Episode 44: Disintegrate
Narrator: Welcome to Ghost Wax, a Far and Tall Tales Production. The following story may contain graphic content. Listener discretion is advised.
[Intro Music]
Episode 44, Disintegrate
Recorder clicks on
the ardent at night. The courtyard is strangely quiet, the bees are faint. There is no wind.
Voncid: So quiet with the glass up…
Emea: I prefer the breeze.
Voncid: Can’t be helped.
Emea: Don’t despair.
Voncid: I will try. We have reason to be optimistic after all. Though the recent history of banishings… how many of us are there left?
Emea: After Dalton… twenty two.
Voncid: sighs the last stand of the last stand.
Emea: You said you’d try.
Voncid: Yes, not to despair… and I shall. Olivia will banish the Cypher, the plague will subside.
Emea: Brighter days are ahead, you’ll see.
Olivia: entering very good, very good. The Ardent is locked down tight. Air tight. Nothing will interrupt the banishing.
Emea: we were just discussing how you will perform brilliantly and that we have total faith in you.
Voncid: Don’t make that face, we were.
Olivia: Fine, I believe you.
Voncid: I do wish you would take the Rekindled, Adelaide into the chamber with you… even just as a reservoir she could be so helpful…
Olivia: you are lucky we’ve allowed it to stay in the building.
Voncid: we have nothing to fear from her.
Olivia: Similar assurances were made of the last, just before the murders.
Voncid: that was truly different.
Emea: she really is a nice young woman.
Olivia: they all seem nice, but they are animals. The second you forget that you are locked in a cage with animals… but yes quoting protocol very well, “all possible, assets must be evaluated.” some of us still follow protocol.
Voncid: I think you’ll like her.
Olivia: humph it’s time, Emea would you accompany me to the upper chamber?
Emea: I’d be delighted.
Olivia: and Master Voncid…
Voncid: Yes, I am censured, so am not allowed in the upper chamber. I will continue my functions and protect the Ardent.
Olivia: Good. nerves I don’t imagine this will take overlong.
Voncid: Olivia… fight well. You will prevail.
Olivia : we had best hope so.
scene cut
Voncid: That’s it… the Ardent is sealed and the upper chamber is cloistered above. Nothing can go in or out.
Pip: We are WELL stocked on snacks.
Luca: how long could this take?
Voncid: the longest banishings have taken upwards of six months.
Charlie: Welcome to my world.
Voncid: Yes, I suppose so, but Charlie I assure you, once this banishing concludes we will work on freeing you from the confines of the lodge. If t he eyes that pursue you are agents of the Cypher, they will be greatly diminished…
Luca: and if they aren’t, we will find out what they are and how to help you.
Pip: I just wanna know we have fresh water… I can resort to cannibalism if I have to, but dying of thirst is one of my greatest fears, after the salt mummies.
Voncid: oh yes, fresh water in a reservoir, additionally, the alchemists have core matter they can render into many simple materials we might need on demand. I dare say, the Ardent is now our own little vessel, now unmoored from reality itself, self sufficient and safe… the safest location maybe anywhere.
Charlie: We are “unmoored from the cosmos” and yet, they still expect us to work?
Voncid: It’s just a few reclaimings from the backlog.
Luca: Pip, will you come with us to the labs, I know we are all sealed and all, but I would still feel better if I had you in sight.
Pip: very sweet, lets call it earshot, when the bodies start moving and talking and shit, I can’t.
audio out, scene change to The Apiary
Voncid: Adelaide.
Adie: strange sounds as it is going directly to the wax Yes, I’m… feeling well.
Voncid: Luca is the ghost wax picking her up.
Luca: Yes I think so… I still can’t hear anything she’s saying, but the needle is moving.
Voncid: good. Adelaide, your speech should continue to return to you as your strength continues to grow.
Adie: Grow? Already… feel so strong.
The bees respond to her voice
Voncid: Oh yes, you are only just beginning.
Luca: Amazing… do you hear the phantoma responding to her trying to talk?
Voncid: I do. They are kindred spirits after all.
Adie: I feel… fear… I feel the… tension all around… I want to help… how can I help…
Voncid: Unfortunately I think it will take some time before the others are fully willing to make use of your more wondrous capabilities. You see, Adelaide…
Adie: Adie… please.
Voncid: Yes, Adie. The other hamsa and I… in the pursuit of our great work we… well we are very protective of our safety… we are, by our nature, very hard to harm, layers and layers… it is hard to explain, but the heart of the issue is… You are one of the rare things that could harm us easily if you so chose. They are afraid. Rekindled have… hurt us in the past. You are a weapon, and for now a weapon is all they can see. But I know that you are more. I have seen your heart, I will show you mine by my deeds, the others will too, we have nothing to fear of each other. We want the same thing, all of us I think.
Luca: Agreed.
Adie: Yes.
Voncid: This building is… unmoored. We are very safe, but still, with all hands on deck in the upper chamber, would you stay and watch over the apiary? Keep the phantoma company, when we are closed up like this they tend to get a bit… lonely.
Adie: struggling to speak Yes… I like them.
Voncid: There, rest your voice, we will be back shortly. We are going to reclaim a young man who died very unnaturally, and see if we can determine why it happened and what we might do about it.
Luca: ok, shall we.
Voncid: Yes, walk and talk with me, Luca, while we have a moment… here.
Luca: yeah?
Voncid: a gift.
Luca: what? Really?
Voncid: Yes, it’s nothing extravagant, I suppose it is rare.
Luca: Why did… wait…
Voncid: One year ago, we started working together, officially.
Luca: laughs I can’t believe it’s only been a year.
Voncid: it has been eventful.
Luca: shocked what… what is it?
Voncid: when you were taken into the order, they took the object from you… I know that was very difficult. beat and well, while this is not the melitilith that gave the… object its power, it is something I made, in the likeness of it. It’s called a tumbling staircase, an impossible object like the one you manifested, just not so puissant.
Luca: It's beautiful.
Voncid: the things you make are beautiful. Full of goodness, purity of intent. We cannot choose what others do with what we put into the world, we can but put them into the world with an open heart. I am, to wax sentimental, quite inspired by you.
Luca: doesn’t know what to say thank you.
Voncid: you are a good friend and a fine young man. I don’t mean to overstep, but I often feel very much like an inverted Geppetto to your Pinnochio. beat Only in that you are young, and proficient with the making of things and I am older and… well…
Luca: wish you were a real boy?
Voncid: forgive the metaphor it was muddled.
Luca: I’d have been lucky if you had actually been my father.
Voncid: well… I look forward to working with you more.
Luca: happily Yeah… me too.
scene cut and return
Charlie: So hey… you two cool?
Pip: Working on it.
Charlie: Are we cool?
Pip: what do you mean?
Charlie: just feels… I dunno. I feel… weird about everything.
Pip: No it’s… it’s going to be fine. Crazy days.
Charlie: Yeah… speaking of which… Do you hear that? I’ve been feeling like I can… yeah, sounds so bizarre.
Pip: Huh?
Charlie: Ever since they sealed the building off… something is really different.
Pip: Something in the walls?
Charlie: Yeah… come put your ear here…
we hear Pip moving to stand next to him
Pip: Huh… that’s… yeah what is that?
Charlie: Usually you get like pipe sounds, or buzzing from electricity or… you know building noises…
Pip: but there’s like… nothing… less than nothing.
Charlie: huh, weird.
Luca: hey… you two… uh, having a nice wall listen there?
Charlie: playful quiet
Pip: We are listening to the wall.
Voncid: Yes the ritual has many bizarre secondary effects… by the way if your cellphones get any textual messages from numbers you don’t know, numbers from people outside the building, or from any deceased relatives… do NOT respond.
Pip: How incredibly haunting.
Voncid: yes.
Charlie: So… you said unmoored from reality… how literal is that? If I went to the front doors and like, got them open somehow, would we all be pulled out into the vacuum of space?
Voncid: No… I mean I don’t think so.
Luca: or would it be like a desert out there and big sandworms would start chasing us and eat Pip?
Pip: At least I get to be Geena Davis in this reference.
Charlie: What would happen?
Voncid: You’d likely see the buildings across the street. People passing by… but were you to exit… you’d be lost. Elsewhere. We only appear to be where we currently are.
Luca: So where are we really?
Voncid: Nowhere.
Charlie: Ominous.
Voncid: It’s the last peaceful place in the cosmos honestly.
Luca: what a sad thought.
Voncid: Not all violence is bad, the crucible of a star is quite violent. Not all chaos is undesirable, the fragmenting and spiraling of galaxies is a thing of great beauty, even if it is mostly madness.
Pip: So poetic today… poetry grandpa doesn’t really work.
Voncid: apologies, I wax philosophical during a banshing, especially ones I cannot be part of.
Charlie: Yeah, what bullshit.
Voncid: I made my bed of coals, now I lie in it.
Charlie: It’s not fair.
Voncid: The injustice I am concerned with is the one that befell this young john doe in our examination laboratory, shall we attend to them?
Luca: Oh boy.
Pip: I can’t believe I don’t get to see Olivia twist that tick mr. media out of our reality and instead I get on corpse chat duty.
Voncid: I’ll try not to take it personally that you referred to the chapter of reclaimers and their sacred duties as Corpse Chat.
Pip: Sorry.
Voncid: Alright, let’s head down there.
scene cut and return
Voncid: This is master reclaimer Owen Voncid, together with Phillipa James, seer, Charles Baybridge, order initiate and Luca Eso, reclaimer.
Pip: Shit, did we all just get promotions?
Charlie: happy they cleared me?
Luca: wow, that hit harder than I imagined it would.
Voncid: Children, later. ahem Master Reclaimer Owen Voncid in attendance. The deceased was recovered by Francis Faraday and Margot Angiers in a tenement building in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on a lead provided by Miss Phillipa. The subject has not been able to be identified due to a complete lack of face, arms, or other means of identification… oh that reminds me, I keep forgetting how ubiquitous tattoos are, Luca, Charlie did either of you note any identifying tattoos on the body during the initial examination?
Luca: No.
Charlie: Nope.
Voncid: yes, well, i see why we were given this one. A reclaiming of some kind would be the only way to identify this body as his DNA was nowhere in the system either. This poor fellow has had all trace of himself erased. As I said, the subject’s face and arms and, therefore, fingerprints, are missing. There are no marks, cuts, or surgical indications of any kind, simply smooth, unbroken absences where it seems any marring of the flesh has been… erased. Sinuses, mandible, interior facial structures are visible but those cross sectioned, appear undamaged. The face has been removed, back to the line of the ears, the left arm up to the shoulder, the right midway through the forearm. There are no signs of bleeding and the report indicated that there was no blood at the scene, though it was a transient flophouse of sorts, so said scene was not the most secure and may have been tampered with. Reclaiming will begin after final preparations.Phillipa, are you sensing anything?
Pip: Disgust, but nothing from the body. It’s like’ it’s…blank?
Luca: How are we going to do this one? Do you want to draw out the spirit? Inhabit them?
Voncid: Well, I actually have an apparatus for situations like this.
Pip: Get a lot of faceless cases?
Voncid: More often than I’d care to. There were a series of cases, where a killer had come to learn of the reclaimer order and in an attempt to render the dead unable to speak to us, destroyed their faces. Luckily my predecessor was a master medium and an early adopter of the spirit board.
Pip: Get out.
Voncid: oh yes, we solved a few fairly grizzly ones with planchette in hand.
Pip: Incredible.
Voncid: I however, was interested in giving the dead a more… physical final experience and so… I repurposed something. Luca, the large glossy box there.
We hear the click of the box opening
Luca: This crest looks familiar.
Voncid: Yes, there aren’t many of them left, but the chapter of wheels, sort of your predecessors I suppose, the artificers.
Box opens and a compartment unfolds
Luca: Woah…
Charlie: oh wow, holy shit.
Voncid: this porcelain face… once sat upon a meticulously crafted and lifelike automaton of human shape… they became quite a lot more than a gilded curiosity and were gifted flesh, however this beautiful face, seemed a shame for it not to have a use.
Luca: Are you talking about Cosa?
Pip: The librarian was a puppet person?
Luca: Is this why you were talking about Pinnochio earlier? Because you were carrying a… puppet face in your bag?
Voncid: huh, maybe you are right… at any rate, I will affix the prosthetic to the body and they can inform us as to what transpired.
Pip: oh lord.
Luca: Hang in there, after what you’ve been through, I am sure this won’t be so bad.
Charlie: yeah, just a limbless dead body with an articulated automaton mask telling us how it died, no big.
Pip: please don’t let me get used to this shit.
Voncid: Luca could you hand me the suture kit?
Pip: sigh
audio cuts and returns
Voncid: lost soul… come home again. Return to us and tell us your tale, use these borrowed eyes to see and lips to speak…
the voice is very hollow, mechanical, sounding like an old phonograph, hollow echo, like an old drive through
Zane: scared oh nooooo… sad, realizing they are dead oh no…
Voncid: I am so sorry, but your life has ended. Nothing will harm you now though, and not ever again. We wish to help you.
Zane: Oh no… I knew this would happen eventually, oh god why why I knew I was going to die… oh fuck mom was right…
Voncid: Breathe in and breathe out… aside I am getting some intense feedback as I apply pressure to try and calm them… whatever killed them left quite a mark.
Luca: Here, let me just make a little adjustment…
We hear a gear turning, like a windup toy
Luca: there, try speaking again.
Zane: more clear and human Oh, that feels much better.
Charlie: The magic touch.
Voncid: can you tell us your name?
Zane: Zane… I’m Zane. Don’t ask me my last name.
Voncid: perhaps your family would…
Zane: NO. I don’t want them to know anything. Nothing, please. I’m gone. I’m dead to them already, they don’t need to grieve me again, ok?
Voncid: Very well… but Zane, could you tell us what happened to your body? There seems to be a good deal of you missing.
Zane: Yeah… I… oh yeah, wow… my face must have fallen in or maybe they put it in dreamily, remembering the sensations of pleasure pleasantly wow… that was the rush of a lifetime… just thinking about it… oh god it felt so good it was almost worth it.
Voncid: They who?
Zane: Harold… or he said it was Harold. He showed me where the soft spot was… where to find the hole… how to use it… I want to be mad at him, since it killed me, but… I’ve done everything. Meth, heroin, fucking… unnamed laboratory shit that won’t be ruining people’s lives on the street for years yet, but… oh wow, nothing was like this.
Voncid: Charlie if you would, take down the name Harold… or… I wonder… herald… pardon, please, tell us what happened to you.
Zane: I’ll spare you and I the painful backstory if it’s all the same. The abuse, the acting out, the first using, the getting kicked out of the house… So many variations from so many people, but all essentially the same., You can just fill in the blanks.
Voncid: there is no need, this is your story, we will listen to whatever you wish to say.
Zane: yeah… no we don’t need to… ok, well I do wanna say one thing about it, I mean, that recording thing… if anyone is going to listen to this ever, I guess just… like don’t take shit your kids do, that’s bad or you think is bad… don’t take it personally. Not everything your kid does is some attack on you, or the family name or whatever… my using… was because of a hole I had inside myself, one that got opened up by a few neighbor boys and then got made worse and worse over time, filled in torn open and and then made wider and wider by little cruelty after little cruelty. But shit with my parents didn’t get really bad until they caught me using pills and decided that was me declaring war against the family, the house, and them personally… like… I liked them fine… until all that shit started anyways, like… mom and dad I wasn’t trying to hurt you…
Ok, fuck that, I don’t need to do that dance anymore. I bounced around, homed, un-homed, homed again, man, you don’t know scary until you have been out on the street at night, with the shadows walking all around, feeling like you are being followed, and then makes a shhhh wind sound realize you don’t have anywhere to go. Nowhere to hide.
That's when I started taking lots of uppers, gotta stay up all night, watch your own back. Sleep when you can during the day, but you gotta spend all day trying to score really, so you wind up not sleeping much at all… and so you see shit.
That’s why so many of my friends who didn’t have anywhere wound up seeming so… haunted, I think. No sleep, no dreams… no kind of dreams at all, but surrounded by nightmares.
I’d hallucinated before, never going up or down, but just from the not sleeping.
So this guy, Harold. I had seen him around a few places, never really knew him, but he waved me over in this empty building a bunch of us were hanging out in… we could get into through a door someone forgot to lock… anyways, Harold waves me over, didn’t say anything at first, just waves… he always wears this hoody up, he’s got a few of them, always these like loud patterns all over them, looks like he’s got graffiti drawn all over him… kinda cool actually, but he’s got a mask on, said its cause he’s burned, but I don’t know, guys a nut, whatever, it’s got little x’s for eyes and a smile stitched on. I used to think it was kinda scary but then pandemic days everyone had a mask so by then it wasn’t even that weird… ok, so he waves me over and just points.
There’s… there’s this spot on the wall… middle of a concrete wall, SUPER tagged up, lots and lots of spraypaint and shit all over it but no like names I recognize or any crews, just like… pictures and shapes… crazy trippy shit… but there's this spot on the wall where all the other pictures are kinda… pointing towards… that spot doesn’t have any paint at all… just a sign drawn on over it that says “heaven.” Only… the H and the E were both capitalized… so maybe HE-aven… I don’t know.
Voncid: Heaven?
Zane: yeah… and… it wasn’t lying… Just looking at it I could feel my mind slowing down… then Harold said this weird fucking thing… what did he say to me…
Harold: Come on Zane… go ahead… reach out and touch faith. laugh
Zane: Yeah… well, I already wanted to… wanted to reach out… and when just the tippy tip of my fingers touched it… electric… liquid relief, this flood of joy rushing up my fingers and into my blood like pure love… Part of me wanted to shove my arm in… just right away… the opposite of touching a hot stove right? But a little part of me, self preservation, screamed out and so I pulled back.
Harold: Nice huh?
Zane: it was. It was the nicest… but then there was… numb… more than numb. Nothing. In the dim dirty light of that empty building I could see where the tip of my finger wasn’t. Just empty space at the end of my knuckle.
Charlie: Oh god.
Zane: sure felt like it.
Zane coughs a few times
Zane: sorry… I feel kinda dusty.
Voncid: Oh my, perhaps I didn’t clear the mask thoroughly I’m very sorry.
Charlie: I… I’m sorry… ow… I feel like I have something in my eye…
Luca: You ok?
Voncid: It’s alright Charlie.
Charlie: Voncid… Owen… could… could you look in my eyes, do you see anything?
Voncid: Hmmm… no… I do not.
Charlie: devastated ok… that’s ok.
Voncid: Maybe you should go rinse them?
Charlie: heartbreak, horrified Yeah… yeah, ok… I’ll be right back.
Pip: I’ll go with him… I could use a break…
Voncid: I understand… pause
Zane: Poor kid.
Voncid: Hmm?
Zane: he’s a user.
Voncid: oh… you think so?
Zane: yeah, definitely.
Luca: you’re right. He told me he’s had addiction problems before… had to take a year off to get it under control before he went to college.
Voncid: I see. Nothing to be ashamed of certainly, but perhaps this story…
Luca: yeah, I think it was getting to him… realizing how this is going to end.
Voncid: poor boy… beat Zane… you had discovered the cost of this mysterious spot in the wall?
Zane: yup. When I came too, Harold was gone. I had lost hours. Just that tiny little touch and I’d sailed away for hours…
I went around looking for him. To ask him what the hell was going on, but I couldn't find him. Part of me was pissed, thinking he’d put something on the wall,some kind of acid maybe. Part of me hoped he had more.
But I couldn't find him.
So I went back to the spot, half expecting it to be gone y’know?
But it wasn’t, it was there… I started, like, messing with it.
It was soft, the spot. I tried pushing stuff into it later, the concrete was like… I don't know, doughy? Whatever I pushed in there, like a broom handle or a rock… gone. The rock came back sheared clean… the edge sharp enough that I sliced a finger on it… the tip of my index finger just flapped loose because the edge was so sharp… which is when I got the idea… the idea to reach in again… just a little… Just using this part of my finger I already had practically cut off.
When I thought that… like… shit, I got so scared… I realized then what was going to happen, just like with all the other shit. A little bit, a taste, a touch… but then it’s so good you hope it never ever ends and so… you start to compromise more and more, give it more and more of yourself and fuck… this spot in the wall was like a metaphor made real right…
I walked around the building, found this guy I knew who had some paint pens, went back to the hole and exed out the word heaven. Wrote in: don’t… I knew what was going to happen. Left. Wrote it off. Planned to move towns if I had to…
holding back tears but I mean… I was a goner.
I’d been bit. I could practically feel my brain rewiring itself into a machine that just said “get more.” FUUUCK, nothing else felt good anymore, nothing.
I don’t even really remember going back. Rationlizing all the way… “You cut your finger… it’s so dirty where you’ve been staying, you’ll probably get an infection anyways, might be good idea to just… lose that little bit…”
Before I knew what was happening I gave it my index finger up to my knuckle…
SOOOO stupid… I’m so sorry… god dammit. I’m sorry, i’m sorry to myself… fuck… goddammit Zane please forgive me… fuck fuck, but it. Was. so. Good.
It felt like falling into infinity, fucking ambrosia.
My soul was singing… you just can’t know what you’d do to get that feeling back.
Voncid: I do. I understand.
Zane: Yeah… you do, don’t you. You’ve got the look of someone who had heaven, lost it, and can’t find the way back… don’t you?
sighs, shakily
Oh… welllll shit… I think once I’d lost my whole left hand, I started giving it more to like… fight the feeling of horror and shame at having given it so much… I couldn’t stop. This wasn’t like a normal fix. It wasn’t.
I would stuff my sleeve into my pocket, trying to make it look like I still had… had an arm… I don’t know who I was trying to fool. I don’t know who would have even noticed. Or cared if they did..
I don’t know.
Shame is a fucked up funny thing… I got all the way up to my shoulder one night and the euphoria got so intense I… I almost passed out and fell forward… my face like almost grazed it… that was a wake up call… I realized how easy, how fucking easy it would be to fall asleep and fall in…
tears I was so. Scared. pause
Kept me away about a week… I might have stayed away forever but Harold showed back up… new neon pink mask… shining out under his hood at me in the dark.
Harold: You know… it misses you. It told me.
Zane: He said that to me… and… his breath… there was something in it… a smell I didn’t realize I had missed like… some kind of incense and I realized that the spot smelled like incense and fuck, I don’t even know what happened but I was back there again…
This time was different… before all of me had focused in so hard on it, on the fix… but now… I felt like it was watching me. Like it had been waiting for me.
I just… grazed it… and lightning.
White. hot. Everything.
And… I slipped. I knew it was going to happen, I’d scolded and screamed at myself all week about it.
“Do you want to fucking die?”
But then it just… happened.
My legs gave out… I fell… I fell into it.
This big bang of pleasure went straight to my brain through the face that disintegrated into the hole in the wall… part of me is still there… a forever moment… my last moment…
Voncid: oh gods Zane… I am so sorry.
Zane: but wait… there’s… there’s something else… I can… my ears were left… I hear something… it’s Harold. He’s talking… he’s over me…
Voncid: yes, concentrate, what is he saying…
Zane: It’s weird… it almost seems like he’s talking to to the hole…
Harold: Don’t worry…
Zane: He says “don’t worry.”
Harold: I just need him to stay alive long enough to finish the big nasty on his back…
Zane: What does that mean… the big nasty on my back… oh yeah, then I felt like… I mean they didn’t even really register because of the bliss rolling through me… but I think he rolled me over… I think he burned something into my back… like a shape… a shape like a big sharp star.
Voncid: I… I thought… Luca didn’t you say there were no markings? You didn’t see any during the initial exam?
Luca: no… I didn’t see any… I don’t think I did.
Voncid: Perhaps it was hidden somehow, or healed… Here help me turn him over
Sounds of a body being moved
Voncid: and we will see what we can find… yes a Sigil is inscribed… what is this form-OH GOD NO, LUCA-
boom
Catastrophic fallout recorder cuts out
recorder picks up a few minutes earlier in a break room
Charlie: oh shit… oh wow.
Pip: Charlie… deep breaths, are you ok?
Charlie: oh shit… oh no…
Pip: Put your head under the faucet here.
we hear water turn on. Charlie puts his face under it
Charlie: …oh shit. Oh fuck… true heartbreak noooooo…
Pip: concern Charlie… let’s get you to medical ok? Come here.
faucet turns off
Charlie: ok… Composes himself, deep breaths hey… Pip.
Pip: gentle yeah, what is it?
Charlie: Will you look into my eyes?
Pip: ok, sure, let me… she sees it oh… oh no.
we hear a slice. A spatter of blood on the floor.
Pip: in sudden shock Unn… oh… Did… oh…
Charlie: Hey hey, just sit down… here you go, sit down… you’re going into shock…
Pip: I… oh…
Charlie: Ok, keep breathing. I don’t know what you did exactly… why this is what they want… “they showed you the truth, so now your eyes belong to them.”
Pip: Fuck you.
Charlie: This is your fault. It’s your fault I have to do this. You think I want to do this?
Pip: Fuck. you.
Charlie: You broke their heart Pip, you have to pay for it.
We hear a horrific explosion from down the hall
Charlie: ok, ok, ok, holy shit it’s really happening… ok, fuck ok, the shock, lean into it, let that happen, it’ll be easier if… ok, One down, one to go…
Pip: Don’t…
Charlie: take a last look around.
Audio cuts and returns. We hear crumbling rock and dust settling.
Voncid: Ugh… oh… nooooooo… Luca… Luca are you ok? Please oh gods… pleeeease, please wake up… I’m so sorry oh my boy… extreme pain Ughnnn… I can’t… I can’t hold on…
we hear footsteps approach
Voncid: Oh… Charlie… thank the gods, but stay back, please, the curse fire is still burning… I… tears can you see Luca? He’s here beneath me but the flash… my eyes… is he ok?
Charlie: You shielded him.
Voncid: I tried to… here… can you reach him? Don’t let the fire touch you.
Charlie: kind Here, give him to me… I’ll take care of him.
Voncid: oh there… gentle… he’s unconscious… a great deal of force… but he’s ok? The fire didn’t touch him?
Charlie: No, he’s unconscious, but he’s ok, I can’t believe it.
Voncid: in extreme pain good… yes, yes! Charlie, I need you to listen closely… I’m very badly hurt… I think… I think I can hold on but I need you to get me something from my quarters… Charlie… charlie can you hear me?
Charlie: whisper why didn’t you save me?
Voncid: … I… Charlie…
Charlie: Why didn’t you save me?
Voncid: keening, realizing No… oh no… Charlieeee
Charlie: screaming WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE ME!?
Voncid: I… I tried. I wanted to. I thought… I thought we could outpace the darkness in your heart… I did not realize how deep it had rooted… I am sorry. I failed you.
Charlie: I… am about to bash in your head with a broken piece of this stone… and you are apologizing to me.
Voncid: terrified because you are my friend… even if I am not yours… Please, Charlie, listen… I will die, I promise… I am ready, whatever has forced your hand, you have won, I accept it, the last necromancer felled that will be how it is, but please Charlie, you cannot… like this… I… I can barely hold onto him… I have nothing left… if you strike at me now, I will consume him, on instinct, without wanting to, it will be reflex and oh nooooo please Charlie please, he is the best of us, do not condemn him to oblivion because of my failings, just give me time, time to let him go gently… please…
Charlie: I… I don’t want… I…
Voncid: Please, just give me a few moments, to let Azem, my other half, to let him go…
Charlie: how long do you need. Really, exactly how long.
Voncid: Maybe… I don’t know… to detach him… let him go adrift… maybe five… seven minutes, that is all, oh thank you Charlie thank you…
Charlie: that’s too long. They’ll be coming.
Voncid: Charlie wait, if you kill me… if you do this, all that I have bound will be loosed, this place will fill with… horrid, dangerous things… in moments… you won’t survive it either.
Charlie: venomous. Betrayed I died almost a year ago… my soul died the night before you came for me… immensely horrified when my wall split open and it looked through… stripped me bare… showed me the dangling marionette corpses you things have made of us… showed me what happened to the real world… I’ve only got one way out now.
Voncid: please no… you are my friend… I just need a few moments more… please, not like this…
Charlie: revolted at himself, cold You’ve had enough time already.
we hear a heavy crack
Voncid: Azem…
crack
Voncid: I am sorry.
Crack
Voncid: Sag… hilidingira… My beautiful one.
Crack crack crack
Audio cuts
