[vi finds the beach had changed (again) in the days after the heat had started to break. it was as if the reckoning had loosed a grip that bled some sort of order back into things, only for the rage to withdraw its humid tendrils and find a new home in the sea.
the sea is angry - seething and unpredictable - the sky spitting down rain, the sea belching up monsters. she can no longer walk the beach in peace and relative silence, searching for her sister (which sister is a thing that tap-tap-taps at the door of her thoughts, unwelcome), and perhaps searching for a stark, too. finding neither - but it's a pattern she's doggedly repeated nearly every day.
none of that matters the moment she happens upon this. (upon him) something about the squid had stopped her in her tracks, to stand and watch - first with incredulousness (it's a hallucination. a joke. a trick.) but that's soon replaced by rising dread.
look at its eye, violet.
it had been the eyes all along, that's what had fixed her in place, what had been the tell she didn't want to see.
she wants to toss him back into the sea while he's still small, and her fingers curl inward as she considers, wonders what would happen if she just shoved her fist through that eye - stomped it against the rocks - squeezed the life out of it.
yet she had stood - and as the squid began to gain a self, as flesh merged and shifted and gave form to her fears, her stomach churned with those waves, she'd turned away to stifle a retch, swallowing bile and she thinks now, a scream.
this? this is what the sea spits out? you?
of all the souls that could have beached themselves on her watch---
---oh, it's fitting that this monster is churned out with the rest of the abominations.
she doesn't so much offer the robe she's holding (it had been for anyone else, anyone at all. her sister, if she's honest, but here, take it, just fucking take it) as tosses it with contempt, averting her eyes momentarily to stare at the sand in furious disbelief. he's as weak and helpless as she's ever seen him, maybe even ever imagined - and a part of her feels triumphant, but it's covered by an oily, poisonous disgust. at him for being this. for being here. at herself, for letting it show on her face, for the way her voice breaks when she barks out:]
I.
the sea is angry - seething and unpredictable - the sky spitting down rain, the sea belching up monsters. she can no longer walk the beach in peace and relative silence, searching for her sister (which sister is a thing that tap-tap-taps at the door of her thoughts, unwelcome), and perhaps searching for a stark, too. finding neither - but it's a pattern she's doggedly repeated nearly every day.
none of that matters the moment she happens upon this. (upon him) something about the squid had stopped her in her tracks, to stand and watch - first with incredulousness (it's a hallucination. a joke. a trick.) but that's soon replaced by rising dread.
look at its eye, violet.
it had been the eyes all along, that's what had fixed her in place, what had been the tell she didn't want to see.
she wants to toss him back into the sea while he's still small, and her fingers curl inward as she considers, wonders what would happen if she just shoved her fist through that eye - stomped it against the rocks - squeezed the life out of it.
yet she had stood - and as the squid began to gain a self, as flesh merged and shifted and gave form to her fears, her stomach churned with those waves, she'd turned away to stifle a retch, swallowing bile and she thinks now, a scream.
this? this is what the sea spits out? you?
of all the souls that could have beached themselves on her watch---
---oh, it's fitting that this monster is churned out with the rest of the abominations.
she doesn't so much offer the robe she's holding (it had been for anyone else, anyone at all. her sister, if she's honest, but here, take it, just fucking take it) as tosses it with contempt, averting her eyes momentarily to stare at the sand in furious disbelief. he's as weak and helpless as she's ever seen him, maybe even ever imagined - and a part of her feels triumphant, but it's covered by an oily, poisonous disgust. at him for being this. for being here. at herself, for letting it show on her face, for the way her voice breaks when she barks out:]
Get up.