Vihilum​:

T shirt worn by Siouxsie Sioux from the Sex Boutique in London’s Kings Road, 1970s

things writers can (probably) relate to

-making the facial expression your character’s making and trying to describe it

-writing entire scenes in your head as you shower and not remembering most of it by the time you get to your computer

-deciding you can’t do something you’ve been looking forward to until you write what you told yourself you were going to write, resulting in you laying in your bed doing nothing

-having two completely different ideas for your story to go in and both seem equally good but you can’t do both and you also can’t choose

-having docs with stories you know you’ll never finish but not deleting them anyway, even if they’re only a couple sentences long

-getting random bursts of productivity that could go towards homework or cleaning your room or writing and you know you’ll only be able to do one

-getting inspiration from the most random things

-writing at inopportune times because a perfect line or dialogue just popped into your head and you have to get it down before you forget it

-“what are you writing?” “……..a story”

- “what do you want to do when you grow up?” “uunnghnnggguughhhhh”

-reveling in the embarrassment you put your characters through

@vihilum

When fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) are having mood swings but suddenly realise who the fuck they are

Kahlo had been so focused on trying to plan their big escape that her body jolted in surprise when Ace’s shoulders shifted in the closet. The panic that began to fester in her body almost made her forget there was another person in there with her, but the instant she recognized the allegiance in his eyes as they stared intently back at her, the initial scare quickly eased away. She was pulled back to safety. There was some relief in being reminded that they hadn’t been discovered yet – there was still time to work together but just as quickly as this new notion came, it was dismissed when Kahlo felt Ace’s steady hands guide her body down to the corner of the closet. With their eyes locked on each other’s, she knew exactly was he was planning as his jacket came over her knees. As Ace rose, her hand slid down his forearm then the pad of his thumb until she could no longer feel any part of him anymore. Don’t go.

There was an undeniable pang in her chest as she allowed him to clean up her mess yet again but the undeniable assurance in his gaze kept her glued to the ground. Whatever plan he cooked up just then, he was dead set on keeping her out of the way. She watched, wide eyed and pleading with him to stay a little bit longer, as the corners of his lips flirted with the idea of a smile. He was gone. She was left alone in the darkness of the closet with only faint rays of artificial light peering through the shutters. It only took one deep breath for Kahlo to redirect her energy on willing Ace to stay safe and on her ears to catch every single noise she could pick up on. She was met with deafening silence for what felt like too long until the two voices came into range again. Kahlo made out a muffled “You go left. I go right” before one pair of boots could be heard stepping further down the hall while the other pair was drawing closer to the doors of the closet. As quietly as she could, she drew her legs in tighter into herself and Ace’s dark jacket over her head until she was engulfed in total darkness.

If heartbeats were audible, her potential attacker could surely hear hers through the thin wooden doors. She heard the man’s hand on the knob and suddenly felt a sharp waft of air flood the floor of the closet as he ripped the door wide open. Kahlo shut her eyes and braced herself for impact. Aggressive hands rummaged over the few coats that’d been hanging directly above her and sent them crashing down over her head. Her body jerked and her hand flew to her mouth to keep herself from screaming, but the ruckus he caused was more than enough to cover her tracks. She’d gone unnoticed and he abandoned his search in the closet, defeated. She didn’t let herself relax until she was surrounded by silence again and then she reluctantly set herself free from her camouflage.

Just before Kahlo could actually step passed the closet door, she slipped her arms through Ace’s jacket but was seized by death itself as her eyes fell on the bloodbath before her. Her eyes widened with terror and her hands came up to her mouth to muffle her oncoming hyperventilating. The blood that flowed throughout her limbs suddenly felt warmer and thicker. Her knees were about to go out from under her from such an eyeful when she heard the sound of a body drop to the marble and she was violently reminded of the stakes at hand. Her body stiffened as she listened closely for any indication that her stanger hadn’t been the one to fall but nothing. She took another step and the front door came into view. To say the idea of making a run for it didn’t cross her mind would be a lie but the sense of loyalty she felt towards Ace heavily outweighed her own selfish desires so the idea was quickly forced out of her mind. As Kahlo decided to risk it all for a carving knife she crept the short distance from the closet to the kitchen and footsteps could be heard from the room at the end of the hall. Totally outside her element, Kahlo forced her legs to keep moving.

One more corner and the kitchen would come into her sights. Her plan was flawless until she came in view of the body of the bulkier man struggling to survive. She took hesitant steps forward as she tried to pass him. He was on his stomach, a pool of blood had begun to form underneath his head but it was significantly less than she was prepared for and Kahlo was grateful for it. She didn’t know how much more death she could take before she was really set off. “B-back-u-” The gurgling noise would’ve been enough for anyone to know this man was still alive and could be saved. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. Help me? Stop? She inched as close as she’d allow. Just when the man’s face came into view as she hovered over him, she noticed a phone in his bloodied hand near his lips. “Back-up.” She eyes widened in disbelief when everything was made clear: there’d be more of him coming in God knows how soon. Without thinking she managed to kick the phone from his hand and pounced on him.

With a new sense of urgency, one completely unrecognizable to her, her body lunged for the man’s top half. Her hands wrapped around the man’s punctured neck but it was too thick and slippery for her to get a decent grip. It was made painfully clear that this tactic wouldn’t bode well for her  when she felt a hard elbow connect with the side of her face, drawing blood. He still had some fight left in him – that or just enough remaining energy to fight off a measly hundred and fifteen pounds no problem. When she realized she wouldn’t be able to choke him, she instead relied on her body weight and pressed her hands down on his head as hard as she could stand it. He was already slipping away so it wasn’t difficult for Kahlo but she still absentmindedly produced as much force as her tiny frame could. It was him or her and she was not going to die here. Kahlo’s thought were everywhere and nowhere as she tried to suffocate him. She didn’t ease up until she felt a crack from under her hands and she knew he was gone.

She brought the backs of her wet hands up to her eyes where the blood didn’t make contact with her skin. Dios, perdoname. She crawled away from the body and pressed her back to the cool plaster of the hallway wall. Her knees came up to her chest as she started to rock back and forth. Adrenaline and fear were the only things flowing through her body at this point, heightening her senses. That’s when she picked up on the sound of a struggle coming from the other room. It was him. It was her stranger. Once again, she lunged for the body in front of her and reached for his gun with no luck before pushing herself up from the floor and slowly following the sound of grunts and fists connecting with body parts. She took a second to assess the situation: she had no gun, no weapon and she was walking into a fight. Her eyes scanned the living room for anything heavy when she spotted a glass paper weight on the table near the adjacent hallway – the same direction the noise was coming from. She darted for the table, picked up, and struggled with, the glass then pushed for Ace.

As the two men came into view, she saw him wrestle with his attacker and manage to disarm him. The gun scrapped against the marble as it was kicked in her direction. She hadn’t been noticed yet but as soon as she took just one step toward the gun, both Ace and the thug looked her way. In the same second, Kahlo let the paper weight slip from her fingers and sent it shattering to the floor near her feet, while the man wiggled out of Ace’s grip and knocked him down in the opposite direction. Not only was this man in between her and Ace but his gun was too. He wouldn’t save her this time. He couldn’t She sprang into a sprint toward the gun at the same time their attacker did. Kahlo was unsure if this would be her last seconds on Earth but she didn’t dare stop. The shorter distance to the gun was however in her favor and she reached the pistol first. The next noise heard was the sound of the gun being cocked in her hand as she pointed it at his chest. Don’t. Her eyes met the attacker’s tired ones. She could spare his life if he cooperated, she thought, but he wasted no time closing the space between them.

She pulled the trigger. And then again. And then again. She kept shooting even after she ran out of bullets and the man hit the floor with six holes in his abdomen.

@vihilum​

Instinct pushed forward and Kahlo’s hands were already on the man’s body. While she waited to take the stranger’s lead in almost everything else, once it was made clear that he was still alive, that she was not as guilty as she prepared herself to be, she sprang into action. She slid her right hand underneath his limp neck and lifted just enough so that his airway was clear. Druggies, not matter how far deep you were, have seen overdose before. Although, she couldn’t keep her own body from trembling, she stayed the course and tried to make herself as useful to her savior as possible. A few words were exchanged but nothing drastic enough to make them look up from the nearly dead body that physically separated them. Perhaps it was Kahlo’s ultra focus on the man that prevented her from picking up on the rustle of the doorknob, but her make shift partner was there to save her ass once again.

If Kahlo had been blinking, she would’ve missed everything. It seemed that nothing would work out in her favor that night. The two opposing forces came into the apartment with seemingly no struggle, yet they had no key. They’d done this before. She felt hands on her arm yank her up with a paralyzing sense of urgency that left her unable to resist. She trusted this stranger with her life at this point. Following his swift movement, Kahlo allowed her body to be lead into the hallway closet. After he pressed her to the back wall of the closet, she watched as his hands fell from her shoulders. He turned and carefully shut the shutter doors, barricading them inside. He took front and center with his eyes only centimetres away from the light that poked through the gaps of the flimsy, wooden doors so his back was pressed to the front of the her body. What would have been a terribly tight fit for any two people was only just a tight fit both of their relatively slender frames.

Hearing everything without being able to actually see anything was a torment. Heavy footsteps gave away the steel toe boots the second pair of intruders were wearing as they thumped over the marble flooring. A patronizing tisk came from one of the men, now fully in the living room, while the other spoke out. “Benjamin, what kind of shit do you get yourself into, man? Looks like you had all the fun before we even got here.” There was something so sinister in the man’s tone that made Kahlo’s stomach fall to the floor and the hairs on her neck rise. Whoever they were, whatever they wanted, she knew she wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. Her life was already shit, she didn’t need anything else. Her mind would’ve kept racing if the silence wasn’t interrupted by the sound of a steel toe making contact with a skull.

First it was a crunch but after the fourth stomp it started to sound more like boots splashing around in globs of mud than anything else. Imagining blood, the color of crimson, splatter all over the white floor and walls - envisioning a gaping crater where the man’s face was only minutes ago was making her queasy. This was a person. A human being and they had no regard for the divinity of life. If she couldn’t get her own shit together, who was to say the pair hiding in the closet wouldn’t be met with the same fate, or worse. Desperate to steady herself, Kahlo’s hands found the hem of Ace’s jacket and she clung to him as she nervously attempted to self soothe. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. It seemed the destruction behind the closet doors was finally finished but noise from the two men continued. She couldn’t be sure but it sounded like rummaging through this drawer and that cupboard, knocking over this table and laughing about the way the man called Benjamin was already waiting for them, Kahlo tried so hard to remain still and silent as she listened for any more clues that would help her place the men in the apartment.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. When her mind couldn’t handle the trauma any longer, she started to dissociate thankfully however, biology took over as her brain willed her body to stand still while her mind carried her away from the cramped quarters she and her companion occupied. Thoughts of her tropical island flooded her senses. She could almost hear the waves crashing down on her Dominican shores, almost taste the sweetness of mango con chile after biting through a thick coat of spice, and the salt from the water, everything was always just an almost. She could’v-

Buzzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzzz.

Her eyes wasted no time to shoot open and widen in realizing she left her phone on the couch. She felt her partner’s body stiffen, really for the first time since closing the shutter doors. With the buzzing of a phone, she was back in the states. Back in the closet. She wanted to break out of their prison, dig her nails into this stranger’s arm and run as fast as her legs could carry them. She could do neither of these things and the trembling picked up again, this time the slightest bit more aggressively. “What the fuck is th-? It’s his phone. Shut that shit off, yeah?” Again, Kahlo listened hard to mentally picture where the men were in the apartment. The faint footsteps grew louder the closer one of them got to the couch. A gloved hand sliding over the leather and slipping into its cracks could be heard until the phone was found.

When the lock screen – a personal image of Catscratch dancers in fishnets and corsets in Kahlo’s dressing room -  was deemed not fitting for a, very dead, Benjamin, it was over. “There’s someone else here, boss.” 

If Kahlo were the fainting type, this would’ve been the time she hit the floor.

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Queen & Slim - Melina Matsoukas (2019)

Tessa Thompson and Evan Rachel Wood in WESTWORLD “The Absence of Field ”