Chapter One: Another Day in My Life (Revised)
The Reparation of the Changeling Queens
Chapter One: Another Day in My Life
形変物の女王達の補償
一章：僕の命の後日
The smell of death is smeared over the graveyard as a lone, black figure trots up to a rotting tree. Knowing the entrance to the underground hive is close, she searches clandestinely for it. She knows it’s somewhere in this graveyard. That’s what the Queen of the Flies tells her.
“I didn’t come all the way to Baltimare for Calliphora to not be here. Where is that entrance?” she asks herself.
“There,” another voice says, pointing a hoof at a marble mausoleum at the back of the graveyard.
“Calliphora, how surprising to see you come out into the light,” she says, turning towards the other creature. “I assume you have acquired my message.”
“Yes. Please, come in, Myxine,” Calliphora says, with a slight smile.
I stare up at my ceiling, laying in my checkered, black and white sheets, sighing to myself that another day has come along after the night. I look behind my head to my digital clock, and it’s 6:56 A.M, four minutes before I get up every weekday to go spend time around all of those idiots at school.
“Steven, wake your ass up out of bed!” my drunken mother slurs at me through a crack in my jade-colored door. I don’t hear her very well, but nevertheless I grasp my wall and sit up.
Another restless night, caused by my good friend, insomnia. Insomnia saw me walking down the street one day during middle school and decided to come right up and cling on to me, like an annoying “girlfriend” that I once had in elementary school.
Anyway, I look to my wall on the left, seeing the peeling paint of a poorly painted golf green. Greens and browns and blues splattered everywhere, courtesy of my ever so loving mother. I loved golf when I was younger, and my room is a clear definition of that. Children’s golf clubs and bags line the other three walls, as well as golf themed calendars, books, and other various trinkets from my childhood.
I roll out of my bed, landing on a small, broken-down futon mattress on my floor in front of my heater, which I, of course, forgot to turn off last night because I was freezing my tits off. I’m blasted with hot air, making me groan. At this time of year, when it starts getting really hot, I have to wonder why I keep that thing on, especially when I have a fan blowing on my head when I sleep. This is mainly due to my fire engine-like tinnitus, which I’ve had for I don’t even know how long. I ram my head into the off button on my heater and stand myself up.
I reach down into the cabinets beneath my bed and pull out a dark-blue shirt with lightning patterns lacing it. I’ve always liked the way lightning looks, probably because of my obsession with the anime/manga Zatch Bell, which is about a child who can shoot lightning bolts from his mouth. Oh, yeah, I’m an anime/manga freak, with my favorites being Naruto (the manga), Hellsing, Fullmetal Alchemist, etc. But I digress. I already have my white shorts on from the previous day (I wear one pair of shorts for two days, because I hate folding them). I go to grab a pair of socks, but I see there are none.
“Yeah, I didn't think so,” I sigh in disapproval. I walk out of my room and down a hallway, turning into my bathroom. I take a morning pee, wash my hands, put in some mouthwash and deodorant, and look in the mirror.
“Holy god, my beard is so gross and scraggly… Well, no fucks given. So perfect in every other way,” I mutter to make myself feel better.
I walk out of the bathroom and open the pantry on the left side of the bathroom door, seeing if there’s anything good to eat. All I see is bread, bagels, hotdog buns, and a bunch of other canned shit, so I close the pantry and walk into my kitchen. The sink is, of course, dirty and filled with dishes, like usual. I could’ve emptied the dishwasher last night, but I was pretty much like, “Nope!” and didn’t.
I open my fridge and grab a gallon jug of milk, twist off the top and take a swig. My eyes narrow as I look at the container. It’s warmer and sourer than shit. Just my luck!
One thing people learn about me fast is that I am a fairly bitchy person. I try to contain it, but sometimes I can't help but unleash it.
Right now, I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh, yes. I should introduce myself.
My name is Steven LeeRoy Whittaker. I’m now sixteen years old, and I live in a small suburb town just south of Portland, Oregon, the most disgustingly humid place in the northwest United States. Seriously, I go outside for twenty minutes to walk to school, and I am visibly sweating through my shirt. Anyway, I’m a Sophomore in high school, looking to become a Junior after the coming summer. The date is Friday, June 6th, 2014. School gets out next week, and I’m praying that I can make it through finals next week. We get out next Thursday, the 12th, and I’m just singing “Hallelujah!” in my heart.
I walk out of my kitchen into a small room with a worn down, hella depressed-looking desk that my father received from my grandmother as a gift for completing college with an Associate’s degree. That Associate’s has taken us a long way – we make $104,000 a year. Pretty good if you ask me. Keeps me with a house and internet connection. Oh, and food. That's another good part.
I look in my dryer after opening up a set of doors leading into my utility closet, and what do you know, there are sheets in there. I look in my washer, conveniently located next to my dryer, and the whites are in there.
“This day is going to be perfect!” I exasperate, slamming the lid down. I'm usually grumpy in the morning, and this isn't helping.
I give a frustrated growl and go into my living room. My house, in all due respects, is a shithole. The carpet in my living room is filthy, everything is dusty, and there’s no neatness to anything. There’s just shit scattered everywhere. Including on top of my laptop, which has a sheet of paper on it.
Oh, the glorious slip of paper, brought down by the heavens above. And by heavens above, I really mean my bitch of a mom who can’t say anything to me without screaming in her constant drunken ramblings. I really should just move out of this house and in with a friend, but I’m, once again, too lazy.
I look at the list, and with a pretty loud sigh, I see that there’s a list of more time wasters she wants me to do before I go to school. I keep telling her that giving me a list is going to make me even more reluctant to waste my time on these things, but she doesn’t listen. Listed is: 1. Empty the dishwasher, 2. Clean the cat boxes, 3. Take the trash out, 4. Oh, screw it. None of these things are getting done before school, because screw my mom. I’ll worry about it later.
I sit down on my luxurious movie theatre chair, open my laptop and refresh the page on Firefox. I always have my computer set to load my YouTube subscriptions page when I open it or turn it on. I see that there’s a new Tyler Oakley video, so I click on it. I put on my headphones and let the video play. Tyler Oakley really is a jewel in a trash heap for me – one of the few things that I can actually smile and laugh at in my day.
Next, I open my backpack and pull out my bipolar and seizure medications. I have simply been blessed with the ability to have sudden spasms, lose all sense of what’s going on around me, and turn into a raging douchebag in the blink of an eye. Oh, and cry like the little bitch I am. It’s absolutely wonderful. Thank you, God, you piece of crap. Not that I’m religious or anything, but whatever.
I grab a bottle of orange Gatorade and take my meds for the morning. I also have to take them during lunch and after dinner. I’m supposed to have my dad bring my pills to the school I go to, but I’m not going to trust anybody with drugs or anything that I’m going to put into my body, so I hide out in a janitor’s closet and take them in there. I mean, my school nurses are nice ladies, but still, it’s drugs.
I do the usual things I do in the morning: Look at my email accounts, read a bit of manga, and check my fanfiction.net account. I see that I have some comment replies, so I reply back, I read a chapter of a short fiction, and check the homepage for stories to read later. I laugh at something Tyler Oakley says, praising his comedic excellence, and close out the fanfiction.net tab. There are only a few seconds in the video, so I just click my homepage button and close my laptop.
I check my backpack to see if I remembered to put the right books in there last night, and because I’m me, I was too phlegmatic to do it, so I take the four minutes and tiredly put my binders in there.
Now that I have my books and shit in my backpack, I put it on and slip on some flip-flops. I absolutely despise these demonic little things, but they’re the best things I’ve got right now. I pull out a small switchblade from my right shoe and put it in my pocket.
Ever since I was in the sixth grade, I’ve carried a knife of some kind on me. It all started with this fear that some guy is going to come into my school and pull out a gun and start shooting us. This fear originated from the first school shooting footage I watched on YouTube, back when YouTube was still young, and the most viewed video had 23,000,000 views. The Evolution of Dance – as classic as you can get.
I look at the clock – it’s 7:23 – and I think to myself, ‘I’m going to be late.’ Before I get to going, my mother’s voice hits my ear.
“… you… any chores?” I barely hear. I roll my eyes and turn around. She’s standing behind my laptop.
“Huh?” I ask, walking over to her. I turn my head towards her, cupping my ear with my hand.
“Why didn’t you do any chores?” she firmly and loudly interrogates to me in my ear.
“Because I already told you that I won’t do anything if you hand me a list. You know that that shit bothers me,” I reply, rolling my eyes.
“You know, you’re lazy piece of shit,” she insulted in a slur. She could seldom form an entire sentence without a stutter or a slur in her voice.
I was used to these kinds of insults - a sad reality. She was never really a fit mother for me. All she does is write lists and bitch. That’s it. It’s caused an unfathomable distance between us. It’s like I’m here in Oregon and she’s all the way on Neptune.
“You know, fuck you, you stupid, drunk hag,” I say calmly. She slaps me across the face. It hurts, but it’s nothing new.
“You need to learn respect, little boy,” she spat. Literally. She spat on my face.
These kinds of things have been happening since I was younger, probably seven or eight. Whenever she started pumping her veins full of alcohol is the time she started acting like this.
“You know, I don’t have time for your bullshit. I’m leaving,” I inform, turning away and wiping my face.
“I’m going to call daddy and tell him to do your chores,” she bitches. "If he was here, I'd have him take away all of your games!"
“I don’t care."
I walk out the front door and slam it on the way out. I step through my yard and onto my street, taking the right turn on an intersection. Now, my neighborhood isn’t at all shady in all honesty. It's actually pretty nice; however, on the street literally fifty feet from my house is Carol McWhoGivesADamn’s, one of my worst childhood bullies, house, and every time I see that house, it brings back bad memories. I really hate living here because of her. The neighborhood just feels ghetto with her presence around.
I begin my trek up a big hill, and it’s tiring. Life just loves to put the biggest obstacles everywhere. I mean, I would take the bus, but I believe that public transportation is terrible, because most of my experience with it has been in a dirty bus with people that I don't think that anyone would want to be around. I mean, I don't like being around people in general, but it's worse on a bus.
At the top of the hill is a Chevron, so I decided to go to the vending machines and buy a bottle of Coke. I need some sugar right about now anyway, so it’s welcome. I take a large swig off the refreshing drink and walk in the direction of my high school. Most people say that high school (or college) is the best period of their lives, but for me, it's just me going to learn information I won't ever use in my life.
I walk up to a street crossing and jaywalk across to the other side of the road, which leads me to a bridge. All over the bridge, there’s bird crap, moss, and oddly enough, decaying bird feet. Luckily, the smell of cars and exhaust fumes is covering it up; otherwise my nostrils would probably be exploding out of my nose in disgust.
About halfway across the bridge, which is probably three-hundred feet long, these two skateboarder jocks called Cody and Jacob roll right next to me. They stop right next to me and hop off their skateboards, looking at me. They move their mouths in an attempt to converse with me, but I can’t hear them over the sound of the light traffic. I cock my head in confusion as I keep walking. By their faces, I can tell that they’re shouting. I still can’t understand what they’re saying, so I just shrug my shoulders and ignore them. Out of the corner of my eye, I see them roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and get back on their skateboards, speeding off as the bridge starts sloping down into a hill.
I don't understand why they think it's a good idea to ride a skateboard on a moderately busy freeway, especially on the street. One of these days, they're probably going to get run over and killed, and it will be a sad day.
At the end of the bridge on the left-hand side is a Home Depot parking lot that I always walk across, because it's faster than going around the giant Safeway that’s in the same complex. Every single car space is filled. There are people everywhere, and I start to feel unsettled. I start to breath quickly, and I start to sprint as fast as I can – I want to be out of here as soon as possible. I don’t care that everybody is staring (okay, that’s a complete lie), but I run nevertheless.
Have you ever seen a scared, fat American man run? If not, let me fill you in: They run so damn fast. It’s like I have twin motors in my pants, and I’m just blasting forward like a car on ice – that is to say, uncontrollably. I couldn’t help myself.
Crowds are terrifying. I would rather be in a room of giant insects or spiders than be in a crowd of humans. At least insects and spiders aren’t sentient and all judging.
After jumping over a small fence, I’m out of the parking lot, and because I’m in the groove, I continue to sprint. I dash across another street, and I’m running up to my school now. The school is almost entirely painted purple on the outside, and this odd, tan-yellow color on the inside. It honestly looks like dried urine. Don’t ask me how I know what that looks like.
I’m tiring out now, but my first class, which is Japanese is all the way on the opposite side of the school. I start to slow down a bit, but I keep trudging on. By the time I get there, it’s 7:44. Right on time.
School begins, and I go through my Japanese class, which is the only class that I really enjoy out of all of my classes. I may or may not be a weeaboo. Last class, I was gone because I had a fever, and my teacher, Mrs. Tomutori, passed back our tests. Because I wasn’t there, she returned it to me now, and overall, I’m kind of “meh” about my results. I got a 19/25. I would ask her about the things that were wrong now, but the bell rings and class starts.
Mrs. Tomutori is a pretty nice lady. She does look and act stereotypically Japanese – black hair, fairly short, really nice and polite. The thing that sets her apart from most Japanese people is that she likes to sing a lot. She constantly brings songs and music into the class, and while I don’t personally find it very helpful, I’m sure some people benefit from it.
She begins the lecture, which mainly consists of studying for finals. Even though I sit at the front of class, I really have to focus on everything that my teacher is saying to understand her. It’s especially difficult when she says things in Japanese, due to all of the subtleties of the sounds of the language. We work mainly on grammar during the class, but we also learn a few new characters.
After Japanese class ends, I have to traverse the now filled hallways. Because of how close I came to being late, the hallways were practically empty, with one or two people along the way. Now, there’s everybody in the entire school, which is around three-thousand and five-hundred people. I mean, it’s not as bad now as it was in the parking lot because I actually know a lot of these people, but I’m still really on edge around all of them.
I rush along through the crowd to my next class, and I can see everybody’s eyes. I know that most of them aren’t looking at me, but it feels like each and every pair of eyes is staring at me. I just feel singled out by everybody.
One thing I’ve learned in my two years in high school is that teenagers are the world’s hardest critics. They will take a glance at you and judge you on what they see immediately. Some people don’t even have to see you – they just hear something about you, and whether it’s good or bad determines their viewpoint. I won't lie - I'm a bit like this, but I'm at least willing to talk to someone.
So, the next class, which is chemistry, begins. This is another class I like, but my teacher, an old, white haired Dr. Pauly Hampar, or as I like to call him, the 'Mad Scientist', really likes to pound every single piece of information into everybody’s head. If just a single person doesn’t understand anything, he’ll stop the entire class and personally teach that person. I get that it’s important for everybody to get a grasp of the class’ content, but you don’t need to crucify them with the information. It's not all bad, though, as I have the opportunity to work on my Japanese.
There’s something else that I don’t like about this class though: Every single class, we spend fifteen to twenty minutes in groups. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that five “leading students” in the class make the groups. And I’m always the last person to be picked. This is why by this point in the year, I always take a bathroom break and come back, so that I can work by myself.
My teacher understands why I don’t like to work with other students, as he has the same problem. At least, one of my teachers gets me.
This teamwork period extended to the end of the class, and afterwards, the half-hour lunch period begins. At this time, I go to the cafeteria and get a burger and fries, making sure to get in there and get right back out as soon as possible. The cafeteria is huge, and I've never been able to find my friends in there, so I don't ever eat in there.
After this, I go to the janitor’s closet, and making sure that no teachers or the goody-goods are watching, I open the door and sneak in. I shut the door and lock it, and the familiar smell of toiletries, toilet water, paint and dust invades my nostrils once more, like that overpowering scent that occurs after someone takes a really nasty dump in the toilet, and they don’t use air freshener. That's something that ends up happening a lot in my household.
Looking back to that thought, the only thing I can think of is “Ha ha, gross!” Thank you, CinemaSins.
Anyway, I take my medicine with my Gatorade and eat my burger in the comfort of my self-inflicted solitary confinement. It’s not that bad in here.
Afterwards, I traverse the hallways and visit our school’s speech-language pathologist, or whatever she’s called. Anyway, she teaches classes to students who have mental issues, like autism or schizophrenia. She also gives free hearing tests.
If she feels like it, that is.
“Uh, Ms. Cathaway?” I ask out, making her look up at me. Her name is Ms. Cathaway, but I like to think of her as the ‘White Hair Witch’ jokingly in my head.
“Oh, hello. Steven, was it?” she replies.
“Yes. You gave me a hearing screening in November or December, and I was wondering if you could give me a reevaluation sometime next week,” I request, giving the most forced smile I could. I know I look terrible with this stupid grin on my face, but I’m hoping it works on Ms. Cathaway.
“I’m sorry, but I’m really busy right now with finals coming up, so I don’t have time,” she declines, causing my smile to turn into a deep grimace. The curves of my mouth were hitting the floor five feet below.
“Please? I really need this right now. My parents don’t believe that I have these hearing problems, and I really need to prove it to them,” I beg, doing something I almost never do to people.
I looked right into her eyes.
“I’m sorry, but I just don’t have the time. If you need to get your hearing checked again, go to a doctor or something,” she rejected.
Okay, now it’s time to be a bitch up in here.
“Oh, really? So you’re going to make my family pay close to two-hundred dollars for a service that you can give me for free? It doesn’t even take that much time! The last time, it took you ten minutes to find the permission sheet and another five to give me the actual evaluation! What do you mean ‘you don’t have the time!?’” I yell at her. I guess the bipolar medicine hasn't kicked in yet.
Now, I don’t get uppity about very many things, and the only time I really get angry is the occasional Call of Duty marathon or if I forget to take my bipolar meds, but the thing that bothers me most is when people are going to make me suffer when I don’t need to.
“I’m sorry, but I have other things that I need to worry about! I apologize that your family is too incompetent to get a decent health care program, but it’s not my problem!” she attacked vehemently, forcing my jaw to hit the ground. No, my jaw went through the ground, all the way to China.
'No, this stupid fucking bitch did not.' I think, starting to become enraged. I scrunch my face, and one of my eyes twitches slightly. 'Okay, Steven. Calm yourself. Peaceful thoughts. Do not smack this bitch with an audiogram.'
“Well, I thought that my teachers would be more caring with this problem, but I guess it's too much to ask," I sighed, on the verge of tears.
I’m not very emotional at all, but right now, I am just about to burst into a crying fit. Call it childish all you’d like, but I’ve already had it from this insolence. Aren’t teachers supposed to help students? Am I stupid? Have I been lied to about this for my entire life? That’s what this feels like!
I walk out of the room, slamming the door as hard as I physically can, which is to say I nearly pull the door off its hinges. I can see a blond haired teacher with square glasses walking out of their room from across the hall to confront me, but I ignore him. He follows me down the hallway, continuously trying to lecture me about crap I don’t even care about. I turn around.
“Listen, I'm sorry that I slammed that door, but I just need to be alone right now. Please, leave me be."
The teacher looks at me, frowning, but turns away and walks. Sighing, I go back to the janitor’s closet and lock the door once again. I don't even care if anybody sees me this time.
The tears building up in my eyes flow out like blood dripping from your nose after you slam your face into the corner of a stair (something that happened to me in fourth grade). I slam my left fist into one of the walls, breaking through it. I reel my hand back, cursing myself as my hand is now bleeding profusely out of two of my knuckles. I unwrap some toilet paper and unroll it, using it as a bandage.
I lay down on the floor, using some of the toilet paper as a pillow. Right now, I just need to calm my shit before I go to my other classes.
I end up falling asleep in the janitor’s closet, and I’m woken up by the sound of the door clicking and jostling. It’s surprisingly loud, and it shocks me. I jump out of my sleep in a panic, realizing that I’m pretty screwed. I take my 3DS out of my backpack again and open it; the time is 2:37, right after school ends.
“Oh, balls,” I whisper.
I put the Nintendo back in my backpack and stand up, putting the sack back on. The sound of the door rattling stops, and I think that it’s my opportunity. I unlock the door and look out. Something that is actually lucky happens: The janitor is walking in the other direction, back down the hallway.
I bolt it straight out of there, running down the longest corridor in my school to the bathroom. I take off the faux bandage, throw it away and wash my hands, letting the warm water wash off the dried blood, which swirled down the drain.
I remember that I got that mediocre test score in my Japanese class, so I decide to go and see her. The bathroom I went into is in the same hall as her classroom, so I don’t have to walk far.
Upon entrance, she looks up and gives a small smile.
“Kon’nichi wa, Steven-san,” (Good afternoon, Steven,) she speaks out, standing up and giving a light bow. I read her lips to understand what she said.
“Kon’nichi wa, Tomutori-sensei. Ogenki desu ka?” (Good afternoon, Mrs. Tomutori. Are you doing well?) I return, bowing back.
“Hai, genki desu. Steven-san wa?” (Yes, I’m well. And you?)
“Boku mo genki desu. Shitsumon ga arimasu.” (I’m also well. I have some questions.)
“Hai, nan desu ka?” (Oh, what is it?)
After this light conversation, I pull the test and a blue sharpie out of my backpack and set it down on the teacher’s desk.
“Modoshita shiken wa chigau kotae ga ooi desu ga…” (There are a lot of wrong answers on this test I got back. Can you tell me what’s wrong?)
“Mochiron.” (Of course.)
We go through each of the incorrect answers, and they were all just individual words that should've been something else. Because I got less that an 80%, I can retest on this target, which is being able to have a casual conversation with someone. We set up a date for next Monday, which is when our actual final is, so I can just have everything in at once.
Once we finish, both of us say "Mata raishuu!" (See you next week!) and I get to leaving. As I'm walking towards the door, I see something that distracts me: A mirror that I've never seen before, hanging in the center of the wall. It looks very traditional, made out of what looks like some kind of birch.
I divert from the door to the mirror, and upon looking in the mirror, I suddenly became mesmerized by my face. In the mirror, I look really good - my beard is shaved, my hair is well combed, all the acne on my face is gone. I see everything completely differently now, and I really like it. I smile, running my hand through my hair.
In an instant, my face turns to something demonic. My eyes glow crimson and fangs so long they come past my lower lip grow from my upper jaw. Lines of what look like blood were forming on my face, all around my eyes and nose.
In shock, I take a horrified step back. My demonic face gives off a huge, otherworldly grin, and with a flash of light, I see my world fade to black.
In a realm of darkness, I somehow manage to remain consciousness. I don’t even know if I’m conscious right now. It could be a dream, or maybe I’m just insane. I look around myself, and I can see that I’m actually sitting against something. It feels frigid in here, so pull my arms into my chest in a guard-like fashion, and then I cover myself with my backpack.
“What just happened?” I ask out, allowing my body to shiver. I put one of my hands to my head, which now has the kind of headache that's right behind your eyeball (the worst kind).
“Who is it that is asking?” a feminine voice calls out.
It seems slightly frustrated, and I hear a light growl in the voice. There are two tones to the voice, one higher pitched and one at a more medium pitch. The thing that gets to me is that it sounds so monotonous, but I could still somehow hear the emotion. In the darkness of wherever I am, I see a light-blue glint in front of me. I can’t tell what it is, but it doesn’t feel inviting.
In fact, it feels like I’m about to die. My stomach churns.
Oh, and the fact that I can suddenly hear better unnerves me for whatever reason. Maybe it’s the strange echoing effect that her voice is giving off is letting more sound get to my ear?
“Uh… Steven LeeRoy Whittaker?” I answer, unknowing of the creature that is in front of me.
“I’ve not heard that name before, nor have I seen your kind,” it says.
“…I can’t see anything. Hold on, let me get some light in here,” I request, feeling around my backpack for my Nintendo. It’s a good thing that I carry this thing in my backpack, even though I don’t ever really use it. “Where is it… here it is!”
I open it up facing me, and I’m hit with the blast of light it produced. Temporarily, I feel myself stunned, but I get over the feeling in due time and look up.
From the light that is bouncing off of my face, I can see one pair of cerulean eyes, perceivably the ones I saw a moment ago, and one pair of light pink eyes. Both sets are staring at me. The cerulean eyes have a very blank look, and the only thing I see in the pink is slight bemusement. I blink a few times, before thinking to myself.
'What the hell is going on?'
Author's Note
This is just an idea I came up with a couple weeks ago and have been working on for the past week. Why don't you all tell me what you think?
Note: The character of Steven LeeRoy Whittaker is based off of my real world persona. This entire chapter (save for the part where I get transferred into another world) is based off of a real day I had in my life. It wasn't on June 6th, but it was in the last school year.
The characters of Myxine and Calliphora are the creations of the deviantart.com user Siansaar, also known as Carnifex. I do not own these characters and I have permission to use them.
I received help from Commissar-Rarity! Go check out his work too!
If you enjoyed this, why don't you smack that like and favorite button and tell me what you thought about this in the comments below? If you didn't, won't you be so kind as to tell me what you thought was off?
The Reparation of the Changeling Queens
Chapter Two: Calliphora
形変物の女王達の補償
二章：カリフォラ
I sit here against what I have determined to be a wall, and I stare back at the two large, black figures in front of me. I raise an eye, looking from the one with blue eyes and pink eyes. Blinking, I try asking once again.
“Where am I?”
The two continue to stare at me before I see the blue-eyed one open her mouth.
“You are in your tomb,” she says, as a protrusion from the center of her forehead, shaped oddly like a black shark’s fin, glows sea-blue, illuminating the room slightly. I raise an eyebrow; her head lowered, so the protrusion was directly aimed at my throat.
“Stop.”
The voice comes from the pink-eyed creature, who raises a hoof in protest. The voice is single toned, unlike her hasty ally, but a second later, I jump to my feet from shock as a whisper of the same word rings loudly in my right ear from behind. I leave my 3DS on the ground to allow light in the pitch-black room.
I immediately look around to find the whisper, but I find nothing. I lock up from fear, something I don’t often feel. She starts walking toward me, and the first instinct I have is to run; however, I see that the blue-eyed figure is between me and the dark doorway, so my next instinct is to fight.
“Stay back. I’ll fight!” I say, withdrawing my knife from my pocket.
She sees the knife and etches a small, unnerving smile on her face, not seeming phased in the slightest. My teeth clatter in my closed mouth as I bring the blade up to a position where I can comfortably brandish it. I could throw it, too, like those Call of Duty assholes that use the throwing knife.
I’m not jealous at all. Nope.
“Sheathe,” she commands, the same whisper effect bouncing around my ear. It must just be the way her voice… acts? I don’t know.
“Sheathe?” I return, raising an eyebrow. She nods softly, stepping closer to me. “Uh…”
I close my eyes for a moment and breathe, and when I reopen my eyes, she’s suddenly directly to my left, staring at me. I sidle along the wall away from her and shift my eyes to hers. She slowly begins to circle me, observing me, stalking me. If you can’t tell yet, I’m pretty freaked out. This is like a time during spring break of 2005 when I had a chance to ride a helicopter, and the moment I looked down out the door of the chopper, I saw the ground a thousand feet below.
“Yes… I see the resemblance,” she lets on, making me jerk my head back in confusion.
“Huh?” I mumble.
“Your hair, it is your father’s, no?”
My mouth drops wider than the Great Wall of China.. It is true that my hair comes from my father’s side of my family, but how she knows this is unknown to me.
“How-“
“And your eyes and nose, they must be your mother’s.”
Okay, who is this voodoo bitch, and when/why was she stalking me?
“How do you know about me?” I ask, putting my blade back down to my side.
She’s finished circling me at this point, and now she’s just staring at my face. I don’t make eye contact with her, but I can see them out of my peripheral. They are the kind of eyes that would pierce my soul, if I had one. I would imagine a dragon having the same kind of slitted eyes as her, and they’re as ferocious as a dragon’s, for sure. The fact that she has a smile on her face doesn’t do anything to detract from the amount of fear I have right now.
“I don’t.”
“What?”
“It is simply an observation.”
I blink a few times in confusion, and I can feel cold breaths blowing down my back through my shirt. My right eye twitches and I start to hunch my back. She is so close to my neck that if she gets any closer, I will karate chop her. I don’t know what it is about my neck, but whenever somebody touches it, I squirm. It may just be a g-spot for me. (Ha ha, gross!)
“An observation? How do you know what my family members look like?”
At this point, her previous look of bemusement takes charge again.
“You heard me.”
After she says this, I roll my eyes and collapse down to the ground. She looks down at me in her bemused state before locking her eyes right onto mine. They drag me in, and no matter how much I try to deter my view of her, I can’t. My head involuntarily turns to her location.
Her eyes then do something odd that scares the utmost shit out of me.
A white screen shuts over her eyes the opposite way that my eyelids do – that is to say horizontally. I can see through them to her irises and pupils, which are now just barely visible milky eclipses through the screens. She then proceeds to breathe out some kind of dirt-tinted, nasty gas from her nostrils, of which sunk to the ground, like some kind of visible carbon monoxide that would suffocate and poison me slowly and painfully.
I jump back to my feet and give myself a fair distance between us. I pull my knife up, grasping it with both hands now.
“What the hell are you?”
“Oh? You don’t know?”
“I honestly don’t.”
Once again, that unnerving smile creeps onto her face. Seriously, this is the stuff of nightmares.
“Changeling.”
A changeling? Don’t those things eat babies or some shit? I went to a bible studies group called Jesus Pizza in middle school, and even though I really just went for the pizza, I did read a little bit of the bible. I’m pretty sure that somewhere in that book is a part where is explains that changelings eat babies.
“Do you eat babies?”
“Do I eat… I…”
Saying this, a mask of pure confusion places itself on her face, giving me the biggest “what the hell?” expression I’ve ever seen, and trust me, I’ve seen this expression a trillion trillion times.
“Isn’t that what changelings do?”
“…No. Changelings eat love. Or steal it, depending on your… preference of words.”
“Oh. I guess that makes more sense. Sorry.”
I blush a little bit, scratching the back of my head. I stifle a laugh.
“Now I have a question: What are you?” she asks, taking a step towards me.
“First, stay back. You’re a little creepy, and you’re scaring me.”
“Really?”
She raises an eyebrow to this. I blink again, and she’s standing with her face nearly touching mine.
“Wha-!” I yell out, swinging my knife out at her neck.
My knife goes straight through her throat, and the same dirty gas from before spurted out. The figure disappears, and she’s still standing in the same spot.
A doppelganger?
Seriously, nightmare fuel here..
Suddenly, the appendage sticking out of her forehead, which bears a strong resemblance to a scythe with a small perforation in the bottom of it, starts glowing dirty-pink. I feel tightness around my wrists as a bright-pink rope-like substance wraps around them, binding them together. Strangely enough, she still let me have a grip of my knife.
It feels like I’m being arrested again. It’s not a pleasant feeling. What the hell is this pink stuff anyway?
“The fuck?” I whisper. She gives a light giggle.
“Sorry. You’re fun when you’re scared.”
“You know… I oddly like that.”
“We’re covering ground. How cute.”
To this, I have nothing to say and my mouth drops. That’s gross. She has to be eight-septillion years old.
And then I realize a few seconds later that it was a joke, and that I probably look like an idiot right now. I walked right into it. I am really too gullible for my own good; I will believe anything someone tells me, just like when one of my friends told me I would look cool pouring imaginary salt shakers into my mouth in front of the entire class.
Oh, how awesome middle school was.
“Nothing to say?” she asks.
“… Nope,” I blanked, straightening my mouth.
“Okay. Well then, I’ll ask questions now. What are you?” she interrogates, once again stepping toward me.
“Like, my species?” I ask for clarification. She nods.
“I’m called a ‘human,’ or homo sapien,” I explained. “I’m part of the order primate in the kingdom animalia. Is that enough?”
“Plenty. Who are you?”
“My name? My real name is Steven LeeRoy Whitaker, as I told you before, but most people call me Sonik.”
“Sonik? An odd name.”
“Oh? And what’s your name, pink-eye?”
There’s only a dash of rudeness in that phrase. Ever since the fifth grade when a part-time bully of mine made fun of my last name. He would always call me “Whinnyker,” which angered me greatly at the time. It was a stupid horse joke, and because horses were (and probably are still) considered highly feminine, I viewed him as calling me feminine.
Not that I have or had a problem with feminine men or men that like horses, but it angered me a lot.
“You may refer to me as Queen Calliphora, you damn monkey,” she calmly spits at me, a tinge of anger lining her voice. I see a frown, which is infinitely more accepted by me than that smile.
Why am I so obsessed with that smile?
“Calliphora? Isn’t that some sort of fly?”
“A fly? Well, I am an insect, so I guess it does make a bit of sense. Anyway, how did you get here?”
“I have no clue. I remember looking in a mirror, and I saw this demon or something, and the next thing I knew, I woke up here.”
“Is that so? How odd.’
“Speaking of which, where the hell am I?”
“You are in my hive, the Nekropolis.”
A hive? I guess it does make sense, considering she’s an insect queen.
“The Nekropolis? It sounds like a zombie party or something.”
“Well, we are underneath a graveyard.”
“We are? Are there dead bodies in here?”
“No. but there are corpses in the ceiling, if that makes a difference.”
“Not really. At least it doesn’t smell in here.”
Okay, that’s a lie. There is a slight stench of rotting corpse in here, but it’s not very prominent. The urge to vomit is minimal.
“What do you mean? The smell of rotting flesh is wonderful. It’s a great aphrodisiac,” she says, a larger smile than before creeping up on her face.
“... What!?” I scream at a high pitch, almost wanting to let out a laugh of disgust.
“It’s very stimulating,” she continues, making me feel a tad violated. I like sexual humor, but this is a bit too much.
“That’s disgusting! Are you saying that you’re going to-” I say vehemently, struggling harshly against the pink rope around my wrists. I wish I could flip my knife around so I could cut it.
“No. I’m not that kind of changeling; although, there has been the temptation in the past,” she interrupts, taking a step forward. She smiles.
“Okay! Let’s change the subject! Please!” I beg, going into a full fetal position, shoving my head between my legs.
At this moment, the blue-eyed changeling steps forward and looks at Calliphora. A series of sharp hissing and clicking sounds emerge from her mouth, like the sounds of a wild African tribe. Calliphora nods her head as if in agreement to something her counterpart said.
“Stay there. We’ll be back.” Calliphora says, turning to walk out of the room with the other large changeling.
I let myself recline to a more comfortable position as I lay in wait for the two to return. I set my knife down to my side and close my eyes, releasing a long sigh.
The two changeling queens walk through a few different rooms to get away from Steven, so as he wouldn’t hear their conversation. The entirety of the Nekropolis is pitch-black underneath the roof of corpses and graves, except for a few patches of light shining through holes in the ceiling. Being a cave underneath the surface, the rocks on the ground and the walls are jagged and sharp. It’s no problem to the changelings, however, as their hard chitin protects them from being stabbed.
“Myxine, what do you think that we should do about this… false intrusion? Perhaps we should order for the council?” Calliphora suggests, sitting down to her haunches in thought. Myxine does the same, sitting across from her.
“The idea is decent; however, I believe we must access if he is dangerous before then,” Myxine informs.
“He does not seem dangerous on the outside. It appears to me that it is merely the fear he is experiencing that is dictating his hasty actions. It is more probable that he is not a very violent creature. I should have taken the knife from him previously,” Calliphora admits, cocking her head. “Why is important if he is or isn’t dangerous? We have spells to protect ourselves.”
“We do not understand the possibilities that this creature has in terms of physical or magical strength. I believe we must test him to make sure that he cannot cause major damage, for if he has magic stronger than ours, he may seek havoc.”
“Well spoken, Myxine. I understand now, but I must question how you believe that he could have magic stronger than one of us individually, let alone combined. Are you that paranoid?”
“I am not paranoid. I simply believe that because we do not know if he has potent magic, or magic at all, we must test him to determine if he does or doesn’t, and if he does, access the level of potency of which his magic is classified. This is the first time either of us have seen one of these creatures, you know.”
“I suppose that you are correct. Very well. How can we test him?”
“The best way to do this is probably the Take Magic spell in your spellbook.”
“A fair idea, once again.”
With her magic, Calliphora conjures up a book out of the air that has a light-brown cover, which is decorated a strange rhombus symbol and an X on it, coming from the corners. There is a clear marble of sorts in the center, glimmering even in the darkness of the Nekropolis.
“Shall we?” Myxine asks, standing up.
“Let’s.”
Author's Note
Big thanks to Commissar-Rarity for going through this chapter with me and helping out ironing out the bigger problems!
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The Reparation of the Changeling Queens
Chapter Three: Rejection
形変物の女王達の補償
三章：拒絶
I’m still sitting in my uncomfortable, reclined position when the two changeling queens walk back into this dark room, barely illuminated by the semi-bright light coming from my handheld. My eyes have become a bit droopy, wanting to fall asleep, but my tinnitus rings like a school bell in my ear, giving me a reminder to my unfortunate past mistakes.
With the help of the light, I can see Calliphora, the pink-eyed sovereign, pull out some sort of sparkly, yellow, star-headed baton or wand out of her voluminous hair. It looks like a smooth halo, draping down her neck on both sides, with the coloration of dead Autumn leaves dusted with frost. Oddly, there are holes littered throughout the lower ends of her hair; a single spiraled strand of hair pops out in front of her face. She looks young, but there’s a certain oldness to her eyes, like she’s been young for a very long time, or knows more than she should for her age.
Myxine’s hair is the same sea-blue as her eyes and is much shorter than Calliphora’s, just coming out around the right side of her head, with a large fringe slicked over the center-right of her face. Her complexion looks age-worn – bags underneath her eyes and wrinkles to the sides. It seems just from her facial expression that life has taken its toll harshly on her.
Without any warning, Myxine snakes me tight with her blue power, forcing my breath out of my lungs and a gasp from my mouth. She’s squeezing me around my diaphragm.
“What the fu-“ I sputter, clenching my eyes, and teeth. I can’t breathe.
Calliphora grasps the baton with her pink power, also pulling a book out from behind her. She flips the book to a page near the beginning and then starts to draw some sort of symbol on the air.
Once she finishes drawing the symbol, she thrusts the wand forward into the center, causing it to flash brightly.
A huge layer of putrid, green mist surrounds my body, immediately pressing against my skin. It has no smell or taste, but the consistency is that of Nickelodeon slime, or maybe even Gak.
Fucking Gak. So much wasted plastic. Still fun to play with, though.
Suddenly, it begins to burn and glow like hot coals, seeping into my skin. I find myself unable to open my mouth, or close my eyes, or do any other motion. I have been enslaved to this changeling’s power. Where the hell did that mist even come from?
For what seems like a couple minutes, I’m just being held here by Myxine, now able to take heavily labored breaths. Nothing is happening. The burning sensation already disappeared, and my skin returned to its normal, pink color. Suddenly, I lose
consciousness.
A huge, bright, white light shines out of Sonik’s body, causing Myxine to recoil backward, and making Calliphora give a screech, as it nearly blinds her.
Because of the fact that the Nekropolis hive is located underground, the changelings of that hive are very sensitive to light. The amount of light given off by Sonik, to Calliphora, is like any other creature staring at the blazing sun.
Light shines out from Sonik’s eyes, mouth, and every other orifice on his body as raw, magical power explodes out of his body, swirling around like a tornado of unprecedented energy. For a few moments, one could even see the light from outside the hive. Anything on the ground - mainly dirt and dust - is flung into the nearest wall. No sound emerges from the spell, except for the light sound of wind.
For a full minute or so, the blinding energy gleams throughout the hive, rendering every changeling within dazed and unable to see.
Both Calliphora and Myxine shield their eyes with dark-colored magic as they wait for the light to calm down. Myxine looks over to Calliphora, eying her with a ‘what-have-you-done’ demeanor, surprising her because of the change in Myxine’s almost constant stone face.
When the spell dies down, Sonik drops to the ground surrounded by light-green flames, which burn through his hair, clothes and flip-flops, rendering him fully naked. All that can be seen through the flames is his silhouette. He landed on his knife as well, so it burns his skin deeply against his right outer thigh.
The flames illuminate his body as they die down, revealing a huge change in appearance. His skin is dark-gray, with shimmering white lines running down his arms, legs and back, stretching out down all of his fingers and toes. Blade-like extremities pop out of his shoulders, pointing outwards like wings on a sword. His kneecaps are inflated like balloons.
His body immediately starts to glow green once again, shifting form back to his normal, albeit naked, human form.
“Calliphora? What did you just do?” Myxine asks, sighing loudly and closing her stressed, overworked eyes. She shook her head.
“Take Magic,” Calliphora responds.
“That was certainly not Take Magic, Calliphora. I’ve not seen anything such as that. I shall ask you once more: What have you done?” Myxine repeats, a light growl filling the small room.
“You heard me,” Calliphora snaps, narrowing her eyes. She stamps the ground, lifting a layer of newly settled dust up like a blanket.
“Yes, I did hear you, but you and I both understand how that was not the spell you say it was. Tell me now, Calliphora, before I stab you.”
It’s clear to Calliphora that Myxine is losing her sense of natural calm, but it frustrates her to no end that Myxine is questioning her.
“You couldn’t stab me if you had a thousand knives,” Calliphora calls, stepping closer to Myxine. She looks down into Myxine’s eyes, using her greatest thousand-mile stare into her soul and intimidating her. “Your bluff is clear to me, as it always has been throughout your entire life,” she continues. With every word, her voice lowers, and she inches her mouth closer and closer to Myxine’s ear. “You are on my soil in my hive, and I expect more from you than that, hagfish. Do not try me…”
“Th-Then tell me the truth, you maggot,” Myxine growls, stepping back. The quiver in her voice tells Calliphora that Myxine is at the point of fear, so she uses it.
“If you don’t trust me enough and are so paranoid as to not believe my truth, then I don’t feel any inclination to share my hive’s wealth of love with you. Leave.”
Myxine’s jaw drops at the sheer toxicity in Calliphora’s words. She had come all this way from her hive at Horseshoe Bay, over seven-hundred furlongs away, just to be rejected? To have ten days of her precious time completely wasted by this maggot of a queen? She’d been through too much to let that happen to her at this moment. Her hive would not survive for much longer without it. A great desperation kicks in, and the feeling in her stomach quickly becomes an unholy hangman’s knot.
“Wait. Calliphora, please. I can’t have come all the way here just to go back to my hive empty-hooved; it would be shameful! You wouldn’t do that to me, and both of us know it. You’ve assisted me personally so many times in the past.”
“While it is true that I have assisted you before, this would be such a large grievance on my hive that unless you can trust me, I feel there is no reason to help you with this. You may feel free to come back at a later date to try again, but I will not at this time give you what you want, for you are acting childish by trying arguing with me over such menial matters such as debating with me over a spell. A child doesn’t deserve my help.”
With this, Calliphora ignited her horn, using her wand, the Star Smasher, to write another spell symbol within a fraction of a second in the air.
Thrusting her wand into the center of her writing and activating the spell, a blue circle appears around Myxine’s body, glowing with mana.
“Calliphora, don’t-“ she started.
A pillar of light casts down from the heavens through the graveyard’s dusty soil and over Myxine, and in an instant, both the light and Myxine are gone.
Calliphora walked over to Sonik’s body and prodded him with a hoof.
“Are you dead?”
Myxine reappears as the column of light beams her down in front of a huge, complex cave system just outside the outskirts of southern Horseshoe Cove.
“-teleport me,” she finishes. She looks up at the top of the caves, slumping in denial of what Calliphora just did. An intense rage fills her eyes as she straightens herself. “…May the gods damn you, Calliphora!” she angrily mutters, walking furiously into the caves. “How dare she call me childish? I’m the most mature out of all of-”
“My queen, have you good news for us?” an underling changeling asks the moment she walks into her rocky home. She looks dejectedly at her kin, shaking her head in the shame of failure that she feels.
“No, unfortunately. It’s difficult for me to believe that she would decline in the manner that she did; however, I will try with her again at a later time, Posei. For now, we must continue to hunt.”
“Shall we begin organizing for a hunt tonight?”
“That would be a wise thing to do.”
“Very well.”
Author's Note
Once again, I have received assistance from Commissar-Rarity on revisions for this chapter!
A furlong is an eighth of a mile, just for your knowledge.
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