01-31-2020, 03:03 PM
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As the fire raged, clawing up the flanks of his helpless home, he pressed himself closer to the boggy earth, splintered ribs and crippled lungs shrieking in agony with every failed gasp. The flimsy house stood on its last legs, humbly enduring its fiery demise. The final screams of a woman echoed through his skull; he flattened his ears, paws moving to grip and tug at the fur of his chest. Milă! Milă! Her pleas went ignored. The fire continued to wildly dance around her bound figure, agitated by torch and hay. He yanked a claw-full of singed fur from his collar, punctured with a croaking sob. He couldn't save his own mother then. He couldn't save Audrey III from the same hellish fate now. And so, he ripped another clump from his soot-covered pelt, oblivious to the pain in his distress. The thought of his beloved friend writhing and dying as its leaves curled inward to escape the unyielding heat, only later found charred and inanimate among ashes and debris worsened the sour taste invading his mouth. Another wad of fur was discarded in the mud around him.
The houseboat creaked and groaned, spitting blackened smoke from every opening in a dreadful display. Beck peeked a bloodshot eye open, his squint watery and blurred. God, it stung. Rubbing at the surviving eye did nothing to halt the venomous burn. He grimaced. A paw acting on its own instinctual accord pulled the bandage plastered over his once-missing eye in desperation to see; while his eye opened for the first time in months, blinking away a seal of grit, the eyeball itself failed to perceive what was directly in front of it, pupil unshifting. Structurally, it recovered. Functionally... not so much.
Nearly sightless and trembling like a grounded bat, he flinched as a voice cut through the house-burning choir. Sputtering, the poltergeist twisted his head to stare up in alarm at the fuzzy mass of black, throat constricting even when he soundlessly mouthed, Audrey, Audrey's still in there! A frantic jab towards the flames, then a glance back before he tried once more to communicate without a voice.
In the next instance, what the spider anticipated happened -- the houseboat collapsed with a startling crack, remnants of four walls and a roof buckling to the deck. He scrabbled to lift his front half from the mud, the firelight bouncing off his watery eyes, spinning iris into gold. No, no, no! A strangled scream escaped him, the call of a grief-stricken banshee.
Memories marched right from his head and to the flame, throwing their wispy bodies like lemmings into a fiery gorge. A thin vine tripping him on a stroll through the swamp; ravenous jaws gnawing on his wrist, only to release and lap the ink beading where teeth once were; leafy tendrils brushing past his freckled cheek, taking fresh tears along with it. Flames shot up from where flung lemmings of memory disturbed the skeletal furniture and framing. A drip of slobber suspended from its tooth-lined trap; the scrape of a metal bait bucket across the terrain as it drags its bulk like a paralyzed dog; the head of the flytrap resting on him as he idly pets the rubbery striped surface. All stolen away from him within an instant of heat, oxygen, and a spark.
Tears slipped freely down both unscathed and missing cheek now, the salty tang mingling with the licorice blood staining his tongue black. He didn't care what was going on around him anymore. When had he ever? Mighty wings beat the air -- he flattened himself to the earth once more, ears twitching in an instinctive need to quiet the world entirely. Yet the familiar mutter of Leroy caused him to stir, jerking his head up to face him. Drench him? Bloodshot eyes widened in fear, only seeing a shallow creek's bed as his own thrash for survival cast ripples around him. The boy scrambled away from Leroy, away from the bucket of water, head shaking frantically. And with that, the final beams of the houseboat finally collapsed, sending a flurry of embers into the polluted sky.
The houseboat creaked and groaned, spitting blackened smoke from every opening in a dreadful display. Beck peeked a bloodshot eye open, his squint watery and blurred. God, it stung. Rubbing at the surviving eye did nothing to halt the venomous burn. He grimaced. A paw acting on its own instinctual accord pulled the bandage plastered over his once-missing eye in desperation to see; while his eye opened for the first time in months, blinking away a seal of grit, the eyeball itself failed to perceive what was directly in front of it, pupil unshifting. Structurally, it recovered. Functionally... not so much.
Nearly sightless and trembling like a grounded bat, he flinched as a voice cut through the house-burning choir. Sputtering, the poltergeist twisted his head to stare up in alarm at the fuzzy mass of black, throat constricting even when he soundlessly mouthed, Audrey, Audrey's still in there! A frantic jab towards the flames, then a glance back before he tried once more to communicate without a voice.
In the next instance, what the spider anticipated happened -- the houseboat collapsed with a startling crack, remnants of four walls and a roof buckling to the deck. He scrabbled to lift his front half from the mud, the firelight bouncing off his watery eyes, spinning iris into gold. No, no, no! A strangled scream escaped him, the call of a grief-stricken banshee.
Memories marched right from his head and to the flame, throwing their wispy bodies like lemmings into a fiery gorge. A thin vine tripping him on a stroll through the swamp; ravenous jaws gnawing on his wrist, only to release and lap the ink beading where teeth once were; leafy tendrils brushing past his freckled cheek, taking fresh tears along with it. Flames shot up from where flung lemmings of memory disturbed the skeletal furniture and framing. A drip of slobber suspended from its tooth-lined trap; the scrape of a metal bait bucket across the terrain as it drags its bulk like a paralyzed dog; the head of the flytrap resting on him as he idly pets the rubbery striped surface. All stolen away from him within an instant of heat, oxygen, and a spark.
Tears slipped freely down both unscathed and missing cheek now, the salty tang mingling with the licorice blood staining his tongue black. He didn't care what was going on around him anymore. When had he ever? Mighty wings beat the air -- he flattened himself to the earth once more, ears twitching in an instinctive need to quiet the world entirely. Yet the familiar mutter of Leroy caused him to stir, jerking his head up to face him. Drench him? Bloodshot eyes widened in fear, only seeing a shallow creek's bed as his own thrash for survival cast ripples around him. The boy scrambled away from Leroy, away from the bucket of water, head shaking frantically. And with that, the final beams of the houseboat finally collapsed, sending a flurry of embers into the polluted sky.