“You know that's a lie. You know it's for pleasure. Yours And mine…”
The nameless girl says nothing, remaining quiet at the statement. Not wanting to make It real by confirming his words.
“I.. am not normally like this…” Casper admitted, finding himself lost In the comfort of her nails in his hair.
“Neither am I… but we need it. And you won't sleep with the others. I'm happy to use you, and be used by you. For practicality.” She adds.
“If it's practical why do I feel guilty.” Casper muttered, shifting to lift her from his body, And handing her her drenched cloths from their spot in the mud and grass.
“Because you're a good man.” she says, Letting the rain wash away the mud from her legs.
Casper looked down at his rain soaked hands, watching as the water pools and spills out, catching glimpses of his own reflection within.
“I'm not so sure about that any more…”