#61 - Another Genre - Jolene: #61 - Another Genre - Jolene

Published Apr 26, 2023, 10:56:29 PM UTC | Last updated Apr 26, 2023, 11:09:42 PM | Total Chapters 1

Story Summary

When Jo is AU'd into the Lovecraftian, Byzantine city of Yarnham, she becomes an addled, blood-drunk hunter clinging desperately to her humanity. Her drive to escape the nightmare pushes her to further and further depths, including turning on her ally, her last friend in the world.

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Chapter 1: #61 - Another Genre - Jolene

The pulse of eyes on the inside throbbed through Harris' head almost as violently as the pulse of blood rushed through her veins. Too, blood surged from her every pore, soaked her heavy leather cloak, dripped from the edge of her sharpened cane, upon which she leaned to catch her breath.

 

The air was foetid, sky dark. The chanting from the upper tower surged and fell like waves upon the nighttime shore, and she shuddered so violently that her footing nearly slipped upon the sanguine-soaked cobbles.

 

She brought her shaky hand upon her pointed cap and shoved it low over her brow before she took one cautious step over the corpse at her foot and hurried onward.

 

"A hunter hunts," she murmured, but her voice was shaky, too. The truth was that she was not cut out for this. She was young, her mind was weak, and the blood she'd received to treat her fits of paranoia and want for violence were no longer providing succor. The Healing Church was told to have said that the blood could soothe all ills. The Church had been saying that up until the last of them had been warped from the inside out, cracked and bent like the rest of Yarnham.Warped into the shape of the Beast.

 

Therefore, a hunter must hunt, and put down the Beast, lest the good in humanity perish. Harris wondered if that point had not already passed. Why else would a parish split from the Healing Church to pursue more esoteric studies? It was an attempt to escape. What else could it be? Harris was certain... but was it paranoia or insight that burned within her? She didn't know, and she couldn't know, and so while she clattered up the winding stairs and snarled and slashed at those nightmare monsters who would get in her way, she pushed her fear of herself aside for the internal song, the one true thing she had to do.

 

She needed to breach the walls. She needed to get into the School of Mensis. She needed to stop the chant. Somehow. Somehow.

 

She saw him before she heard him, and she smelled him before she saw him. 

 

"Planter," she greeted an old compatriot, squaring off, but subtly, out of breath and breathless by the changes wrought upon her old friend.

 

Planter blocked the doors to the Hall. His body was twisted and glimmered with blood and fire, arms massive and ropy with split skin and muscle. He sighed, but his extended skull and deepened voice made it guttural. Glottal, even, and through torn lips crimson liquid dribbled. "Hh... Harr... riss..." the Beast spoke. His voice was impossibly quiet for something so primal and cruel.

 

"Move aside," Harris gestured with her cane, thumb slipping along the bloody handle to loosen the latch of the trick weapon. She didn't want to hurt him... but he was hurting already. He had been hurting for a long time. There was a part of her, long buried, that knew she would always have to put him down. It would always be her. She knew that he'd known it, too.

 

"Don't... go...." Planter said. He remained resolute. In his voice, a note of pleading. In his stance, the threat of violence.

 

"This nightmare never ends," she snarled. She took a step forward, testing him. "Step aside!"

 

"N..." he shifted minutely. Harris' blood sang and surged to the muffled chant behind the doors. They lashed out together, blade on claw. They clashed. The air sawed loud with their brutality.

 

The chant surged one last final time, and the night itself skreeled as the cosmos shredded her veil and the blood moon lowered into the sky. Harris and Planter, at one another's throats, could not help but cringe back. And then the world was fireβ€”

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Comments

  • Apr 29, 2023, 2:07:38 PM UTC
    Stars and supernovas-- that just took my breath away 0.0 You have a lovely Lovecraftian story-telling style!

    Normally I would be railing against a cliffhanger, but part of me also wants to keep that ending frozen in time because I want Jo to win but I also want Planter to survive aahh--
    • Apr 29, 2023, 3:55:09 PM UTC
      Thank you! I definitely wanted to keep it ambiguous. The end result would only be bittersweet at best, and I'm a sucker for happier endings!