It was odd. One would think, after enduring this depression for most of her life, one would think Calypso would never reach some new low. Some further depths to be hurled and crushed down into.
If every single slip was considered some “disaster”, then every bottom was “rock-bottom”, yeah?
But this. This wasn’t just emptiness. It was a constant plunge from the inside. Gaining more depth, the “bottom” of this well, just kept digging further and further down. As if the walls that Calypso had left began to crack, and the debris turned into sharp instruments. For every shaken breath, stabbing her from within as her chest continued to cave into itself. The stomach long gone.
The heart being ripped into shreds. Yet looking—begging—for any reason to hang on.
“…Sal… Sally… Is this true…?”
“Hah--!” Sal simply scoffed. “I don’t fuckin’ know what’s true and what ain’t anymore! Iunno why ya’ askin’ me, like I knew anything at all!”
She waved her gun, recklessly, as she ranted. “I’m nearly eaten alive, in rush my Ma and Dad. Turn out, they do some voodoo performance an’ there ain’t no time to talk! Just explanations up an’ down, ‘promises’ later! L-like as if that’s worth anythin’ but BULL now—their word! All this time! All this time—I’m thinking my flesh n’ blood is coverin’ somethin’ up, or can’t tell me that she’s apart of somethin’ horrible or some murder or worse, and THEY knew while I nearly worried myself crazy too! Just—graaaaah! Stupid! Of all this! Stupid!”
Calypso just stood there. Barely moving.
“…Sally? Is this true…?”
Sal came down from her anger. Realized what Calypso was getting at.
“…Apparently so, Cal,” Sal had to shake her head. “Guess our lil’ gesture in helpin’ ya’ was just our parents' way of knowin’ that you were… Whatever you are.”
Calypso felt her body spasm uncontrollably. Fists clenched, jaw forced itself to clamp down. Muscles twitched as her brain continued to explode.
Was it all a lie? The one nugget of hope within hopelessness, the love of her family… Was that all a ruse?
…Was this the reason Penelope Grimes had such an arms-length relationship with Calypso, this whole time?
“For fuck’s sake, Calypso—”
The skeletal monster turned her head towards her cousin.
It was painful on both levels. Watching her, forcing her ruined eye open as the small shadow tendrils crawled from the lids. The gray eyes in question were nearly bloodshot, and it wasn’t due to the abnormal irritation. Her blonde-black hair was a complete mess, strains of it clung to her sweaty forehead.
The important detail was that her clutched hands were trembling, wrapped around the gun she wielded.
And it wasn’t from fear.
“How is it, that me—a bitch that just learned about all this—is handlin’ all this better than ya’: the literal monster in question? How is it—ya’ survived a maulin’, an’ yet ya’ think yer some scum? I love ya’. I know more than anyone that yer fine china… But ya’ need ta’ get a goddamn grip right now. Every single damn thing that ills ya’, ya’ lock up, give up. But lemme give ya’ a valuable life lesson—it ain’t gonna keep workin’. The world is gonna keep knockin’ ya’ down, an’ find more ways in doin’ that. If I had to grow up faster than other kids—then the same goes for my own flesh an’ blood.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Sal leaned in, almost in a comical, faux-doting sneer. “How ya’ feelin’ now? Ya’ can go home if ya’ still feelin’ bad.”
“…I’m not sure what to feel right now.”
As Calypso looked up, it caused Sal to step back, and tighten her grip on her gun.
“I’m ready to call myself whiny more than anyone—more than you right now, really. It’s… Such an odd thing. I think—with the little emotional receptors I had, they… Broke. I broke. I’m so utterly devastated, I’m in this state of… Equalization. But you are right, 100%.”
Calypso offered her claw, showcasing the still-human palm. “I’m not going to let this fucked world continue to have its way with me, or anyone else I care about. You don’t… You don’t have to think of me as your cousin still or a human, but just know that I still care—and I’m going to protect you with everything I have. I promise—”
“The only thing that’s stoppin’ me from huggin’ ya’ is the fact that yer covered in knives.”
Calypso felt something form in her throat. She huffed from her nose, light steam coming out.
“Yer family. An’ unlike the family I got now, ya’ DID have a reason to lie ta’ me. Like it or not—an’ me not really getting’ over how… Different ya’ are now: we’re stuck with one another,” Sal winked with her good eye.
Calypso smiled. Genuinely.
So of course it was interrupted, as Gale and Natalie fell right before them.
“Yeah, uh—” Gale grunted and rose to her feet. “You were having a nice moment and we didn’t want it to ruin it, so—”
Calypso looked toward the advancing building. Now battered with cell-bullet-holes and smashed in holes laced with slime and dirt. It’s makeshift maw, now broken and unhinged, still was seconds from lancing out.
“Good work, girls. Let’s make your hard work matter, shall we?”
She didn’t really think.
Calypso sprung forward, into the suddenly sweltering air due to the raging flames. She let her scythe guide her, twirling her into a ballet corkscrew.
It still rocked and rattled her bones, when she made contact with the burnt wood. But it was different. She didn’t focus on the pain and agony at all… If anything, she became one with it.
Calypso slashed through the maw of the building, breaking it as she gracefully spun across the way. The debris, the force of the roaring, and the odd flames didn’t get in her way.
As she landed, Calypso skidded across the writhing streets, due to anchoring her blade into the ground to slow herself.
“HOLY COW, YOU LITERALLY KNOCKED IT’S TEETH OUT, CAL--!” Gale from afar shouted in disbelief.
Calypso rose up, casually pulled the blade from the pavement. Flicked her transformed arm so that small rocks flung from it. “It’s alright, Gale. As I said, you did all the work…”
She then realized. The skeletal monster girl controlled her wild blade…
But the moment she realized, it acted up once more. It gave Calypso pause.
Not control, it was never control—any of this. Expression. Resonance. She simply reached the state of being at one with the beast within again.
But screams shredded across the baked night air. The screams of people that exhaustively reached the top of insanity and realize that after all that struggle, there’s no way down.
“I see—survivors—” Natalie pointed into the broken maw of the building.
“We gotta go in, then!” Sal urged.
Calypso turned to her cousin, “Not to say you’re a liability, but we’re able to tough it out better, in flames. You say with Gale, since she’s basically a plant and Natalie can fly.”
With that, Natalie fluttered into the fray, and Calypso rushed in soon after.
It was somehow worse than the hidden side of the hospital. Of course, the interior of the building was warped into a gross visage, as if the place was abandoned for years and used as a dump… But said messes, the damage, the decay… It all formed into the basis of an inanimate, biological system.
In short, the lobby of this building turned into the inside of a mouth.
And the broken floor before them, perfectly shaped into a moving oval, was the throat. Where a crowd of people were reaching out, screaming, wailing for dear life.