Screams And Whispers
Apr 21, 2022 12:29:22 GMT -5
Marcus Welsh, Veronica Strader, and 1 more like this
Post by Sadie Ko on Apr 21, 2022 12:29:22 GMT -5
(Not televised)
What was it that spurred Aariz to keep living, and keep surviving? It wasn't wrestling anymore. It had been decades since he'd laced up a pair of boots, decades since he woke up at 4 in the morning to run across the entirety of the city he was in. No, these days he was in bed longer and longer, awake for brief periods of time before his will left him and he retreated once more to sleep. That's where he was when it happened, in fact, in bed, staring at the far window while sheets and blankets were tangled in a knotted mess around him. He'd woken up ten minutes ago, and his mind lit up with examples of things he could do. Feed the birds outside, take a walk, maybe go and lift some of his old weights like he used to. Every single example involved getting up, leaving safety. Every scenario involved him drawing air into his lungs. Every plan hinged on him existing.
Rolling over was an effort in his old age, but he managed it. He had to if he wanted to stare at the wall instead of the window, and drift off back to sleep. And he was about to when an impact at the window startled him out of his reverie and caused him to suddenly lurch up to a sitting position almost out of pure blind animal panic. He was sitting up as straight as his crooked back would allow, broad shoulders heaving as he drew in rapid, shallow breaths while he looked up at the window and blinds with wide eyes. On the other side of the glass was a circular red stain, and he knew instantly that if he looked down he'd see a dead bird, or at least one near death. The thought of it struggling and suffering twisted his stomach and that was enough to motivate him. With a shuddering of great effort, the man fought and struggled to his feet as he shuffled across the room to find his slippers when another impact against that glass caused him to look up in panic. Another bird, but this one was stuck to the glass, wings still flapping, head twitching as it looked at him with an eye that was quickly fading. Looking down, its chest was smashed open, ribcage peeking out, white bones floating in a sea of pink and red, and stained green feathers. Muscles flexing, and beyond that ribcage, Aariz could see lungs and heart still functioning until they slowed and stopped, the machine shutting down entirely.
Aariz was afraid more would follow, but after a moment, things were calm and clear, and the older man found himself outside today. In pajama pants and wifebeater, he was unused to the air outside and the brightness of the sky up above him, so bright it was almost painful to keep his eyes open. But he managed anyway, staring at the mess across his window, and also noting the original bird corpse, now intertwined with the bush and hedge. Behind him a murder of crows sat inspecting the damage as well, squawking amongst themselves like a couple of old gossips like Aariz imagined them to be. Turning and craning his neck to look up at them, he gave them a smile as he spoke.
"This must be exciting in bird world, no? I hope these two weren't any friends of yours!"
When he turned back around, he couldn't help but give a heavy sigh as he looked down at his gnarled, calloused hands. As he mentally prepared himself for the job he was going to have to do, one of the birds crowed behind him.
"Your fault. sheEEE!"
Blood ran cold in his veins, and the old man's breath nearly caught in his throat. He thought of her again, and instantly he wished he was back in bed to hide from the world. He barely felt the pain in his chest, didn't notice when he was on his knees while the world kept spinning. As the black birds flew away, from the ground he saw them spinning along with the sky, his house and everything else until it was a perfect circle. And in the center of that circle, he saw her face.
He saw Sadie again.
He saw her playing in the back yard, hair in her face while she ran around. While her mother tried to talk to him, tried to sit him down and make him pay attention while she spoke. Erica(Eun-Jeong but nobody in America called her that) always got angry when she felt he wasn't respecting her. And to tell the truth, maybe he didn't, not as much as he could have. She was trying to tell him how aggressive Sadie was at school, how she got into fights. She could be friends with a group of kids one minute, then the next she'd be at their throats.
And whenever any of them talked to Sadie about it, she'd tell stories about lies other kids at school told about her, about sticks in her hair, how kids would invite her to be their friends, then they'd say something mean or untrue and they'd always laugh until Sadie put her hands around their throats and push them into the dirt or the mud.
Perhaps Aariz should have tried harder to be a father. Perhaps he should have stayed after she died. He saw lights headed toward him now, faces emerging from the swirl in front of him, voices asking him questions that he couldn't understand right now. As hands reached down to cradle his neck and reach down along his chest, he reached out to take Her hand, still seeing her face.
Pain along his wrist, cold grey skin and fingers that gripped tighter and tighter until he thought his bones would break and his blood would boil and freeze. He felt her. He felt her like he always felt her over his shoulder, staring from the shadows, and he knew she was there.
"Sadie!", he yelled out, screaming as loud as his voice would carry. As the EMTs carried him to the ambulance, rushing to save his life, they heard him weakly whisper with slurred speech. "...sadie."
--------------------
(Not televised)
Across the island, strange things were happening. The rumbling off in the distance, the volcano waking up and letting everyone on this isle know its wrath.
Along the shore of abandoned beach, wildlife was already growing over the remains of a discarded and burnt wrestling ring, monkeys screeching at one another as they balance and bounce along the ropes and rapidly climb up and down aprons and turnbuckles, even as they duck and hide from raptors flying overhead.
A group of men and women are held hostage, trapped by hardened men with spears who are angered and offended by the rape of their homeland. Surely, the awakening of their volcano, after being dormant for many years, is a sign that these outsiders have gone too far.
Where the hostages are held, a wooden statue lays in the dirt. Swarms of flies gather on top of it, and above it birds fly in erratic patterns. At night it rains more than usual and bolts of lightning fatter than Plethora come down followed by the violent rumbling of thunder joining the shaking of a volcano that is ready to explode. Amidst all this chaos and all these signs, nobody notices the right hand of that wooden statue, starting to crack ever so faintly. And in the darkness, certainly nobody notices ants starting to crawl into that faint opening, seeking shelter from the storm that is brewing even despite the rain and thunder.
---------------------
(Televised)
(The footage we see is of Easton Alexander, emerging from the water like baby Jason, pulling the ghostly form of Sadie Ko into the turbulent white water. It quickly turns pitch black and Easton's face starts to warp and 'melt', frozen in time even as he keeps emerging from the water, a bit of perpetual motion that shouldn't be possible. Underneath we hear the constant audio of running water, a rushing roar that's so loud it fills our ears.
While the droning noise continues we see faces and forms, many we've seen before. BRIM, Alice Knight, Kelson and Bob. We see Crash Rodriguez and Roach. We see El Knuckle and Easton, as athletes in their prime as the footage continues to run. Picture after picture of each of them running through the projector until their eyes lose color, until the shape their heads start to warp and bend inward while the roar becomes a scream.
All across the OCW website, errors are showing up. Artifacts are showing up that shouldn't exist, text is bleeding and changing fonts, and starting to run off-kilter in a way that isn't possible in a digital medium.
LEO posts a vlog and footage is eaten in the middle of it, replaced by a pair of white lights that look like eyes before they vanish and the human mind barely even comprehends what they saw.
Classic matches are available to watch, but sometimes just for some viewers, the crowd noise is screaming that just gets louder and louder before the video fails and they have to restart. When they do, the match plays as normal. Still others never get to see the match. Instead of Mariah Carey singing the National Anthem in the MGM Grand Hotel in 1999, viewers see close-up grainy footage of a mouth, with maggots spilling out of it while the maggots are shown to be screaming naked people crawling and bleeding while ants follow behind them and stab them in the dirt with bayonet rifles.
Instead of D Double D taking on Special K in Apocalypse Now, 2001, both men are just standing with their faces down in a dark room while a woman screams and scrapes her nails bloody against wood, that's the only sound we hear, rage and hatred contained in a scream. Viewers across the world report phone screens and laptops cracking and breaking, sometimes sparking and catching fire. Sometimes entire power grids go dark. Impossibly, some viewers who experience this report that they still hear the screaming in these videos, but there's no evidence of that. People are accused of lying, or perhaps it's suggested that they're having a psychosomatic response, like the people who claim to see Bloody Mary in the mirror even when the world tells them how impossible, and how stupid that is.
On the OCW website, there is a video of a chain. There are five links total, and the chain spins around in a circle, a perfect circle as we're drawn into the vortex at the center.
At one corner of the chain, rust starts to form, as if this were time elapsed photography. The rust spreads, turning grey steel into red and brown, and the rust spreads while the chain turns black.
The chain withers, and one by one, the links snap and crumble. The chain turns into dust on the ground. It is only then we realize, that there was a link missing. One was never a part of any, one always stood alone, stood against them.
There is no voice to explain this to us, no words. Instead, there is only one voice and it screams.
And she screams.
And it screams.
And she screams.
It doesn't stop.
And it screams.
And she screams and we see a corpse of a girl
and it's gone. And it screams.
-----------------------------
(Not televised)
Late at night, Sandra got a call that woke her out of a deep sleep, a dream of goblins and birds quickly forgotten as background fog and nonsense. She was bringing the phone to her ear before she even had the strength to open her eyes. While she felt the weight of her cat against her hip, she heard a professional voice describe technical terms in a boring monotone. That was nothing new in Sandra's world, one of quiet reflection and academic pur-
"I'm so sorry, could you repeat that? did you say you're a nurse?"
"Yes ma'am, your father's had a heart attack but he's stable, he's being cared for at a"
Instantly sleep was forgotten and the woman quickly sat up even as her eyes focused and widened in the darkness. She kept her composure through the entire conversation. Then as owls perched in the trees outside and shadows formed in the corners of the room, Sandra wanted to scream. Instead, she could only whisper to herself, with her head cradled in her hands.
"Oh, fuck."
What was it that spurred Aariz to keep living, and keep surviving? It wasn't wrestling anymore. It had been decades since he'd laced up a pair of boots, decades since he woke up at 4 in the morning to run across the entirety of the city he was in. No, these days he was in bed longer and longer, awake for brief periods of time before his will left him and he retreated once more to sleep. That's where he was when it happened, in fact, in bed, staring at the far window while sheets and blankets were tangled in a knotted mess around him. He'd woken up ten minutes ago, and his mind lit up with examples of things he could do. Feed the birds outside, take a walk, maybe go and lift some of his old weights like he used to. Every single example involved getting up, leaving safety. Every scenario involved him drawing air into his lungs. Every plan hinged on him existing.
Rolling over was an effort in his old age, but he managed it. He had to if he wanted to stare at the wall instead of the window, and drift off back to sleep. And he was about to when an impact at the window startled him out of his reverie and caused him to suddenly lurch up to a sitting position almost out of pure blind animal panic. He was sitting up as straight as his crooked back would allow, broad shoulders heaving as he drew in rapid, shallow breaths while he looked up at the window and blinds with wide eyes. On the other side of the glass was a circular red stain, and he knew instantly that if he looked down he'd see a dead bird, or at least one near death. The thought of it struggling and suffering twisted his stomach and that was enough to motivate him. With a shuddering of great effort, the man fought and struggled to his feet as he shuffled across the room to find his slippers when another impact against that glass caused him to look up in panic. Another bird, but this one was stuck to the glass, wings still flapping, head twitching as it looked at him with an eye that was quickly fading. Looking down, its chest was smashed open, ribcage peeking out, white bones floating in a sea of pink and red, and stained green feathers. Muscles flexing, and beyond that ribcage, Aariz could see lungs and heart still functioning until they slowed and stopped, the machine shutting down entirely.
Aariz was afraid more would follow, but after a moment, things were calm and clear, and the older man found himself outside today. In pajama pants and wifebeater, he was unused to the air outside and the brightness of the sky up above him, so bright it was almost painful to keep his eyes open. But he managed anyway, staring at the mess across his window, and also noting the original bird corpse, now intertwined with the bush and hedge. Behind him a murder of crows sat inspecting the damage as well, squawking amongst themselves like a couple of old gossips like Aariz imagined them to be. Turning and craning his neck to look up at them, he gave them a smile as he spoke.
"This must be exciting in bird world, no? I hope these two weren't any friends of yours!"
When he turned back around, he couldn't help but give a heavy sigh as he looked down at his gnarled, calloused hands. As he mentally prepared himself for the job he was going to have to do, one of the birds crowed behind him.
"Your fault. sheEEE!"
Blood ran cold in his veins, and the old man's breath nearly caught in his throat. He thought of her again, and instantly he wished he was back in bed to hide from the world. He barely felt the pain in his chest, didn't notice when he was on his knees while the world kept spinning. As the black birds flew away, from the ground he saw them spinning along with the sky, his house and everything else until it was a perfect circle. And in the center of that circle, he saw her face.
He saw Sadie again.
He saw her playing in the back yard, hair in her face while she ran around. While her mother tried to talk to him, tried to sit him down and make him pay attention while she spoke. Erica(Eun-Jeong but nobody in America called her that) always got angry when she felt he wasn't respecting her. And to tell the truth, maybe he didn't, not as much as he could have. She was trying to tell him how aggressive Sadie was at school, how she got into fights. She could be friends with a group of kids one minute, then the next she'd be at their throats.
And whenever any of them talked to Sadie about it, she'd tell stories about lies other kids at school told about her, about sticks in her hair, how kids would invite her to be their friends, then they'd say something mean or untrue and they'd always laugh until Sadie put her hands around their throats and push them into the dirt or the mud.
Perhaps Aariz should have tried harder to be a father. Perhaps he should have stayed after she died. He saw lights headed toward him now, faces emerging from the swirl in front of him, voices asking him questions that he couldn't understand right now. As hands reached down to cradle his neck and reach down along his chest, he reached out to take Her hand, still seeing her face.
Pain along his wrist, cold grey skin and fingers that gripped tighter and tighter until he thought his bones would break and his blood would boil and freeze. He felt her. He felt her like he always felt her over his shoulder, staring from the shadows, and he knew she was there.
"Sadie!", he yelled out, screaming as loud as his voice would carry. As the EMTs carried him to the ambulance, rushing to save his life, they heard him weakly whisper with slurred speech. "...sadie."
--------------------
(Not televised)
Across the island, strange things were happening. The rumbling off in the distance, the volcano waking up and letting everyone on this isle know its wrath.
Along the shore of abandoned beach, wildlife was already growing over the remains of a discarded and burnt wrestling ring, monkeys screeching at one another as they balance and bounce along the ropes and rapidly climb up and down aprons and turnbuckles, even as they duck and hide from raptors flying overhead.
A group of men and women are held hostage, trapped by hardened men with spears who are angered and offended by the rape of their homeland. Surely, the awakening of their volcano, after being dormant for many years, is a sign that these outsiders have gone too far.
Where the hostages are held, a wooden statue lays in the dirt. Swarms of flies gather on top of it, and above it birds fly in erratic patterns. At night it rains more than usual and bolts of lightning fatter than Plethora come down followed by the violent rumbling of thunder joining the shaking of a volcano that is ready to explode. Amidst all this chaos and all these signs, nobody notices the right hand of that wooden statue, starting to crack ever so faintly. And in the darkness, certainly nobody notices ants starting to crawl into that faint opening, seeking shelter from the storm that is brewing even despite the rain and thunder.
---------------------
(Televised)
(The footage we see is of Easton Alexander, emerging from the water like baby Jason, pulling the ghostly form of Sadie Ko into the turbulent white water. It quickly turns pitch black and Easton's face starts to warp and 'melt', frozen in time even as he keeps emerging from the water, a bit of perpetual motion that shouldn't be possible. Underneath we hear the constant audio of running water, a rushing roar that's so loud it fills our ears.
While the droning noise continues we see faces and forms, many we've seen before. BRIM, Alice Knight, Kelson and Bob. We see Crash Rodriguez and Roach. We see El Knuckle and Easton, as athletes in their prime as the footage continues to run. Picture after picture of each of them running through the projector until their eyes lose color, until the shape their heads start to warp and bend inward while the roar becomes a scream.
All across the OCW website, errors are showing up. Artifacts are showing up that shouldn't exist, text is bleeding and changing fonts, and starting to run off-kilter in a way that isn't possible in a digital medium.
LEO posts a vlog and footage is eaten in the middle of it, replaced by a pair of white lights that look like eyes before they vanish and the human mind barely even comprehends what they saw.
Classic matches are available to watch, but sometimes just for some viewers, the crowd noise is screaming that just gets louder and louder before the video fails and they have to restart. When they do, the match plays as normal. Still others never get to see the match. Instead of Mariah Carey singing the National Anthem in the MGM Grand Hotel in 1999, viewers see close-up grainy footage of a mouth, with maggots spilling out of it while the maggots are shown to be screaming naked people crawling and bleeding while ants follow behind them and stab them in the dirt with bayonet rifles.
Instead of D Double D taking on Special K in Apocalypse Now, 2001, both men are just standing with their faces down in a dark room while a woman screams and scrapes her nails bloody against wood, that's the only sound we hear, rage and hatred contained in a scream. Viewers across the world report phone screens and laptops cracking and breaking, sometimes sparking and catching fire. Sometimes entire power grids go dark. Impossibly, some viewers who experience this report that they still hear the screaming in these videos, but there's no evidence of that. People are accused of lying, or perhaps it's suggested that they're having a psychosomatic response, like the people who claim to see Bloody Mary in the mirror even when the world tells them how impossible, and how stupid that is.
On the OCW website, there is a video of a chain. There are five links total, and the chain spins around in a circle, a perfect circle as we're drawn into the vortex at the center.
At one corner of the chain, rust starts to form, as if this were time elapsed photography. The rust spreads, turning grey steel into red and brown, and the rust spreads while the chain turns black.
The chain withers, and one by one, the links snap and crumble. The chain turns into dust on the ground. It is only then we realize, that there was a link missing. One was never a part of any, one always stood alone, stood against them.
There is no voice to explain this to us, no words. Instead, there is only one voice and it screams.
And she screams.
And it screams.
And she screams.
It doesn't stop.
And it screams.
And she screams and we see a corpse of a girl
and it's gone. And it screams.
-----------------------------
(Not televised)
Late at night, Sandra got a call that woke her out of a deep sleep, a dream of goblins and birds quickly forgotten as background fog and nonsense. She was bringing the phone to her ear before she even had the strength to open her eyes. While she felt the weight of her cat against her hip, she heard a professional voice describe technical terms in a boring monotone. That was nothing new in Sandra's world, one of quiet reflection and academic pur-
"I'm so sorry, could you repeat that? did you say you're a nurse?"
"Yes ma'am, your father's had a heart attack but he's stable, he's being cared for at a"
Instantly sleep was forgotten and the woman quickly sat up even as her eyes focused and widened in the darkness. She kept her composure through the entire conversation. Then as owls perched in the trees outside and shadows formed in the corners of the room, Sandra wanted to scream. Instead, she could only whisper to herself, with her head cradled in her hands.
"Oh, fuck."