Merry Whump Of May - Day 1

Whumpay - Day 6

Main Challenge - Mad Science - Russian Roulette Mini Challenge 6 -Torture - False Execution Original Work - Down in Goldonna

Alana hugged Ziggy tightly. It was over. Thank goodness. They could go home for the night and get some sleep. But she felt something strange; Ziggy’s hand was reaching around her waist. Alana drew back a little. And Ziggy almost skipped away from her embrace.

He waved something at her. In the dim light of the nearby streetlights, Alana saw a soft and supple sheen. She reached to her belt. Her revolver! Ziggy had her revolver.

As he stepped back he stopped in a pool of light. His grin was broad and crooked. And his eyes- Alana’s stomach dropped. She felt the blood drain from her face.

His eyes were black. Ziggy was possessed. But how? And by who?

“Ziggy?” Alana called out to him, hoping she was mistaken, hoping this was some sort of prank.

“Ziggy’s taking a nap right now. He’s so tired.” The Thing said with Ziggy’s voice. It stretched with his body and ran Its hands over Ziggy’s chest and waist. “I’m in the driver’s seat for a little bit.”

Alana fixed her eyes upon the revolver and darted forward. This Thing may be in control of Ziggy, but it also had Ziggy’s weaknesses. Ziggy was underweight. Ziggy was unconditioned.

The Thing danced back, grin growing wider somehow.

“Ah, ah.” It chided.

Instead of pointing the revolver at Alana it pressed the barrel to Ziggy’s temple. “Don’t do anything stupid.” It warned. “Or I will kill him.”

“You wouldn’t.” Alana raised her hands to show she wasn’t going to try anything else.

Alana’s mind raced. How could any being possess Ziggy without his permission? Was this even possible? And then, everything fell into place. “You’re the shadow he talks about. I’ve seen you before, hovering over him. What is your name?”

The Thing opened up the cylinder of the revolver and began removing the rounds. Alana couldn’t see exactly what he was doing in the patchwork darkness.

“A name?” It chuckled. “Why should I have a name?” It tossed a handful of rounds over Ziggy’s shoulder.

“How did you do this? Did he let you in?”

It spun the revolver’s cylinder back into place. It placed the barrel of the gun back to Ziggy’s temple again. “I’m tired of this.” It whined with Ziggy’s voice.

Alana felt her hands begin to shake. “Wait, please don’t-”

“I’ve removed all the rounds except for one.” Using Ziggy’s legs, it walked forward, towards Alana and into another pool of light. Its black eyes glittered in Ziggy’s pale face. “Let’s play a little game.”

Alana tried to keep her voice calm. “We don’t have to do this-”

“Oh, I think we do. You don’t seem to understand who’s in charge here.”

“Ziggy is your vessel! Why kill your vessel?”

“Everytime you answer incorrectly, I pull the trigger. It’s a one-in-six chance, right?”

“Please, don’t-!”

The hammer clicked. Empty chamber.

Alana could not breathe. She could not breathe. She wanted to scream. Her friend was about to die in front of her.

“One-in-six chance, right?” It asked again.

“Y-yes.” Alana grated out, holding back a sob. “One-in-six chance.”

“Good. Now, who is in charge here?”

“What?”

Another click. Another empty chamber.

Alana heard herself wail and bit it back, trying to get her breathing under control.

“Alana,” It came real close to her, so close she could smell the shampoo Ziggy used in his hair. “Who’s in charge right now?” It whispered with Ziggy’s soft voice.

“Y-you.”

“Good. When I need something from you, what will you do?”

“I’ll do it, I’ll do what you want.”

“That’s right. You are so good at this, Alana.”

“Fuck you!” Alana sobbed. Her legs were shaking beneath her.

Another click.

“That wasn’t very nice.” It sighed.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“And when Ziggy wakes up, what are you going to tell him happened here?”

Alana hesitated.

Another click. Another chance. Time was slipping through her fingers.

“I’m sorry! Please! Stop! I’ll tell him what you want, whatever you want!”

“You’ll tell him he fainted. You won’t mention me.”

“I’ll tell him he fainted-!”

Another click. Oh god. One left.

“I won’t mention you!”

Ziggy’s body suddenly went limp, and as though in slow motion, he fell backwards to the grassy ground. The revolver bounced out of his hand. Alana rushed up and grabbed the gun then knelt beside Ziggy. She patted his cheek.

“Ziggy!” Alana choked out. “Ziggy, wake up.”

She opened up the cylinder and looked at the six chambers.

His eyes opened slowly. Focused on her. “Alana?”

There were no rounds in the gun at all.

“Yeah, it’s me. Are you okay? You fainted.”

The gun had been empty.

“I fainted? Why are you crying?”

Whumpay - Day 2

Main Challenge - Mad Science - Paralytic Drug Mini Challenge 2 - Torture - Whipping Original Work - Doorway in the Sky

“It’s going to hurt.”

“Can’t be that bad, right?”

Ash frowned at Mel and sighed loudly out of his nose. “You ready then?”

Mel nodded.

Ash jumped, slammed his hands down on the table, and swept their food trays off. The hard plastic clattered loudly on the tile and the food painted the jumpsuits of the nearby people.

Mel’s wide eyes goaded Ash on.

“The fuck did you say?” Ash shouted.

Then he threw himself across the table and tackled Mel to the ground. One punch to the nose got Mel’s blood flowing. Several guards jogged over and tried to pull him off her. Soon enough, Ash felt a prick on the back of his neck, and then nothing.

He stopped wrestling Mel and reached back. There was a dart sticking out of his neck. He yanked it out and saw the yellow band about the metal casing. His lips went numb. His fingers tingled. His hands fell to his sides.

And Ash slumped to the tile floor, hitting it cheek first. It hurt like a bitch.

Mel lay beside him and met his eyes. She grinned through blood-stained teeth.

Ash would have smiled if he could. But he could not. He had been hit with the yellow banded dart. The paralytic. Oh good.

Ash’s eyes slipped mostly closed as he was hauled from the floor. He could still hear and feel everything. Plastic restraints were tightened around his wrists and ankles. Which didn’t make much sense since he was paralyzed.

Ash watched the floor flash by beneath him. His head, hanging limp, bobbed with every step the two orderlies holding him up took. Their grip on his arms hurt. But there was nothing he could do.

They were buzzed through several doors. The hallways became quieter. The floors became cleaner. Whispers all around him.

Finally, Ash was brought into an office and propped up in a soft chair. With his chin resting on his chest, all Ash could see was the plush, patterned carpet and a pair of shiny, black shoes.

Drool dripped from the side of his mouth.

“Lift her head.”

A pair of sweaty hands clamped onto Ash’s cheeks and propped his head against the back of the chair. When the orderly stepped away, Ash was looking up into the face of Dr. Palmer.

Dr. Palmer gave Ash a small smile then held up his penlight. “You know what to do, look into the light.”

He shone the light into Ash’s eyes and leaned in close.

Ash could smell coffee and disinfectant on him.

“Mmhmm, pupillary response is good.” Dr. Palmer leaned back. “Good, good. Now I’m going to ask you some yes or no questions, would you please blink once for ‘Yes’ and twice for ‘No’? Demonstrate by blinking once for ‘Yes, I understand the instructions.’”

Ash rolled his eyes towards the ceiling.

“This will go much quicker and easier if you cooperate.”

Ash blinked once.

“Thank you.” Dr. Palmer made a note on his clipboard. “Now, is your name Ashley Durham?”

Ash blinked once.

“Is your birthday the twenty-second of June?”

Ash blinked once.

“Do you know why you’ve been brought to my office today?”

Ash blinked twice.

Dr. Palmer chuckled and set down his clipboard, taking off his glasses to polish them a little with a handkerchief. “Ms. Durham, Ashley, I think you know why you’ve been brought to my office today. You were fighting. Again.”

Ash looked around the office as Dr. Palmer talked. He spotted the curtains on one wall almost immediately.

Dr. Palmer’s eyes flicked up and focused on something behind Ash’s left shoulder. He nodded. The pair of orderlies picked up Ash by the shoulders again, holding him upright in a standing position. Ash’s head fell back and he was able to see Dr. Palmer’s faint smile.

Dr. Palmer turned around, walked away, and took a cane from a stand across the room.

“Ashley, why would you want to hurt your best friend?”

Ash would have shrugged if he could. He just couldn’t move any part of his body right now, other than his eyes. And he could not help but look at the curtains again.

Dr. Palmer returned to Ash and the orderlies, brushing against the curtains as he went.

There was a flash of sunlight as the curtains rippled.

Ash drew in a quick breath and felt tears form in his eyes.

“Seeing you hurt your friend has hurt me.” Dr. Palmer stopped in front of Ash, blocking his view of the curtains.

This was Ash’s first glimpse of sunlight in months.

Months that had stretched on and on, feeling like decades. Or centuries. It has been so long since Ash had felt the warmth of sun on his skin. So long without daylight.

Dr. Palmer had a window. The only window Ash had seen in the Institute.

Ash hungered for sunlight. He felt something feral and innate rise within his belly and chest.

Dr. Palmer was still speaking.

Ash ignored him until Dr. Palmer took Ash’s chin in his hand. Warm, soft fingers stroked Ash’s cheek.

“Ashley, would you please listen to me? I want to help you.”

Dr. Palmer angled Ash’s face away from the window and towards him.

“Blink once for yes, twice for no.” Dr. Palmer’s voice dropped down to a murmur.

Ash could feel his breath on his cheek.

“Are you listening to me, Ashley?”

Ashley blinked twice.

Dr. Palmer sighed and removed his hand from Ash’s chin and wiped the drool off his fingers on the front of Ash’s jumpsuit.

“You’ve let me down. And what’s worse is that you’ve let yourself down.” Dr. Palmer stepped back and nodded at the two orderlies holding Ash.

Their grips tightened.

Dr. Palmer disappeared. Then his voice came from behind.

“This hurts me more than it hurts you.”

Ash focused on the curtain. The tiniest sliver of sunlight was poking, needle-like, through a gap.

The blow came down upon Ash’s shoulders. He heard it before he felt it.

Ash gasped and choked on the drool dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

The cane landed again on his back, a swift stinging blow. Loud as a gunshot in Ash’s ears. Bruising. The cane felt as though it were made of fire.

Another blow.

Ash heard himself groan, low and guttural.

Another blow.

Ash panted. Felt tears rolling down his cheeks.

That little finger of sunlight. Through a window. From the outside.

The last blow.

Dr. Palmer reappeared. He was saying something again to Ash but Ash had long ago tuned him out. Ash was dragged out of the office, back down the clean hallways, out of the quiet, and back into madness.

Hours later, Mel returned to their cell. The door buzzed shut and the lights out warning was given.

“Ash.” Mel whispered close to his ear.

Ash, laying belly-down on his cot, turned his head.

In the harsh fluorescent lights from above, Mel’s nose was purple and gray with bruising. One eye was blackened and swollen.

“Tell me.” Mel murmured.

Ash looked into her eyes. “I saw sunlight.”

Mel’s face crumpled into a watery smile and she kissed Ash’s forehead. “Thank you.”

“When we go,” Ash spoke so quietly he could barely hear himself.

“We go through there.”

“I’ll go with you anywhere.”

Ash turned his head away and faced the wall again. He stared at the hundreds of tally marks he had made. One for every day he had been in the Institute. “One more thing.” He whispered.

Mel’s fingers brushed gently through his hair. “What?”

The lights went out.

“Before we go, I’m killing him.”

Dylan O'Brien as Joel Dawson

“Love and Monsters", dir. Michael Matthews

“Am I supposed to be grateful to have survived this?”

- Brenna Twohy, Forgive Me My Salt

Mediwhump May - Day 4

"Pain"

(Dark Shadows 1966)

@mediwhumpmay

As soon as Willie woke up, he regretted it.

Every inch of him ached. Stiff and sore. Lying down hurt. Getting up hurt. Might as well get up.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, groaning. His head began to throb. Dawn was just beginning to peek into the room, illuminating the dust and the rot. 

Willie looked back to his pillow. A dark red and brown stain lay there. His nose must have bled in the night. He touched his swollen and tender cheek. 

The flash of a wolf’s head cane and sharp words.

Willie left the bed and padded over to the mirror on the wall. 

He thought about things so far. He thought about the distant past that was a few weeks ago. Before he’d come to Colinsport. Before all of this. Before him. 

And nothing had really changed. 

And that struck a hollow, empty chord within him.

Willie remembered getting into scraps as a kid. Scraped knees. Busted lip. Talking big only to get hit again. He’d always been covered in scabs and bruises. 

When he became an adult, it was the same. The scraps were bigger. Brawls. He just talked bigger and bigger. 

The hits got harder.

But he learned how to hit too. And he gave as much as he got.

Willie thought and thought and tried to remember a single moment of this life where he hadn’t been bruised. Or bloody. Or in pain.

He drew level with the mirror, realizing he couldn’t remember. 

This was just how it was. 

His reflection stared back at him in the dim and cold morning light. 

A pattern of cane-bruises marched over his face, dark and thunderous.

Willie’s tongue found a tooth, loosened by the blows to his face. He wiggled it. Opened his mouth. Stuck his fingers in. And ripped the tooth out.

Blood covered his fingers and blotted his lips. He slipped the tooth into his pocket.

Willie smiled at himself, bloody and gap-toothed. 

At least his outside now matched his inside.

Mediwhump May - Day 5

"No Response"

(original characters/story)

@mediwhumpmay

Caldwell checked his pocket watch again. Bell was late. Bell was usually a few minutes late. But this was ridiculous. He was late by over an hour.

Maybe he had forgotten their standing appointment. After dinner, Caldwell liked to have Bell sit with him by the fire and talk at him for a few hours. He wouldn’t say it was soothing. But he was a man of habit. 

Caldwell walked to the window and looked out into the inky black of night, the roar of a late winter rainstorm pounding the glass of the windows. 

Well, if Bell wouldn’t come to him, he would come to Bell.

Caldwell grabbed his overcoat and top hat and strode out into the frigid storm. 

The walk down the cottage using the gravel drive was much easier than taking the pasture, less muddy too. Caldwell arrived in no time at the cheerful-looking cottage and raised his hand to bang on the door.

But before he could knock, the door was flung open and Mr. Bell’s farmhand, Hogyn stood there in an oversized raincoat and boots. Hogyn looked up at Caldwell, eyes wide. Caldwell looked down at the young man, mouth open. They stood there a moment more before Hogyn stepped aside.

“Come in, Lord Caldwell, please come in.” Hogyn stammered.

Caldwell did so. “Where is Mr. Bell?”

“That’s what I was going out for, my lord. He’s gone missing.” Hogyn jammed a large floppy hat on his head. “I’m afraid something has happened.”

Caldwell struggled to process this but proceeded forward. “I will help you. But what do you think has happened?”

“He’s been feeling poorly these past few days. And then he went out to fix the pasture fence in all this weather. I couldn’t stop him. He’ll catch his death, my lord, sir.”

Caldwell nodded. “Let’s go then. Are you ready?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good lad. Take the north end, I’ll take the south. We will meet in the middle.”

And they braved the storm. The rain that pelted down was icy and torrential. The wind ripped across the countryside and it was all Caldwell could do to keep his overcoat closed. His top hat was soon gone. Torn off by a gust. Caldwell headed to the pasture fence and began to work his way along it. He called out for Bell many times, his voice swallowed by the storm.

Caldwell lost the feeling in his ears and fingers. His boots filled with rainwater and mud. His clothes hung heavy, drenched and freezing.

He should have brought a lantern. He should have brought a search party. Bell should not be out in this. 

The thought that his dear friend was already dead kept whispering into Caldwell’s thoughts.

Tears mixed with the rain on his face.

Caldwell crested a small hill and realized that he’d almost finished searching his share of the property. And no sign of Bell. Unless…

Caldwell squinted through the downpour at a dark smudge. Something lying in the close cropped grass. 

Bell.

Caldwell ran forward as best as he could, slipping and sliding in mud and runoff. It was a person. In a dark coat. Laying face down on the ground. 

Caldwell turned the man over.

It was Bell. He’d found him. 

Bell’s eyes were closed and rain was beginning to pool in the hollows of his eyes. His dark hair was plastered to his face. He was very pale. So pale. 

Caldwell shook his friend. “Bell!” He called.

Nothing. No response. 

Caldwell put a hand to Bell’s cheek. He was cold.

Caldwell swallowed hard and took his friend in his arms. Carefully, slowly, he made his way back to the cottage. 

When he could, Caldwell looked to Bell’s face. If only he would open his eyes. Or stir. The man lay limp and cold against Caldwell’s chest. Bell was such an animated man. His eyes sparkled and he sang so sweetly. To see him like this, lifeless. So close to death. Caldwell felt his heart clenching.

Hogyn met him along the way. 

“You found him, my lord, is he?” Hogyn did not finish the question.

“He’s breathing.” Caldwell answered as they entered the warm cottage, dripping puddles onto the floor. “We need dry clothes. And stoke that fire.”

“All of us needs dry clothes.” Hogyn shut the door and began stripping off his coat and hat. “Lest we catch our death too.”

“No, no.” Caldwell set Bell onto his small bed with a sigh. “I can’t. I have got to go for a doctor. Bell is very ill.”

Hogyn had come over by now. “He hasn’t said anything.”

“Nothing.” Caldwell set his jaw and leaned over his friend. “Bell.” He gently shook Bell’s shoulder. Bell’s head sagged to the side. Caldwell pressed a wet hand to Bell’s wet cheek and stroked it. 

“Bell.” He urged again. Willing Bell to wake. To respond. But nothing.

Caldwell backed away, blinking tears back. “He won’t wake. Keep him warm. I will return with a doctor.”

Hogyn was stoking the fire. “What doctor would come all the way in this weather, respectfully, my lord?”

“The one I intend to pay very well.” And Caldwell dashed out into the storm again.

Merry Whump of May - Day 6

“It's a long story.”

Knife Handle

Gagged

Under the table

(Original characters/story)

@themerrywhumpofmay

They awoke to pain. And drowning.

Omen opened their eyes, gasping, choking. Their eyes stung with water and their head throbbed. Skull felt split open. Can’t. Move. Can’t. Breathe.

Within a moment, Omen realized that their hands were bound behind them. Their ankles were bound together. And there was a gag in their mouth. 

They were wet but they weren’t drowning. Small mercies. 

Omen squinted up at the man holding a dripping bucket over them.

“Good.” He said and set down the bucket. “I was beginning to think that I’d bludgeoned you a little too hard.”

The man was dressed in a fine, dark doublet and hose that were stained lightly with travel. He moved to sit down at a nearby table.

Omen flexed their calf. He had missed the knife in their boot. Interesting.

Omen eyed the room. 

This was some sort of cottage. The floorboards creaked and were caked with dust. The fireplace had been lit but was belching smoke, meaning it hadn’t been cleaned recently. There was a lit lantern on the single table. And the window to the outside, beside the only door, spoke of midafternoon or late morning. The sun was bright and the trees swayed in a breeze, creating a shifting dappled effect on the floor. 

Omen could only hear the crackling fire and birdsong from outside. They were alone. 

Their possessions were tossed to the side, laying haphazardly on the floor. But nothing had been searched yet. Caey was safe. For now. 

Omen was laying on the floor, so that when the man sat down, he was still looming above them.

“I’ve been looking for you for a while.” The man took a swig from a waterskin. “You’re difficult to find, girl.”

Omen winced at ‘girl’. It shouldn’t have bothered them. That was the least of their problems right now.

The man continued talking. “I’d been hearing rumors for a while of a girl fighting in the False Queen’s little band. A girl matching the description of someone I killed several years ago.”

Omen’s belly turned to ice and they stopped breathing.

“I was contracted to kill a highborn lady suspected of aiding the escaped False Queen. And I did so. She was easy to identify due to a mark on her wrist, a brand. A very-”

The man roughly reached down and yanked on Omen’s bound arms.

They cried out through the gag. Arms pulled into a painful twist, shoulder sockets screaming.

“A very distinctive mark.” The man breathed, looking down at Omen’s wrist.

The wrist that bore the brand that he spoke of.

The man, the assassin from all those years ago, released Omen’s wrist, letting them fall back to the dusty floor.

“So, you lived.” He murmured.

Omen grunted around the gag. 

The assassin leaned down and pulled the gag out. “Where is the False Queen?”

“Fuck off.” Omen spat.

He popped the gag back in, wound back his foot, and kicked Omen in the stomach. Hard.

Omen struggled to draw breath. The wind was knocked out of them. Before they could recover, there was another vicious kick.

A blow to their nose. Stars. Blinding pain. Watering eyes. Blood streamed down their face and trickled into their throat. Metallic and hot.

Omen writhed, crying out through the gag.

They arched their back. Reached with bound hands into their boot. Felt the slim, bone knife handle, warm with body heat. Good. 

They grasped it and hid it behind their body, working on the bonds as best as they could.

The assassin paced around the cottage.

Omen sliced their fingers and hands. The knife was sharp. Blood made the process slippery.

“I’m going to ask you again.” The man circled back around to them.

The rope was cut. The bonds loosened. Omen pulled free.

“And if you say-”

Omen hurled the knife. It stuck neatly in the assassin’s shoulder.

He bellowed. 

Omen rolled away, under the table, and began to attack the rope that bound their ankles. Halfway through, the assassin came at them, their own bone-handled knife in hand. Omen scrabbled back with their legs untangled and the rope in hand.

They leapt on the man.

Spat blood in his face.

And it was quick work after that.

Several minutes later, Omen stood. Head throbbing, nose swollen and bleeding, and ribs maybe broken. They wiped off the knife and placed it back in their boot.

They limped over to their pack and belongings. With cut and bleeding hands, they prepared to leave. The diadem still lay within their pack. As soon as they touched it, Caey spoke into their thoughts.

“You look terrible. What happened?”

Omen snorted and spat blood onto the cottage floor. “It’s a long story.”

Whumptober 2023 - No. 8: “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier.” Overcrowded ER | Outnumbered | “It’s all for nothing.”

Milo Ventimiglia as Peter Petrelli in Heroes (S04E08)

Mike Warren curled up in pain

Graceland 1x09, 1x10, 2x13, 3x01, 3x08