She feels helpless and small on good days, and a worthless burden on bad days.
He’s all she has and he’s unhappy.
(Aren’t I enough, Daddy, you’re enough for me…what’s wrong with me, Dad, if I’m not enough, what did she have that I didn’t?)
Perhaps it’s selfish to want to cheer someone up because their sadness makes you sad.
Perhaps it’s selfish to want to make someone happy purely because then they can make you feel happy in return.
But she’s too young to think about that.
She steals balloons from a local party store and gives them to him on his birthday, hoping they’ll “lift” him up.
Instead it only upsets him more, for some reason.
every day, i think, there’s no way he can make you scream more.
Victoria, too exhausted to do anything, even breathe, just stares straight into the blinding white light.
but today, wow-
She shuts him out.
It’s becoming easier and easier to do that lately, and she’s not sure how she’s doing it.
But it is possible to make his chattering nothing but white noise.
A whistle in the wind, an inaudible, wordless whisper through a closed window.
She can’t move, and yet she can’t exactly lie still.
It’s too uncomfortable.
Not painful exactly.
The pain had faded some time ago, after he’d…finished.
He misses Mommy.
But I’m glad she’s gone.
She made him upset.
She didn’t like me much.
Now I have him all to myself and I can make him happy.
So why is he still so sad?
Am I not enough-?
creepy, she can almost hear Malek say.
But fuck him.
He doesn’t understand.
He knew all of her memories, but he didn’t understand her feelings.
How much she loved him.
Would’ve done anything to make him smile again.
She’d never understood why he loved her mother so much, or why he couldn’t get over her departure, or why he couldn’t have fought harder to keep her, if she mattered so much, or why he’d-
“Tori’s a pretty name for a pretty girl,” the assistant giggles.
Her upper lip quivers.
How she hates him.
Aunt Paula pitied him.
Because he was weak, and she felt strong, pitying Daddy.
How…pathetic.
her?
or him?
Her mouth drops into a grimace, but she doesn’t respond.
Not because she refuses to (there are no more answers she will refuse him, because he knows them all).
But because she doesn’t know.
“Oh, look,” the assistant says breathlessly, excitedly. “Lookie, here!”
She doesn’t look.
She can feel them growing back.
Slowly, they are growing back.
But instead of crying again, instead of screaming or cursing him and the journalist again, she just stares up into the blinding light.
36
“I thought you were going to behave. But you tried to run away? Oh, Tori, I’m so disappointed in you. I tried to be nice to you, accommodate your needs, and you repay me with disobedience. You know I must punish you now, don’t you?”
he has no right.
“It’s a shame. I brought my friend here as a surprise. He was so eager to meet you after I told him what a good girl you are.”
a good girl. ha. is that what you are, tori?
“This isn’t just a punishment, though. I am curious about what kind of Revenant you are, the kind who regenerates bones and organs and skin tissue…or the kind who can only reconnect them and fix existing flesh.”
a good girl who just wants to make her daddy happy…who just wants to be as unobtrusive as possible and make her auntie happy…who just wants friends, even if it means only serving their needs and never her own…make them happy, happy, happy.
“She’s a wild one, isn’t she…?”
“Why isn’t she using her Pulse? Doesn’t she know how?”
“It would appear not.”
afraid of being a burden, are you? or are you really afraid that no one will miss you when you’re gone, just like no one but you misses Daddy-
A cold fire is lit within her belly.
The fridge doesn’t scare her anymore.
Neither does the darkness.
Or the inability to breathe.
In fact, she’s forgotten all about having to breathe.
It just seems…so irrelevant at the moment.
How could she worry about something like that…?
Whatever was she so scared of…?
I’m not afraid, Victoria thinks.
And is surprised to find it’s true.
At some point, somewhere between being cut apart and put back together, between being lost in the tunnels, and being punished for running, she had lost the paralyzing fear.
And gone too is the dense numbness, the inextricable hopelessness that weighed her eyes closed, that slowed her heart and lungs below freezing point.
Something else has replaced both, something far greater than either in mass and magnitude.
Malek is excited.
She can feel him pressing against the bars of her cell.
But she won’t let him in.
you’re almost there, he says almost gently. Almost kindly. you’re so close to realizing what you are.
What she is.
No, she hasn’t accepted it.
But she can no longer deny it either.
And at this point, she’s not sure if she still wants to.
37
It had hurt when he took a pair of sharp scissors and cut off her index finger and middle finger, of course it did.
And it hurt, continuously, tremendously, inexorably, when he sawed through the first leg, her left one, so much that the assistant’s purpose immediately became clear as he helped hold her down.
It hurt so much that she couldn’t even hear herself screaming, sobbing, whimpering, or begging; all she could do was wish for it to stop.
It didn’t matter that the fingers grew back.
Or that the legs did too.
No matter how many times he did it, it still hurt just as much as the first time.
She couldn’t grow numb to the feeling.
Not a feeling like that.
But each time, she did start to feel something else.
Something other than pain.
Something other than shock.
It felt…like humiliation.
The humiliation that can only be answered with vengeance, a degradation that could destroy families, end kingdoms, bring great monuments down, tear eras asunder, and beget new civilizations, all in the name of an all-consuming hatred.
She is weak. Pathetic. Wounded. Isolated. At the mercy of others.
But worst of all, she is humiliated.
My name is Victoria Vasser.
My name is Victoria.
She repeats it aloud, alone in her box, alone with only Malek for company, Malek who is excited, but silent for once.
She repeats it until it becomes a mantra.
A prayer.
An affirmation.
A threat.
A promise.
My name is Victoria.
You bastard. You asshole.
My name is Victoria.
And you will hear me.
38
That night, she sees flashes of color flitting across the darkness.
Bright white and blue and red and green and purple lights, sparkling like stars.
If she squints, she can see into them, see people mouthing words at her, some angry, some sad, some affectionate.
One in particular catches her eye.
It’s the boy she saw, only he’s grown.
(She’s not
sure how she knows it’s the same boy, only that she’s sure of it).
His face is narrow and gaunt and somber.
He stares unhappily at her.
His back leaking smoke that arches like a great wildfire, like a proud oak, like mighty dragon wings, billowing into a terrible tropic storm above the horizon.
His eyes, pure white.
She blinks and he’s gone.
39
The journalist isn’t here today.
Instead, she has a substitute teacher.
The assistant.
Whose smile makes her want to tear her hair out.
Whose touch makes her want to burn her own skin off with oil and a match.
Whether gentle or cruel (it’s always cruel, my dear, regardless of how it feels), his fingers on her skin, and the disgusting look in his eyes, bright with disturbing passion and fascination, fill her heart with a repulsion as strong as his attraction.
So when he lets her out of the chair in the Hall of Truths, she is not the cowed little girl she once was.
She runs.
He easily catches her around the waist and throws her down into the ground so hard she sees a blinding light and hears a sound like thunder as she hits it.
He is strong.
And his Pulse, a thick brown shadow, distorted like a python around his waist, feels as heavy and burdensome as a car.
It presses down on her with so much pressure that she screams out in agony and fury.
“Like it?” the assistant asks. “I’m new to this…Revenant thing. Same as you. It’s kind of exciting, isn’t it? Testing your limits?”
She only screams something incomprehensible back at him, her pain mutilating her words.
humiliating, isn’t it
She searches for her Pulse.
Malek is hiding it, she’s certain.
But she can find it.
remember all those times larissa mocked you and humiliated you and you would just smile and pretend to laugh along with everyone else
The assistant throws her into the metal walkway across the room.
She slams through its rusted rail and hits the wall.
all those times you bit your lip and let yourself be the village fool
She hits it with enough force to roll back over the side.
all those times you fed their egos by being their punching bag
She hits the ground again with a thump that shoves all of the air out of her body.
humiliating
wasn’t it
Give it to me, you son of a bitch.
She squeezes her eyes tightly shut.
Give me your Pulse.
no.
She bares her teeth in frustration.
The assistant puts his foot on her chest.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she screams at him.
His eyes light with glee.
“Some fire! He told me you were quite submissive, and I was really hoping he was exaggerating. I don’t really like my girls docile. It’s fun at first, but they’ve got so little to offer after the first try.”
She tries to shove him off, but his strength is immense.
The weight in his foot feels almost as great as the weight of his Pulse, which still dangles about his waist like a coiled anaconda.
“You’re not as young as I’m used to, but you’ll do. I’ve found that he’s a very particular Revenant. He likes his victims to be a certain type of person. People who hide their true selves from the world. People who don’t know themselves. He likes to study people that way, by bringing out their inner…truths. The truths that they themselves either refuse to acknowledge or don’t know about.”
He removes his foot.
She stops breathing and tries to focus.
Focus on the rage coiled in her gut, waiting to spring and sink its teeth in his throat, venom pumping.
“I don’t personally care about that. I just like a good show.”
He kicks her in the side, but lightly this time.
She only rolls a few feet rather than through the air.
She comes to a stop, stomach down, and forces herself onto her hands and knees.
“I just like seeing people….at their lowest. It’s so boring living among humans and just hearing them make small talk. Seeing them go to work every day, having meaningless jobs, getting dull spouses, making empty-headed children the same as themselves. But even the most boring people on earth have something to offer when they’re in pain! Pain brings out the most entertaining, most unique aspects of humanity, doesn’t it? Panic and desperation, self-centered dedication to survival, cruel and wicked cleverness. And yes, sometimes heroism! Some people are special, and all it takes is a little pain to drag it out! The threat of death. Oh, you don’t know it yet, and maybe you never will, but it is quite fun to be a Revenant.”
She gets slowly, shakily, to her feet.
His eyes shine with something akin to admiration.
“Yes, yes, stand! I’m quite glad he dragged your submission out of you. I’ve never known any person to lie down and let themselves die, not even the most submissive of them!”
She sways, but then, surprising both of them, she lunges at him with her fist.
He catches it easily and twists it, jerking his hand until he hears it snap.
She doesn’t scream.
It hurts, but she’s felt worse.
All in the last few days.
He lets it go and she sinks to her knees, clutching the broken, useless thing to her chest.
“So you can fight! Not physically perhaps, but mentally at least. Your mind can comprehend the role of physical force in preserving your dignity.”
There must be a way to break Malek’s control over his Pulse.
She can feel him simmering in his corner.
Impatient for her to realize something.
To do something.
But what?
What is it that’s making him smile…?
“I could play with you for a month at least. But he’s not so patient. I think he’s found someone else. He’s bound to replace you soon, maybe in a week, maybe in a day, who knows? He loses interest quickly.”
replaced?
you’re not even his special victim.
just one among the hundreds he’s terrorized.
you can’t even be proud of that.
As if she would be proud of such a thing.
But still, the idea of simply being disposed of and replaced by such a sadistic and pathetic man stings at her core.
She’s never felt angrier.
that’s it.
that’s it.
you’re so close, he croons in her ear.
But to what, she does not know, not exactly.
The assistant toys with her for hours.
Throws her around, strips the skin from her bones until the white peeks out with his vicious Pulse. Cuts her again and again until her clothes have been completely torn apart and she’s lying naked in the center of the brightly lit room, exposed to him, exposed to everyone, to the entire world, nothing left hidden, her weakness a spectacle for all to see.
The only audience member missing, it would seem, is God.
his eyes do not follow revenants, dear.
She bitterly agrees.
The floor is soaked with her blood.
And yet, her body is flawless when it’s all over, as the assistant croons sickeningly into her ear when he lies beside her.
She lets him, doesn’t struggle when he puts his arms around her in a nauseating parody of a lover’s embrace, only because she’s focusing.
She’s feeling.
All of the black feelings, stirred up and tossing in her stomach, churning like storm-ridden waters in her gut, are poised and ready to strike.
She can feel something, a terrible power, waiting to be unleashed if only she could just focus some more.
So when he carries her spotless, ruined body to a chair, a cold dented metal chair in the ce
nter of a massive stadium, a large oval arena of sorts, similar in design to the Hall only much bigger, she doesn’t resist at all. Doesn’t move when he removes his shirt and puts it fondly on her in a show of revolting paternalism. Doesn’t twitch as he ties her arms behind her back, kissing her fondly on the forehead after he’s done.
She closes her eyes before he turns the lights off.
For the first time since she was subjected to this resting place, she closes her eyes to the light before it is taken from her.
And she focuses.
40
“Clive?”
The journalist rolls his eyes.
“What did I tell you about calling me by that name?”
“Not to do it,” his coworker chuckles. “I can’t help it. Mister Garland just doesn’t fit ya.”
“What else is he supposed to call you?” the secretary calls across the room.
“Unless you’re a smoking hot 6-foot-tall blonde European model, don’t call me at all,” the journalist jokes.
His coworker chortles.
Some of his other coworkers titter in amusement, all immersed in their computers, whether they’re transcribing interviews, researching a story, planning research, or just fucking off at their desks.
“But seriously now, what is it, Lan?”
“This weekend, me and the boys are heading out to Lake Profundas. You want to join us? It’s just me, Kevin, Nathaniel, maybe Rudy, we’re bringing beer, fishing rods, and some deeply needed social contact-”
“Ah, no, sorry, can’t-”
“You don’t have to give him an excuse every time,” the secretary calls. “You can just say no. He’s a big boy.”
“I actually have something I have to do though!” the journalist protests. “Some business I have to deal with before the full moon.”
“You’d rather summon demons, make contracts with the devil, yeah, yeah, alright,” his coworker says to the amusement of his cubicle neighbor, who lets out a short giggle.
“How else would I have more readers than you?”
His cubicle neighbor guffaws.
The coworker laughs too, despite the barb.
“Alright, see you, Clive. Have a good one.”
The journalist intends to.
Victorian Tale Page 10