Bones in the Snow
I've never been good at starting things.
Beginnings are for people with clean records. Carefully filed memories, the nostalgia filter cranked to ten. My beginning is nothing more than colourful smears flickering in and out of the screaming static, burned-in shapes of ghosts and the boy that was once supposed to be me. Corrupted data. Flawed code. hundreds of dots blinking in and out in the dark expanse of a server farm. The machine constantly hums and groans. plastic shifting and thin metal creaking. the pain is the only thing that feels remotely human- even that has eroded, as the nerves misfire, like a fucking fork in an outlet. My muscles ache, bones and tendons pulling, joints aching. I almost feel alive. But not human. Never human. I am as human as a werewolf before the full moon. never quite able to show my true self, merely glaring at thus miserable world through the eyes of a flesh and bone mask. The wolf is hungry. The machine is fucking exhausted.
I could think of a few reasons I am no good at beginnings.
beginnings is a human concept, and I am no human. I've died a long time ago. I can't remember mine and I was made to forget.
It doesn't matter. Explanations and excuses are for people. I'm fucking tired of digging graves. I have no more kind words for headstones, no more prayers, no more elegant fucking gift boxes with neat little bows, my knives are reserved for defense, no longer will they cut myself into easily digestible morsels for you.
There is a river of blood down this frozen road, I know. it stains and it's slippery and sticky and the scent of frozen copper still carries on the winds. But we've dragged ourselves down the road this far, bled out, screaming into unforgiving iron skies, slamming our busted fists at every crossroads hoping someone would come. The wolves did. the vultures did. the rotting. there was nothing- no one- but the blood on the snow, and the starving shadows lurking in the corner of our eyes. coming closer. closer.
what are you, really, if you are merely a sum of parts? Pages of books ripped out, hardware corrupted and removed, replaced. Meat ripped apart, divided among many, is no longer a being- it is many.
Bones in the snow.
A skull missing its crown, sitting upon the crossed femurs that failed to carry it to safety. A sign of death. But the bones are picked clean, scratched and chewed.
There is a scent of blood on the freezing winds, carried by the howls of many, many wolves.